| dbo:abstract |
The Sarah Palin email hack occurred on September 16, 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaign when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo! email account was subjected to unauthorized access. The hacker, David Kernell, obtained access to Palin's account by looking up biographical details, such as her high school and birthdate, and using Yahoo!'s account recovery for forgotten passwords. Kernell then posted several pages of Palin's email on 4chan's /b/ board. Kernell, who at the time of the offense was a 20-year-old college student, was the son of longtime Democratic state representative Mike Kernell of Memphis. Kernell was charged in October 2008 in federal court. After he was led into the court in leg irons and handcuffs, the judge released him on his own recognizance, pending trial. The incident was ultimately prosecuted in a U.S. federal court as four felony crimes punishable by up to 50 years in federal prison. The charges were three felonies: identity theft, wire fraud, and anticipatory obstruction of justice; and one optional as felony or misdemeanor: intentionally accessing an account without authorization. Kernell pleaded not guilty to all counts. A jury trial, featuring testimony of Sarah and Bristol Palin, as well as of 4chan founder Christopher Poole, began on April 20, 2010. The jury found Kernell guilty on two counts: the felony of anticipatory obstruction of justice and the misdemeanor of unauthorized access to a computer. On her Facebook page, Sarah Palin stated that she and her family were thankful the jury had rendered a just verdict. Kernell was sentenced on November 12, 2010, to one year plus a day in federal custody, followed by three years of supervised release. The sentencing judge recommended that the custody be served in a halfway house, but the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent him instead to a minimum security prison. He was released on November 23, 2011. In January 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found Kernell's awareness of a possible future FBI investigation was enough to uphold a conviction on obstruction of justice. (en) |
| rdfs:comment |
The Sarah Palin email hack occurred on September 16, 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaign when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo! email account was subjected to unauthorized access. The hacker, David Kernell, obtained access to Palin's account by looking up biographical details, such as her high school and birthdate, and using Yahoo!'s account recovery for forgotten passwords. Kernell then posted several pages of Palin's email on 4chan's /b/ board. Kernell, who at the time of the offense was a 20-year-old college student, was the son of longtime Democratic state representative Mike Kernell of Memphis. (en) |
