Looks like an anonymous hacker guessed the passwords to Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account, and posted their full content to wikileaks. I have no pity for the governer because:
1) It's not that hard to create a good, strong password these days. I'm not saying those in the spotlight need to be tech experts, but they should be comfortable with using email.
2) It looks like Palin was using her personal email accounts to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws, the ones designed to let the public get at government information and communication when we need to. Trespasses like Palin's shield shady dealings from the public eye.
From Wikileaks:
At around midnight last night some members affiliated with the group gained access to governor Palin's email account "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and handed over the contents to the government sunshine site Wikileaks.org.
Governor Palin has come under media criticism in the past week for using private email accounts to avoid Alaskan freedom of information laws. The contents of the mailbox show this to be true and also hold clues of at least one other Yahoo based mail account held by Palin, "gov.sarah@yahoo.com".
The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, address book and a couple of family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name tends to re-enforce the earlier criticism of Palin's email use.
The list of emails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant
Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress. Another
screenshot shows Palin's inbox and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom
Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug
Abuse in 2007.
The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."
According to Kim Zetter of Wired Magazine, McCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
Subsequently tests by Wikileaks reveal that both Palin's "gov.palin@yahoo.com" and her unrelated "gov.sarah@yahoo.com" account have now been deleted, almost certainly by Palin herself.
According to the Guardian, who has looked at the Wikileaks data, among the emails in Palin's account were several from addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing "DPS", the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
DPS supervises the Alaska state troopers. Could the e-mails in question be relevant to the brewing ethics storm over Palin's push to sack her former brother-in-law from the force?
The contact list included also holds accounts for other official representative's private email accounts, including those of Alaska's Kris Perry and Sharon Leighow.
Contents of the mailbox here, and the Wikileaks blog post is here. Thanks, Slashdot!
