Palin's Email Account Hacked (PHOTOS)

UPDATE: The AP has more details on how the hacker got into Sarah Palin's account:

The hacker guessed that Alaska's governor had met her husband in high school, and knew Palin's date of birth and home Zip code. Using those details, the hacker tricked Yahoo Inc.'s service into assigning a new password, "popcorn," for Palin's e-mail account, according to a chronology of the crime published on the Web site where the hacking was first revealed.

UPDATE: The AP is refusing to cooperate with a Secret Service request for copies of the leaked e-mails.

Wired magazine reports:

The group known as Anonymous, which earlier took on Scientology, has published screenshots of e-mail messages and images that it says came from a private e-mail account belonging to Governor Sarah Palin at [e-mail]. The data has been published by WikiLeaks.

Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.

The information includes five screenshots from Palin's account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.

From Wikileaks' press release:

The internet activist group 'anonymous', famed for its exposure of unethical behavior by the Scientology cult, has now gone after the Alaskan governor and republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

At around midnight last night the group gained access to governor Palin's email account ... 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 pseudo-private email accounts to avoid Alaskan freedom of information laws.

The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, governor Palin's address box and a couple of family photos. While the emails released so far reveal little, the list of correspondence appears to re-enforce the criticism that Palin is mixing governmental and personal affairs.

Mother Jones ties the exposure to Palin's efforts to keep her emails from subpoena:

So, you know those Yahoo accounts Sarah Palin was using to keep her official business safe from subpoenas? Turns out they're not so safe after all. Palin's Yahoo accounts ([e-mail] and [e-mail]) were successfully hacked last night ... Since then, the accounts have been deleted, which could be considered destruction of evidence if a court chose to pursue it.

Some of the screengrabs:

The rest of the screenshots are here.

Comments

[djkrlsn]

04:42 PM on 09/30/2008

Folks--if it is wrong for federal LEO's to hack into the emails of suspected terrorists without a warrant, it is just wrong to hack into Gov Palins

[omg dude]

07:21 PM on 09/23/2008

You can use Spokeo.com and u can run a deep search on every email in her account. U can find out what online accounts these emails are connected to.

[barbwiregrrl]

10:36 PM on 09/20/2008

This is hysterical....

Seriously you have a bunch of lame brain kids running loose. I mean from what this kid wrote as to how he obtained the password and access to the account is downright st#pid.

I am greatly concerned that woman who can't even keep her Yahoo! password Safe wants to be able to hold the keys tot he "football". I mena she does live so close to Russia...maybe she would accidently leave it in her front yard and someone would steal the Codes....

[ynot4tony2]

11:45 AM on 09/21/2008

It would seem reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Simply skimming the article is enough for a reasonably intelligent person (i.e. NOT YOU) to see that the security fault lies in Yahoo's password retrieval system and not in Palin's poor choice of passwords.

Luckily for the rest of us, you leftist haters will have a harder time trying to hack nuclear launch codes. And for the record, your notions on the "nuclear football" further reveal your ignorance. 24 is a decent show and all, but don't trust it to give away government secrets.

[barbwiregrrl]

03:15 PM on 09/21/2008

Really.....no one has ever broken into any of my accounts. Know why? I don't leavethe keys to the door in the lock.

She left her personal information all over the net...

The issue of them figuring out where she met her husband...that came from the question YAhoo asks as a security code...there are many options to use as codes protectors...never use one that can be found anywhere.

So the security question was .... where did you meet you husband....or what is your mother maiden name...etc...

NEVER use those....use ones that no one can find...

BTW if you consider S@rah Pal!n to be intelligent and I am not then I take that as a compliment....clearly your judgement is frieghtening.

[milo h minderbinder]

08:33 AM on 09/22/2008

Wow, you certainly have rose colored tina fey glasses on.

Palin chose to do government business on an unsecure public email system.

And she chose a security question that was easily guessable. DId she really think nobody could figure out "WHERE DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE" / "WASILLA HIGH"?

Sure, it would be hard to hack launch codes. But not if she uses yahoo to email them to her staff.

The woman was negligent and irresponsible - it's perfectly valid to point out that she can't be trusted.

[lammie]

08:11 PM on 09/20/2008

wow. how lame that you posted the emails.

[Fernando]

08:44 PM on 09/20/2008

They are unreadable.

[jlva321]

11:43 AM on 09/21/2008

How are they unreadable? They are right there.

[akkadian]

08:00 PM on 09/20/2008

whole lotta hacking going on, and more:
Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, author of the book Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election. Dr. Phillips writes: "Having personally examined 126,000 ballots, 127 poll books, and 141 voter signature books from 18 counties in Ohio, and having examined many other election records as well, it is my conclusion that there is so much evidence of ballot alteration, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, vote switching, tabulator rigging, and old-fashioned voter suppression, that the results of the 2004 presidential election, in all likelihood, have been reversed."

[robokop]

06:26 PM on 09/20/2008

Posting of a private person e mails is about as low as you can get. But Huffington Post and the other left wing site, Mother Jones have gone to that level, sort of criminal don't you think. Is it not the left wing that is so against the Fed Partiot Act taking away our rights under the Constitution, this snooping into private lives, Palin's, and/or publishing knowing illegal obtained private material, is actually what the left winger's are complaining about.
Or is it "if we violate your rights, it is ok because we are right thus have the obligation to violate your rights for the good of our cause".

[Glacial]

07:37 PM on 09/20/2008

Hello, crazy person! You'll note that over here in Reality Land, actually nothing from her emails has been posted on HuffingtonPost -- the screenshots have been corrupted so you can't make out anything in the text, and nothing from her emails have been quoted here. It's just reporting THAT Gov. Palin's email was hacked.

[sf94127]

11:48 AM on 09/21/2008

wrong

[Brute]

04:16 PM on 09/20/2008

“Right now I don’t believe he (Obama) is ready to be president. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” – Joe Biden

"The Republican nominee has extensive credibility in this area, and the Democrat is going to need to be commander-in-chief," Penn said. Obama has "relatively no experience in national security,"

Mark Penn- Clinton campaign strategist

[rigormrtis]

04:39 PM on 09/20/2008

I don't recall how much national security experience Bill Clinton had when he ran. I'm guessing less than Obama.

[Brute]

07:28 PM on 09/20/2008

“It is wrong that Sen. Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in '04 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war. And you took that speech you’re now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since. Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen. – Bill Clinton

[wwwtravelwesleycom]

05:02 PM on 09/20/2008

The national security we need the candidates to focus on right now is the USA's economy. My concern is that the Bush's administration has flat out stolen money from the citizens of this country without our permission or constitutional authority. The stole our money to bail out their friends. Whatever happend to the free market economy?

If we had that much money just sitting around, why didn't we use it to USA citizens who have been need?

This is Bull-sha-niz-it. VOTE RON PAUL.

[Brute]

04:06 PM on 09/20/2008

Hillary Clinton's Comments:

My opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter," she said. "Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them, they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families."

[milo h minderbinder]

08:41 AM on 09/21/2008

I'm confused...was that something found in one of Palin's emails?

[Vote For America]

03:29 PM on 09/20/2008

Sept 20 Polling Update
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=62&ArticleName=Poll+Update+

Obama 289, McCain 249
http://voteforamerica.net/electoral.aspx

Their Possible Pasts
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=60&ArticleName=Their+Possible+Pasts

Cindy McCain's Fallacious Rebuttal
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=54&ArticleName=Cindy+McCain%27s+Fallacious+Rebuttal

The Red November: An analysis on campaign marketing
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=50&ArticleName=The+Red+November

[Jasemn]

02:35 PM on 09/20/2008

Read this article, and consider: History is only "Old News" until it repeats.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/4

Is this what Obama and 3rd Party candidates are really up against?

It's your democracy. It's your country. Now that you know, what will you do about it?

Shed apathy. Spread the word.

[ynot4tony2]

11:47 AM on 09/21/2008

You will think any election is stolen unless your party wins. That's pathetic.

[nellie]

02:15 PM on 09/20/2008

I have trouble believing this poll:

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html .

Please vote. I think the site has been neoconned.

[GulfGirl]

02:36 PM on 09/20/2008

I received an email with a link to this npr poll from one of my staunch Republican relatives and it was encouraging everyone to go vote FOR Palin because npr was such a liberal website and she was behind in the poll at that point. I'm sure this email spread like wildfire to all the right wingers out there. Thus the results are skewed!

[freedog]

02:06 PM on 09/20/2008

The left is the first group to raise cane about the U.S. Government monitoring suspected terrorists, yet all most can say about this situation is that she had sent some e-mails concerning government business. How hypocritical, unauthentic, shallow and dissingenious is the left? FDR had Character, Truman had Character (was not a college grad, by the way, and his legacy is that of a great president), JFK had character...but since, charachter, principles, integrity have been lost on both parties. More so on the Hollywood, Democrat, Lewinsky party. For God's sakes, in the White House...how dissrespectful to every American.

[gop4obama]

01:09 PM on 09/20/2008

Take a look...

http://www.palinbycomparison.net

Thanks

[Palin Has No Clue]

11:48 AM on 09/20/2008

Jack on the Map,

I can see that you don't have a clue as to how Failing-Palin's account was "Hacked". The person did not guess the password, a technique was used to change the password. In the Hacking world this is easily accomplished. But lets get something straight.... Yes it was Hacked, a person simply did not guess her password!

[Redrover666]

02:05 PM on 09/20/2008

"Failing-Palin" LOL! Cute, sweetheart! Did you come up with that on your own, or did your mommy help you out?

[Palin Has No Clue]

01:27 AM on 09/21/2008

You heard it first here!

[JackOnTheMap]

10:49 AM on 09/20/2008

I'm tired of seeing "hacked" in regards to what happened here.

She was NOT hacked. She used a web-based e-mail and somebody simply guessed her password to get into her account. That is NOT hacking. That is using somebody's stupidity against them.

You do not use something like Yahoo for anything important. Period.

Please, media, stop using the word "hack" unless it is used in regards to Palin's intelligence and position.

[huffposeur]

04:13 PM on 09/20/2008

dear jack, just wanted to let you know that the CIA is monitoring your thought waves, as well as your telephone calls and email and they're comin to get you.