Drew Wilson
September 18th, 2008, 01:33 AM
Last night, someone apparently obtained access to the Yahoo! email account of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Screenshots of Gov. Palin's email account are now widely available on the sites such as Wikileaks and Gawker.
It is unclear how the account was compromised. Possibilities include guessing the Governor's password, getting a new password by using "basic verification information, such as your birthday and the ZIP or postal code you provided when you registered," or even using a previously unknown flaw in Yahoo! Mail's security.
The McCain-Palin campaign responded to the news with a statement that "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them." The FBI and the Secret Service told Wired's Threat Level that the agencies are investigating.
While we don't yet have all the facts, based on the public information a court would likely agree that the access was illegal under the Stored Communications Act or SCA. The SCA prohibits access "without authorization [to] a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided" (i.e. Yahoo! Mail), where the perpetrator "obtains ... access to a wire or electronic communication [i.e. email] while it is in electronic storage in such system." The goal of the SCA is to allow people to use third party email services like Yahoo! without compromising their privacy, and the federal privacy law rightly provides strong penalties for illegal access. The law provides the same privacy protection of personal email messages to everyone, from political figures like Gov. Palin to ordinary folks like you and me.
More... (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/gov-palins-yahoo-email-account-hacked)
When an unknown person peers into Palin's e-mail account, it's a shocking invasion of privacy. When the government peers into your e-mail, it's known as the rule of law through the "Protect America Act"
It is unclear how the account was compromised. Possibilities include guessing the Governor's password, getting a new password by using "basic verification information, such as your birthday and the ZIP or postal code you provided when you registered," or even using a previously unknown flaw in Yahoo! Mail's security.
The McCain-Palin campaign responded to the news with a statement that "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them." The FBI and the Secret Service told Wired's Threat Level that the agencies are investigating.
While we don't yet have all the facts, based on the public information a court would likely agree that the access was illegal under the Stored Communications Act or SCA. The SCA prohibits access "without authorization [to] a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided" (i.e. Yahoo! Mail), where the perpetrator "obtains ... access to a wire or electronic communication [i.e. email] while it is in electronic storage in such system." The goal of the SCA is to allow people to use third party email services like Yahoo! without compromising their privacy, and the federal privacy law rightly provides strong penalties for illegal access. The law provides the same privacy protection of personal email messages to everyone, from political figures like Gov. Palin to ordinary folks like you and me.
More... (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/gov-palins-yahoo-email-account-hacked)
When an unknown person peers into Palin's e-mail account, it's a shocking invasion of privacy. When the government peers into your e-mail, it's known as the rule of law through the "Protect America Act"