David Kernell, 22, the college student and son of a Democratic Tennessee state legislator who hacked into the e-mail account of Sarah Palin was convicted Friday on two counts. After four days of deliberations, a federal jury found Kennell guilty of obstruction of justice and unauthorized access of a computer, a misdemeanor. He faces 20 years in jail, though the sentence is likely to be much less. I will be discussing the case this morning on ABC Good Morning America.
Kernell was acquitted of the wire fraud count and the jury deadlocked on the charge of identity theft.
Some reports indicate that the prosecutors have indicated that they will re-try Kennell on the identity theft count. That would indicate an effort to create new precedent for this type of hacking. However, in my view, it would be overkill and unnecessary. Many accepted the legitimacy of prosecuting Kennell to send a message to other hackers. However, retrying this kid would be a needless waste of resources. This was a stupid act by a college kid. I would not treat it was a college prank (as he claims) but it is not exactly capital crime either. Surely, there are a few other crimes in Knoxville that need to be addressed by the prosecutors.
Not all people of the left are deft, see!
Too bad we cannot try Bill Clinton for the 500,000 dead Iraqi kids who starved to death from the sanctions he advocated (even after other countries no longer had the stomach for it).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo
Or for Clinton’s illegal bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq.
rafflaw – ditto.
Blouise – well said.
rafflaw
First let’s prosecute the Bush administration for “hacking” into eveyone’s phone and email accounts and then let’s prosecute the Bush administration for torture and then they can retry this hacker!
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Well said!
I understand that Federal Prosecutors reduced the charges from felonies to misdemeanors in the case of O’Keefe and his little band of phony telephone repairmen. “J. Garrison Jordan, a lawyer representing Raymond Flanagan, son of the acting U.S. attorney for Shreveport and one of O’Keefe’s co-defendants, told the Times a plea deal has been worked out. He called it a “fair resolution of the matter” but would not give details.” (UPI report)
Wow … I guess justice has a lot to do with “who you know” or who screwed your mama to make you.
Perhaps David Kernell’s dad just isn’t high enough on the totem pole to warrant the U.S. Attorney’s Office “special” justice.
did this get ‘taken care of’ really quickly or am I imagining? (cause I know how long I’ve had to wait for the courts….)
Anytime, Wayne. One lives to be of service.
@BIL: Thanks
We know that the situs attacked is outside American jurisdiction (assuming the University maintains their own servers on site). While if the hackers turn out to be American, they could and should face charges here for ancillary crimes committed here against American interests in furtherance of the hack (conspiracy, wire fraud, tampering with equipment, etc.). Then they should be extradited to Britain to face charges there as well for that is where the injury proper (theft of data) occurred and the victims under British jurisdiction.
@BIL – do we know who the hackers are?
First, what raff said.
Second,
Wayne – it’s called “lack of jurisdiction”. Look into it.
Does it follow that there will be aggressive prosecution of those who hacked into the University of East Anglia computers to grab those nasty emails that purport to prove that global warning is a scam? (Nah, I didn’t think so.)
First let’s prosecute the Bush administration for “hacking” into eveyone’s phone and email accounts and then let’s prosecute the Bush administration for torture and then they can retry this hacker!