What Bush email hacker faces: The Palin Precedent

Hacker accesses email of multiple Bush family members, including both presidents

A year behind bars: That's what David Kernell received for guessing his way into the private email account of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008. So that would certainly be the starting point for penalties due the perpetrator of this latest invasion of privacy against the politically powerful.

(2013's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries)

From a lengthy account by The Smoking Gun (that includes private Bush family photos and information, if you'd rather not be party to seeing that stuff):

The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The photos and e-mails were uploaded yesterday to an online account that appears to have been hacked for the purpose of hosting the material.

In e-mail exchanges with the person who claimed responsibility for the hack, the individual claimed to have swiped "a lot of stuff," including "interesting mails" about George H.W. Bush's recent hospitalization, "Bush 43," and other Bush family members.

Included in the hacked material is a confidential October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mails for dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings, and their children. The posted photos and e-mails contain a watermark with the hacker's online alias, "Guccifer."

The hacker has yet to be apprehended and expressed defiant bravado to The Smoking Gun regarding the chances of that happening.

But what if he's wrong?

When she and her family were victimized, Palin was a half-term governor of Alaska on the verge of becoming an unsuccessful candidate for vice president. Kernell's sentence -- unnecessarily harsh, in my opinion - was what it was.  

Now we have as victims not one but two former presidents of the United States, along with multiple members of their families. The intrusion includes painfully private family correspondence and photos - including President H. W. Bush in his hospital bed.

If he's caught and convicted, there's going to be some math involved in calculating the perpetrator's sentence. It won't be just a year.

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• Security

• David Kernell

• email

• email security

• George H.W. Bush

• George W. Bush

• hacking

• Sarah Palin