Agreed.

The best paragraph from that article:
"The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply."

Apparently the Secret Service hasn't yet heard of Gawker.

The real question is whether this is the end of the story, or if it will turn into a slow drip of troopergate emails.

Remember, the Pentagon Papers were illegal too -- but they were still kinda important.

Aw come on Jack, are not these of the same mind-set of repugs that have abolished the laws of privacy? These creeps have jettisoned every right to privacy and the Bill of Rights. Telecoms and all agencies have absolution why not a hacker?

"Fire!! Fire!!"

Has my right to free speech been abolished?

"into the **Yahoo!** email account" . . . "used for official state business."

I thought Alabama was backward. Can they not afford an "official" email server up there?

"Anonymous" has been pretty active for a couple years, mostly taking on the Scientology organization. I'm surprised to see them switch gears like this and engage in what seems to be political black-hat cracking. I hope they think the impending destruction of their organization is worth it, because they surely have brought an epic sh**-storm down on themselves.

Wikileaks, though, is just doing what it always does: Hosting interesting stuff provided to them by others. I hope they survive this mess.

Actually, the GOP has made an art teaching its troops to use back-channel commercial networks to avoid using government networks so as to avoid little things like FOIA and historical archiving/backups -- including in the White House itself. No surprise at all that Palin & Crew would be doing the same so that they could respond to inquiries by saying "We've searched the Governor's state e-mail system and no messages come under the request you made."

I think the value here is that the hacking demonstrated that she's doing state business outside the publicly run system.

Look, I don't want to go tinfoil hat here, but from now 'til the election, I'd advise everyone to take everything
skeptically. Obviously the biggest fear is a false flag operation - a phony terrorist attack to scare the voters.
But this extends down to anything that stirs us up. I'm not saying this is a fake story, but if you know about Karl Rove you know he did the fake break-in early in his career back in Texas.
What would you want the voters to be mad about today? The way the Republicans have been minding the store with our money?
Or an unfair attack on that wonderful Sarah Palin who shot a moose and opposed the Bridge to Nowhere.
And anyone commenting on this should address that incident where Karl Rove faked a break-in and wiretapping to get sympathy for a candidate back in Texas.
Beware: There are forces at work to dupe you. Don't accept every little thing you hear these next two months at face value.

We also need to be alert to fake stories about faking.

There are those who would fake a story about somone faking something.

If you compare the Sarah Palin diversion to the movie "Wag the Dog" the initial story has come and gone.
Remember in the movie, when they sit around trying to think of a way to keep the story front and center?
They finally settle on the fake prisoner of war who sends a morse code message to his mom. God, that movie was brilliant.
And to think I once got to sit in a banquet room and watch Dustin Hoffman do his Hollywood producer impression live.
Anyway, imagine this GOP meeting:
"Look, the initial Sarah Palin story went great. How do we keep it going?"
"It's tough. They're challenging us on her talking points. Turns out she didn't always oppose the Bridge to Nowhere, she did accept earmarks, she didn't really visit Ireland or Iraq and Alaska is nowhere near the supplier of 20% of America's energy.
They say she's a bigger liar than Dick Cheney."
"Hey, watch how you talk. Cheney is the King. But what do we do?"
"We could have her shoot something live. No. She's got to be victimized.
The lipstick on a pig thing lasted one or two days but it has to be more this time. I know. They break into her house. No, what if they catch her daughter having sex? It's got to be cleaner than that. I've got it, they break into her email account!"
"That's perfect. Get our operatives on the phone now. It's time to wag the dog."
I don't know if that's what happened, but I do know those strategy meetings are taking place.
You can count on that, and the closer we get, the more outrageous the lies are going to be. We could even get another timely bin Ladin video. Remember that one?

Hmmm. This alleged e-break-in has occurred at just the time that the GOP is busily trying to derail the Palin Troopergate investigation. The Rovian political black-ops interpretation is perhaps rather feasible.

Look, I don't want to go tinfoil hat here, but from now 'til the election, I'd advise everyone to take everything skeptically.

Surprising advice, coming from you, Bill.

I think you DO want to go "tinfoil hat" at any and every opportunity...

...unless it's the voices that are making you do it;-)

Folks, you have completely missed the back story on this one.

The alledged perpetrator has already spilled on the how he did it, the why he did it, and so on. The proxy site that was used for the access to the account is already known too, and the owner of said proxy site is cooperating.

When the /b/tards who frequent the board where this took place learned the details, one went "white hat" and took the steps necessary to start shuitting things down.

I actually started as a skeptic who saw the fringe as out of touch. Now, I don't see a vast right wing conspiracy as much as I see compliant sheep who wouldn't have a doubting notion of authority if it took their liberty and trashed their Constitution. Wait, that happened. See what I mean?

One thing I know I don't believe is all these suicides. Especially by people who go on radio shows and say, "If I turn up dead, it wasn't a suicide."

The D.C. Madam - right before she was to testify at her trial, the anthrax guy, the writer the other day. Now we've had two deaths of the most credible, prominent 9/11 witnesses. Very similar to what happened to witnesses after JFK.

But don't think twice, it's all right. Sarah is hot, she can lie like Cheney, and President Bush is working hard on the economy. Everything is coming up roses.

Funny how history won't go away. The Gulf of Tonkin incident is now seen as a false flag operation propelling us into Vietnam. And who do we have running for President - someone who's biggest and most deserved honor is that he was a prisoner of that war. But that doesn't mean Vietnam wasn't a mistake. We've been duped before, so it's not tinfoil hat to wonder if we're being duped now. That's just being wise.

But don't wake up. I know it's hard to sleep with all your money crammed in your mattress, but don't wake up, whatever you do.

Quite a co inky dink that 'vast rightwing conspiracy' reads up off the screen, as I just was thinking about it ... remember back ... { { ~ ~ cue the dreamy vaseline-lens flashback sequence } ~ }~ ...

It all came out there is a vast rottenwing conspiracy. But then it stopped. Before the ring in it was identified. Every conspiracy has a central organizing 'inner ring.' And ring-leading Ringmaster.

Modelled after the circus clowns conspiracy to make us laugh with our cupboards bare of bread.

So, I got to thinking, as the many innocents are now seen jumping ship and getting away from the vast rottenwing, having woken up to seeing themselves crewing on the ship of fools which they didn't realize was a consPIRACY ring, then the only ones left on-board are those who are knowingly devoted in the ring. And now the ringleader is easier to isolate on, as the one the rest of the ring runs 'round to.

... Rove held ... the College Republicans until early 1973. (Herbert Wingleader) Bush hired Rove as a special assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 ... the summer Junior was abducted and quarantined to detox, at a CIA outpost beside the Alaskan oil pipeline being built.

---

The 'innocents' seen cutting and running are those who, having parrot-talked LIARS points saying 'the economic fundamentals are sound' for 7 years, unaware of what they were participants in, now TV-see the realworld monetary abyss, queue up in the unemployment soup line without a pension, and refuse to answer the reporter's question: How's that working for you?

I figure when we didn't look into the Florida 2000 ballots, where true tallies are our veritable identity in the election franchise, the American self-reflection mirror cracked and broke and heralded these seven years of bad luck.

In response to Jack's comment in another thread (where I brought up the e-mail issue), I'm on the fence about the e-mail hack.

I agree that it was a violation of law. But, I also believe that Palin's use of a personal e-mail account to conduct the official business of her office was likewise illegal. In combination with the oft-quoted "Rovian" tactic of using multiple, personal, alternative e-mails to thwart later investigation and public records research, I'm not sympathetic to Palin's claims of victimization. Like others, I oppose vigilantism, yet there is a certain measure of "street justice" in having illegal activities expose other illegal activities.

In the end, my preferred outcome would be that all parties suffer the consequences for their actions. The "hack"/privacy invasion has consequences; a true patriot suffers gladly for the sake of his/her cause. Palin, likewise, should suffer the consequences of her actions in subverting and obstructing the investigation pending against her; a responsible person takes responsibility for their actions.

Using a certain e-mail provider is "illegal,' Chris? Only if you work for Microsoft.

Mark1:

Only in that it may be a violation of public records laws if e-mail conducting the public's business and transported through alternate means is not archived or disclosed in accordance with such law.