University Of Tennessee Student David Kernell Indicted For Palin Email Scandal

Some may say sketchy Sarah Palin had it coming, using a personal email address to conduct official business. But, unfortunately for David Kernell, that excuse is not likely to fly with the FBI. The 20-year-old University of Tennessee Knoxville student was indicted on charges of hacking into Palin’s Yahoo email account.
 

Authorities have suspected the student was responsible for gaining unauthorized access into Palin's account in mid-September. During the investigation, police raided a party at his apartment for more information. Kernell, the son of Democrat State Rep. Mike Kernell, finally turned himself into the Feds for arrest today, and will be arraigned soon.
 

Knoxnews.com has the details of the indictment:

The single-count indictment, returned Tuesday and unsealed today, alleges that on approximately Sept. 16, 2008, Kernell, obtained unauthorized access to Palin's personal e-mail account by allegedly resetting the account password.

According to the indictment, after answering a series of security questions that allowed him to reset the password and gain access to the e-mail account, Kernell allegedly read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information.

According to the indictment, Kernell posted screenshots of the e-mail and other personal information to a public Web site. Kernell also allegedly posted the new e-mail account password, thus providing access to the account by others.

If convicted, Kernell could find himself with five years in jail, a $250,000 fine and a three-year supervised release.
 

But shouldn’t Palin be reprimanded for making her security questions so easy to guess? Her birthday, ZIP code and where she met her husband are all pretty simple to obtain. At the very least, throw in a first pet question.

If she can’t protect her own online security, do we really want her leading our national security?