The trial of David Kernell, the college student who hacked into then Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account in 2008, has commenced. After hijacking the account, Kernell went to great lengths to brag about his accomplishment, a decision that brought the FBI to his door and now has the chance of sending him to prison for the rest of his life. While Palin could have recognized that it's not worth her time nor is it ethical to condemn a young man to a wasted existence just because he decided to do something goofy and ill-advised in college, she has opted to pursue the full extent of her legal options because her advisors apparently didn't inform her of the dubious security inherent to most free, web-based email programs. The former Governor of Alaska may also have to prosecute several other individuals, as many people from around the globe have produced what they claim are private emails from 2008 taken from Palin's account, which they all allegedly hacked. Here are a few of the dozens of selections.
Subj: Cash For Gold!!!
Congratulations on accepting the most important offer of your life! Like thousands of Americans, you have decided to stop letting all those old gold chains, rings, buttons and other items go to waste just sitting in some box in your attic. You've made the smart choice by sending your gold into the American Value Exchange for cold, hard cash! Now that you have paid your modest membership fee, we will be sending you an information packet through the mail explaining to you how easy it is to turn your forgotten gold possessions into cash with no trouble at all. Just reply to this email with your name, address, phone number, age, mother's maiden name and what you want your special members-only password to be and we'll send you that information packet within 5-7 business days. Thank you for choosing the American Value Exchange.
Subj: Stop shooting my dogs
Mrs. Palin,
It has come to my attention that you and some of the people in your office have been spending time for the past three consecutive Saturdays hunting in the woods on my property. While I am happy to provide those grounds for licensed sport as my injuries in the war have rendered me quite incapable of enjoying even small game tracking any longer, it is not acceptable for so many stray bullets to find their way into my prized Basset hounds. Of my beloved Daisy's most recent litter of seven, only three remain alive and unmaimed by what I have counted as five distinct caliber of bullet. As I have not permitted any other individuals to enter my property and the hounds have been able to find no trace of trespassers, I can only conclude that it is you and your friends who have been wounding my dogs. If this behavior continues, I will have no choice but to involve the authorities.
-M. Hathaway
Subj: Return my sausages at once
I know it was you, Palin. I learned to sniff out the individual guards on shift at that hell hole in Hanoi just by the spit on their cigarette butts. What makes you think you can pilfer my Vienna tins and get away with it? God damn it, you Arctic twit, you know as well as I do that I can't do my job without my sweet Viennas in tomato sauce. Every day I wake up, say my morning prayers and eat a can of the best food ever to grace God's creation. When that very sequence of events doesn't occur, it sets me off my game. Did you see that debacle in Ohio? The kid in the grocery store knocked over a whole shelf of crap just as I was walking through. Meanwhile, Hopey McChange is in Berlin talking to half the dad-gum Krauts in existence. I looked like a fool. And it was all your fault, Palin. You're sabotaging me by relieving me of the sausages that fuel my power. Sometimes I think you don't even want to be Vice President, that this is all some ploy to get your name in lights.
Damn you. Damn you and your sausage-tainting grip of death.
