“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

Sarah Palin's E-Mails

See Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account and Hackers break into Sarah Palin's e-mail account

Shocking, my eye. Anyone who's used the Internet for more than five minutes ought to realize you have no privacy.

There are three separate but somewhat related issues about the “hacking” of Sarah Palin’s e -mails:

• Does anyone have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using public, non -secured e-mail systems such as Hotmail, Yahoo mail, or Gmail?
• Is there anything really yummy and juicy in Palin’s e-mails as published on the Web?
• Is there anything really so wrong in Palin’s use of public, non-secured e-mail services for the conduct of state business, aside from the fact that it apparently was a violation of Alaskan law?

I have no statistics, and I doubt they exist, but I strongly suspect that, if we exclude e-mails that are confined within corporations or institutions, we will find that most of the e-mail in the World is handled by the various large commercial services that provide e-mail for “free”(It’s not actually completely free, because most of these services fund the e-mail system by inserting ads in various ways.) So Palin’s e-mail hacking is potentially a serious matter that affects or could affect a lot of people.

The first issue listed above is easily answered: if you use something like AOL or Yahoo, you have not the slightest reasonable expectation of privacy. Although the e-mail accounts are passworded, that is essentially the only protection. Most people use easily remembered passwords, such as “password”, their names, names of pets, names of children / spouse, or four-letter words. “Hackers” who want to break into these systems have various programs that run through all the common passwords very quickly. In other words, if the e-mail system’s only protection is passwording, there isn’t much hope of defense against a serious attack. It is illegal in some countries (including the U. S.) to hack such e-mail, but the laws are weak and are frequently violated with impunity. In most countries that claim to protect e-mail privacy, there is also at least one state agency legally authorized to read e-mails for “national security” reasons.

The second issue, as to whether the published e-mails show anything interesting, the answer is also pretty straightforward: no. What we see is mostly run-of-the-mill personal communication. There are, however, a few that indicate some blurring of the boundary between personal and official matters.

This brings us to the third matter: is it wrong for Palin to use a private e-mail service for state business? Here the answer is clearly that it is wrong. I don’t know anything about Alaska’s laws on this matter, but even if there is no law or regulation forbidding her to use a private service for public business, the fact of her usage is still a troubling matter. Here’s why: the state system (which exists) establishes known policies and implements them in regard to back -up, password and other security, and (probably) the type of content that may be sent. If Palin goes outside the state system to another service, the backup, security, and content rules are gutted. This kind of thing actually happened in the various phases of the Abramoff scandal (where official business was being conducted using the Republican National Committee’s e -mail system). The private e-mail systems in question were in fact not properly backed up or managed, and valuable evidence relating to a wide-ranging criminal investigation was lost.

There is also one slight matter that is not really an issue in this case but someday could become important: if you use an e-mail service supported by advertising (or any other means) , there is a substantial risk of conflict of interest. In particular, it is easy to imagine that one of Palin’s e-mails could carry an advertisement for, let’s say, an oil company that has a direct and significant interest in drilling in the ANWAR. Even though she does not know about the ad (because it only appears to the receiver), this still places her in the position of apparently advocating the interest of a business that her state government is supposed to regulate (or, perhaps, with which the state might be negotiating).

But there is one more matter that requires comment here: Palin’s very casual use of private e -mail systems seems to be one more example of a sloppy attitude towards the line between private and public business. This is pretty common among inexperienced politicians; it’s exactly that kind of political figure who is most susceptible to corruption that takes place before the victim even realizes what’s happening. Palin, who has risen very fast and very far, seems to be floating so high in her cloud of hubris that she has lost respect or interest in proper compliance with the law or ethical considerations. I also have to wonder if she understands what “the appearance of a conflict of interest” means and why it’s important.

So, on balance, I have to think that Palin’s e-mails do disclose something that is deeply troubling. If you’re a Democrat, that’s sort of good news, I guess, although I personally think it’s very bad news, because I’m convinced that McCain-Palin will win the election in November. But there’s also bad news for the Democrats : although he’s a little older and somewhat more experienced than Palin, Barack Obama has also risen far and fast. There has already been a minor stain on his record concerning the mortgage on his house. We have to wonder whether he, too, out of pure inexperience, might fail unexpectedly in managing the delicate questions of information privacy, security, backup, and control.

Of course, in the case of John McCain, this is not an issue. There are other matters that make his candidacy worrisome : above all, simply his health and age, which make Palin’s behavior so important.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me