The man accused of hacking Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account has pleaded not guilty to the alleged offense. He’ll now stand trial – and in the meantime, can’t own or use a home computer.

David Kernell (pictured) made his plea today after a grand jury indicted him yesterday (For readers outside the US, a grand jury is a group of randomly selected citizens that decides whether there’s enough evidence for somebody to stand trial, rather than deciding if they are guilty).

He’s been released until the trial, scheduled for December 16,  but in the meantime, the court has banned him from owning a computer. In fact, he’ll only be allowed to even use a computer for college coursework and sending e-mails. The conditions of his release also restrict him to Eastern Tennessee unless he gets prior permission to leave, and ban him from contacting Palin or her family.

If convicted, Kernell could be jailed for up to five years, with another three years of ‘supervised release’. He also faces a maximum fine of $250,000.

The indictment claims Kernell used the tactics discussed online by a message board poster named ‘rubico’ (who is allegedly Kernell). That is, he read that Palin had a Yahoo address, requested to reset the password, and guessed the answer to a security question about where she met her spouse.

There’s some debate about whether the charge is legally valid. Kernell was charged with a felony offense, the most serious category under US law. However, the relevant law – the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act – says e-mail hacking is only a felony crime if it’s done in order to carry out another offense.

Kernell’s indictment lists the ‘other offense’ as a breach of the very same law. It’s possible prosecutors will claim that by posting the new password to Palin’s account (after changing it), Kernell allowed others to hack into it. However, one legal commentator says this argument goes against the principle of the law concerned. And he’s speculating the felony charge may be an attempt to scare Kernell into agreeing to plead to a lesser misdemeanour offense.

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 7:48 pm under Uncategorized.

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!