Palin: accused hacker disrupted US campaign

KNOXVILLE — Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told a court yesterday that a man accused of hacking into her e-mail account and posting her personal information on the Internet caused problems for both her family and her campaign. Palin testified for 30 minutes in federal court in Tennessee at the fraud and identity theft trial of David Kernell, 22, who is accused of hacking into her personal e-mail account in September 2008 by guessing security questions, then posting what he found on the Internet.

Kernell’s father is a Democratic state legislator in Tennessee. “It caused huge disruption to the campaign,” Palin told jurors at the trial of University of Tennessee student David Kernell. “It created distress” for family members who received crank calls and text messages and saw their personal photographs splashed all over Websites, after the account was hacked. The situation also hampered Palin’s ability to contact family members at home in Alaska by phone and e-mail at a time when she and her husband Todd were on the road campaigning for the Republican ticket headed by Senator John McCain.

At the time of the incident, Palin said, her pregnant, teen-age daughter Bristol told her she was “scared” and did not know what to do about the barrage of calls she received. Prosecutors say Kernell hacked into Palin’s e-mail account and posted e-mails containing telephone phone numbers of her family and friends, photographs of her children, and a note from her friend who was going through a difficult time. In testimony earlier last week, Bristol Palin said she handed over her compromised cell phone to the US Secret Service, who told the Palin family to get rid of all communication devices.

Palin learned that her gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail account had been hacked while at a Michigan hotel. Campaign staff were diverted for days “correcting the media” about what was in the account, Palin said. According to his lawyer, Kernell was merely curious about reports that Palin had used private e-mail to conduct public business as governor of Alaska, and that the hacking was a silly prank.

Defence attorney Wade Davies asked Palin why she had protected the account with easily guessed answers to security questions, such as where her husband went to high school. “There was no reason to keep that a secret,” she said. Palin testified “no one had that right” to share the contents of her e-mails. — Reuters