Bristol: Crank calls started after her cell phone number posted on Web

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Sarah Palin's eldest daughter told jurors Wednesday she was harassed by calls and texts to her cell telephone after her number was posted on the Internet by someone who illegally accessed her mother's e-mail account:

"I got a few anonymous phone calls," Bristol Palin testified. "I checked my caller ID. It said an unknown number. When the phone calls kept coming through the night, it got more suspicious - different tones of voice, different area codes."

Bristol Palin's cell phone number was included in a screenshot of Sarah Palin's inbox that wound up on the Internet and, later, broadcast news networks.

Bristol Palin said her phone was essentially under siege for a week before she turned it over to the U.S. Secret Service.

[...]

Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, are expected to testify this week, perhaps as soon as Thursday, in the U.S. District Court trial.

In other testimony on the trial's second day, Palin friend and one-time employee Ivey Frye told jurors that she and others received vulgar and threatening e-mails after news spread that then Governor Palin's personal e-mail had been illegally compromised:

"I received (e-mails) many a day, violent, sexual, threatening ... throughout the course of the (2008 presidential) campaign," Frye testified.

She said the e-mails, which were sent to everyone on Palin's e-mail contact list, were anonymously sent.

She read from one that said: "You don't know me. Neither do I know you, but we can change that."

Recipients of the e-mails included Palin's parents, she said.

Prosecutors argue that the governor's contact list was copied and pasted onto several web sites after in September 2008, Kernell worked at getting into her account, changed her password, and posted screenshots of messages, contact lists and other information from it on the 4chan Internet discussion board:

Testimony has shown that dozens of people perused the account before Palin learned via Frye that the password on the account had been changed.

[...]

Federal prosecutors allege Kernell, then living in Knoxville, had read a story in The New York Times about the possibility that Palin was funneling gubernatorial business through a private Yahoo! e-mail account to avoid public scrutiny.

The son of longtime Memphis Democrat state Rep. Mike Kernell and a self-described "Obamacrat," Kernell decided to see if he could access the account.

Kernell is facing four felony charges including identity theft and wire fraud.

- JP

Prosecutors say Todd and Bristol Palin will testify against Kernell

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The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that federal prosecutors say Sarah Palin's oldest daughter has been added to the government's witness list, as the first day of the trial of a former University of Tennessee student accused of illegally breaking into Sarah Palin's private e-mail account concludes:

Bristol Palin, 19, is expected to testify along with her mother and father, Todd Palin, against the 22-year-old Kernell.

The son of longtime Memphis state Rep. Mike Kernell, he faces federal charges of computer fraud, identity theft, aiding and abetting computer fraud, and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors are not saying when the Palins might testify.

The prosecutors did not make clear exactly what Bristol might be asked to testify to.

In the courtroom today, the defendant's ex-roommate David Omiecinski told U.S. District Court jurors that one night in September, 2008, Kernell invited him his room to see a Yahoo! page used to change a password and a Wikipedia page about Palin on Kernell's computer screen. Omiecinski said Kernell told him that he had learned about Palin's private account and was attempting to guess the answer to her security question:

Omiecinski said he did not think Kernell would be successful and went back to bed. He said Kernell later apologized to him about involving him albeit it briefly after Kernell learned he was under FBI probe.

In his opening statement this morning, federal prosecutor Mark Krotoski told the jury in his opening statement that Kernell intentionally gained access to then Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin's private e-mail account, openly boasted about it on the Web and made the new password he had given Palin's email account available for others to use:

"The evidence will show the defendant hoped to derail the (Republican 2008 presidential) campaign," Krotoski said.

[...]

Kernell allegedly posted the new password on the Internet but lamented that his own perusal of the e-mail account failed to produce any damaging political information about then-Alaska Gov. Palin. Federal authorities allege that the posting allowed at least one other person to illegally access an account the national media was alleging Palin used to funnel gubernatorial business away from her official - and public - e-mail account.

At the time, Palin and McCain were in a contest against Democratic competitors Obama and running mate Sen. Joe Biden.

In his opening remarks to jurors, defense attorney Wade Davies tried to downplay the seriousness of Kernell's actions as "a college prank":

"He had no real reason to believe someone who is a governor and especially someone running for vice president of the United States would have one of these (Yahoo!) accounts," Davies said.

Although Davies said Kernell was wrong to have accessed the account, the lawyer said his client is guilty of little more than a misdemeanor.

Although Davis didn't answer reporters' questions about the personal life of his client, Kernell's Facebook page, which has since been scrubbed, had this interesting self-description:

"Obamacrat"

The trial will resume tomorrow.

- JP

The Palin hacker's identity theft trial begins today

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David Kernell's trial on charges related to the hacking of Sarah Palin's e-mail account two months before the November, 2008 election begins today. The 22-year-old defendant is the son of long time Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell, a Democrat from Memphis. The younger Kernall David Kernell has pleaded not guilty to four counts, identity theft, wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer in furtherance of aiding and abetting the same offense, and obstruction of justice.

Richard Locker of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported Monday:

His Knoxville attorney, Wade Davies, declined to discuss the case Friday, saying only, "I'm ready to try the case in the courtroom."

Palin has been subpoenaed by prosecutors to testify at the trial, scheduled to start Tuesday morning with jury selection before U.S. Dist. Judge Thomas W. Phillips. Final pretrial arguments are set for today.

[...]

Judge Phillips and Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley have rejected several defense motions, including one last week to permit a written questionnaire of jurors to screen for potential political bias from extensive publicity.

Another Kernell motion denied would have required introduction of several e-mails dealing with state issues, to show the account was not entirely "personal." It cited a letter from Palin's attorney saying some e-mail not turned over included "copies of discussions between the governor and her staff on a court of appeals judge appointment, comments on pending legislation ... communications from the attorney general ... and several documents that would qualify as protected personnel records."

Mike Kernell said he plans to attend to legislative and constituent business and to drive to Knoxville on evenings when he can to support his son. The defendant's mother, Dr. Lillian Landrigan -- an Army dentist who did a tour of duty in Iraq and is now stationed in Honolulu -- will attend the trial, her former husband said.

An AP story adds some details:

Convictions on all four felony charges — identity theft, wire fraud, intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account without authorization and obstructing an FBI investigation — could send Kernell to prison for up to 50 years.

"If I was the individual being charged I would be concerned, particularly the other party," East Tennessee State University political analyst David Briley said. "Politics and religion are pretty close to the vest here."

Kernell's father, Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, has served in the Tennessee House since 1974. He has not been linked to the case against his son, and he declined to be interviewed Monday.

An attorney for Palin, Thomas Van Flein of Anchorage, Alaska, said in an e-mail that the former governor has been subpoenaed by prosecutors "and she will honor that commitment." Van Flein declined to comment about the case or about how Palin feels about it.

Prosecutors predicted the trial could last up to 10 days but would not say when Palin would testify. Kernell has been free on bond since pleading not guilty after the indictment was unsealed in October 2008.

Steve Gilbert comments on AP's take at Sweetness & Light. And at Black & Right, young Kernell's sob story is Bob Parks' "Boo Hoo Of The Day."

Now, if investigators can only find the arsonists and would-be murderers who, obviously incited by violence-inducing leftist hate speech, doused all of the exits with accelerant and torched the Wasilla church that Gov. Palin and her family attends, another hate crime would go to a jury, too.

- JP

Judge upholds warrants in Palin e-mail hacking case

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A U.S. district judge ruled against the defendant charged with hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail today by refusing to dismiss search warrants for Internet provider records:

U.S. Magistrate Clifford Shirley Jr. in a decision Friday denied the motion filed on behalf of David C. Kernell, 22, whose father is a Democratic state lawmaker from Memphis.

Defense attorney Wade Davies and the chief prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle, did not answer telephone messages seeking comment.

Authorities say Kernel was a University of Tennessee student who gained access to the former Alaska governor's personal Yahoo e-mail account when she was serving as the running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Kernell is free on bond, charged with computer fraud, unlawful electronic transmission of material outside Tennessee and intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account without authorization. His trial is set for April 20 in Knoxville.

Davies' motion charged that the magistrate overstepped his authority by issuing warrants beyond the East Tennessee federal court district, but prosecutors countered that the warrants were proper under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Shirley's decision cited a change in federal law made in 2001 which granted such authority to a "court with jurisdiction over the offense under investigation."

- JP

Judge denies defense subpoena request in Palin e-mail case

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A U.S. District Judge last week denied a request by alleged e-mail identity thief David Kernell to subpoena all of Sarah Palin’s emails. Magistrate C. Clifford Shirley, Jr., after examining the government's case against Kernell and Kernell’s defense, ruled that the subpoenas being sought by Kernell's defense team, with one exception, were not relevant to the case. Kernell, the son of longtime Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell (D-Memphis), was indicted in October, 2008 for unauthorized access and identity theft which was allegedly committed on September 16, 2008. Former Gov. Palin is expected to testify as a witness in the case.

Ron Devito has the full story at US for Palin.

h/t: Sarah's Web Brigade

- JP

Kernell's lawyers: The spyware made him do it

Lawyers for David Kernell, who is charged with hacking into Sarah Palin's webmail and posting her messages on the internet, are now claiming that their client's computer was infected with spyware. According to The Register:

The contention may be used at trial to support arguments that the 21-year-old student son of a Tennessee Democrat politician was not personally responsible for the hack on a Yahoo! account maintained by the former Alaskan governor, which was traced back to an IP address used by Kernell.

[...]

Palin described the incident as hugely disruptive to the Republican presidential campaign in her recently published book.

Lawyers acting for Kernell claim his Acer laptop was infected with unspecified malware in a motion filed on 30 November. However, the malware involved has been isolated and subjected to scrutiny, Security Blanket reports.

Ah, yes, the old "Trojan Horse" defense... Don't laugh. The tactic was successfully employed by lawyers for accused hacker Aaron Caffrey against an indictment that he hacked into the Port of Houston's systems in a denial-of-service attack which crashed the servers that provide navigational data for the Texas port, one of the world's busiest. Incredibly, Caffery was found not guilty by a British jury in 2003. 

We say "incredibly" because expert witnesses found no evidence of Trojan infection on his PC. Even more incredibly, Caffrey served as an expert witness in his own defense. As an "expert" he would have likely known if his computer was infected and would have taken steps to "disinfect" it. Even more incriminating was the fact that Caffrey was a member of a group which called itself "Allied Haxor Elite" and acknowledged that members had a history of hacking into computers in the past.

Caffrey's lawyers somehow managed to convince the jury that their client and his Allied Haxor Elite colleagues had only done their hacking with the permission of computer owners who wanted to "test" their security systems. The missing virus was explained away by "expert witness" Caffrey, who testified that the program "might" have been designed to self-destruct and leave behind no trace of its mischief.

The Register says that in other cases, suspected pedophiles have been cleared by computer forensics after Trojans capable of downloading illicit images were found on their PCs. So apparently in the UK, hackers are judged innocent when malware is found on their computers and also when it is not found on their machines. The British Isles sounds like a hacker's paradise to us.

It remains to be seen whether an American jury will be as lenient in Kernell's case or to what extent, if any, his legal team will use the Trojan Horse defense when his trial begins in late April of 2010. But the alleged Palin hacker's attorneys have laid the groundwork to blame the invasion of Sarah Palin's e-mail account on some "other" anonymous hackers. Poor little David, son of a Democrat politician, you see, was just an innocent proxy.

Riiiight... and we're the Smith Brothers. Try one of our cough drops.

- JP

Meanwhile, back in Tennessee

Lest we forget, the case of hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail account continues in the Volunteer State, where David C. Kernell, the son of State Rep. Mike Kernell, a Democrat, is the defendant. One reason it is plodding along is young Kernell's lawyers have tried a variety of legal maneuvers, the most recent of which was to request that they be allowed to "poll potential jurors via a questionnaire that would examine, among other things, their political leanings and attitudes about Palin," according to a Knoxville News Sentinel report.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley, presiding, would not allow it:

"The court finds that what little benefit would be gained by the use of a jury questionnaire is greatly outweighed by the burden such a questionnaire would impose on potential jurors," Shirley wrote.

Attorneys Wade Davies and Anne Passino earlier this year sought to use a jury questionnaire to prescreen potential jurors. Davies cited extensive publicity surrounding the case and Palin herself, who Davies said is a polarizing political figure.

So the keyboard warrior's defense team will will have to question potential jurors face-to-face.

Meanwhile, some new details about the case have emerged:

In recently filed court records, the U.S. Attorney's Office revealed that Kernell allegedly boasted of his plans to access Palin's e-mail account to his UT roommates, who, in turn, have given statements to the FBI and likely will end up on the government's witness list at Kernell's Oct. 27 trial.

Yikes, that wasn't too bright. It takes away the argument that he just got caught up in the moment with some other hackers whom he was trying to impress. On the contrary, bragging to his college buddies about his intent to hack into the former governor's personal e-mail account smacks of pure premeditation.

We wonder if young David was just trying to make his Democrat dad proud.

- JP