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Friday, September 19, 2008

Palin Hackers May Dodge Feds via DOJ Loophole

Palin Hackers May Dodge Feds via DOJ Loophole

Could the hackers who infiltrated Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account avoid prosecution thanks to a Department of Justice policy statement?

Though federal law prohibits the unauthorized access of someone's e-mail account, the DOJ's interpretation of one particular case might only hold the Palin hackers accountable for accessing unopened messages, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The hackers changed the governor's password, took screen shots of the account's contents, accessed personal photographs, and sent all the data to the Wikileaks Web site.

Under DOJ's interpretation, the Palin hackers might only be prosecuted for accessing e-mails the Alaska governor had not yet opened. Based on the data leaked by the hackers, it is not clear if they opened any unread messages.

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