So, since McCain didn't invent the internet, lets get back to Palin and her emails...
I do think it is awful that a hacker deliberately went after her accounts (I wouldn’t want my email hacked – agggh….). Although, perhaps with her past, someone (yes, with an agenda, obviously left) had reason to look – from reading the article Palin, in the past, has used personal email accounts for official government business. And that in the case Time mentions the government actually went (hacked) into another of Palin’s Yahoo private accounts.
So, we have a big wrong, however that big wrong could be caused by an earlier little wrong. The hacking was awful, but, by leaving herself open to question, (the earlier use of private email accounts for government business) maybe she became an easy target. She shouldn’t be using her private email accounts for government business. I don’t ever cross those two lines, and I am just in the private sector. I would think if you were in government, where there needs to be disclosure of information, that you would only use the government’s traceable, accountable forms of communication in your office.
But, the government didn’t do anything in this case, they weren't the 'hackers' – it is sort of hard to bemoan loss of rights, particularly the right of privacy, when it doesn’t have anything to do with the government looking into her emails, just an opportunistic hacker with visions of glory and 15 minutes of fame. I don’t see any 4th Amendment rights being violated (right, this would be a 4th amendment issue – and this isn’t a freedom of press issue, or am I missing something?).
And, if all that was out there in this account was photos of her kids, emails about last week’s barbecue at the lake, her daughter's cell phone number, and moose stew recipes, this probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere. The hacker would have gotten in, rooted around, posted some stupid stuff, and it would have blown over (nothing to see here – move along). But, there is something there – I am not quite sure what, but from the Time article it sounded like conversations between her and the Lt Gov. She should be using government emails for that probably, unless of course, they were the ones exchanging the moose stew recipes.