Up The River

Sarah Palin is in Tennessee this week speaking to a small, powerful audience: the jury hearing the criminal case against the college student (and son of a Democratic lawmaker. Imagine that!) who hacked into Palin's emails during the '08 campaign. Sarah Palin Testifies In Hacker Trial

Sarah Palin testified Friday about the disruption and hurt caused when her e-mail account was hacked during the 2008 presidential campaign and said outside court that there should be consequences for what happened.

She declined to say if she thinks conviction of the 22-year-old defendant should lead to prison or if community service would be punishment enough. “That’s up to the judge,” she said when she stopped to talk to reporters outside the courthouse.

Former University of Tennessee student David Kernell, the 22-year-old son of a Democratic state lawmaker, is charged with hacking the Yahoo! e-mail account as Palin campaigned in 2008 as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

The hacker is facing some serious jailtime, although his attorney is seeking mitigation based on the well known "prank doctrine:"

Kernell faces up to 50 years in federal prison if convicted of identity theft, mail fraud and two other felony charges. His lawyer has said the case is a prank and Kernell had no criminal intent.

OK, so 50 years is a little ridiculous, but I don't think a little jail time would hurt. If Kernell had stolen Palin's mail that would be easy to understand as being a crime. I don't think there's much of a conceptual difference between that and breaking into Palin's email account. And, no matter how much people would like to believe otherwise, public figures deserve some private space. Anyway, I'm tired of progressive twerps like Kernell who think they can make the lives of GOP figures miserable because Republicans are evil.

Palin, for her part, received star treatment

As Palin walked to the witness stand, some jurors smiled at her. The first question from Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle was, “May I call you Governor Palin?”

The former Alaska governor smiled almost constantly through 30 minutes of testimony as she told jurors about the disruption the hacking caused for her family and close friends when their e-mails and phone numbers were publicized on the Internet.

Kid, you are going down.