Since you can make the same argument for the hacked e-mail account authenticity by revealing that this account has an address to Bristol_Palin, could you remove Bristol Palin's e-mail? While I know it is already out, I don't see why Motherjones has to abet an invasion of personal privacy of a person who is related to someone running for office and not doing it herself. The other e-mails since held by people in public position should be open to everyone and, as such, I do not have an ethical problem with--Please, keep your standards of ethics high. After all you are less likely to be accused of wrong doing that way.

I agree with Derek's comment. This doesn't seem right (or left, for that matter).

If John McCain is intent on cleaning up Washington he should start by dumping Palin.That would get him more votes than anything else he might do

Since then, the accounts have been deleted, which could be considered destruction of evidence if a court chose to pursue it.

Plese tell me you are really not this dense? Deleting an account is not destruction of evidence, it's deleting an account. All "evidence" is remains with the service provider. Geez.

Secondly, it would be inappropriate to communicate personal political business on her official gov account.

Grow up.

Anyone remember that Bush staffers were using private e-mail too? Is that any more secure than Yahoo? Yahoo probably is as secure as any e-mail, but the bushies used GOP accounts. Who knows what security they had, and what they discussed? That maybe should have been the biggest scandal of all the Bush scandals, because those missing e-mails contain evidence for everything else. However, just the potential security leak should have been a huge scandal.

"Since then, the accounts have been deleted, which could be considered destruction of evidence if a court chose to pursue it."

and hacking her account is ...? What? OK? at least by you? Right?

Why have you posted a minor's email address on the internet?

TAKE IT DOWN.

Your assessment of retention law is incorrect. The duty to presesrve follows the the type of document not the form of transmission or the form of email account.

Anonymous is not a group of hackers - it's a leaderless collective of like-minded individuals, from all walks of life.

http://www.enturbulation.org/press-media/faq

I'm not quite sure what the jorunalistic value of advertising the personal emails of those governmental figures and Sarah Palin's daughter.

I do agree that it's unseemly that government officials are using personal emails to conduct business/mischief to circumvent laws. But this act of delinquency should send shivers up the spine of anyone thinking any of their emails will remain private, whether you're Karl Rove or the Average Joe.

What a disgrace, did I actually read you praising the illegal hackers? Wow, now that's a real journalistic thing to do. And, oh wait; did you actually release Palin's daughter’s email? "Shameful", "low" and "irresponsible" are the only words for your article and cowardness to release a minors email. Only a perspective that is so far off the mark would actually praise criminal wrong doing!!! What a shame, journalism is truly lost!!!

Hasn't it been made clear time and time again that we should have no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to our email accounts? Wasn't this proven by all the emails hoovered up by the FBI without warrant or reason?

Seriously though, we all knew Palin was guilty of this. If it's not illegal, it's definitely a big swampy gray area to bypass a means of accountability as she did. We have already seen that she will never actually admit any sort of wrongdoing and is willing to stonewall an investigation. In doing this, Anonymous has made it possible for we the people to pass judgment against Gov. Palin in the only way we have available to us.

That said, the fact that Bristol's email was included is unfortunate, but we must all remember that she lost her status as a private citizen when her Mom accepted the spot for the Vice-presidency.

But the more important question is who in the Obama camp broke the law and hacked her account.

Nice going, Mother Jones. Thanks for helping to aid and abet near-illegal activities by those who hate and seek to destroy Sarah Palin. You people are the lowest of the low, and this just gives people like me even MORE resolve to make sure that Obama NEVER gets into office come November! If this situation were reversed, the Obama camp would make sure that all hell would break loose over it. You're all a bunch of hypocrites.

In retrospect it would have been better if I myself didn't include Bristol Palin's e-mail in my post. I also think, that while I appreciate the efforts you have so far done in this election I also think you are shooting yourself in the foot. While the professionalism in your main articles have stayed at their high levels which has made me a regular reader, your blog posts which are usually quite solid have taken a solid dip. No longer are they professional and they have taken a, seemingly, hysteric turn which I can only conclude is a product of desperation. While I empathize with these blog posts and where they are coming from given the absolutely appalling state of politics in the U.S., I do not see how it justifies an absence of professionalism. Start doing the jobs you did that made you a respected and valuable news source. Be professional, become clear headed and stop giving people like kelliblue anything that resembles legitimate causes for disagreement. Stop failing your readers and start answering our criticisms. Enough is Enough. We have valid criticisms and you need to address them.

Personally, my suggestions to fix the blog posts are below:

1)That only well thought out language will be acceptable for posting--the same language used in your main articles
2)Personal comment and speculation will be kept where they are most pertinent and reflect an astute well-thought out point
3)Blogs posts must contain a portion of clear-headed analysis--no longer will blogs be just a diarrhea of sound-bites, gossip, or the latest inane examples of idiocy of McCain, Palin, and co.

I'm no fan of Palin, but what, except for pure malice, would prompt you to post the personal email addresses of her daughter or, for that matter, of anyone. This is beneath Mother Jones.

Palin is a conservative far right extreme REPUBLICAN, who is an inveterate liar vying for the second highest post in the land. It seems reasonable to me that this check was accomplished.

But, in no way do I think Obama or the Obama Team had anything to do with the work of Anonymous. Apparently, Anonymous is someone who got tired of listening to Palin's incessant lies and decided to verify. I do not know if there was any law violation, since Palin's has made her life an open book. But if there is a law against Anonymous, believe me Palin will find it; but still the cat is out of the bag.

You do understand, Ms. Phillips, that distributing illegally obtained material is probably a federal offense.

Sick fucks. Where do you get off giving out her family, let alone her daughter's email addresses to the public.

Smart, fearless journalism?

Try sick, unethical journalism.

I haven't seen any official business in the emails. It is actually illegal for her to use her government accounts for personal use or campaigning. That is why she used Yahoo.

Hacking into someone's e-mail account is a federal offense. Posting screen shots of such illegally obtained materials is beyond unethical.
Add personal information about a minor, and in the eyes of this reader, you lose all respect, any and all credibility, and any chance of ever being considered professional or objective.
I hope everyone who posted this private information is prosecuted.

Would not you be tempted to delete a compromised email account? Besides, nothing is lost. The Anonymous group was kind enough to back up her account.

Lets not forget that Sarah Palin has been the victim of a criminal act. Regardless of your political leanings - hacking into her account was illegal.

If there were concerns about what Palin was using that account for then it was the job of the legitimate authorities to investigate - not internet vigilantes.

No-one deserves to have their email account hacked into illegally, and personal messages and contacts paraded across the internet.

Interestingly, Sarah Palin isn't the first famous person to have her email hacked.

Paris Hilton suffered a similar fate back in 2005. The hotel heiress's mistake was making the name of her pet chihuahua (Tinkerbell) the secret question/answer to reset her email account's password. Uh-oh

I've made a video comparing Sarah Palin's plight with Paris Hilton's experiences. You can view it at http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2008/09/18/paris-hilton-sarah-palin-video/ or embed it on your own site if you like.

Of all the emails in the account, the hackers picked 1) an email encouraging Sarah to call upon her faith in God and 2) another bolstering her pro-life views and 3) another that calls a presumably non-conservative critic "evil" and reinforces that being pro-life is the "right" issue.

Does anyone think this is a political setup to reinforce the Republican Party conservative base?

Hey kids,

In case you missed it, this story plus links to the info the hackers released is all over the Internet. If someone really wanted Bristol's e-mail address, they would be able to find it easily enough without MoJo reporting on it.

No doubt the FBI and the Secret Service are investigating this, and rightly so. However, it also goes to show why you don't do highly sensitive work like government business in a Web-based account like Yahoo. It was a foolish thing for her to do, and I can't say I'm surprised this happened in the least.

re: suspicious

yip, there was nothing that yelled anything that could be called into question. to me though, she seems like a bit of a tard.

Hey JP,

Your point was already addressed in my first post.

Throughout the entire primaries and the general election, the Obama campaign has played dirty politics. In addition to the never ending vitriol of the Obama bloggers on the internet, nearly every time I have posted a supportive blog for Hillary Clinton ... and, then for McCain/Palin ... my computer's mailbox has been inundated with hundreds of pieces of email spam. Another example of under handed behavior by Obama's henchmen, is that they have been organized to approach retirement homes, as volunteer community speakers ... only to visit multiple times spewing lop sided pro-Obama, and negative McCain propaganda to elderly people, to get their votes in November. And, now we can see unprincipled politicians and bias media hacks using the race card ... telling people " if you don't vote for Obama, you must be a racist". Usually, when Americans uncover such despicable tactics, they can count on the mainstream media to expose it to the public ... however, in this case, most of the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama ... so, they either look the other way, or they make phony biased excuses to mischaracterize, and cover up what's really happening.

Great not only does she have no experience she also doesn't know anything about technology.

I can't believe that you would post her personal email online. All I can say is what comes around goes around.

I can't believe that you would post her personal email online. All I can say is what comes around goes around. I was not sure about my vote but I am now. I am voting for this woman.

Who or what lawyers (apart from the AK legistors' investigation team), are working to counter the McCain legal offensive to stonewall?

Is there a public interest legal team at work? How can we support them?

I find that the men that work for Obama? Or may be it was Obama? I know no one know!!! Right like pigs and lipstick? The ones that did this must be perverts like peeping toms, Like old dirty men. They need to go to jail do not pass go! Obama’s men may have a child porn problem. Did any one cheek out this man for Child Porn?

sue
I am an MD and this very conmen with men that have Child Porn problems.
They like to break in to others E-mails and so on, these men are very sick!

I find it extremely unprofessional to post a list of Sarah Palin contacts as part of this article, considering that those e-mail addresses have nothing to do with anything. It serves no purpose to post them, other than to invide the privacy of even more people. THIS IS NOT JOURNALISM. I find this as appalling as I do internet hackers.