Palin Calls E-Mail Hack 'Most Disruptive' Campaign Event

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
November 18, 2009

Never mind the disastrous interview with Katie Couric or the blank stares in response to Charlie Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine.
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls the hacking of her Yahoo e-mail account "the most disruptive and discouraging" incident in last year's presidential campaign.

Writing in her new book, Going Rogue: An American Life, Palin says the intrusion into her personal e-mail account in September 2008 "created paralysis" in her administration, because it cut off easy communication with her "Alaska staff." Presumably, this refers to her staff in the governor's office, which would seem to be an acknowledgment that the personal account was used to conduct critical state work, as alleged in an activist's lawsuit last year.

Threat Level broke the story in September 2008 that someone using the name "Rubico" had obtained access to Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and posted photos -- including two pictures of her children -- and five screen shots of e-mail messages on the whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
Bloggers traced "Rubico" to a 20-year-old Tennessee college student named David Kernell, whose father is a Democratic state legislator.
Kernell is now free on bail awaiting trial for the hack, scheduled for next year.

Palin writes in her book that she was sitting in a Michigan hotel room with her husband Todd when she learned about the intrusion on TV. Just then Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager, walked in to confirm what she'd just seen on the news.