

Palin e-mail snoop sentenced to year in prison - buzzblog
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/palin-e-mail-snoop-sentenced-year-prison

======
phamilton
I always wonder what the crime is in these scenarios. Is it that they invaded
someone's privacy? Or that they invaded Palin's privacy?

Is this punishment for the act or the target of the act?

~~~
hga
It's a bit more serious than "invasion of privacy", e.g. he changed the
password on her site.

The big crime, thought, the felony that will put him away for "a year and one
day" was obstruction of justice. I don't know the details, but I suspect the
old "it's not the crime but the coverup" came into play there.

As far as "the crime", I suspect not so much the attack on the Palins as an
attack on someone running in a presidential race. If he'd done this to Biden,
what you expect the outcome to be?

We have to draw lines as to what is and isn't acceptable behavior in politics,
and breakins like this or Watergate are considered to be beyond the pale, as
mentioned in the article.

