Thursday, September 18, 2008

Moral sickness at AP

This from Editor & Publisher (emphasis added) WASHINGTON Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate. "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement. The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply. The reason the FBI wants the e-mails isn’t to review the content, as E & P implies, it is to find the sender/s addresses, so they can trace down the hackers. Only the AP knows the sender/s and they refused to comply. There is a moral sickness at AP. Whether they are trying to equate this to a “shield law” situation, which it is not, or simply show their disdain for the Secret Service and the Republican VP nominee, it puts them on the side of the hackers. Not good company to have. One wonders what their attitude would be if an email had been sent to them warning of the 9/11 attacks. Would they share the email/sender address with the FBI, or protect their source? Sick.

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