Chicago (IL) - David Kernell, the 20-year old University of Tennessee student and son of Rep. Mike Kernell (D-Tennessee) who is accused of breaking into the Yahoo e-mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, asked to dismiss the felony charge against him and requested a federal court to bar prosecutors from calling him a “hacker”.
Wade Davies, Kernell’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the felony charge on October 27, and will appear in a hearing today to address his request. The filing states that the prosecutors improperly combined two identical misdemeanor provisions in an attempt to create a felony.
David Kernell allegedly broke into the private e-mail account of Palin after he read news stories that discussed her use of private e-mail for government correspondence.
Kernell was allegedly able to obtain access to the account through guessing the answers to security questions, and then resetting the password to the account to “popcorn”. Kernell has been accused of posting the new password on a forum at 4chan.org using the username This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and then bragging about his hack of the account.
The indictment states that as soon as Kernell was worried that law enforcement might be on his trail he “removed, altered, concealed, and covered up” files on his personal laptop computer.
Even though Kernell tried to cover his tracks, it did not take long at all for bloggers to trace the 4chan.org posting to Kernell. The FBI was able to trace the IP address to Kernell’s apartment located off campus in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is where he was indicted on October 7, 2008.
Kernell is only charged with one count that cites two separate statutes - The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act. The stored communications act was utilized to turn what would typically be a misdemeanor into a felony.
Davies filed a separate motion that asked the court to prohibit the prosecution, and witnesses from referring to Kernell as a hacker, or referring to his crime as “hacking”. Kernell’s attorney believes that those terms do not accurately describe the actions that Kernell performed. Davies stated that "hacking" is generally referred to the use of "specialized computer skills to break codes and often to do damage to remote computers" and does not refer to an individual who merely guessed the answers to security questions to gain access to someone’s account.
"Because of the negative connotations evoked by these terms, there is a significant danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues and misleading the jury," Davies wrote in his motion. "Hackers are commonly portrayed as dangerous criminals who are involved in malicious conduct such as credit card fraud, stealing, intentional disruption of legitimate activities and causing economic damages."
If he is convicted of the felony charges, Kernell will face a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.
Wade Davies, Kernell’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the felony charge on October 27, and will appear in a hearing today to address his request. The filing states that the prosecutors improperly combined two identical misdemeanor provisions in an attempt to create a felony.
David Kernell allegedly broke into the private e-mail account of Palin after he read news stories that discussed her use of private e-mail for government correspondence.
Kernell was allegedly able to obtain access to the account through guessing the answers to security questions, and then resetting the password to the account to “popcorn”. Kernell has been accused of posting the new password on a forum at 4chan.org using the username This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and then bragging about his hack of the account.
The indictment states that as soon as Kernell was worried that law enforcement might be on his trail he “removed, altered, concealed, and covered up” files on his personal laptop computer.
Even though Kernell tried to cover his tracks, it did not take long at all for bloggers to trace the 4chan.org posting to Kernell. The FBI was able to trace the IP address to Kernell’s apartment located off campus in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is where he was indicted on October 7, 2008.
Kernell is only charged with one count that cites two separate statutes - The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act. The stored communications act was utilized to turn what would typically be a misdemeanor into a felony.
Davies filed a separate motion that asked the court to prohibit the prosecution, and witnesses from referring to Kernell as a hacker, or referring to his crime as “hacking”. Kernell’s attorney believes that those terms do not accurately describe the actions that Kernell performed. Davies stated that "hacking" is generally referred to the use of "specialized computer skills to break codes and often to do damage to remote computers" and does not refer to an individual who merely guessed the answers to security questions to gain access to someone’s account.
"Because of the negative connotations evoked by these terms, there is a significant danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues and misleading the jury," Davies wrote in his motion. "Hackers are commonly portrayed as dangerous criminals who are involved in malicious conduct such as credit card fraud, stealing, intentional disruption of legitimate activities and causing economic damages."
If he is convicted of the felony charges, Kernell will face a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.
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