Palin's Email Habits Echo Worst Practices of Bush Administration Says Expert

ABC News: Experts Don't Yahoo! Over Palin's E-Mail Practices

Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail habit of using a private account to
communicate with aides echos the worst practices of the Bush
administration, says one expert.

It's not a great idea to run a government using Yahoo! e-mail accounts.

That's the word from experts, anyway, reacting to news that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail had been hacked earlier this week. McCain's vice-presidential pick apparently used the accounts to communicate with key aides about government business.

The practice is dangerous, said experts, and can run counter to laws
ensuring government is open and accountable -- a tough point for Palin,
who has made "open government" a catchphrase of her political identity.

By using non-governmental email systems, "Your information is out
there available, beyond the official mechanisms there to protect it,"
said Amit Yoran, the nation's first cybersecurity chief. Yoran is now
CEO of Netwitness Corp., a computer security firm for government and
private entities.

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From LegitGov.org

Sarah
Palin Yahoo account 2008 (Wikileaks) 16 Sep 2008 Circa
midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) activists loosely affiliated
with the group 'anonymous' gained access to U.S. Republican Party Vice-presidential
candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account gov.palin@yahoo.com
and passed information to Wikileaks. Governor Palin has come under
criticism for using private email accounts to conduct government business
and in the process avoid transparency laws. The zip archive made available
by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails,
address book and a couple of family photos.

AP
refuses Secret Service request in Palin email leak 17 Sep 2008
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.