Sunlight Foundation Announces 'Sarah's Inbox' 227
Eponymous Hero writes "In a sequel to elenasinbox.com, the publicly released emails of Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, Sunlight Foundation has unveiled sarahsinbox.com to offer you easy access and search to Sarah Palin's recently released emails. If that doesn't flip your bits, have a gander at some of the tools Sunlight Foundation offers relating to government watchdogging, like Poligraft, or Inbox Influencer."
Just like another Weiner scandal (Score:2, Insightful)
Keep our attention off of what is really happening that could make a difference in our lives. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain!
Re:Just like another Weiner scandal (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Call me when we have a similar facility for people on this list [forbes.com].
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I'm pretty sure I want careful scrutiny of every other human being on Earth besides myself, because you can't trust any of them, rich or poor. (Of course, I'm trustworthy... just ask me!)
And, in your heart, you know you want exactly the same thing.
The tricky part is backing down from that very unreasonable desire and coming to some kind of reasonable compromise where, perhaps, the people with the greatest power bear the burden of the greatest transparency.
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As long as they are elected public officials, I would have no problem with that at all. However, any non-public figures should have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their personal email. Would you expect to not have your work email read by your employer? Well, we are the employers of elected public figures, so their email is work property and not private property.
Are you saying that if you are not a citizen of Alaska, you have not business reading Sarah Palin's email?
If so, I agree. There is no reason for the governor of Alaska's email to be national news other than a classic smear campaign.
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If you think that a governor of a state only does business within their own state, you are either being ignorant or misleading.
Well, if Alaska's governor and my state's governor exchanged emails, then I should be able to have access to those emails from MY state governor's email. I, as a non-citizen of Alaska, have no business reading the email from the governor of Alaska.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that those who elect public officials should have access to their work emails. I do NOT feel they should be available to people who are not the constituents of those officials. In this case, I feel that any Alaskan citizen should b
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Would you expect to have your work e-mail read by all the stockholders of your employer?
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I think his point was that you've chosen an arbitrary amount.
I've chosen the most appropriate starting place.
There are people with a lot of power who are not on that list,
Yes, but let's start with those with the most power.
and there are people on that list who are not much involved in politics
Everything is politics. The extent to which you are involved in politics correlates with the amount of power you have.
You need to show why the people on that list are lesser citizens than yourself, deserving of fewer rights.
We all have the right to secrecy in matters of little consequence to others. None of us have the right to secrecy when making decisions which have the potential for great impact on others. A right doesn't necessarily affect each person equally: property law can only act to restrict the man wit
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I think his point was that you've chosen an arbitrary amount.
I've chosen the most appropriate starting place.
There are people with a lot of power who are not on that list,
Yes, but let's start with those with the most power.
and there are people on that list who are not much involved in politics
Everything is politics. The extent to which you are involved in politics correlates with the amount of power you have.
You need to show why the people on that list are lesser citizens than yourself, deserving of fewer rights.
We all have the right to secrecy in matters of little consequence to others. None of us have the right to secrecy when making decisions which have the potential for great impact on others. A right doesn't necessarily affect each person equally: property law can only act to restrict the man without property, for example - such laws are of no benefit to the man yet they still apply to him because they are considered to benefit society at large. This is the basis for all law.
Really? So simply because they have over X amount of dollars you feel they should have no right to privacy? I'm sure in your role as mother, father, son, daughter, manager, supervisor or something you also make decisions that impact others. So, we can have all your emails, personal files and thoughts too, right? It's for the benefit of society at large!
I thought we should be protecting more people's privacy not trying to come up with more reasons to spy on them. Or is it that it's okay to spy on them becaus
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I.E., the OP wants to strip rights based on wealth. The respondent was only haggling.
Is Palin in the govt? (Score:2, Informative)
I can understand govt watchdogging; we need that. But she's not even in the govt.
Re:Is Palin in the govt? (Score:4, Informative)
But the emails stem from a time when she was in government. Just because of that, I say that they are fair game. Now.... if people would stop reporting on her every waking minute (and don't watch it, for god's sake!), she would disappear into the night. She is nothing without publicity.
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Hatred goes a long way (Score:2)
The number of justifications given is just endless. Whenever I encounter someone with PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) I have learned it is best just to walk away. It gets really silly if they start spouting Tina Fey lines when they try to show their intelligence.
If anything the e-mail episode proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the partisan traits of two certain papers.
Now, lets see someone try this with those on the other side of the political spectrum, say someone who ain't white, and see how far it gets.
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Can the Left say "Jumped the shark"?
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I can understand govt watchdogging; we need that. But she's not even in the govt.
But she and at least a few other people would like for her to be. I'm not optimistic enough to say for sure "America would not vote Sarah Palin into the white house," so the more insurance we have that she won't get there, the better.
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Y'Know, I Never Really Bought Into This... (Score:5, Interesting)
...this ...this ...what do they call it? "Palin Derangement Syndrome." Yeah. "PDS." But I see it now, with this whole e-mail witch hunt, and man, is it ugly and perverse. And from the people who typically whine the most about "privacy," no less!
Pathetic.
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But I see it now, with this whole e-mail witch hunt, and man, is it ugly and perverse. And from the people who typically whine the most about "privacy," no less!
If you don't want the public looking through your work related e-mail, don't get elected to public office.
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Why would his college papers tell you anything useful?
I'm ten years out of college and a completely different person.
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So you are in favor of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's subpoena to get the climate research data from Michael Mann then.
Good, because Mann received funding from the state of Virginia.
Michael Mann is not an elected official. (Score:2)
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They also have no expectation of privacy for what they put in the dumpster behind their office, but people generally don't sift through public figures' trash. There's little reason to expect to find anything of interest and this is the FOIA equivalent of a fishing expedition.
Of course FOIA fishing expeditions aren't illegal and you're welcome to sift through her trash. However, I can also exercise my right to tell you that you're sifting through trash.
I can't stand the woman but this whole thing is petty.
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I can't stand the woman but this whole thing is petty.
You are being the stereotypical useful idiot, unless you're being paid, in which case you're a ham-handed shill. Every public figure's communications are sifted through any time it's possible to lay hands on the material. The only difference about this particular media event is that it has been made into a media event specifically to provoke the kind of reaction you are demonstrating here.
I only hope you are using me and don't really believe this shit...
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Can we please... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Can we please... (Score:4, Insightful)
>irrational
Speak for yourself.
As someone living up here in the Northeast, when you come up here to lecture us about history (there are 391 years of it here), you'd better know your shit.
But no, she came up here, didn't know, tried to make some sort of point that I'm still trying to figure out, and is arrogant about it. And that's just recent history. Just trying to parse her word salad on a day to day basis must make any political aide or reporter go insane.
Yet she has aspirations to be President some day.
Stupid isn't bad, if you're not bull-headed. Arrogant isn't bad if you know your stuff. Stupid *and* arrogant? You really want that?
The hatred is not irrational.
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BMO
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There should be a word for when one is both in error and arrogant, such as "errogant".
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Amusingly, that's one of the most common problems with slashdot posters; they're frequently wrong, often stupid, and always convinced of their truth.
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Amusingly, that's one of the most common problems with slashdot posters; they're frequently wrong, often stupid, and always convinced of their truth.
Thank god you and me are completely different!
Re:Can we please... (Score:5, Insightful)
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"What news papers do you read?" ...that's some tough gotcha journalism!
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No kidding. Joe Biden would be this decade's Dan Quayle if he were a Republican. They'd be showing the bit where he asked the guy in the wheelchair to stand up over and over on the Daily Show. You'd see constant mention of his quote that "J-O-B-S, JOBS!" is a three letter word.
It's funny how the press seems to give him a pass. Such a mystery of the universe.
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I would like to introduce you to Joe Biden, Vice President and first in line to become POTUS. . . . . You were saying?
Are you freaking kidding me? Are you so enamored by Palin that you refuse to see any of her follies?
Perhaps you should re-watch the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate.
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>irrational
Speak for yourself.
As someone living up here in the Northeast, when you come up here to lecture us about history (there are 391 years of it here), you'd better know your shit.
But no, she came up here, didn't know, tried to make some sort of point that I'm still trying to figure out, and is arrogant about it. And that's just recent history. Just trying to parse her word salad on a day to day basis must make any political aide or reporter go insane.
Yet she has aspirations to be President some day.
Stupid isn't bad, if you're not bull-headed. Arrogant isn't bad if you know your stuff. Stupid *and* arrogant? You really want that?
The hatred is not irrational.
--
BMO
Not irrational? Hmmm... I suppose we have different definitions about that. However, that being said I have to ask if you merely accepted the story that Palin was an idiot on those comments or did you bother to look around and do some reading? At least NPR [npr.org] did do some asking around and such.
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I didn't so much pay attention to what NPR or what anyone else said.
I saw the transcript and made my own deductions.
I wrote about this earlier.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2215710&cid=36356586 [slashdot.org]
You cannot cram for Northeast history. You simply can't.
"He who warned, uh, the ⦠the British that they werenâ(TM)t gonna be takinâ(TM) away our arms, uh, by ringinâ(TM) those bells and, um, by makinâ(TM) sure that as heâ(TM)s ridinâ(TM) his horse through town to sen
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Goddamnit Slashdot.
When is this place going to adopt UTF?
--
BMO
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My dislike of Palin is entirely rational. The woman is catering to a demographic that has been playing la-la-la-I-am-not-listening with any news about the changes of the last 50 years. These are people who want to go back to the grand days of the 1960s have the very dangerous idea that they can somehow do that. Things have changed: there are now 6+ billion people instead of a couple billion; the Chinese way of life is in our face instead of a very, very long way away; the very climate is different and is pr
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"She did a decent job in Alaska."
You mean the job she quit halfway?
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You mean the job she quit halfway?
She was being hounded by ethics complaints after being named as Mccain's running mate. These complaints can be initiated by anybody, she had to pay for her defense personally, and state law prohibited the government from picking up the tab even if she won. So she couldn't afford to stay in office, probably thanks to the same people who want to read all her emails.
How about quitting 2/3 of the way through? (Score:2)
Like Obama.
Actually, he effectively quite one-third of the way through since he was in campaign mode after two years.
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I am responding to someone who claims irrational dislike against Palin when the evidence is to the contrary.
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Sorry, Im not closed minded like a lot of partisan politics usually is. I dont like Pelosi either.
and comparing the two and saying "meh... all politicians blah blah..." is a cop out.
Fight for the better politician and throw out the bad ones, do no make excuses for them. Set an example.. and this goes for all politicians.
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People are drama addicts. Palin's 15 minutes was just enough time to launch a whole new domain of reality TV. It's a brilliantly manufactured PR campaign. no less.
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And of course, a nitwit would drive leftwing moonbats insane... I mean wouldn't you be driven insane when asked to debate someone, who is more adept at bullying and refuse to accept criticism with dignity and reply to it with logical coherency instead of accusing a conspiracy theory?
Oh wait, you are the typical American nitwit who stands for the underdog with no thought. You fit right in with her.
Not necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of email sifting is more about drumming up negative publicity for one's political enemies than watching out for government abuse.
If you really want to find government abuse all you need is thomas.loc.gov. Most if it is documented there.
Everyone is now dumber (Score:5, Funny)
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Watch the Prez Instead (Score:2)
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She was in office when this FOIA request was made. It's just that the stated purposefully delayed for enough years that it wasn't until after she left office that they released anything.
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But she's not in office now. The level of zeal in pursuing an out-of-office governor turned vice presidential candidate fits in perfectly with my observations that the mainstream media in this country is biased against those to the right of the US political spectrum.
In a box (Score:2)
When I saw the sarahsinbox.com url, I thought maybe it was her box in a box: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xElIik0Ys0 [youtube.com]
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Why Palin? (Score:2)
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I'm not likely to agree politically with the crowd of DailyKos readers or whatnot who are so into this, but even if I did, why the big interest in Palin's official emails rather than, say, Mitt Romney's, Tim Pawlenty's, or Gary Johnson's? They're ex-governors as well, and they're actually running, while Palin isn't and probably won't be.
Because they aren't Sarah Palin and for some reason some people think we MUST DESTROY SARAH PALIN!!!11!!one!!!111!!!
As to they why.. no clue..
Because they absolutely hate Palin (Score:2)
I mean serious burning, seething hatred.
They have an obsessive compulsion that she must be destroyed!
She must be mocked at every turn. Even when she says something historically correct, mock her for being incorrect and ignorant. The mainstream press will likely only report the mocking, not the fact that she was right and her attackers were ignorant.
I have seriously never seen anything like this before. Even though the left hated Bush, it didn't rise to this level of obsessiveness. Even the birthers don't se
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It's funny they haven't found anything (Score:2)
They desperately wanted them for the 2008 election, but didn't get them. Now the media was drooling over their release coming into this election season, even openly enlisting readers to dig through them to find damaging material to kick her out of this election.
And all they show is a governor doing her job.
Oh horrors, she arranged a baby shower for her kid with the media, demanding all gifts go to families of deployed soldiers. What a bad person!
A cursory glance (Score:2)
Sure you could get this sort of information by FOIA request but it's reasonably apparent that politicians aren't tremendously afraid of the public reading their every word.
I gave the emails a quick glance and one of the things I'm most surprised by is how informal most of the emails are. I think if I were sending an email
Re:First post. (Score:5, Funny)
I think you are referring to "sarahsbox.com"
An honest mistake...
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If you think she's good at judo, you should see her box.
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I prefer to hit the outbox just to hear the squeals she makes.
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I'd actually prefer the outbox too, that's where the crazy shit likely is.
The inbox consists merely of spam.
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You want to hit blown-out, redneck vagina?
You must be new here.
When the only other option is the palm... yeah, I'd hit it.
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Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, I mean, she couldn't possibly have an email on a provider like Yahoo that's not subject to scrutiny (unless someone "hacks" it by inputting easily accessible answers to security questions) and use it for state business, that would be illegal!
Oh wait...
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Because Kagan isn't the one with a porn parody character. Or so I...think...and...hope...
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Rule 34
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Thanks, now I don't want to eat lunch...
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I'd like to see the email headers myself... the question is not whether you are paranoid, it's whether you are paranoid enough. :p
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This whole article is a troll.
Anybody who has ever had a mail account on a government system knows that all email is archived specifically to comply with the FOIA. It's not like some savvy whistleblower stumbled across Palin's personal emails.
Let's try an experiment:
BUSH IS EVIL!
Now the lemming liberal moderators will blow a fuse trying to figure out which way to mod this.
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BUSH IS EVIL!
True. Everyone knows that shaved is much better.
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Re:What's the point? (Score:4)
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Umm, how are the official emails she used to conduct business as the governor not important? And how is that even remotely comparable to someone's birth certificate?
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Umm, how are the official emails she used to conduct business as the governor not important? And how is that even remotely comparable to someone's birth certificate?
Are you from Alaska? Would you consider voting for Palin if she ended up on another national ticket? If you answer "No" to both of those questions, then please explain why you would have the slightest interest in her emails?
As for comparing it to Obama's birth certificate, the point is how absurd both of these issues are. The vast right wing conspiracy was harassing Obama for the birth certificate. Left wingers are doing the same with Palin's emails (or anything else they can come up with).
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Only Score:0 Troll? Can't we go for -1? This whole article is a troll. Anybody who has ever had a mail account on a government system knows that all email is archived specifically to comply with the FOIA. It's not like some savvy whistleblower stumbled across Palin's personal emails.
The Streisand effect is working here. By delaying as long as possible, then refusing to provide the e-mails in an easy to search format, whoever was in charge of this made certain it would be a big deal.
And transparency in government, especially among (ahem) potential presidential candidates, is a big deal.
Let's try an experiment: BUSH IS EVIL! Now the lemming liberal moderators will blow a fuse trying to figure out which way to mod this.
If you're upset by the troll moderation, here's the lesson: try not typing "libtard" into your post. Maturity and all that.
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Don't mind it. Remember that it is perfectly fine to have scientist's e-mails stolen by russian hackers and make up a completely random "Climategate" out of it. All peachy. But if the teabagger's favourite MILF has to comply to a FOIA, the libertards are supposed to get their panties in a twist. It's just natural.
If that research is funded by tax payer dollars or is used to form public policy, shouldn't those emails be public? Also, isn't science supposed to be open?
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This is childish, a diversion from the real criminals in government. Slashdot should ignore this, but most on here are anti-American anything so it gets posted. You idiots do realize both parties are screwing us over?
I think you're reading the wrong website if you're expecting balanced news reporting from all sides of the political spectrum - Slashdot is not a political website (though they do certainly run politically slanted aricles on geek political issues like net neutrality and freedom of speech issues).
This issue has some geek interest since the documents were released on paper (apparently as a big F*ck you! to everyone that wanted to make them public, since a CD-ROM or DVD release would have been trivial and save
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She is someone who is a role model, and has lead a good life.
There are people who can't stand that, it reminds them of how little they've done. So they try to tear it down.
Oh seriously! Come on man... espouse her all you want, but elevating her demagoguery to the status of a role-model?
Look, I am not a big fan of either party - but lets call a spade a spade here shall we!
She was just present at the right place at the right time. Are there qualities in her worth appreciating? Sure.
But remember she is just another politician -- and you always gotta have a healthy skepticism towards them. They are your public servants; not the other way around.
There are millions of women
Not just exchange (Score:2)
They had to get emails on other servers, including non-government servers Palin was using. Some of these sources were found out partway through. Plus they switched naming of all accounts to @alaska.gov during the period, so after a search and partial processing, they had to do it all over again for another batch of emails. There are also indications they screwed up at some point trying to export emails.
Then after all of that lawyers have to go over every single page by hand to make sure no attorney-client p