The jury is deliberating on Tuesday in the trial of Tennessee college student David Kernell, on trial for hacking into former Gov. Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account and posting it on the web during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Much of the media attention on the trial was centered around two star witnesses — Palin, the 2008 running mate of Sen. John McCain, and Palin’s daughter, 19-year-old Bristol.
Palin, who entered the courthouse upbeat, chipper and smiling, testified on Friday that the ordeal caused “huge disruption” to the campaign, “creating distrust.”
“We spent days trying to correct the media,” Palin said.
Palin said that the media’s mentality was “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” so media outlets were investigating the e-mail and, according to Palin, assuming there was something that would derail the campaign.
After her testimony on Friday, she told a group of reporters outside the Howard H. Baker Jr. United States Courthouse that the trial was a “sad state of affairs,” “trying to teach somebody that it was wrong to do such a thing.”
“It’s not right,” Palin said. “It’s not legal. It’s not fair. It’s not decent.”

Phone calls to Bristol

Palin also worried about her daughter Bristol. In the screenshots of her e-mail box that appeared on the news, the second e-mail listed from the top — titled “LOOK AT TRIG!” and containing a picture of Palin’s youngest son eating her first whole food — was listed as from a cell phone number. That number belonged to Bristol, and she received several phone calls as a result.
Bristol, who had her mother listed as “Big Momma” in her cell-phone contacts, was 17 at the time of the incident and got her cell phone, a silver Blackberry Curve, through her boyfriend.
Bristol testified on Wednesday that her phone number was unlisted, and she only gave it out to close family, friends, doctors and teachers.
She recognized her mother calling when her caller ID said “unknown number,” so when she started receiving calls in the middle of the night, she assumed they were her mother.
She said the calls were “buried in different tones of voice” and “different area codes.”
One call came from “a bunch of boys” saying they were at the Palins’ house in Wasilla, Alaska, and needed to be let in.
She also said she received “hundreds of text messages,” and phone calls kept coming until she handed over her phone to Secret Service eight or nine days after the initial incident.
Bristol said the situation was scary because she lived in “the middle of nowhere.”
In cross examination, defense attorney Wade Davies asked her if she said in an interview to two FBI agents that the calls were “derogatory and offensive” but she “did not feel threatened.” Bristol said she recalled saying the calls were “derogatory and offensive,” but she did not recall saying she “did not feel threatened.”
Sarah Palin said in testimony on Friday, “She (Bristol) was scared and didn’t know what she was supposed to do to stop (the calls).”
With Palin on the campaign trail, heading to Michigan, her and husband Todd were thousands of miles away from Bristol.
“I was greatly concerned about communication,” Palin said. “... It was some hours before Bristol was able to contact me.”
But that line of communication would be cut off when Secret Service advised the Palins to shut down communication lines, including Bristol’s cell phone.

4chan postings

In his testimony, FBI agent and forensic examiner Stephen McFall and defense attorneys went over postings that were made in a 4chan thread, involving the computer attributed to Kernell and other posters.
Early posts in response suggested disbelief: “Pics or it didn’t happen,” “OP (original poster) is a troll” and “Send e-mails to prove or GTFO.”
A post cited as originating from Kernell’s IP address said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are pics of her daughter, the preggo (pregnant) one. I don’t think I should post those, though.”
Another poster responded later, “At least give someone else the password, and let them ruin her life.”
McFall testified that three minutes later, the password was shared.

Yahoo e-mail creation

Frank Bailey, a former Palin staffer, testified on Wednesday that he created the account and was told by Palin to do so and specifically use Yahoo as a service.
He created the gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail address as Palin’s e-mail for personal use and linked it to her red Blackberry, the Blackberry she also used for personal use.
Bailey said in his testimony that he advised the Palins to stop using Yahoo accounts multiple times in the past. After Bailey saw a New York Times article that mentioned Palin using mainstream media, it only intensified his ill feelings about using Yahoo.
“You have to get off Yahoo,” Bailey said he told Todd Palin. “It is not secure.”
Sarah Palin said in her Friday testimony that she did not recall anyone ever telling her to not use Yahoo.