And the Password is "maverick."

At least it might have been until September 16th.

This morning David C. Kernell a twenty-year old University of Tennessee student was indicted by a federal grand jury for accessing VP Candidate Sarah Palin's email account.

Kernell--whose father Mike Kernell is a democrat in the Tennessee House of Representatives--successfully reset the password to Govenor Palin's Yahoo email account. No high level hacking skills were required in this instance as Kernell answered security questions about the candidate's birthdate, ZIP code, and used the phrase 'Wasilla High' (where she met her spouse) to gain entry.

Once inside the account, Kernell reset the password to 'popcorn' took screenshots of some e-mail messages and other public information and posted them and the password on his personal website. Kernell voluntarily turned himself into federal authorities for arrest and faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Palin has already come under fire for using a non-governmental email account to conduct state business while on the road during the campaign. Some lawyers in Alaska believe that Palin's e-mails about public business should be treated like any other record even if they're in a private account.

Having been hacked once, we're pretty certain that Governor Palin's password is much more secure these days. We're also willing to bet it contains none of the following words or phrases: future-pres2016, all-of-them, dog-gone-it, hockey-mom, lipstick, pitbull115, 4mr_beauty_queen, gunslinger, gosh_darn, or gov_moosehunter01.

--Kyle Gassiott

1:01 PM ET | 10- 8-2008 | permalink

comments | | e-mail