In response to an email questioning the Associated Press’ premise that the hack reveals Palin’s supposed misuse of email accounts rather than the hacker’s crime. Here’s the text of the email from an actual AP reporter:

From: “Bridis, Ted” TBridis@ap.org
To:
Subject: RE: Palin’s email theft

If Gov. Palin hadn’t been using a consumer-level Yahoo! account (more than one, actually) this crime wouldn’t have happened because the hacker exploited the service’s “forgot-my-password” mechanism, which is inherently insecure.

Previously disclosed e-mails indicate her administration embraced Yahoo! Accounts, among other reasons, because of questions over whether personal e-mail accounts are covered under Alaska’s Open Records Act. Palin’s critics in Alaska were poring over records they had obtained from the governor’s office of official internal e-mail communications and causing political hay.

The issues are inextricably linked.

And if people didn’t have Social Security numbers, they wouldn’t get them stolen because there’d be no motivation, right? If there’s alleged misuse of emails, you investigate it legally by obtaining subpoenas. You don’t illegally hack an account, copy the emails, post them to the world, then try to cover your tracks. The Associated Press is more interested in what the illegally-obtained emails contained than the fact that somebody illegally obtained them.