Student court calls do-over on election

4/12/2012: The “We are Oregon” ASUO presidential slate tried to pull a Bush and get themselves declared winners, but the student court slapped them down. Rebecca X of the Commentator has the commentary. Branden Alexander of the ODE gets a good quote on the “Katie and Alex” phishing scandal that led to the redo:

Journalism professor Kyu Youm — who specializes in communication law — believes that the case could involve more than just computer crimes.

“To me, it seems like this case could have to do with identity theft,” Youm said. “When dealing with emails, it’s a personal account with personal information. That could be seen as identity theft to people.”

Youm related it to the 2008 case of David Kernell, who hacked the email account of Sarah Palin, who at the time was the vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party. The jury was unable to come up with a decision on Kernell’s possible identity theft. Kernell was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison with three years of probation.

So, can UO’s new police department bust the students who did this? Apparently they haven’t been been granted that authority just yet. Jamie Moffitt and Doug Tripp will get it any day though – what an exciting, brave new world!