This edition of Campus Pulse focuses on voicing the opinions of UT students regarding the debacle which includes a UT student and Tennessee state representative.

Politics Editor Austin Baird asked UT students the following question: If found guilty of hacking Gov. Sarah Palin's private e-mail account, what punishment does David Kernell deserve?

In their own words

"Life in prison. There's no excusing what he did, absolutely no way he deserves to see the other side of the bars before he dies."

--Andrew J.

My take: Life in prison, needless to say, is more than a little excessive though a harsh punishment is inevitable if Kernell is found guilty.

"He should be kicked out of UT and sent to jail for a long time."

--Sarah M.

My take: It's difficult to imagine that Kernell would be allowed to stay at UT if he is found guilty of a federal crime of any sort. Unless he gets off with a misdemeanor, which is very possible, Kernell may have cut his career as a UT student short.

"None. Americans deserve to know everything about presidential candidates no matter what it takes."

--Kortney J.

My take: Invasion of privacy goes to far when looking for information about candidates. Especially, as was the case with the Palin hacker, when the hacking is apparently malicious.

"Little if any punishment would be right. All he did was take a few pictures of e-mails and a contact sheet. Who cares? I've done worse to my friends on Facebook."

--Cliff R.

My take: Even if you've done 'worse to your friends on Facebook' it makes the actions no less criminal. The decision to hack Palin's account was likely more a prank than anything, but the actions are clearly in violation of privacy laws.

"It doesn't matter at all, the economy and so many other things are more important that news shouldn't even talk about him."

--John P.

My take: John is largely correct. The true issues of the campaign (the economic bail-out, the war, gas prices, etc.) should be the primary focus moving forward; not minor issues like this. Even so, it would be ridiculous to expect media not to spend any time talking about what happened.

Campus Pulse is not a scientific poll and is not intended to represent all UT students. Instead, the goal is to give a quick overview of UT student's political views. At the request of numerous students, last names have been kept anonymous.