:arrow: ... from washingtonpost.com Palin's Yahoo! Account Hacked Updated 7:21 p.m. By Michael D. Shear and Karl Vick Hackers said they took over a Yahoo! e-mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Wednesday, publishing some of its contents on the Internet and exposing the Republican vice presidential nominee's private communications and use of the personal account for government business. The hackers posted what they said were personal photos, the contents of several exchanges, the subject lines of dozens of e-mails and Palin's e-mail contact list on a site called WikiLeaks.org. That site claimed that it received the electronic files from a group identifying itself only as "Anonymous." "At around midnight last night some members affiliated with the group [anonymous] gained access to governor Palin's email account, 'gov.palin@yahoo.com' and handed over the contents to the government sunshine site Wikileaks.org," said a message on the site. Rick Davis, the campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon condemning the incident. "This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law," Davis said. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment." The episode focuses attention on Palin's use of her personal e-mail account even as lawmakers in Alaska are probing whether she improperly used her position to pressure the state's police commissioner in a case involving her former brother-in-law. Investigators have been combing through her state e-mails for evidence as to whether she fired the commissioner, Walter Monegan, because he refused to take action against her brother-in-law, a state trooper at the time. Palin has come under fire in recent days for her use of a personal e-mail accounts to conduct state business. An Alaska activist has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking disclosure of e-mails from one of those accounts. Press reports about that effort, including in The Washington Post, printed the e-mail address of one of Palin's Yahoo! accounts, gov.sarah@yahoo.com. That account appears to have been linked to the one that was hacked. Both accounts appear to have been deactivated. E-mails sent to them Wednesday afternoon were returned as undeliverable. Andrée McLeod, the activist who filed the FOIA request, said Wednesday evening that Palin should have known better than to conduct state business using an unsecured e-mail account. "If this woman is so careless as to conduct state business on a private e-mail account that has been hacked into, what in the world is she going to do when she has access to information that is vital to our national security interests?" she asked. McCain officials did not return calls and e-mails seeking further comment on the hacking episode and McLeod's remarks. The documents put online by the hackers Wednesday include a family photo of one of Palin's daughters holding Palin's youngest son, Trig. It also showed screenshots of Palin's inbox, indicating subject lines that would be found in a personal e-mail account: "HI SARAH," and "Welcome Home!" and "cousin jason." It also contained an exchange between Palin and Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who is running for Congress and is awaiting the results of a primary fight with Don Young. In the e-mail, Parnell complains about an exchange with KFQD 750 AM radio host Dan Fagan that Fagan is replaying. "Arghhhh! He is so inconsistent and purposefully misleading," Palin says, below a subject line that refers to "dan." "I am sorry Sean. He can keep trying, but you are the right one for the Congressional position and he KNOWS it. " The disclosure of her account information also included the subject lines -- but not the contents -- of other e-mails, including ones like "Fw: veep talking pts" and "INPUT FOR SARAH IN THE TRI CITY HERALD.....YEA DOGGIES." There was also evidence of more official-sounding e-mails. One e-mail referenced "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax" and another said "DPS Personnel and Budget Issues," an apparent reference to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/17/palins_yahoo_account_hacked.html
Dare I say that the McCain/Palin camp will probably now want a full investigation into this matter. Funny thing that word "i-n-v-e-s-t-i-g-a-t-i-o-n". :smt017
It's ironic. The government passes legislation to spy on the people. And the people spy on Governors and other legislators.
Yet it's ok for them to do it, but when we do it it's "invasion of privacy" and "wrong". And when they do it it's "in the best interest of the country"
