Hackers access Palin's Yahoo e-mail account

COMPUTER HACKERS have accessed a Yahoo e-mail account belonging to US Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

In doing so they have published some of her private communications to expose what appeared to be her use of a personal account for government business.

The hackers posted what they said were personal photographs, the contents of several messages, the subject lines of dozens of e-mails and Ms Palin’s e-mail contact list on a site called Wikileaks.org. That site said it received the electronic files from a group identifying itself only as “Anonymous”.

“At around midnight last night, some members affiliated with the group gained access to governor Palin’s e-mail account, gov.palin@yahoo.com and handed over the contents to . . . Wikileaks.org,” noted a message on the site.

Ms Palin has been criticised in recent days for using a personal e-mail account to conduct state business. An Alaska activist has filed a freedom of information request seeking disclosure of e-mails from another Yahoo account Ms Palin used, gov.sarah @yahoo.com.

Andree McLeod, who filed the request, said: “If this woman is so careless . . . what in the world is she going to do when she has access to information that is vital to our national security interests?”

Ms McLeod’s attorney, Donald Mitchell, said: “There’s a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption. She’s running state business out of Yahoo?” – (Washington Post service)