By DPA,
San Francisco : Anonymous hackers penetrated the private email account of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Wednesday posted screen shots of the account on the Internet.
The intrusion came amid growing reports that Palin used her private email account to conduct official business in an effort to avoid public scrutiny.
It was strongly condemned by the McCain-Palin campaign as a “shocking invasion of privacy” and both the FBI and Secret Service launched investigations into the incident.
“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law,” the Republican campaign said in a statement. “The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”
The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin’s Yahoo account, including the text of an email exchange with Alaska Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin’s inbox and a third shows the text of an email from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
Palin came under fire for using the Yahoo account gov.palin – which was hacked – and a second one, gov.sarah, for official business.
Both accounts were closed within hours of the leak becoming public.