Hackers infiltrate Palin’s e-mail

Sarah Palin has been campaigning for Republican running mate John McCain

Hackers have broken in to the e-mail of the US Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

The hackers, who targeted a personal Yahoo account, posted several messages and family photos from her inbox.

The campaign of running mate John McCain condemned their action as “a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of the law”.

The hacking comes amid questions about whether Mrs Palin used personal e-mail to conduct state business.

According to law, all e-mails relating to the official business of government must be archived and not destroyed. However, personal e-mails can be deleted.

Mrs Palin is currently under investigation in Alaska for alleged abuse of power while governor.

‘Destroy them’

A group called Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the hacking of Mrs Palin’s Yahoo e-mail.

It posted five screenshots, two digital photos of Mrs Palin’s family and an address book to the whistle-blowing Wikileaks website. The information was taken from Ms Palin’s gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail account.

One message exposed is apparently an exchange between Mrs Palin and the deputy governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, who is seeking election to Congress.

Another is between Mrs Palin and friend Amy McCorkell, in which the latter says she is praying for the governor and adds: “Don’t let the negative press get you down!”

The family photographs of the Palins posted on Wikileaks are not thought to have previously been in the public domain.

“The matter has been turned over the the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them,” the McCain campaign said in a statement.

Subsequent investigation has shown that the gov.palin@yahoo.com account has been shut down along with another, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, also owned by Mrs Palin.

It is not clear yet what methods the hacking group used to access to the e-mail account. The screenshots posted by the hackers reveal that they carried out the attack via a so-called proxy service to hide their tracks and limit the chance that they would be traced.

Earlier in 2008 the Anonymous group launched several online assaults against the Church of Scientology.

Mrs Palin has been on the campaign trail for Mr McCain this week, appearing at events in Colorado, Ohio and Michigan. The pair are due to hold an airport rally in Iowa on Thursday.

Scientology ‘faces French trial’

France keeps Scientology sites under surveillance

The Church of Scientology in France will be tried in court for “organized fraud”, according to legal sources.

The lawyer for one of the plaintiffs behind the case told that if convicted the controversial Church could be banned.

The Church has faced stiff opposition in France as well as Germany, where it has been declared unconstitutional.

The French branch of the Church of Scientology said it had been cleared of “numerous” similar charges.

It said such charges should not be brought to court again.

This case stems from claims by a woman who said she was approached by Scientologists in a Paris street in 1998 and offered a free personality test.

She says she ended up handing over more than 20,000 euros (£16,000) for courses, books, illegally prescribed drugs and an “electrometer” supposed to measure fluctuations in her mental state.

Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the woman and for one other plaintiff in the case, says the case could be brought before the court by the end of the year or in early 2009.

‘Commercial operation’

Scientology was founded in the United States in the 1950s by science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard.

It has attracted stars such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta and the late Isaac Hayes.

But it been accused in some countries of cult-like practices and exploiting its followers financially.

Scientologists reject this and say that they promote a religion based on the understanding of the human spirit.

France refuses to recognise Scientology as a religion, categorising it as a purely commercial operation and keeping it under surveillance.

In Germany last year, federal and state interior ministers declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, and in France in 2000 a government committee recommended dissolving the Church.

However, in October a Spanish court ruled that the Church of Scientology of Spain should be re-entered into the country’s register of officially recognised religions.