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.

Palin makes US TV interview debut

The US Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, has rejected criticism that she is not experienced enough, in her first US TV interview.

In the interview, conducted exclusively by ABC News, Mrs Palin insisted she was “ready” to serve as vice-president.

On foreign affairs, the Alaska governor said she backed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

Mrs Palin was also quizzed on previous comments about describing the war in Iraq as being a “task from God”.

She said she was quoting the words of Abraham Lincoln: “Let us pray that we are on God’s side’.

Asked whether her support for Georgian membership of Nato meant that the US would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin said that was a possibility.

“Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”

But she insisted that the US and Russia “cannot repeat the Cold War”.

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