Palin E-Mail Hack Adds to Republican Tech Headache

Just hours after news reports questioned Sarah Palin's use of Yahoo Mail for official business, a group of hackers claims to have broken into her account.

The group, known simply as "Anonymous," sent screenshots appearing to be from gov.palin@yahoo.com to leaked document site WikiLeaks, where they were published Wednesday morning (a screen shot of the WikiLeaks's Palin Webpage can be found here). The images show an e-mail exchange with Alaska's lieutenant governor in which Palin seemingly complains about a local radio host being "inconsistent and purposefully misleading," as well as an exchange with an advisory board member who appears to reassure Palin about the recent wave of negative press. A list of contacts and a couple of family photos (see below) are also included in the published materials.

(see below for images from WikiLeaks)

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law," McCain-Palin Campaign Manager Rick Davis said in a statement Wednesday evening. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them."

Some activists have claimed Palin and her administration use the Yahoo accounts to try to avoid freedom of information laws requiring messages from government e-mail accounts to be placed into public record. Palin's staff told the Anchorage Daily News she does use the account for political business but insists she's not doing anything out of line.

It seems this just isn't the week for the Republican ticket when it comes to technology. Palin's debacle follows an attention-grabbing comment by one of John McCain's senior staffers during a media event Monday. Senior Policy Advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin held his BlackBerry up to a group of reporters in Miami and said:

"He did this. The premier innovation in the past 15 years comes right from the commerce committee. So, you're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

If Al Gore actually invented the Internet, one might joke that he indirectly did the Democrats a favor. The Web has spread this week's Republican issues like wildfire and has brought a whirlwind of attention to topics that, in the pre-Net era 15 years ago, wouldn't have even existed. Of course, it may just be a matter of time before one of the Democratic contenders has his own Web-fueled slip-up -- and you can rest assured that, regardless of who invented it, the Internet will spread that news just as rapidly.

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