Any self-respecting hacker can break a Yahoo! account, especially if the user is reckless enough and doesn’t know all that much about using a computer. Following Gov. Sarah Palin’s declaration that she doesn’t know how to send an email, a group of hackers broke into her “gov.palin@yahoo.com” account and published its contents on WikiLeaks.org, a site that publishes anonymous submissions of sensitive information.

Several emails, family photos and Palin’s entire address book were revealed to the general public. Although the account was later deleted, several sites are still in possession of the material and claim the information should be there for the entire world to see.

“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. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment." The FBI and Secret Service are looking into who hacked the account other officials said.

Coincidental or not, the matter of the hacking falls right into a greater issue, largely discussed lately, as, last week, Andrée McLeod, a local Republican activist was reportedly trying to get Palin to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public records request. The appeal reportedly questions why Palin and her aides shift between public and private e-mail accounts.

Using a personal email account rise the question of transparency and security within the state-affairs. "If this woman is so careless as to conduct state business on a private e-mail account that has been hacked into, what in the world is she going to do when she has access to information that is vital to our national security interests?" McLeod said Wednesday evening, referring to the incident.