Anonymous, an Internet-based group best known for pranking and protesting the Church of Scientology, apparently hacked Sarah Palin’s Yahoo Mail account and posted images of her inbox and correspondence on the Web. The McCain campaign condemned the “shocking invasion,” which turned up nothing of substantial juiciness.

There were murmurs and reports of improper use of private e-mail for public business, but gawkers looking for titillation will find little at Gawker, where some of the images can still be viewed.

Not to get too speculative, but either Sarah Palin is the world’s most wholesome e-mailer or whoever posted the images did so selectively.

Wired’s Threat Level blog has more:

The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.

“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law,” Rick Davis, McCain-Palin campaign manager 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.”

FBI spokesman Brian Hale said, “The FBI is aware of the alleged hacking incident involving Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and is coordinating with the United States Secret Service on the matter.”

The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin’s account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.

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