Personal attacks against the Republican vice presidential candidate reached new heights today when hackers broke into Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account and published her correspondence.

The FBI and Secret Service are investigating how hackers infiltrated the Alaska governor’s personal Yahoo account and posted a number of e-mails and two family photos on the internet.

There was nothing embarrassing in the few published messages themselves but the security breach came at a time when Ms Palin’s use of personal e-mail is under intense scrutiny.

Screen grabs of the e-mail inbox posted on the web today appear to confirm accusations that Ms Palin had been using non-governmental accounts to engage in political and executive work.

A Republican activist in Alaska is trying to force her to release more than 1,100 Yahoo e-mails she withheld from a public records request in June.

Ms Palin has already handed over e-mails sent from her official account to a bipartisan investigation committee examining suggestions that she dismissed Walter Monegan, a public safety commissioner, because he refused to take action against her brother-in-law, a state trooper at the time.

Among the e-mails posted on the internet today is a message sent from Ms Palin to the vice-governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, who is currently seeking election to Congress, and an e-mail titled draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger.

The Washington Post revealed last month that Ms Palin’s aides were admonished for using her official e-mail address instead of her two Yahoo accounts.

"Whoops!" Frank Bailey, an aide wrote after sending an e-mail to the governor's official state address. "Frank, this is not the Governor's personal account," a secretary reminded him.

According to state law, all messages relating to the official functions of governor must be archived and not destroyed.

Alaska state lawyers said that the governor's e-mails about public business should be treated like any other public record, even if she's sent them through a private account such as Yahoo.

"The difficulty is finding out they exist," Dave Jones, an assistant attorney-general in Alaska, told the Anchorage Daily News.

There appears to be little question of the existence of two private e-mail accounts now. The Washington Post exposed one at gov.sarah@yahoo.com while the latest infiltration shows one at gov.palin@yahoo.com.

The Republican Party were furious at the hacking attack. “This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law,” the McCain campaign said in a statement.

It said that the matter has been turned over to authorities and asked anyone in possession of Ms Palin’s documents to destroy them.

It wasn’t immediately clear how hackers broke into Ms Palin’s Yahoo account, but it could have been possible to trick the service into revealing her password knowing personal details about her that include her birth date and ZIP code. A hacker may also might have sent a forged e-mail to her account tricking her into revealing her own password.

A group calling themselves “Anonymous” claimed responsibility for the breach.

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