Tennessee man indicted for hacking Palin e-mail

David Kernell, the son of Tennessee state legislator Mike Kernell (D), has been indicted for hacking into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, the Justice Department said on Wednesday. He faces up to 5 years in prison if convicted. According to the indictment, Kernell accessed Palin's account, gov.palin@yahoo.com, on Sept. 16 after correctly answering a series of personal questions. Yahoo allows users to change their passwords if they confirm personal information such as their birth date and ZIP code and correctly answer a personal question such as the name of their first pet. Kernell then posted some of the account's contents, along with the password, to the online message board 4chan.org, the indictment says. Palin occasionally used the account to conduct state business, according to media reports. Critics have charged that she uses the account to get around public-records laws.