Anchorage (Alaska), Sept. 18 : Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account has been hacked, and is being widely read on a website going by the name of gawker. com.

A Fox News report said that the web site has published family photos and snapshots of e-mail exchanges the Alaska governor had with her colleagues.

Gawker says the-email account has since been shut down, but it will leave the images up on its site for all to see.

John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis released a statement calling the publication a “shocking invasion of the Alaska governor’s privacy and a violation of law.”

“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,” Davis said.

The article relating to the publication of the e-mail details also boasts about the lengths to which the reporter went to verify the account, saying he or she even called a phone number listed for Palin’s teenage daughter, Bristol, which apparently went to her voice mail. The site also listed dozens of contact e-mails from the account.

Two web sites – Wired and Gawker -- reported that members claiming to be with a group known as Anonymous took credit for hacking into Palin’s account.

Screen grabs were published on other Web sites and then deleted, Gawker reported.

They reportedly came from a Yahoo e-mail account Palin uses — one separate from another private account that was publicized in The Washington Post last week.

Gawker complained that Palin has since “deleted” the account, and suggested she was trying to “destroy evidence.”

Palin has faced scrutiny for using her private account to do government business.

The Washington Post reported last week that a local Republican activist is 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.

A spokeswoman in the governor’s office in Alaska declined to comment Wednesday. (ANI)