Palin email hacker gets year in jail

A Tennessee student has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison after he guessed Sarah Palin’s web mail password and published emails online.

David Kernell, now 22, broke into the account when he was a student during the 2008 presidential election campaign, shortly after Palin was chosen as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

He used public information to guess the answers to password-checking questions posed by Yahoo.

Copies of some emails, showing personal family details of the Palin family and government business she had conducted using the account, triggering a US Secret Service investigation, as well as criticism that she was breaking government conduct rules.

"My family and I are thankful that the jury thoroughly and carefully weighed the evidence and issued a just verdict," Palin wrote on her Facebook page after Kernell's conviction.

"Besides the obvious invasion of privacy and security concerns surrounding this issue, many of us are concerned about the integrity of our country's political elections."

Kernell was facing 20 years in prison for what he described as a youthful prank, and prosecutors were asking for 18 months. He has apologised to the Palin family for the intrusion.