This is war.

I echo Michelle Malkin’s sentiments about the developing news story surrounding the hacking of Gov. Palin’s personal email account by a group called “Anonymous.” For the record, here’s what happened:

Sometime early this morning, between approximately 3:00am – 4:00am, members of an infamous group of hackers broke into Gov. Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account. The incriminating discussion threads included screenshots of Palin’s e-mail and private e-mail addresses of her contacts. The threads have since been deleted.

The Gawker smear machine — see here for all the background you need — has posted private family photos of Palin’s children that were apparently stolen from the e-mail account.

They have used Bristol Palin’s illegally obtained private cell phone number from her mom’s private account, recorded her voicemail message, and posted it on their website.

They have reprinted her husband Todd’s private e-mail address and son Track’s private e-mail address.

You think this is just a harmless prank? Those of you who have had to deal with break-ins and identity theft know exactly what a burdensome process it is to recover from crimes like this.

The McCain campaign issued this response:

ARLINGTON, VA — Today, McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Manager Rick Davis issued the following statement concerning reports about Governor Palin’s email and an invasion of privacy:

“This is a shocking invasion of the 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 emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”

I’ve heard from a couple of sources that this “Anonymous” group is “bipartisan” in its attacks, so the attack itself may not have been initiated by the far left (then again, maybe they were), but that said – it’s despicable, no matter who did it, and furthermore assuming it’s true that “Anonymous” is “bipartisan” that doesn’t change the fact that the desperados on the far left will try (and in fact, already are using – see JWF for more) and use this scandal by twisting the emails in Gov. Palin’s personal email account into something they’re not in order to pull voters away from the McCain-Palin ticket to the OBiden ticket. They’re trying to give the appearance of a “scandal” when as of yet they’ve got nothing to show as a basis for it. So much for giving a damn about someone’s privacy. OTOH, if this were a suspected terrorist and it was the Feds releasing email convos, these same gleeful liberals would be purple with rage and demand that heads roll.

Partisan hacks in Alaska have long wanted to get their hands on Gov. Palin’s personal emails as they’ve accused her of allegedly conducting state business via personal email so as to bypass emails being saved onto a gov. server. Last I checked, unless someone has strong evidence of intentional wrongdoing via using her personal email for state business that was never discussed as well in state email – in an effort to hide something incriminating or unethical, her personal emails are PRIVATE. In fact, the emails released so far (and I say “so far” because supposedly there are more out there to be released) have shown that she was conducting personal business mixed with campaign business unrelated to STATE business in her emails.

The far left have taken things too far. Just when you think they couldn’t slink any lower, they do.

Related: The Anchoress unloads.

Update – 7:42 PM: Michelle Malkin has rec’d an email from someone who has inside knowledge and backstory of what happened. Turns out it wasn’t a “group” of people who hacked into Gov. Palin’s account – it was just one. Read the rest of the story here and, as always, stay tuned.