Lawsuit filed to prevent Palin's use of personal email for business

A former state employee is suing Gov. Sarah Palin to stop using her personal email accounts for state business. The lawsuit comes after a Tennessee college student was indicted for hacking into one of those accounts.

"We know of at least two - 'Gov.Sarah@yahoo.com' and 'Gov.Palin@yahoo.com' and who knows how many others," said Andree McLeod.

For a few months now, McLeod has been asking for public records from the governor's office. She got thousands of emails and phone records in return, but most had been redacted.

"Since July, when I received these emails, I've been sounding the alarm that private unsecured email accounts should not be used," McLeod said. "Lo and behold, two months later, it gets hacked into."

McLeod filed

the lawsuit to figure out why Palin and her staff have been using personal email accounts to conduct state business.

Demanding more transparency, McLeod says she wants "the court making sure Gov. Palin and the office of the governor retrieves any and all emails from her various private email accounts and puts it in the state record."

Bill McAllister, spokesman for the governor's office, says he cannot comment on pending litigation.

A superior court judge is scheduled to hear the case Friday.

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