McCain’s VP pick has been under fire recently for using her private Yahoo email account to conduct state business.

And while the rest of us were sitting around hoping for political backlash, Anonymous went out and did something about it. Remember them? That loose confederation of amateur hackers responsible for the attacks on Scientology earlier this year? They hacked her Yahoo account.

I responded to their attack on Scientology on my old blog:

This news leaves me with mixed feelings. I have no praise for the Church of Scientology; I do not doubt that they purposefully manipulate people or that they are ultimately concerned more about money than truth. I scoff, however, at the self-righteous vigilante bravado of Anonymous. Their denial of service attacks have shut down Church websites as a punishment for the Church’s long history of censorship. I find myself enraged at their hypocrisy: denying the Church’s right to the freedom of speech in defense of the freedom of speech.

Yet, part of me wants them to win. Not because I condone their tactics, not because I want the Church to be punished, but because I want to believe that they are capable of winning. I want to believe that a small group of individuals can overpower a wealthy, maligned organization. I want to believe this is the Boston Tea Party of the information age–an event which in and of itself is immature and ineffective, but which symbolizes a rejection of oppressive authority.

There is something dementedly democratic about this–the way that mob justice can be simultaneously tyrannical and fair. Neither Anonymous nor the mob is actually capable of creating justice, but in their folly lie the seeds of something better. And so I root for them not because I support what they are, but because I support what this type of movement might become.

And this, this hacking of her inbox, is precisely what I was anticipating when I wrote that last sentence. So now I offer without reserve a hearty cheer for Anonymous.

Click here for the wikileaks article, which contains screenshots. If that is shut down, here is one of the screenshots.