WASHINGTON,USA: David Christopher Kernell, the 20-year-old Tennessee student accused of hacking into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, pleaded not guilty in the incident.

The accused had walked into Federal Court in handcuffs, shackles in ankles and tennis shoes to plead not guilty. The Federal Grand Jury, however, indicted him in the case and limited his access to computer to checking his own e-mail and doing class work.

Kernell was also restricted from having any contact directly or indirectly with the Alaska governor or her family. Kernell, the son of a Democratic state legislator, is an economics student at the University of Tennessee.

According to the indictment, Kernell accessed Palin's account, gov.palin@yahoo.com, on September 16 after correctly answering a series of personal questions.

Later he had posted a first-person account of the hack, revealing the relatively simple steps he says he took to crack the private e-mail of the Republican vice-presidential candidate.

He had identified as ‘Rubico’ in the blog. The case is being investigated by the FBI's The Knoxville and Anchorage field offices of FBI are investigating the hacking case.

"Cyber crime is the FBI's top criminal investigative priority," Richard Lambert, special agent in charge of the FBI Knoxville office, said in a press release. If convicted, Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $US250,000 fine and a three-year term of probation. This "deeply troubling." incident had raised the question of as to how secure is one’s personal email. In a statement, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt had said: "We are certain that the proper authorities will pursue justice and send a clear signal to reassure all Americans that their personal e-mail accounts cannot be hacked into with impunity." Schmitt said in a statement.

Ironically enough, ever since Sarah Palin’s nomination for the post of Vice President in the US, she has been in the news for totally nonpolitical reasons: In the beginning it was about her faking pregnancy to cover up for her unmarried daughter having a love child.

Then it was her alleged racist remarks. And now the email hacking. Interestingly in all the cases she got the image of a victim and helped her popularity chart thus giving her and edge over her rivals.

Do you think the US elections is focusing on personal issues rather than politics? How do you see this peeping tom attitude of the tech saavy generation?