Blogs ID Tenn. Lawmaker's Son As Palin Cyber Hacker

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State Rep. Mike Kernell, a Democrat who represents Memphis

David Kernell, a University of Tennessee student

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Secret Service want to know who hacked into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account.

It's an investigation that may focus on the son of a Democratic Tennessee lawmaker.

State Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis doesn't deny his son David Kernell's name is flying around the Internet as the alleged Palin e-mail hacker. But he said a lot of the information is not accurate.

The phone rang all day at Kernell's Legislative Plaza office in Nashville.

"There's a report on the Internet and the media, and the person they are talking about is my son," Kernell told a NewsChannel 5 reporter.

Online blogs and several news organizations have named his 20-year-old son as the hacker who broke in the Alaska governor's personal Yahoo e-mail account. David Kernell is a student at the University of Tennesses's flagship campus in Knoxville.

The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service started looking into the crime Wednesday.

But Kernell said, "We know of no investigation. I've not been contacted. He has not been contacted for any investigation at this point."

The Democrat denies any investigation and he didn't say much more about what his son may or may not have done.

"There's got to be a line because I'm the father and he's the son," he said. "So, I've definitely been getting calls, but I just can't say anything because he's a member of the family."

Hacking into Palin's e-mail account is significant because she used it for official Alaska state business. The hacker accessed the account by changing her password. But all they found were non-critical emails and a few photos of governor's five children.

The investigation into who wanted to see all of that has just started.

"So we're just going to have to see how this plays out," Kernell said.

And if the son of a Democratic lawmaker actually went cyber snooping on a very powerful Republican.

An FBI representative in Washington, D.C. told NewsChannel 5 late Thursday night that agency cannot comment on a specific person they may or may not be investigating.

Finding the identity of the hacker probably won't be too difficult. The person went online and bragged about what they did, leaving a cyber trail for the FBI to follow.

David Kernell had active MySpace and Facebook online accounts, which were closed later in the day Thursday.