Once the hot glare of the public spotlight hits you, expect to be hacked.

The Columbus Dispatch is looking into investigations into why  personal data on "Joe the Plumber," a k a Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, was accessed on government computers within days after he was mentioned in the recent political debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed on sites of the  Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department. It's not clear who accessed the information.

Both sides in the presidential campaign are trying to make political hay out of the hacking, blaming the other.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail was hacked soon after it came to light that she used multiple accounts. Information on Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain was accessed as well, points out ZDNet's Adam O'Donnell, who says the hacking might have been done by a curious government employee.

California recently passed a law against employee peeping into celebrity files, at least into medical records.