I have a couple of legal questions.
Here’s the first. Party A hacks into Party B’s email server and then, unsolicited, gives the information found to Party C. What crime if any has Party C committed?
Here’s the second. How far does attorney-client privilege extend? At what point does it become conspiracy?
IANAL, but I suspect it depends partially on what party C knows about how the info was obtained.
Steve
Calling PD…..
In the first question I’m skeptical that any law was broken but if so I’d like to know which law. I doubt that Party C’s knowledge makes any difference. I don’t think that data are covered by the law in this case.
If judges (and lawyers) understood how the Internet actually worked, laws would be written very differently. Email isn’t like the post office. It’s more like handing a letter to the next passerby walking in the general direction of the addressee.
A) I don’ t know. Accessing someone else’s computer without authorization in order to obtain information is a misdemeanor crime. It becomes a felony when the information has a value of $500 or more, or was part of some other wrongful scheme. So the husband that logs onto his wife’s account without her permission to read e-mails has probably committed a misdemeanor. When the Cardinal employee logged into the Houston Astros system to look at scouting reports, the value was found to be over $500 and a felony. I think the information was deemed to be IP. I don’t think all information is IP. I kind of fizzle out on what next.
On the lawyer thing, I would refer to the attorney from Brooklyn I believe, who was defending accused terrorists. She started facilitating communications between the imprisoned clients and their associates. She wasn’t acting as a lawyer in those communications, she was acting as a terrorist and went to jail.
Thanks, PD. You’re underscoring my point. These are very fuzzy areas of the law.