Delta Air Lines Sued Over Alleged E-mail Hacking

alphadogg writes "Delta Air Lines is being sued for allegedly hacking the e-mail account of a passenger rights advocate supporting legislation that would allow access to food, water and toilets during long delays on the tarmac. Kathleen Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, alleges Delta obtained sensitive e-mails and files and used the material in an attempt to derail the 'Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights of 2009,' of which four versions are pending before Congress. The suit was filed on Tuesday in US District Court for the Southern District of Texas and seeks a minimum of $11 million in damages. Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, had been investigating surface delays in air travel."

Comments

Headline appears to be inaccurate.

[palegray.net]

According to TFA:

Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, had been investigating surface delays in air travel. According to the suit, Hanni exchanged information with Frederick J. Foreman, who worked for Metron Aviation, which was hired by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to study surface delays. The suit says Foreman provided information to Hanni with permission from Metron, including a report that fingered Delta as having excessive surface delays. Metron is also named in the suit.

During the correspondence, AOL informed Hanni that her e-mails, spreadsheets and lists of donors were being redirected to an unknown destination. Also, files on Hanni's computer became corrupted, the suit says. The hacking began in 2008 and continued through this year.

This does not constitute "hacking" (or even cracking, as it should be termed). Unless I've missed something here, the actual allegation is that information was improperly disclosed, but not that an email account was broken into.

Re:Headline appears to be inaccurate.

[MozeeToby]

Foreman said in the affidavit that Gaughan showed him what appeared to be "hacked and stolen e-mail communications" since the material involved the private e-mail accounts of both himself and Hanni.

Emphasis Added.

This isn't a case of the CEO having access to Foreman's company email account, this was his personal account where he was (apparently) sharing more information that the company wanted him to. He was subsequently fired because of those disclosures. Again, disclosures made through a private, non-company owned channel which the company somehow (presumably illegally) had access to.

Re:Headline appears to be inaccurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA isn't that in-depth. Here's another source

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/consumer-activist-kate-hanni-a.html

Mr. Gaughan proceeded to show me on his computer monitor what appeared to be hacked and stolen email communications within the last six (6) months or more between Kate Hanni and me, me and Gary Stoller of USA Today, me and Susan Stellin, a freelance reporter, and Kate Hanni and a number of people concerning the Passenger Bill of Rights, excessive surface delays, and other private communications. It was clear that they had email transactions from both of my private email accounts: Hotmail (eckmaster12@msn.com) and Yahoo (eckmaster@mmi-gov.com). It was also clear that these emails were from Kate Hanni's private and personal email account (katcrew4@aol.com), as well as from Gary Stoller's (gstoller@usatoday.com) private USA Today account, and Susan Stellin's (stellin@earthlink.net) private and personal email account. There were no emails communications from Metron Aviation's email system only communications from information that I gave her as fuel for getting the Passenger Bill of Rights passed in Congress. He said that Delta Airlines sent this information to them.

Re:For $11 Million

[SomeJoel]

You forgot about the part where you would also have to start an advocacy group and work hard enough to piss someone off enough to care about.

Great point. What would I have to do for just $5 million?