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Is Reading Spouse's E-Mail a Crime?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Detroit Free Press reports that Leon Walker is charged with unlawfully reading the e-mail of Ciara Walker, his wife at that time, which showed she was having an affair with her second husband, who once had been arrested for beating her in front of her son. Walker says he gave the e-mails to her first husband, the child's father, to protect the boy. 'I was doing what I had to do,' says Walker. 'We're talking about putting a child in danger.' Now prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker with a felony for logging onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife. Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Walker. 'The guy is a hacker,' says Cooper, adding that the Gmail account 'was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded [the emails] and used them in a very contentious way.'"
Is opening a spouses physical mail a crime?
If they agreed that their correspondence is not private from each other in a marriage contract, then it is not.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What's next? Charging a husband who read his wifes diary. Oh yes there was a lock on it and he broke it. No that wouldn't reach court, but hackers - those smelly dodgy think they are smarter than us geek types - let's lock all of them up and throw away the key! They are terrorists! And they want to give away the fruit of all of hard work for free!
What the hell are they putting in your water?
...'The guy is a hacker' said Cooper...
Then fry the bastard already!!
WTF is wrong with some people, really. Reading someone's email == a felony? Duh..
According to TFA, her email password was written down in a little book kept by the family computer. And yet, "The guy is a hacker" and "It was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained."
Really, I don't see how it can get any more ridiculous than this. I realize the prosecutor has to put on a show to support such ridiculous charges, but good lord...
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I am going to guess that either her password was easy to guess, or that he used a keystroke logging program to learn it. Either way, we are not talking about something that requires "wonderful skills," we are talking about something anyone could do. From the way the prosecutor is talking about him, you would think that this guy was involved in the Chinese government's Google hack.
Palm trees and 8
Considering that when you are married, in terms of property rights, you are considered a single legal entity, I honestly don't see how this would stand up in court.
Wait, are we asking whether reading your spouse's email IS a crime (in Michigan, at least), or whether it OUGHT to be a crime?
Whether it is a crime depends on the way the statute in question was written. I haven't even so much as read it, myself, and I'm quite happy with letting a court figure out whether the statute really covers what happens: that's precisely what we have courts for, after all. Of course, IF it is found that it IS indeed a crime, then we need to ask ourselves whether it OUGHT to be a crime (and the answer is not necessarily an immediate "yes" or "no") and, if necessary, have the law changed.
It's odd to see something this minor go to court, but... yes, why wouldn't it be illegal?
Really going to have to talk about the difference between "easy" and "legal".
It would have been best (for him) to simply leave. That woman is not a well person. Besides, if this man can't protect the child, what's the first husband going to be able to do, since she clearly has custody? (And this is assuming there was no 'vengeance' motive behind his act...)
And now he's facing a felony? Despite the prosecutor's claim of his "highly trained," "wonderful skills", he likely knew her password long before this incident. I wonder who owns the computer...
I think it is ridiculous that this is being brought as a criminal prosecution. If his ex-wife had brought a civil suit, I would still think he should win, but that would be a sensible case. The man's fear of the child being exposed to domestic violence (possibly even physical abuse of the child) was perfectly legitimate. I would really like to know why the prosecutor is really going after this man. It sounds personal.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Imagine if the second husband DID assault the child? Then the new husband would be in trouble for NOT doing anything to prevent this atrocious act.
Funny that when we actually SHOULD be thinking about the children something else gets in the way.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
i.e. summary writer: learn to summarize better! Your first sentence had me so fucking confused. My mind as I read through that mess: "so he's the guy's husband, and he read his wife's email, he finds out his wife is having an affair with the second husband. Second husband? Oh, so do you mean the "hacker" is the first husband, and at the time the article was written, she's married to the guy she's been having an affair with? OK. But then he printed the emails and handed them to the woman's first husband. Wait, what? Isn't the hacker the first husband?"
You could have added ", who is Ciara Walker's third husband," in there to make the whole fucking thing easier to comprehend! I even RTFA to see if that incomprehensible mess was a copy/paste job, but lookie there: "Leon Walker was Clara Walker's third husband."
*mumble mumble kids and stupid American education these days.*
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
http://www.oakgov.com/prosatty/index.html
Seriously.. Gmail gives a free phone account. Call the "prosecutor's office" and ask them if that's a felony crime.
A felony crime means no guns, and no voting for life in some states. It also means no job. Or good luck finding one.
BTW, a REAL person answers the phone !!!! please reply if you called and asked
Reading TFA, nothing convinces me that this story should come under YRA!! Idle perhaps????
...it was a good experiment, but we all knew this "freedom" thing was a farce that couldn't actually last....
a man! And pigs, I mean men, are always wrong. Why do you think I became a persecuter, I mean prosecutor?
In this particular case I wonder, if the wife had checked the husband's email and found out about an affair, would she have been charged with a felony too? This seems almost like an attempt to abuse the law for sexist purposes to me. Unless the prosecutor just needs attention.
You could just keep filing motions until the city went bankrupt. They already are cutting services to over half the city, so it wouldn't take that long either...
If I was the email-reader, I'd just sue the beater saying that "He beats women".
So it would be an accusation of reading an email vs an accusation of beating a woman. The other parties will have much more to loose.
The other option would be to just plead guilty. Probably the judge will just give him a night behind bars or just let him go, if he's a first "offender".
Prosecutor Jessica Cooper is totally lame and would not know what a real hacker is if she said "he had wonderful skills" vs he had mad skillz. Typical know-nothing government official.
Home of The Suki Series
He took the emails and turned them over to the first husband because she was cheating on the current husband with the second husband who had been convicted of physically abusing the wife (who I could care less about after reading the story) and kids from the first marriage. I think the governments stance is over the transfer of the information from the third husband to the first husband, were it should be banning this woman from re-marrying again since she's severely damaged goods.
detroit area prosecutors just looking for work? so it looks like they have a job to do?
I hope They get some smart people to do the jury duty.
DUDE, Reading is hacking, don't you know anything about the US Legal term for hacking?!?
Given the state of large parts of the US educational system, I think reading could qualify as "wonderful skills" and being "highly trained".
I think breathing counts now too. Eating sugar, fat and salt are in a whole different area.
Home of The Suki Series
Meaning they were really his, only he let his wife use it (them).
I opened all the e-mail accounts in my househould, including the ones used by my wife - so technically, they're all mine.
Too bad they didn't own their own business, courts have already ruled that your employer can read your email. Maybe he can have his wife arrested for stalking, because she keeps showing up wherever he is. It seems the real crime here is a prosecutor who would prosecute this in the first place. If I were the judge, I'd throw it out and issue a warning to the prosecutor not to waste the court's time when there is a backlog of real crimes that need to be dealt with.
And tag TFS "badsummary".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
How many times have the Feds argued in court (or filings) that people have no expectation of privacy in emails?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It doesn't say where he obtained the password for her e-mail. If she had given him the password at any point of that relationship that would imply consent for her accounts. Couples share plenty of bank and other related passwords (Worked in an Internet banking call centre where we had to constantly explain why not to give passwords to spouses).
My internetting is no good.
Considering that when you are married, in terms of property rights, you are considered a single legal entity, I honestly don't see how this would stand up in court.
Hey does that mean that legally speaking, when you're married and you have sex, you're fucking yourself?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This would seem like a classic ad - "XX wants to protect child abusers...prosecuted someone for warning a parent of potential abuse...weak on crime...wrong then, and wrong for MI..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I own and run the router my wife's email goes through. Am I guilty of the Wiretapping act if I start sniffing and saving packets I know to be email?
Wouldn't surprise me.
Here is another case where she made a big mistake, was proven wrong by evidence and wouldn't admit that she made a mistake. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/09/did_oakland_county_prosecutor.html http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/prosecutor-laura-johnson-freed-murder-evidence-not-enough-20100927-wpms
how can morons like these, can become prosecutors, and take on cases they do not know shit about ?
Read radical news here
First of all, the woman is now divorced from her 3rd husband. So she marries the 1st one and has a child, then Divorces #1 for some reason. Marries a second man who BEATS her in front of the child from the 1st Marriage. Why was the child not taken from the mother then? Probably because she sought a better life, divorcing husband #2 and found a third man to call husband.
While we don't have the full story, and of course the News doesn't always provide all the facts, so this assessment is one of pure speculation based on information available, here is how I see the situation.
The third husband is a smart guy, and knows his way around a computer, and may likely make a decent living. The third husband seems to give a shit about the wife's son from a previous marriage, which provides the impression that he's a decent guy. The wife CHEATS on her third husband with the second husband, the one who BEAT her. So husband number three figures out his wife is cheating on him, and finds proof via her email, and in finding proof he notifies husband #1 to offer protection to the child. Here he could have gone to authorities and tried to protect the child that was living under his roof, but he went back to the birth father and say "hey man, you might want to know the potential danger your child is in..." (not an actual quote).
I suspect the Wife is pissed off because she's caught cheating which likely means she's lied to husband #3. I suspect she is probably pissed off, for child being removed from her custody, which she may have used the child as a tool against husband #1 for Child Support or as a power play . Now she's made to look the fool, by all three of her husbands past and present. The 1st husband has the child now, the 2nd husband is having sex with her again, and the 3rd husband caught her violating the vows of marriage. So she punishes the 3rd with legal action and finds a prosecutor to find possible Felony charges against husband #3.
She's already proven, by cheating, that she has the ability to lie, so why should her version of the story be more credible? At this point, based on a limited amount of facts, I see the 3rd husband as a victim. And when you are married there is a measure of trust between spouses, or should be. If he was always using the PC and she has the passwords in a book then only the act of him reading and typing in the password to an account that was not his is in question, right? The one thing that helps him is that he's no longer married to someone who didn't respect him enough not to cheat on him.
I believe we have a right to privacy even in our own homes from our spouses. I feel that while the man did violate her privacy, I honestly feel that his motives were right. I hope that a judge looks at this case and treats both parties fairly. He did violate privacy, but she, in my eyes has violated far more and deserves to be punished.
Again, all this is based on speculation of the facts as the new has reported them up to now.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
IT IS SO EASY. all you need to do is to grab a laptop which some idiot have logged into a website with autologin cookies and YOU ARE A HACKER !!!
so thinks a moron, who somehow ended up as prosecutor in united states of america, random state. tells millions about the quality of education in usa (helloo capitalism) and justice system. (hi again capitalism)
Read radical news here
Lawyers want everything to be legal or illegal because that way they earn more money.
What they most definitely don't want is for ordinary citizens to argue any point between themselves.
Just because you don't like, or do like, a thing, it doesn't mean that it should be legal or illegal.
Er, no. Most states haven't taken that approach in many, many decades. Rife with abuse; if a husband is beating his wife, well, you can't sue yourself, now can you? Or testify against your husband. Etc. Another person above mentioned that prenuptial agreements are void in Michigan; that is also patently false. You simply need to go about it correctly. E.g., each individual needs their own counsel, so there is no question of coercion and so forth. The single-entity model was abandoned long ago.
I'm in a common law property state, and a creditor against one spouse can't touch independently held assets of the other. The only difference in a community property state (western USA) is that property coming to a couple defaults to jointly owned, unless specified otherwise.
What part of "not yours" do you not understand? It doesn't matter if she's your spouse or not.
Is logging into your wife's personal (not shared) cell phone's password-protected voicemail a crime if you don't have her explicit permission?
Is going to the post office to pick up your wife's certified mail without her explicit permission then opening it without her explicit permission a crime?
In both cases you are presenting yourself to someone - the voicemail vendor or the post office - as having authority that you may or may not have in the eyes of the law depending on various laws including marriage laws and whether being married carries implicit limited "power of attorney" for these purposes.
Bottom line - this case will turn on how far the marital privilege to act on behalf of your spouse carries AND whether the person intended to act on behalf of his spouse when he logged into the mail or whether his intent was to act against her interests. Even with implies spousal "power of attorney" once you start doing things "for another person" with the intent of harming them that authority evaporates.
By the way, if he can show that he could have accessed her GMAIL account without her Windows or Gmail password - say, by logging in as an administrator account using "his" password or a "shared" password or even in "safe mode" with no password (XP default Administrator account login) and copying the cookies files from "her" profile to his and then logging into Gmail without a password, he might be off the hook.
Of course this technique wouldn't work if she tossed her cookies or encrypted her files. Logging in as an admin and moving files around doesn't automatically give the presumption of criminal intent in my mind, but decrypting or running a 3rd-party undelete tool on the cookies pretty much does - if he did either of those he'd have to explain why I shouldn't presume criminal intent. "My wife's profile got trashed, I was attempting data recovery" is good enough, but he'd have to say it with a straight face for me to believe him.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You must live in a community property state. In a common law property state, property that is not jointly held is not subject to the creditors (even judgment creditors) of the spouse whose name it is not in. We usually put the creditor "in the debtor's shoes;" if the debtor couldn't touch the property -- the title is not in his/her name -- then the creditor cannot either.
Going beyond that, while most court judgments are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, you can still typically exempt your home from creditor's reach.
The only real exceptions are for divorce proceedings. Most states will let a wife* "see through" to her husband's entire augmented estate, including property held in trust, when tallying up and dividing assets. I know the state of Ohio has been criticized for not allowing that. (So guys, go live in Ohio and put your assets in trust if you want to take advantage of your spouse.)
*I say wife because, even in cases where the woman is clearly the breadwinner, courts are only now overcoming their reluctance in penalizing the woman. Unless the wife is a cheating, drug-addicted, suicidal, multi-conviction felon, family law still clearly favors the woman.
Adultery is also a felony! So the wife should have been charged and tried for allowing someone illegal access to her vagina.
Just because the prosecution or defense gets up and spews something does not mean the Jury will purchase what they are selling.
Perhaps the judge should not have allowed it.. lets see what the outcome is.
I've been told... actually, that's not good enough. I'm going to look it up.
OK, in Maine, under the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 17-A: Maine Criminal Code, Part 2: Substantive Offenses, Chapter 18: Computer Crimes, unauthorized access is a Class D crime, and unauthorized copying, computer resource damaging, and virus introduction is a Class C crime. The classes are defined as such:
If I recall correctly, beating up a small child is also a Class C crime. By printing or forwarding these emails, this person in the article could be accused of a Class C crime in Maine.
So yeah, the courts may actually try and be reasonable, but be bound and restricted by the unreasonableness and especially the vagueness of the law.
A friend of mine was recently (summer of this year) a juror in Michigan where one of the charges was accessing someone else's e-mail. She was found guilty of this charge despite the fact that she was given the password previously. I would love to put the links in for the exact law and the court case, but I'm lazy.
The thing that got me about the law is that it is perfectly legal to draw funds from someone's bank account via a debit card if you know the PIN. Just by knowing the PIN, the law considers it consent to access the funds (obviously assuming you were given the PIN and didn't get it through nefarious means). I would think the same goes for e-mail, but it doesn't.
That's okay, she gives up a lot of privacy too *cue rimshot*.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Suppose the utilities are in your name and the utility company is stuck in the 20th century and doesn't have computerized or automatic bill payment. Suppose you are out of town or, heaven forbid, incapacitated for several weeks and the bill arrives. I would hope she'd open the bill and pay it.
A general rule on a healthy marriage or any other partnership is that both parties have a common understanding of "what is his," "what is hers," and "what is ours" as well as a healthy understanding of when it's okay to invade each other's space, such as to pay the utility bill mentioned above.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So if this guy is really considered a "hacker", then I guess that means we need to start prosecuting parents who read their kids' emails or log into their Facebook accounts. After all, they would be accessing private material without their kids' consent.
I guess this story tells us some important info about computer law. Either prosecutors can be so technologically incompetent that they can wrongfully think this is something worth prosecuting, or Michigan's felony computer misuse laws are written so broadly that just about anyone could be convicted of something.
Its not that simple.
For a start you need to do it at night in a dimly lit room
There needs to be a lamp in front of your face
You need to bend your back slightly
And always remember that security systems have 'speed-typing tests' built into them. You have to type really really fast.
Gloves and sunglasses are optional,
I guess "criminal invasion of privacy" allegations is the new "he's child molester" allegation.*
*Until courts got wise to it way too many divorcing moms in the 1990s would accuse their husbands of child molestation as a divorce tactic, sometimes brainwashing the kids in the process. I'm sure some still try but most courts are wise to it. By the way, "way too many" is not actually a large number but it was enough to be a noticeable trend. One malicious allegation is too many.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... it is not the best way to maintain a relationship...
Check your premises.
Some states have "share and share alike" for property acquired during the marriage possibly including appreciation of pre-marital property but most of these recognize that pre-marital property and inheritances are still separate.
For example:
I have a $500,000 net worth and my wife-to-be has $100,000. There are no retirement assets or trusts and there are no debts older than 30 days and none that won't be paid off within a month (we both carry credit cards and pay them off in full when due).
We marry and buy a house shortly thereafter.
She inherits $1M during the marriage which she immediately put in a separate bank account. It's now worth $1.1M.
At the time of our divorce the only remaining "specific" assets that haven't been sold off and co-mingled with the common money is my collection of artwork that was worth $75,000 but is now worth $200,000 and my wife's jewelry collection which was worth $5,000 but is now worth $7,000. Our common net worth is $1.5M, for a total of $1.5M (joint) + $1.1M (her inheritance), $0.2M (my car), and $0.007M (her jewelry).
At the time of our divorce filing we have no debt older than 30 days other than the mortgage and neither of us accumulate any during the divorce.
Some "Share and share alike" states would consider either the original value or current value of the car and jewelry as separate assets. Some would consider the entire "initial net worth" including the car and jewelry as separate. Some would consider the initial or current value of the inheritance as separate property. By definition, all "share and share alike" states would consider what's left as common property.
What does Michigan do?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well, the prosecutor is a woman - so of course she is pressing charges.
Adultery is a ridiculous crime that directly contravenes a biological imperitive. However, that being said, if you prescribe to that same idiology... dont get effin married. I am in a happy relationship but I am in that relationship because I dont feel any of the pressure and bullshit that came along with marriage. If you are married and happy and have been for a long time I applaud you. If you have been married and gone through the nightmare than you know why ill never put a goddamn ring on another finger again lol. I am faithful but I am faithful because I choose to be not because I feel legally obligated to be. I went through the spouse reading the email bullshit myself and now I have everything locked down with passwords, hell we were apart at the time but in the same dwelling.. she saw i was consorting with a friend who was confiding in me her feelings for me (remember relationship over) my ex read these emails and decided that I was a filthy pig. The moral here lol is lock everything down because people cant be trusted even if they are the love of your life. (not the rule, just my experience)
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
just like how high tech looks like magic to some of those in the developing world...
literacy is "highly trained"...especially if you consider the current state of our education system.
This message brought to you by the state of Michigan where it's also a felony to use WiFi without buying coffee. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/23/1551227
So, according to this prosecutor, if someone looks for porn on a PC used by a spouse, especially if protected with a password, then that spouse is hacking and faces felony prosecution? Looks like the bar would be set even lower to prosecute, especially if there was no official legitimate safety concern (e.g. for the child)...
Better tell the makers of the USB devices that secretly load tracking software on PCs (forgot the name) not to sell their devices in Michigan. It would only be logical that the prosecutor would have to go after the device maker's officers as accessories in the commission of a felony...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
You have to remember the 1990s was a time when if a child made an allegation of abuse that was neither provable nor disprovable, adults believed it. People were falsely convicted on such testimony which has a much higher burden of proof than in civil court.
Now one of the first things any responsible investigator will ask themselves when there's a child abuse allegation is "does the adult who called the police have any possible agenda in making this report?" If there is a divorce pending the initial answer is "possibly."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Only for the past hundred years or so has "love" been seen as a valid factor in either forming or maintaining a marriage. For most of human history, including the time when most of the groundwork concerning the legal principles of marriage, it was simply a fact of life that you just did because society expected it and economically you needed kids (and due to inheritance laws before genetic testing was possible, a "reasonable" legal expectation of knowing whose kids were whose was needed). Most of the time you didn't even get to pick the person who you were married, because (a) knowing and "loving" the person you were marrying was seen as irrelevant to the social construct that was being legally protected, and (b) who wants to do all the work of investigating partners when you have a cousin who also just turned 12?
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
When we're asking if something is a crime I believe that we're actually asking two things: (1) is it a crime, and (2) should it be a crime? Here, the answer to (1) is pretty straightforward because it's been addressed by the state legislature. The trickier issue is if it *should* be a crime, for example, if the statute is held to be unconstitutional then it would be invalidated; trickier still are public policy issues. In any case I'll focus on the straightforward aspect.
Here's, the Michigan statute in question: Section 752.795 FRAUDULENT ACCESS TO COMPUTERS, COMPUTER SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER NETWORKS (EXCERPT)
A person shall not intentionally and without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization do any of the following:
(a) Access or cause access to be made to a computer program, computer, computer system, or computer network to acquire, alter, damage, delete, or destroy property or otherwise use the service of a computer program, computer, computer system, or computer network.
(b) Insert or attach or knowingly create the opportunity for an unknowing and unwanted insertion or attachment of a set of instructions or a computer program into a computer program, computer, computer system, or computer network, that is intended to acquire, alter, damage, delete, disrupt, or destroy property or otherwise use the services of a computer program, computer, computer system, or computer network. This subdivision does not prohibit conduct protected under section 5 of article I of the state constitution of 1963 or under the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. [note: the section of the Michigan constitution alluded to here relates to freedom of speech & the press]
History: 1979, Act 53, Eff. Mar. 27, 1980 ;-- Am. 1996, Act 326, Eff. Apr. 1, 1997
As his actions were presumably intentional it appears that the issue is: Were his actions without authorization or did they exceed his valid authorization? According to the following article this is a fact-based issue that will be up to the jury to decide. Essentially "she" claims that the computer was hers alone and the password was a secret and "he" claims that he regularly used the computer and had easy access to the passwords. Ease of access to the password will likely be the determinative factor as to if he had "authorization" to access those emails.
Although his rationale for accessing those emails do not appear to be relevant per the statute, I imagine that it would be an issue when it comes time for sentencing. If instead of finding out that she was (presumably) engaged in adultery with an ex-spouse who (presumably) beat her, how would the prosecutor's office have reacted if he had accessed emails showing that:
- she was a drug dealer?
- she was a child pornographer?
- she was a terrorist?
Is reading wife's e-mail a crime? Rochester Hills man faces trial
In the preliminary exam, Clara Walker testified that although Leon Walker had purchased the laptop for her, it was hers alone and she kept the password a secret.
Leon Walker told the Free Press he routinely used the computer and that she kept all of her passwords in a small book next to the computer.
"It was a family computer," he said. "I did work on it all the time."
My initial question was why the prosecutor's office pursued this case in the first place; the following article discusses Cooper's decision to stop supporting treatment courts due to its need to "deal with the surge in violent crime and the surge in technically complex cases." The pursuit of the case at hand doesn't fit with the purported need to focus on a "surge in violent crime...".
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
encrypt her shit (or at least password-protect it), ESP on a SHARED terminal.
^ nerd!! ^
Maybe this is how you and your wife need to do things, but it's hardly a "cornerstone" of marriage. My wife and I have been together close to 14 years now, and don't do things that way. I regularly access her email – when balancing the checkbook I need to reconcile the statement against her emailed receipts. I don't look at other things, but I have no reason to. She would tell me anything of consequence. She has access to my email as well. Facebook account too. All our financial accounts are joint. We have power of attorney for each other. I can't imagine what I would hide from her that wouldn't be some marital transgression. I get that she needs personal space, but keeping secrets isn't part of that.
46 & 2
I don't want to be charged with murder, so I'll just post that link, and nothing else.
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
If his wife is anything like my wife, the password was probably saved in the browser. Click the name field, choose her name, click "login". Hardly "hacker" level skills needed for that... I log into my wifes e-mail all the time, only to wonder where my more recent e-mails have gone to. Oops, clicked on her name again on accident.
If I was worth 200 million before we are married. And we are together for 5 years, she gets half of everything. But during the time we are married if I log into her email it is a crime? I would like it all to be fair, what is mine, is mine, and what is hers is hers, and when we get divorced, what is hers is hers and what is mine is mine, and if I log into your email while we are married, it is a crime. Sheesh seems kind of wrong the other way.
wife reads husband's email - Legal, acceptable and absolutely necessary to keep him on the straight and narrow
husband reads wife's email - Illegal
What's mine is hers and what's hers is mine, so is it a crime to hack your own email?
I am the admin on our ISP email accounts as well as my wife. If I go in and reset her password to her email using the admin tool, does that make me a leet hacker? According to this prosecutor, I would have even more skills than this hacker. Also if I went into her gmail account and did a password reset using her challenge question, which being married for 16 years i know the answers to. Does this make me a hacker. Ever since the palin email scandal they have loosely defined hacker to anyone with computer knowledge and skills.
Wait, wait, wait. The wife in this story is cheating on her third husband with her ex-second, who by the way has a criminal record for abusing her. The third goes into her email and provides it to the first husband, the father of their son, so that he might intervene and prevent any contact between his son and the second.
And the third is the asshole?
See, here's your problem: you think being an asshole is exclusive.
Taking the story as you relate it, the woman, the second husband, and the third husband are all assholes.
1. In Michigan, for Computer Misuse to become a felony, there must be over $1000 in actual damages as a direct result of the crime.
2. Computer Misuse is defined as "willfully, knowingly or purposely accessing computer-based data with intent to steal, destroy or alter computer-based information, steal services, passwords, or otherwise interfere with hardware or software, etc."
Neither of these appear to be the case in this circumstance, though the articles are severely lacking in detail, and none of the press seemed to do any research whatsoever.
Additionally, one could argue that both the computer used, and the email account accessed were community property of the family, and that the husband had the legal right to view the emails in the account. Further, the husband didn't even have to hack the account (or "breaking in" as Paul Lilly wrote) because the spouse didn't take any reasonable precautions against protecting the account; she left passwords in notebooks around the house. This means there cannot be any reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the wife.
Taking all of this into account, the prosecutor seems to be either emotionally invested in the outcome of the trial (i.e. he's somehow connected to the wife or her attorney and is doing them a favor) or he's trying to set some sort of new precedent for Computer Misuse.
sig sig sputnik?
I don't know if it is a crime, but it is certainly an invasion of privacy that should be punished.
Two other laws that might apply are the one that prohibits unauthorised access to a computer system, and the one that prohibits unauthorised wire-tapping.
It was authorized. By him. It's his computer.
FTFA: Using her password, he accessed her Gmail account and learned she was having an affair.
He did not have authorization to access gmail's computer system using her credentials.
Okay, I can see that it is immoral and perhaps a misdemeanor, but a felony with a possible jail sentence of 5 years? Sheesh.
Is this a court case or an episode of Dynastic Days of Our Sons and Daughters in General City Hospital?
I think the important crime here is adultery.
Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Walker. 'The guy is a hacker,' says Cooper, adding that the Gmail account 'was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded [the emails] and used them in a very contentious way.'"
While I am not condoning this guy's actions I hardly think he qualifies as a hacker. In the article I read he used his wife's Password. Which means he already knew the password, probably because his wife had given it to him at some point because she...I don't know trusted him? Imagine that, trusting your spouse with your password who would have thunk it. Oh, and this prosecutor said he downloaded her E-mail. Which suggests that she uses and E-mail client to get herE-mail from Gmail. And if she is like the majority of users that use an E-mail client they opt to safe their username and password so that they don't have to entered it each time they want to get their E-mail. Which means that all he had to do was click a button. Yeah takes some real hacker skills to do all of that. Not that it would be terribly difficult to hack a windows password.
I'm a retired Texas lawyer with a lot of child abuse experience, and interest and some experience in privacy law, but don't know Michigan law. In Texas, and most other states, if anyone acquires credible information giving reasonable cause to believe that a child has been, is being, or is in real danger of being abused or neglected, they have a legal duty to report this to Child Protective Services, and maybe to take some other actions to protect the child. Failure to do so is both a tort, giving rise to a claim for civil damages, and a crime. Under what one commentator has called the "discrete indiscretions rule," the fact that a parent is having an affair is normally not relevant, and thus not admissible, until it is proven that the child knew what was going on and was upset and harmed by it. Just as, here, contrary to a lot of old tales, the appellate courts have held that it is still burglary whether the door is locked or not, just as reaching into the back of the sheriff's pickup truck and stealing his case of beer is burglary of a vehicle, the fact that the passwords were physically accessible or easily guessed would appear to be irrelevant. Reading someone else's Email, and particularly reading it and revealing its contents to a third party, is illegal. Under the Federal Communications Act, at 49 U.S.C. 405, it has long been illegal to use or forward the substance even of a ham or commercial point to point radio message that it is technically easy and legal to listen to. I have been involved in divorce and child custody, etc., cases in which, for example, the husband accepted his estranged wife's offer, while the divorce was pending, to come clean his house. She found porn on paper and on what had been their computer, files obviously not hers. The court admitted the evidence and the husband lost custody as an explicitly stated result. No appeal so no definitive ruling binding in other cases. I discovered, through credible third parties, credible evidence that a client had been raped by her father. Actually there was more than one such case and client, in some of which the client herself did, and in some of which she did not, ever tell me herself. Some such apparent abusers were office holders (both parties) and other high muckity-mucks with political influence. The law requires me to report this but the State Bar advised me that doing so would violate one or more of their Disciplinary Rules. Wrong, as statutes control over rules, but what can I do? Not exactly on point, but interesting: Lawyer client of mine is having an affair. He switches his office phone from an answering service to his home after five. Wife answers. Paramour, not alerted to the change, tells the wife, who she thinks is the answering service, a message for the lawyer rescheduling their secret rendezvous. Admitted into evidence in very expensive divorce case. I wouldn't bet a nickel how this case will turn out, but you can bet the ranch that the child will get lost in the beaurocratic shuffle and get hurt. .
If the judge has an agent read any of his email
he must excuse himself. Personal or to his office.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1755714&cid=33353946
How come you couldn't disprove the points in favor of hosts files there, clone?
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1927208&cid=34689212
Hmmmm? Did Your big mouth and skimming get you into a jam again?? Absolutely. You tried taking on your betters, and your skimming and your stupidity did you in, promptly. How embarassing for you clone. It was totally hilarious watching you run away! There will be NO burying this clone, for your trolling others here repeatedly, and under your other registered username here too of clone53421 (1310749) as well.