SC SUPREME COURT RULES HACKING IS LEGAL
If you can guess the user name and password to someone’s email address, then you can legally hack their account in South Carolina.
Wait … what?
That’s right … according to the S.C. Supreme Court, hacking email accounts does not constitute a violation of privacy. And we’re not talking about hacking in the name of national security (some people – not us – distinguish “good” hacking from “bad” hacking), we’re talking everyday domestic disputes – like a daughter-in-law hacking the account of her father-in-law in order to determine the name of his mistress.
Amazing, isn’t it?
We can’t think of any instance in which it ought to be permissible for a person’s private emails to be legally “hacked.” In our opinion, doing so constitutes a gross invasion of privacy under any circumstances. In fact the most frightening component of this ruling is that government agencies are likely to use it as a justification for all sorts of snooping.
So … should S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley be worried by this?
Of course not … because remember in her case, there was no password.
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35 comments
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeal Toal’s excessive drinking over the years may have led up to a condition known as “Alcohol Dementia.” As she crashed into anything lately and left the scene of the accident – again? Anywho, she and the court are off their rockers.
In the United States, the hacking of e-mail passwords falls under Title 18 of the United States Code, Part 1, Chapter 47, Section 1030 known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The law defines the crime as “intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization.” The punishment is as much as a decade behind bars.
The SC Supreme Court has obviously gone off the deep end. I tell ya, all of this corruption going on everywhere in our state government is totally bizarre. I’ve never seen it this bad before. Of course, we have Fitnews that provides interesting stories and the like. But anywho, is it a full moon? Maybe something in the air and/or water? Might want to call up DHEC and get an .. ummm .. well … nevermind.
I have played the cat and mouse game with hackers before. Hey? Wasn’t that Andy Savage in Charleston who subpoenaed emails of tons of people commenting on the Post & Courier website before they changed up to Facebook accounts only? Hmmmmm? I bet his investigators may engaged in, lets say “unscrupulous” behavior?
First, the husband did not make a claim under that Act (is a civil remedy available under that act?)
Second, as far as I can tell from reading the opinion, the daughter-in-law did not access the husband’s personal computer. She just guessed his email password and, viola, was able to locate his emails.
See my post below. The only issue decided by the Supreme Court was whether the emails were considered “stored” under the Stored Communications Act. That was the ONLY issue the Supreme Court was left to decide.
The emails were stored on a computer belonging to others (like Yahoo, Gmail, AT&T, etc). She had no authorization to access the account. In todays times with paperless billing and the like, it goes without saying.
Yes, it appears he did not present any arguement or case law pertinent to the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” Just the “Stored Communication Act.” Email hacking has become a more common problem and one that both Internet service providers (ISPs) and law enforcement continue to fight. Because email is considered private information, email hacking can be a criminal offense and is defined as unauthorized use of an email account. In this case, he appears to have been presenting invasion of privacy claims; not criminal. Be that as it may, his lawyer dis a pretty shabby job at representation. Plus, the court is ignorant. However, and in part, they can only rule on what is presented.
We all have heard about the famous case whereas Sarah Palin’s email account was hacked. We also know about the criminal sentence handed down to the culprit. The incident was ultimately prosecuted in a U.S. federal court as four felony crimes punishable by up to 50 years in federal prison. The charges were three felonies: identity theft, wire fraud, and anticipatory obstruction of justice; and one optional as felony or misdemeanor: intentionally accessing an account without authorization.
In my opinion, the plaintiff in this matter would have been better served filing action in the United States District Court while also filing criminal complaints. Email hacking is a very serious crime (a felony).
The husband was probably trying to get at his wife. Even if criminal charges were available — and I don’t know whether they were or were not — he probably had no desire to send her daughter-in-law to prison, and the cops probably didn’t want to get involved in a domestic dispute concerning emails between a cheating husband and his lover.
FITS and the perverts just took a hit to the testicles…
Don’t CHEAT on your wife…and you won’t have to worry about it…
So gaining access to emails without permission of the owner is just peachy then?
In a family court, Cheating issue…I’m VERY much for a family member being able to do it…
You have contracts w/ people YOU ARE MARRIED TO..
Liberals, like FITS, will ALWAYS try to include NATIONAL SECURITY as a FEAR Tactic to protect the Immoral…
Again: I’d help any wife catch some Cheatin’ Some Beech..and if she were being tried and I was on the Jury…I’d nullify the charge…(find her not guilty no matter what)….
Way too many Crooks use Red Herring arguments to tear down society…It needs to Stop…
T, although you and I would probably utilize it very differently, it warms my heart to see you are in favor of Jury Nullification. It truly is the last defense of a free society.
Your title is a little dramatic, Will. The court did NOT rule that “hacking is legal.”
The case concerned the daughter-in-law of a wife who guessed the husband’s yahoo password and printed out emails between the husband and his paramour. The daughter-in-law then printed the emails and gave them to the wife, who then forwarded them to her attorney.
The husband later withdrew many of his claims, and the trial court dismissed the rest. When it was appealed to the Supreme Court, the ONLY issue left was whether this action violated a federal statute called the Stored Communications Act. The Supreme Court did NOT consider the issue of whether this was an invasion of privacy because that issue — for whatever reason — was not appealed to the Supreme Court.
I’m not a big fan of our Supreme Court, but in this case it simply followed some federal precedent that the emails at issue were not consitered in “storage” as that term is defined under the Stored Communications Act.
Will reported the story correctly. The same is being reported as such on many of media websites.
Will’s title says “SC SUPREME COURT RULES HACKING IS LEGAL,” which is a *wee* bit misleading.
The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled a man’s privacy was not violated when his wife’s daughter-in-law managed to get into his email (hacked his password) and find out the name of his lover because the messages remained in his inbox.
She printed out the emails between Jennings and the other woman, giving copies to his wife’s divorce attorney and a private investigator ( Wife’s lawyer and investigators can be criminal charged as accessories after the fact. Plus the lawyer is under a duty to report crimes to law enforcement officials, which he has failed to do). Nevertheless, from my understanding of the law, evidence that is obtained illegally opens a can of worms. The criminal case against domestic terrorist Bill Ayers ( The Weather Underground) was thrown over illegally obtained evidence.
The SC Supremes are nuts. And so is the wife’s attorney, his investigators, and a daughter in-law, all who in my opinion are facing years in a federal prison over this hacking incident and illegally obtained emails. Again, the wife’s lawyer did not report it to law enforcement. The Supremes know better. Why did they not ask him?
^^^The court never ruled on whether this violated his privacy.
Not the first time the Supremes have been the “cutting edge” — they ruled Valium was a “controlled substance” several years before the current (1971) controlled substances act and long before DEA could overcome the Roche Lobbyists and convince Congress to add it to the law. They have recently made the same mistake about another drug – don’t now remember what it is, but it hasn’t been “scheduled” by either the state or by DEA/FDA.
More power to them.
OK: Don’t Cheat of do drugs…
Why do liberals have such a hard time being moral?
I guess the question is whether you may sue someone in a civil lawsuit if they use their own computer and guess your yahoo password. If I go home and put in WillFolks@yahoo.com and guess that his password is “trickynikki” and read his emails, can Will then sue me?
I’m not really sure. But the only issue the Supreme Court decided was whether doing that violated an obscure statute known as the Stored Communications Act.
The hacking is a federal felony.
I would have that little bitch and her mom arrested.
The SC Supreme Court if a fucking joke.
Regarding a more popular case in recent time:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_email_hack
Guy got a year in prison and 3 years supervised release.
Yeah, I’m wondering whether there’s a civil lawsuit available.
I would think so, but I don’t know for sure.
Thank God, now I can go back to reading coworker’s e-mails without the fear of going to jail.
You are fucked up. I am reporting you to the FBI. They will track you down. I think you are a muslim terrorist that goes around threatening to blow up Americans.
I have two friends who have knowledge of legal firms that hack into emails, Facebook, Twitter and the like for companies as they check out job candidates.
If this is legal in America, then let’s just quit calling America the land of freedom.
The FBI will dig into you and uncover who your friends are. I am telling on you.
http://www.volokh.com/2012/10/10/sourth-carolina-supreme-court-deepens-split-on-privacy-in-stored-e-mails-and-divides-2-2-1-on-the-rationale/
Beatty and Pleiconas in lock step with Toal. Surprise, Surprise….
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TL;DR
Hey, ‘Pacman’ Folks!
Methinks yer spam filter is broke.
Are you surprised? This is one of the most ass-backward places in the country…
Really Big T! Aren’t you the one who talked about threesomes and nurses who provide Viagra? What a joke! Youre a total fraud! You are a known lecher! At least you’re not just hated for your bizarre biased hatred of anyone who disagrees with you–you’re pretty much hated as a human being:( Christian, bible-thumper–hahahahahaha!
The related entry “Jilted ex-husband leaked Sanford e-mails” brought back memories of that time in 2009. I often wondered why MBC claimed it was her ex-lover that sent those e-mails. Was that to get her ex-husband off the hook? Why didn’t anyone check who the REAL culprit was that did the nasty job of sending those e-mails to The State? Is it true that MS knew her computer was hacked and The State had the e-mails? Is it true that Tom Davis had an affair with the newspaper reporter? Did MS and TD pay Will to keep scandalous news from his blog? The biggest question I have is “What was really going on and was the affair a cover-up for someone else or something else? Everyone said it was a love affair and if so why in the heck did it take MS so long to ask MBC to marry him? True love does not take that long for a guy who wants his woman to be with him. This whole situation is still IMO very fishy.
“In a family court, Cheating issue…I’m VERY much for a family member being able to do it…”
So accusation is enough? May you be on the wrong end of a divorce suit where you aren’t guilty of anything and need to communicate with lawyers etc with some expectation of privacy.
Not everyone who is accused is guilty.