Is It Illegal to Break into Someone's Email?
Full Question:
Answer:
The answer will depend on the charges and all the facts and circumstances involved. Hacking is the deliberate and unauthorized access, use, disclosure, and/or taking of electronic data on a computer and is covered under federal and varied state criminal statutes. The computer crime of hacking is committed when a person willfully, knowingly, and without authorization or without reasonable grounds to believe that he or she has such authorization, attempts or achieves access, communication, examination, or modification of data, computer programs, or supporting documentation residing or existing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network. Hacking may also occur when a person willfully, knowingly, and without authorization or without reasonable grounds to believe that he or she has such authorization, destroys data, computer programs, or supporting documentation residing or existing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network. Besides the destruction of such data, hacking may also be defined to include the disclosure, use or taking of the data.
Please see the following AK statute:
11.46.740. Criminal use of computer.
(a) A person commits the offense of criminal use of a computer if,
having no right to do so or any reasonable ground to believe the person
has such a right, the person knowingly accesses, causes to be accessed,
or exceeds the person's authorized access to a computer, computer
system, computer program, computer network, or any part of a computer
system or network, and, as a result of or in the course of that access,
(1) obtains information concerning a person;
(2) introduces false information into a computer, computer system,
computer program, or computer network with the intent to damage or
enhance the data record or the financial reputation of a person;
(3) introduces false information into a computer, computer system,
computer program, or computer network and, with criminal negligence,
damages or enhances the data record or the financial reputation of a
person;
(4) obtains proprietary information of another person;
(5) obtains information that is only available to the public for a
fee;
(6) introduces instructions, a computer program, or other information
that tampers with, disrupts, disables, or destroys a computer, computer
system, computer program, computer network, or any part of a computer
system or network; or
(7) encrypts or decrypts data.
(b) In this section, "proprietary information" means scientific,
technical, or commercial information, including a design, process,
procedure, customer list, supplier list, or customer records that the
holder of the information has not made available to the public.
(c) Criminal use of a computer is a class C felony.
There is a common-law tort of invasion of privacy, which may be pursued when a person obtains information in a way considered “highly offensive to a reasonable person.” This common-law tort may exist even if the action is not prohibited by the state computer crimes statutes.
RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS, §652B (1977) provides:
“One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another, or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for the invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
If interstate commerce is involved, federal laws in the. the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), may apply.
The most common civil causes of action under the CFAA are brought under either:
1. 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C), which requires a showing that a person
(1) "intentionally,"
(2) accessed a computer,
(3) "without authorization" or "exceeded authorized access,"
(4) and obtained information from any "protected computer,"3
(5) if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;
2. 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4) which requires a showing that a person has
(1) "knowingly and with intent to defraud,"
(2) accessed a "protected computer,"
(3) "without authorization," and thus
(4) has furthered the intended fraudulent conduct and obtained "anything of value"; or
3. 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5) which requires a showing that a person
(1) "knowingly,"
(2) caused transmission of a program, information, code or command and,
(3) as a result, "intentionally"
(4) caused damage,
(5) "without authorization,"
(6) to a "protected computer," or
(7) "intentionally,"
(8) accessed a "protected computer,"
(9) "without authorization," and
(10) caused damage" and "loss" aggregating at least $5,000.00.
In Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America , the plaintiff's complaint alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, conversion, unfair competition, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), tortious interference with a business expectancy, and sought injunctive relief and damages.