Leaked Emails May Lead to Federal Jail Time

We’re in the final stretch of this election season, thank goodness. Whatever your political leanings, the one common ground that we all have is that this election has had unprecedented vitriol and has been unusually divisive.

One theme of this election has been emails. Emails deleted, emails leaked, and emails hacked. Lately, we are getting a somewhat steady stream of emails from Wikileaks, supposedly hacked from John Podesta’s private email account. John Podesta is, of course, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Like everything else in this election, each side of the aisle interprets these emails differently. However, regardless of whether you think they expose the duplicitous nature of an immoral campaign or examples of the pragmatic ability to achieve results, these emails were not released voluntarily by the person from whose email account they came. Everyone describes these emails as ‘hacked,’ a lay term which is pretty descriptive. It conjures a picture of someone sitting in a windowless room, staring at a computer screen and attempting to bypass firewalls, passwords, and other security controls to get to information.

The law is clear: whether your motivations are good or bad, this action is against the law. This kind of hacking can be prosecuted under either 19 U.S. Code §1030 or 18 U.S. Code §1343. You simply cannot hack into someone’s computer and take their information without permission.

Property rights are essential to the American way of life. We have complicated systems to ensure that what is ours stays ours, and can’t be taken from us without our consent. We are protected from illegal intrusions into our information by everyone, including our own government. If information is obtained illegally, even if it proves the commission of horrible crimes, it can’t be used in our prosecution. Legally speaking, this break in and subsequent distribution of information is no different than what happened at Watergate. Simply because the theft occurred remotely doesn’t make it any less of a theft.

This is true for things that happen on a vast, global scale like the current crop of hacked emails, and smaller things. It is easy to see, in this contest, how a practical joke or a simple search for information could put you in the same category of criminal as global, political hackers. You might think it is funny to break into your coworker’s email and forward private, embarrassing emails to supervisors. You might be a senior in high school looking for a heads up on the next round of testing. You might just want to know what the local paper is going to say about your business in the next issue. But these are all crimes.

Ryan Blanch, of The Blanch Law Firm, known for handling high-profile criminal matters in Federal Court, had this to say: "We see a number of individuals who find themselves facing federal prison time for alleged activity of a similar nature although smaller scale than that of Wikileaks, yet the law views the conduct as the same.”

Our American right to privacy is constitutional, and extends to our physical bodies, our homes, our cars, and our password-protected emails. Virtually breaking into our computers and stealing information is just another variation of the same crime as burglary – breaking into our houses and stealing things. Theft is theft, according to the law. Only this kind of theft may find you facing down a federal judge.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more like it, visit Lori at her website, www.loriduffwrites.com , on Twitter, or on Facebook. For the Best of Lori, read her books, “Mismatched Shoes and Upside Down Pizza,” “The Armadillo, the Pickaxe, and the Laundry Basket,” or her latest release, “You Know I Love You Because You’re Still Alive.”