Man can get 5 years for reading wife's e-mail

[emzie]

You mean like cheating on your spouse and letting your kid get abused?

Also if the computer is jointly owned , its not criminal by law standards.

If the emails were already on the computer, like in outlook, then yes. If he accessed her email account on the provider's server, then no, that's unauthorized access.

I'm not sure the prosecutor has any jurisdiction though; wouldn't the "crime" have taken place where the servers were located? Unless it was a local service.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I still want to know what these "wonderful skills" are.

 

[Perfection]

being better at a computer then a prosecutor

 

[Camikaze]

What are the laws in regards to property ownership in marriages (assuming the absence of a pre-nuptial agreement)? Shouldn't he be just as entitled to half the email account as he would be to half the house? Or is there some legal distinction between the type of property a house is and the type of property an email account is?

 

[Tani Coyote]

Fine at best.

If you don't want people to get into accounts, don't leave info lying around.

This is especially true if you give someone the keys to accounts - that translates as they can look at whatever's inside, meaning you can't complain if it bites you in the ass.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Something is very screwed up here: All the anger is directed at the husband who accessed the emails and alerted the first husband that his child was being abused. Why are the mother and the prosecutors more concerned about the damn computer than they are about the welfare of the kid?!!

Why hasn't the abuser been arrested?

 

[GenMarshall]

The man should not get punished. The woman however should for adultery!

STONE THE WOMAN!!!!


Link to video.

 

[emzie]

What are the laws in regards to property ownership in marriages (assuming the absence of a pre-nuptial agreement)? Shouldn't he be just as entitled to half the email account as he would be to half the house? Or is there some legal distinction between the type of property a house is and the type of property an email account is?

You don't own your email account, if it's something like gmail or yahoo anyway, so it can't be joint property in a marriage.

Something is very screwed up here: All the anger is directed at the husband who accessed the emails and alerted the first husband that his child was being abused. Why are the mother and the prosecutors more concerned about the damn computer than they are about the welfare of the kid?!!

Why hasn't the abuser been arrested?

Probably because there's no evidence that abuse has happened. And the emails can't be used as evidence since they were obtained illegally, or so I think?

People should be mad at the husband though. You just don't go through your spouse's personal email or journal or diary without his/her permission. I occasionally pen down some personal thought and if I ever found my wife knowingly going through those, I'd be livid. I get snappy when she even asks what I'm writing on this forum time to time, though I have no qualms with her reading my posts after they're made.

 

[NovaKart]

It's certainly wrong to sneak into a family member's e-mail or diary but it shouldn't be a criminal offense. Prosecutors just have no common sense these days.

After reading the article again it looks like the child wasn't abused exactly but the mother was abused in his presence. Because of this the 1st husband is seeking custody and I think the mother wants to get revenge. I could understand a civil suit for him reading her e-mails but a criminal case is ridiculous.

 

[Archbob]

Irrelevant to the crime at hand.


Joint ownership of the machine does not equal a joint right to access to the email account.

I own stock in a Fortune 500 company and thus jointly own every computer in the company. Can I have access to everything on all of them?

My Employer owns my computer at work. He can check my emails.

 

[Tee Kay]

He's male, he should be punished!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I occasionally pen down some personal thought and if I ever found my wife knowingly going through those, I'd be livid. I get snappy when she even asks what I'm writing on this forum time to time, though I have no qualms with her reading my posts after they're made.

That's... paranoid (the bolded part). I can understand your not wanting her to interrupt your train of thought, but to say you have "no qualms" if your wife reads your words on a PUBLIC FORUM...

I take it your password is well-protected so she can't read your PMs. And do you let her read your Visitors Messages? (assuming she might be curious about them)


Regarding the article: There seems to be some valid concern that the husband had about the kid - even if it's the woman being abused, and not the kid, that's still not a good home environment for the kid to be in. I'm on the side of the first husband and the one who alerted him to the situation.

 

[carlosMM]

email is mail. personally addressed. You're not allowed to read other people's mail for a good reason.

 

[Camikaze]

You don't own your email account, if it's something like gmail or yahoo anyway, so it can't be joint property in a marriage.

Okay, that makes sense.

email is mail. personally addressed. You're not allowed to read other people's mail for a good reason.

Does this apply to conventional mail in marriages also? I would've assumed it rather normal for one half of a couple to sort the mail. Are they breaking the law every time they open up their significant other's bank statement?

I know there are some fairly draconian privacy laws (that often come into play when talking to a bank over the phone), but it seems that there should be some exceptions for married couples.

 

[carlosMM]

Does this apply to conventional mail in marriages also? I would've assumed it rather normal for one half of a couple to sort the mail. Are they breaking the law every time they open up their significant other's bank statement?

I know there are some fairly draconian privacy laws (that often come into play when talking to a bank over the phone), but it seems that there should be some exceptions for married couples.

It applies to any form of mail (at least in Germany), unless you explicitly or implicitly agree with the significant other reading it. And that's how it should be. You're not your spouse's slave, after all. It has to be YOUR personal decision if and what you share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence
seems the US is different, though.


in Germany:

Spoiler :

§ 202 StGb Verletzung des Briefgeheimnisses
(1) Wer unbefugt

1.
einen verschlossenen Brief oder ein anderes verschlossenes Schriftstück, die nicht zu seiner Kenntnis bestimmt sind, öffnet oder
2.
sich vom Inhalt eines solchen Schriftstücks ohne Öffnung des Verschlusses unter Anwendung technischer Mittel Kenntnis verschafft,

wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu einem Jahr oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft, wenn die Tat nicht in § 206 mit Strafe bedroht ist.
(2) Ebenso wird bestraft, wer sich unbefugt vom Inhalt eines Schriftstücks, das nicht zu seiner Kenntnis bestimmt und durch ein verschlossenes Behältnis gegen Kenntnisnahme besonders gesichert ist, Kenntnis verschafft, nachdem er dazu das Behältnis geöffnet hat.
(3) Einem Schriftstück im Sinne der Absätze 1 und 2 steht eine Abbildung gleich.

§ 202 Strafgesetzbuch (criminal law) violation of secrecy of correspondence

essentially says that you can be fined by restriction of freedom (jail) up to one year or a fine, unless other paragraphs put the action under penatly.

 

[holy king]

So what are the laws on reading someones private files??? I'm sure there are laws on the books already.

i'm even more than sure there are laws regarding mail already.

 

[Zelig]

This should be a lesson to people not to write passwords down.

So man gets into wife's email account. Finds out she's cheating on him with a former and that the former hit the wife's kid while the wife is with him.

I'd hit it:

 

[dutchfire]

He shouldn't have gone into her e-mail. Maybe he should even get a (small) fine, but criminal prosecution is way too much. I'd think the courts would have better things to do than this.

 

[SuperJay]

This whole thing has "facepalm" written all over it.

In other news, I just learned that I too am a very highly-trained hacker. Apparently being literate is the only requirement... who knew? I'm off to hack something.

 

[Riffraff]

Adultery is obviously no buisness of the state and whatever he found should be of no importance.

Apart from that, this is more tricky than people give it credit for. I'm not sure the sophistication of the 'hack' really is the important thing in such a case. What if he had guessed the password due to knowing the preferences of his wife? What if he had guessed hundreds of times? What if he had simply used a (proper) brute force approach?

In the end the result is always the same and if there is a punishment on that in general, then it should probably be so in this case aswell.