was freely given to him by FtB. They gave him -- essentially -- a password and he used it. Your faux outrage notwithstanding, it's not a crime. Interestingly the FtB lot have posted that lawyers they have consulted disagree with you. Lets say I gave you a key to my house and you were welcome to come over whenever. Later we fall out and it is made very clear publicly that you are not welcome -- the fact I previously gave you a key and it is trivially easy to enter my house does not stop that being illegal. The means to access private information is not the consideration -- the fact that he was not allowed to and he knew it is the crux of the matter. That he then tries to revise history and it was all some heroic whistle blowing operation just rubs salt in the wound. As an aside, I did not read your side of this conflict first. I first read Greta Christinas post, and then noticed that a large part of FTB were writing similar posts. Call me crazy, but when a group of friends all point one way, I tend to look both ways before speaking out in support for anyone. Even when it hurts me socially, it would hurt me more, morally, if I did not. Hacking into a private email server and making public/forwarding that information gleaned illegally is *not* the same as releasing emails sent to you. This is below