Source: http://blog.attyclientpriv.com/why-divorce-lawyers-should-get-up-to-speed-on-cybercrime-law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:28:59+00:00

Document:
Issue: Is the lawyer precluded from introducing evidence and does the lawyer incur any malpractice, tort, or attorney disciplinary liability in possessing, viewing, or proffering evidence obtained from the laptop?
My conclusions —based on somewhat cursory research— appear immediately below. I’ve provided some annotations as footnotes for application in Minnesota (for academic discussion purposes only, not as legal advice). I found very little in the way of Minnesota published cases regarding unauthorized computer access. See, e.g., In re Trudeau, 705 N.W.2d 409 (Minn. 2005) (attorney discipline conditional admission based, in part, on respondent’s unauthorized computer access by installing and using an email spyware program).
(1) If husband’s laptop was not an employer’s computer, and if husband’s laptop was not password protected by him (requiring wife or wife’s private investigator to circumvent any security measure that would create a reasonable expectation of privacy), then wife probably had equal dominion over laptop, as a matter of law (see Texas statute re: “effective consent,” infra). However, to whatever extent the court’s evidentiary ruling is discretionary, the court might well frown on procurement of evidence through such means, and husband might attempt to invoke the Unclean Hands doctrine. This is even more likely so if that area of the hard-drive was password-protected (from wife), or if the laptop belonged to an employer.
(2) Unless some Texas Rule of Evidence and/or rule of Civil Procure (unknown to me) bars admissibility of evidence based upon “unlawful interception of communications,” in a civil case (compare Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.23(a)) or based upon any violation of criminal or administrative law, and if wife’s conduct in surreptitiously taking laptop for forensic imaging would not constitute an act of “interception” in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 16.02(b)(1) or unauthorized access under § 33.02, the evidence recovered from the hard-drive probably is admissible, subject to the court’s broad discretion.
• Tex.Penal Code Ann. § 16.02(c)(4)(B). (It is an affirmative defense to prosecution a person not acting under color of law intercepts a wire, oral, or electronic communication and is one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception, unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing an unlawful act).
• But see Tave v. Alanis, 109 S.W.3d 890 (Tex.App., Dallas, 2003) (School district employee’s termination affirmed, where employee accessed and subsequently disseminated confidential information (inadvertently left on a computer assigned to him for classroom use) violated the District’s policy and constituted conduct could cause the public, students, or employees to lose confidence in the administration and integrity of the District).
So, whereas I found no Texas appellate cases that directly address the fact situation, the cases below from around the country do. In reading through these cases, the advocate should pay particular attention to “effective consent,” (in Minnesota “without authorization,” which phrase is defined under Minn. Stat. § 609.87(b)) and the meaning of the phrase “interception of electronic communications.” Although some courts, have held that recorded screen-shots constitute “interception of electronic communications,” (e.g., O’Brien v. O’brien, infra), under the narrow reading of the Wiretap Act adopted by the Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, very few seizures of electronic communications from computers will constitute “interceptions.” Larue, Wiechman, Terry, & Turner, Trails from the Aether: Cyber-Evidence, (State Bar of Texas CLE, 2007). The advocate should also consider whether a violation of criminal law by wife (or wife’s PI) could translate to liability to the firm as an “accessory after the fact,” and that some judges in similar cases from other states based their discretionary decisions on whether the conduct in obtaining the hard-drive was an unlawful act.
(1) Bailey v. Bailey, 2008 WL 324156 (E.D. Mich)). In this recent case from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the parties were married for nearly 30 years and had three children. Husband became suspicious of his wife’s activities and installed keystroke logging software on both home computers, with which he was obtained wife’s e-mail and instant-messaging passwords. Husband used these passwords to access her e-mail and messages and learned of her extra-marital activities. Husband fled the marital home with the parties’ three children. He provided the e-mails and messages to his divorce attorney and petitioned for divorce. A custody dispute ensued and husband’s attorney used the wife’s e-mails to impeach her. Wife lost custody and was granted only supervised visitation. After the divorce action concluded, wife sued ex-husband, his attorney and her attorney. Husband and his attorney were sued for violation of (1) 18 U.S.C. §2511 (the Wiretap Act); (2) 18 U.S.C. §2701 (the Stored Communications Act) against husband; (3) 18 U.S.C. §2512 (Wiretap Act) against the husband, his attorney and a John Doe who supplied the keystroke logging software; (4) MCL § 750.539a et seq. and MCL §750.540 (Michigan’s Eavesdropping statutes) against the husband, his attorney and John Doe; (5) invasion of privacy against the husband and his attorney; (6) intentional infliction of emotional distress against all defendants; and (7) malpractice against the wife’s own attorney.
The Wiretap Act. Wife claim against husband and his attorney was based on their obtaining her e-mails and messages using the password retrieved from the key logger software. Under § 2511 (1)(a), a person violates this Act if he or she “intentionally intercepts…any…electronic communication” (c) “intentionally discloses…any…electronic communication…knowing…the information was obtained through the interception of a …electronic communication in violation of [the Act]” and (d) intentionally uses…any…electronic communication” (c) “intentionally discloses…any…electronic communication…knowing…the information was obtained through the interception of a …electronic communication in violation of [the Act]” Defendants successfully argued that there was no “interception” as defined in the Wiretap Act. The court agreed and reasoned that the key logging software only allowed the husband to learn his wife’s passwords, which he then used to access her e-mail. Since the husband did not obtain the e-mails and messages contemporaneously with the transmission, the court ruled the Wiretap Act was inapplicable. The court also ruled that that § 2512 of the Act does not provide for a private right of action and the court dismissed wife’s claim based regarding husband, his attorney and a John Doe who supplied the key logger software.
Stored Communications Act. Wife contended her husband violated the Stored Communications Act by accessing her e-mails. The Act provided that a person was in violation if that person (a)(1) “intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided…and thereby obtains…a…electronic communications while it is in electronic storage in such system…” Although husband accessed the wife’s e-mail on her Internet service provider’s (ISP) server and not from the messages stored on her home computer, he argued, because wife had already accessed her e-mails, the Act was inapplicable. But, the court found that the messages on the ISP’s server were stored for purposes of backup protection (since the wife had already accessed those messages) but that does not take it out of the provisions of the Stored Communications Act and therefore the husband’s motion for summary judgment on this count was denied.
(2) In Moore v. Moore, (NYLJ, August 14, 2008, at 26, col 1 [Sup Ct, New York County]), a New York County trial court recently ruled that a wife seeking a divorce can use evidence of her husband’s internet activities with another woman which she found on a computer she took from her husband’s car.
The Moore’s were married in 1963. Wife took a laptop computer from husband’s car just before she petitioned for marital dissolution. According to wife’s attorney, she was searching the computer for financial information when she came upon a large number of salacious instant messages which the husband exchanged with a woman in Texas.
Wife’s counsel informed husband’s counsel she had the computer, and the parties agreed to make forensic images from of the computer’s hard drive. The materials found on the hard drive were repeatedly referred to by the wife in affidavits submitted to the Court without objection by husband.
Subsequently, husband moved to suppress the contents of the hard drive. The Court denied the motion, finding that the wife did not commit a crime or otherwise violate the husband’s rights in taking the computer and copying its contents.
The Court noted that the attorneys for the parties specifically agreed to image the hard drive, and husband waived his objection by not timely moving to suppress the evidence. The Court determined that the computer was a family computer and not a work computer as alleged by the husband. The Court also found that the taking of the computer was appropriate since it was done before the commencement of the dissolution case and was taken from the family car.
(3) In O’Brien v. O’Brien, 899 So.2d 1133 (Fla.App. 5 Dist. 2005), a Florida appeals court ruled that wife “illegally obtained” records of husband’s Internet conversations with another woman as the two played Yahoo Dominoes online. “It is illegal and punishable as a crime under (state law) to intercept electronic communications,” wrote the panel.
The court barred wife from revealing the contents of the intercepted conversations, and said the chat records could not be introduced as evidence in the divorce proceedings. At issue in a civil case arising out of the divorce proceedings was whether the use of the spyware, called Spector, violated Florida’s wiretapping law, which provides that a person who “intentionally intercepts” any “electronic communication” commits a criminal act.
(4) In Gurevich v Gurevich (2009 NY Slip Op 29191) the Supreme Court considered CPLR 4506 5 in the context of matrimonial proceedings in which the wife sought to lead email communications obtained from her husband’s email account after the service of the divorce action.
The parties had been married for 16 years prior to separation, during which husband had provided wife with the password to his email account, and during which both parties had access to each others email accounts. After separation, wife changed her email password, but the husband neither changed his, nor told or gave notice to the wife that she was not permitted to access his account.
It is this court’s understanding from the reading of the statute, legislative history and case law that the purpose of Penal Law section 250.00 is to prohibit individuals from intercepting communication going from one person to another, and in this case an email from one person to another. In the case at bar the email was not “in transit,” but stored in the email account. Even assuming the husband’s facts, as stated, to be true, the wife may have unlawfully retrieved information from a computer; in violation of Penal Law 153.10 but there was no interception and accordingly fails to fall within scope of CPLR 4506 as presently written.
(5) 6 In White v. White, 781 A.2d at 87-88, the family computer and entertainment center were located in the sun room, where the husband slept; the wife and the parties’ children often used the sun room to utilize the computer, watch television, and adjust the stereo volume. It was in the sun room that the wife discovered, fatefully, a letter from the husband to his girlfriend.
Specifically, in the main tool bar, the user chooses “Mail Center,” “Preferences” and then checks “Retain All Mail I Send in My Personal Filing Cabinet” and/or “Retain All Mail I Read in My Personal Filing Cabinet”….Additionally, in the “Notes” section of [the Help screens], AOL informs the user that he can read mail stored in the PFC when he is not signed onto AOL, i.e. the PFC is on the hard drive. Similarly… AOL informs the user that e-mail saved in the PFC will remain on the hard drive until the user deletes it.
Thus, the only way for the husband to be sure that his e-mail would be saved permanently was to use the PFC file on the his hard drive, because his e-mail could not be saved permanently on AOL’s server. Id. at 88. Not knowing his e-mails were being saved, he took no steps to delete them, nor any steps to protect them with a password, which meant that any computer user could view his PFC and e-mails by simply opening the AOL software on the hard drive, and that was exactly what happened: the wife’ s expert simply opened the AOL software and viewed and copied the husband’s emails.
Turning to the legal issues in the case, the New Jersey court first held that the doctrine of interspousal immunity was inapplicable, and that the New Jersey Wiretap Act applied to unauthorized access of electronic communications of one’s spouse. Id. at 88.
Next, the court noted that the New Jersey act [identical to the federal act] prohibited “access” to electronic information in “temporary, immediate storage,” in backup protection, or in transmission. Id. at 89. The court observed that the e-mail in the hard-drive of the computer was in “post-transmission storage.” Id. Pursuant to the statutory language, the court held that the New Jersey act was not meant to extend to e-mail retrieved by the recipient and then stored, but rather protected only those electronic communications which were in the course of transmission, or were backup to that course of transmission. Id. at 90.
The Court then rejected the husband’s argument that the wife accessed his e-mail “without authorization.” Id. Since other courts had held that “without authorization” meant using a computer from which one has been prohibited, or using another’s password or code use the family computer, the court stated that nonetheless she had the authority to do so. Id. (citations omitted). Additionally, according to the court, the wife did not use the husband’s password or code without authorization, but instead accessed the information in question by roaming in and out of different directories on the hard drive. Id.
Finally, the New Jersey court held that the wife did not “intercept” the husband’s e-mails, since the concept of “interception” did not apply to “electronic storage.” Id. at 91. The husband’s electronic communications had already ceased being in “electronic storage,” i.e., they were in post-transmission storage, and therefore the court held that the wife did not “intercept” them. Id.
1 Under Texas law, a person performing computer forensics analysis must be licensed as a private investigator in that state.
2 Texas is not a no-fault divorce state, and divorces may be tried to a jury.
3 See Minn. Stat. §§ 609.89 (Computer theft) & 609.891 (Unauthorized Computer Access, amended 2006).
6 The White v. White case digest is excerpted in its entirety from Larue, Wiechman, Terry, & Turner, Trails from the Aether: Cyber-Evidence, (State Bar of Texas CLE, 2007).

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