Could the act of emailing publicly available information be deemed illegal? Andy and Mary are friends. Andy discovers that Mary is secretly working as an escort. Nobody knows about this activity beyond Andy. He tries to convince her that escorting is harmful and will have a serious impact on her mental well-being in the future. Mary disagrees and asserts that her activities are solely relevant to her private life. To stop her, Andy decides to send an anonymous email to her family in which he provides a link to the PUBLIC page she is using to promote her escort services. Does Andy commit any crime in revealing a PUBLIC website to her family? Could this in particular be considered a cyberstalking crime? I stress that all the information shared by Andy is PUBLIC and visible on the web.
In the united-states, those actions would be fully protected by the First Amendment. Andy has a constitutional right to speak freely about essentially whatever he wants -- including Mary's criminal conduct -- unless his speech falls into one of several narrowly defined categories, none of which would apply in this case. And because Mary has already put this information out on the Internet, it is likely not sufficiently private to support an invasion-of-privacy claim. However, the unfortunate reality is that complainants, police, prosecutors, and judges frequently ignore First Amendment protections. Indeed, many states have laws against &quot;cyberstalking&quot; and &quot;telecommunications harassment&quot; that are incredibly broad, and that clearly apply to conduct protected by the First Amendment. For instance, Ohio's telecommunications harassment statute makes it a crime to send an e-mail &quot;with purpose to abuse, threaten, or harass another person.&quot; This means that many people who engage in First Amendment-protected speech end up getting prosecuted anyway. If they pay for a good lawyer who knows how to properly raise a First Amendment defense, they may escape any penalties. But because most defendants do not have those resources, and because many lawyers are unaware of the First Amendment implications of such prosecutions, most defendants in such situations likely end up being convicted despite behaving perfectly legally. In the united-kingdom, though, the situation is very different. Even if Mary is breaking the law, and even if Andy limits himself to strictly factual information about what's he's learned about her conduct, he may still be held civilly liable. Mary may also be able to pursue Andy criminally for harassment if his e-mail causes her substantial emotional distress, and civilly for &quot;harassment by publication.&quot; The fact that this information is already public is likely not going to go very far in changing the analysis. Andy's best course of action is therefore to play it safe by keeping his mouth shut. Doing so has both legal and nonlegal benefits: He avoids exposure to the hassles of defending himself from criminal charges and he gets some time to examine the resentment, jealousy, paranoia that makes him want to humiliate his &quot;friend.&quot;
The recording is not illegal because you've been told it would happen, and by not hanging up, you've agreed to have a conversation that can be recorded. This was determined in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc. applying the exception of Penal Code 632 that communications are not considered confidential if there is a reasonable expectation that the call will be overheard or recorded - being explicitly told that the call will be recorded makes this true. It would not be illegal for them to only record their own statements during the call, nor for you to record only your statements, either. In particular, the company is allowed to record the part of the call where they make this statement, as they are not recording a conversation, only their own (likely pre-recorded) statement (again?). Indeed, including their statement about the recording in the recording is common practise partly for protection against claims that the other party was not informed of the recording occurring.
The purpose of that disclaimer is not to prevent reprimands or legal action. It's really as simple as it appears -- it's to inform the readers that the tweets in fact contain the opinion of the person who wrote them and are not intended to be understood as the official position as that person's employer. This is especially important for people who occasionally or frequently convey their employer's official position. It's not supposed to be some kind of magic word that causes something to happen. It's just an attempt to convey accurate information and avoid misunderstandings.
Yes. In the United Kingdom it is illegal under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. In other jurisdictions there may not be a law directly aimed at computer crime but if you sell it knowing that a crime is going to be committed with it that makes you an accomplice. Most computer crime is prosecuted under laws not directly aimed at computer misuse.
tl;dr- I don't see how you can &quot;leak&quot; a large organization's IP addresses given that they seem to be very public information. However, misusing an organization's network services or/and somehow being complicit in an attack could probably get someone into touble. Organization IP address allocations seem to be public information. I Google'd &quot;Colorado university IP address&quot;. The first search result was this official webpage for the University of Colorado, Boulder. It says: IP Ranges for Server Administrators All public IP space for CU Boulder can be described by the following notation: 128.138.0.0/16 198.11.16.0/20 But, say that that university didn't publish its IP addresses online. Then this website shows them anyway. Additionally, seems like anyone at your school can get an IP address by Google'ing &quot;what's my ip&quot;. Or you can use Bing. Or WolframAlpha. Or, heck, this website doesn't seem to do anything but show your IP address. Point being, I don't see how an organization's IP addresses could be considered information that could be &quot;leaked&quot;. There're other things that might get someone into trouble though. However, this sounds like a potentially different matter: well someone at our school got our IP address banned from editing on Wikipedia Ideally that &quot;someone&quot; isn't you or a friend since such activities can easily be against an organization's acceptable-use policy (example) or/and the law.
In the USA communication between an attorney and their client is "privileged". This makes it illegal for, amongst other things, the police to listen in to conferences between a suspect and their attorney. However in practice there is often little to prevent the police actually doing so.
From the article: The FBI is investigating alleged computer intrusion and theft against an unidentified “victim corporation” involving “confidential or proprietary information,” including tests, test forms and internal emails, according to a search warrant issued in the case. The reference to "computer intrusion" is not precise, but may mean that they suspect a violation of some provision of 18 USC 1030, which makes it a federal crime to access a computer without authorization, or to exceed authorized access, under certain circumstances and for certain purposes. So it's not necessarily just a civil matter. Specifically, 18 USC 1030(a)(2) provides: Whoever [...] intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains [...] information from any protected computer [...] shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section. Subsection (c) provides for fines and imprisonment for various terms, making a violation of (a)(2) a felony or misdemeanor, depending on circumstances. Subsection (e) defines "protected computer" as any computer "which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication". It seems very likely that the computer in question was used in interstate communication, and that the SAT does affect interstate commerce. The fact that they got a search warrant means that they were able to satisfy a judge that there was probable cause to believe a crime was committed and the search would yield relevant evidence. We'd have to read the warrant, or the corresponding application, to know more.
I think that the question you are really asking is whether a contract not to disclose certain information (e.g. to authorities) might be void as contrary to public policy, or illegal. Sometimes it is illegal to do so. For example, often concealing personal information in connection to the transfer of funds constitutes money laundering, which is a crime, or securities fraud. The key question is whether there is a legal duty to disclose in a particular context and whether the concealment facilitates some sort of fraud.