In a story that has garnered considerable attention today, Leon Walker, a man from the suburbs of Detroit, is being charged by prosecutors for accessing his wife’s e-mail account and reading her e-mails.

Photo Courtesy of NYDailyNews.com

Prosecutors in the case are using an unprecedented reading of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) traditionally used to prosecute highly skilled hackers who commit security breaches.

According to sources, Mr. Walker accessed his wife’s e-mail account using her password which he found in a a notebook. He claims that he read her e-mails suspecting that she was carrying on an affair, a suspicion with proved to be true. The discovery of the affair led Mr. Walker to be concerned for the safety of the woman’s child who apparently had witnessed violence perpetrated against his mother by the man she was currently carrying on an affair with (her second husband). The defendant used the information obtained from the e-mails to alert the woman’s first husband (the child’s father) to the situation prompting him to file a custody order.

While it is certainly not advisable to attempt to access and or read anyone else’s e-mail, it seems clear that the original intent of the CFAA was to protect citizens against advanced computer hackers and not to impose severe sentences upon people such as Mr. Walker who do not have a computer hacking background and pose no real security threat.

If you or someone you know are facing charges for an invasion of privacy or hacking, contact Bloom Legal today at 504-599-9997 to schedule a free consultation to discuss the details of your case.