Back when Palin’s email was hacked, Orin’s Kerr of The Volokh Conspiracy discussed the legalities of this incident. Comments in are particularly interesting because the touch on Gawker’s posting of the contents of those emails the legal standing of such action. As it happens, Orin responded to a specific issue mentioned in comments:
ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comment thread, J. Aldridge writes:
Since Gawker is fully aware this information was obtained illegally they are looking at some serious charges.
Well, it’s a free country, so anyone can look. But I don’t think Gawker is criminally liable for posting the information. While it’s unseemly and perhaps rather nasty to post it, it’s normally not a crime to post evidence that was obtained as a fruit of crime. There is no claim that the information was obtained in violation of the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511, which might trigger a prohibition on disclosing illegally intercepted materials. The contents here were stored, not in transit, and thus the Wiretap Act’s disclosure limitations don’t apply. See, e.g., United States v. Steiger, 318 F.3d 1039 (11th Cir. 2003). Further, even if a statute did prohibit such a disclosure — and again, I don’t know of such a statute — publishing it is likely protected by the First Amendment under Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001), assuming that Gawker was not involved in the hack.
For those who’d like to read the Supreme Court ruling:BARTNICKI et al. v. VOPPER, aka WILLIAMS, et al. was cited.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BARTNICKI et al. v. VOPPER, aka WILLIAMS, et al.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 99—1687. Argued December 5, 2000–Decided May 21, 2001During contentious collective-bargaining negotiations between a union representing teachers at a Pennsylvania high school and the local school board, an unidentified person intercepted and recorded a cell phone conversation between the chief union negotiator and the union president (hereinafter petitioners). After the parties accepted a nonbinding arbitration proposal generally favorable to the teachers, respondent Vopper, a radio commentator, played a tape of the intercepted conversation on his public affairs talk show in connection with news reports about the settlement. Petitioners filed this damages suit under both federal and state wiretapping laws, alleging, among other things, that their conversation had been surreptitiously intercepted by an unknown person; that respondent Yocum, the head of a local organization opposed to the union’s demands, had obtained the tape and intentionally disclosed it to, inter alios, media representatives; and that they had repeatedly published the conversation even though they knew or had reason to know that it had been illegally intercepted. In ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court concluded that, under the statutory language, an individual violates the federal Act by intentionally disclosing the contents of an electronic communication when he or she knows or has reason to know that the information was obtained through an illegal interception, even if the individual was not involved in that interception; found that the question whether the interception was intentional raised a genuine issue of material fact; and rejected respondents’ defense that they were protected by the First Amendment even if the disclosures violated the statutes, finding that the statutes were
content-neutral laws of general applicability containing no indicia of prior restraint or the chilling of free speech. The Third Circuit accepted an interlocutory appeal, and the United States, also a petitioner, intervened to defend the federal Act’s constitutionality. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the court found the statutes invalid because they deterred significantly more speech than necessary to protect the private interests at stake, and remanded the case with instructions to enter summary judgment for respondents.Held: The First Amendment protects the disclosures made by respondents in this suit. Pp. 6—20.
Warming: I am not a Lawyer. If you feel the need for real advice, contact someone else. But… still. Orin’s post is interesting.
What is the crime alleged to have been comitted here?
Andrew
Lucia,
Are you thinking that anyone who posted this stuff will be subject to having their websites shut down?
Andrew
Can I PLEASE be one of the “facilitators” that Michael Mann wants arrested?
Andrew_KY–
This is a quote from Mann:
If I understand Orin’s post, Mann is mistaken in his believe that reproduction of the emails is illegal (at least in the US.) Of course, I may be misinterpreting Orin.
Andrew_KY. Some have expressed the notion that posting email obtained illegally would itself be illegal:
Guardian UK
It appears Mike Mann may be mistaken.
I’d like to congratulate Jeff ID, Ryan O, Anthony Watts, Stephen McIntyre, Lucia Liljegren and many, many others on having become the climate debate’s version of the KGB. Great stuff. Now you have an even greater responsibility, because if AGW turns out to be a problem after all…
And let’s hope I never win the lottery, because I’d probably hire a bunch of private investigators to find about all sorts of details of your private life and private communication and then leave a few comments/pictures on a few blogs…
No, tempting as it may be, I wouldn’t do that as I’d be disgusted with myself. Besides you might be right and AGW might be a huge scam to divert all our money going to resource wars and the fossil fuel oligarchy to green taxes and a totalitarian one world government. That would make this orgy slightly less despicable.
Party on…
Neven (Comment#23936)
November 20th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
They are members of a government?
And who is to be held responsible for the uninintended consequences of “doing something” about climate change?
“if AGW turns out to be a problem after all…”
You mean you don’t know if it’s a problem?
Huh.
Andrew
Doing something about climate change, when done properly (yes, there are a lot of people who will try to milk it for all they are worth, like with all things, from tulips to wars) will probably also have a beneficial influence on things like energy security.
You mean you don’t know if it’s a problem?
I couldn’t be 100% sure, even if I understood the science. But as homo sapiens seems to lack a certain kind of wisdom, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it will turn into a problem, with some other potentially serious stuff as well. However, this train cannot be stopped. The WUWTs and CAs of this world would prevent any action on anything they chose.
I will leave you now to your voyeuristic revels. A great battle in the Global Warming PR war has been won with a ruse. Now for that win in the Global Warming Scientific truth war…
I see nothing morally wrong with leaking these emails. This is not personal email about some climate scientist boffing his secretary. These emails are from people on the public payroll conspiring to manipulate the science to mislead the public and and politicians and institute draconian controls over the economy and personal freedom.
It is whistleblowing at its finest.
“I couldn’t be 100% sure, even if I understood the science.”
Wait a minute. Climate Change is a scientific claim. You don’t understand it, but you still believe in it. That’s religion, my misguided fellow commenter.
Andrew
Neven (Comment#23943)
November 20th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Now that’s the trick, isn’t it? And without knowing how much, when, or even if.
I see nothing morally wrong about leaking these emails. This is not some personal email about someone boffing their secretary. These are people on the public payroll discussing how to manipulate the science to mislead the public and politicians to institute drastic controls on the economy and personal freedom.
This is whistleblowing at its finest.
I might note that really the only claim the Team could assert to force people to remove the emails from there websites is a copyright claim. That is the tact Scientology used. But since these are government owned email systems I don’t think copyright assertions would work. And most of it is fair use anyway. That at least is according to US law. Your mileage may differ in the UK.
I am on Mann’s side.
I think if a blogger receives materials he/she has reason to know were unlawfully and unethically obtained, there ought to be a presumption of privacy that says you don’t publish any of it unless there is some evidence of a crime or deception or some other really large, public-needs-to-know content. I looked at the items Lubos Motl offered –some snarky emails, political opinions and grant-funding strategies–and none rise to that level.
As for legal jeopardy for bloggers who post the materials and comment after the cat is out of the bag, that will not happen. Tacky is not criminal.
Neven,
It would be possible to build a coherent strategy to reduce CO2 emissions over the long term. However, the real problem is sense of panic created by alarmists who insist that we will destroy the planet unless we completely reorganize society starting now. Nothing will happen on climate until the rhetoric is dialed back and alarmists accept that it is impossible to set absolute targets for CO2 emissions until we have the technology and that we cannot predict when or even if technology will be developed.
You don’t understand it, but you still believe in it.
It is what I would bet on after several years of reading AGW and ‘skeptic’ websites and blogs. Are you 100% sure AGW is a scam/won’t be a problem whatsoever?
Now that’s the trick, isn’t it?
Really, is that the trick? I thought the trick was, in chronological order: 1) No, the world is not warming, 2) Yes, it’s warming, but humans have nothing to with it, 3) Okay, humans don’t have much to do with it, 4) Warming will be good!, 5) It’s cooling!
By the time (a very large part of) the skeptics are willing to discuss mitigation and adaptation strategies (which is pure risk assessment), their antics will have delayed the process enough for those strategies to be too late. Oh, and some other people other than Al Gore will have profited immensely from that financially speaking, as they are doing now. They are toasting to the heroic hacker, as we speak.
So, as I said: Let’s hope AGW is a scam and/or won’t be serious, otherwise winning the PR war by the skeptics might turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.
No, the trick is, use our limited resources to address the most pressing needs.
If you want to empty your bank account to chase every potential problem you see under the bed, be my guest. I prefer a more ordered democratic process that actually adheres to constitutional law to address our problems.
I realize you are most likely European, and prefer the “European” method, which seems to like to write a lot of rules that no one has any intention of adhering to.
I would think this is analogous to the Pentagon Papers
Thanks for this Lucia.
Jeff– It may still be prudent to be cautious. But it seems unlikely that one could be prosecuted for posting otherwise ok material simply because it was obtained illegally.
Obviously, there still might be a copyright issue (but who owns the copyright for many of these things? I don’t see how CRU would own a copyright for an email that a NASA employee sent under any circumstances. Plus, if the email was written during the course of employment at a US government agency, I’m not sure anyone owns a copyright. And would “University X” file a suit? Plus, depending on context, some copying would be fair use. So….
I think George commented on privacy. The odd thing is this case doesn’t involve strictly private email whereas the Palin case did. This case is work related email. So, publishing it isn’t quite the same as publishing private family photos or love letters.
The lasting impact of this debacle will be the credibility of science in general and science supporting public policy in particular. Clearly, the process has significant flaws that need to be addressed if a policy that will have major impacts to society is involved.
The only way to restore credibility is data transparency. All the data have to be made available. If someone analyzes that data, provides the methodology so that it can be reviewed and verified and presents results in whatever forum (peer-reviewed or not) then the policy decisions have to address that work. What has worked in the past is not working now.
I am particularly concerned because the EPA recently sent their final proposal on whether CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare to the White House. I fully expect that document to discount the non-peer reviewed work and fully credit the IPCC work in its recommendations. This disclosure suggests that those assumptions may not be in order and further review to fully understand the uncertainties is in order.
You can’t claim it doesn’t matter because you don’t agree with the way it came to light. I have been repeatedly told that anything sent through a corporate e-mail account should be treated as if it were a public document. The same should apply to government or educational institution accounts.
George Tobin:
“or some other really large, public-needs-to-know content.”
I’m glad you understand the issue. As an example how about this email wherein Phil Jones discusses the best strategy to apparently violate the law and not fulfill McIntyre’s FOI request:
Options appear to be:
Send them the data
Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.
Re: Neven
Even if it is against some law (which I doubt since these are public employees using public resources), what’s the matter with a little civil disobedience in the cause of justice?
lucia, you are taking a pretty liberal approach to law here. it was obvious, that the source was illegal.
basically every sceptic site chose to publish the e-mails.
without checking them first. i don t think that anyone would call this a “sceptical” approach.
and morally, it was at best dubious.
we will see, what legal consequences will come out of this.
“it was obvious, that the source was illegal”
How was it obvious? What was obviously illegal about it?
Andrew
How was it obvious? What was obviously illegal about it?
what part of “hacked” do you not understand?
and if people thought it might be legal, a “sceptic” would have checked that, before publishing it. or would he not?
I understand hacked. Do you know it was hacked? What is your evidence it was hacked?
Andrew
what part of “hacked†do you not understand?
There isn’t any evidence that the system was “hacked”. Actually the evidence points the other way, it is most likely that this was unauthorized disclosure by someone that had access to the system.
As to whether the emails have been altered, Phil Jones seems to confirm the authenticity of at least a few. He is not claiming that any of them been edited. The surest approach would be for CRU to officially release the emails and then we can compare the leaked documents to the official and put all suspicions to rest, or discredit them completely.
Global warming is the 21st century’s version of Eugenics. Same MO. The proponents of the theory always resort to the ‘what if it is true’ without ever considering there are consequences both ways. The Holacost museum is a good reminder of how bad things can go when panic science takes over.
Sod, you’re right, lets see if those advocating and conspiring to commit criminal offenses such as evading FOI requests are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Let’s also see if those shown to be guilty of conspiring to doctor data to give untrue results are investigated for scientific malpractice and punished appropriately by, say, dismissal from their academic posts and withdrawal of their publications as a minimum.
However I have little doubt that the defense that these malefactors will be running is the one you seem to have been given to disseminate: ” Illegally obtained, should not be released, suppress, suppress, suppress”. Unfortunately for you I suggest you catch up a little, CRU has admitted that they’ve been hacked and have acknowledged that the material is genuine. What’s more, such releases are legally protected under whistle-blower legislation, and looking at the content, I would say that whistle blowing is a very apt description.
sod (Comment#23970) November 20th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Sod and others.
WRT the illegality of the act. People described this as a hacking of the system. Not so sure about that. There is a reason why the last date of the final email is Nov 12th. It points inside the organization. There are also clues in the posting of the links to the
file.
sod (Comment#23967) November 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Sod. don’t assume the mails were not checked beforehand. You would be wrong. Don’t assume that there wasnt confirmation from inside CRU before the first post about this made. You would be wrong.
Ok kiddies. is this Andy mentioned here Andy Revkin..
1256735067.txt
Hi Phil,
Thanks–we know that. The point is simply that if we want to talk about about a
meaningful “2009” anomaly, every additional month that is available from which to
calculate an annual mean makes the number more credible. We already have this for
GISTEMP, but have been awaiting HadCRU to be able to do a more decisive update of the
status of the disingenuous “globe is cooling” contrarian talking point,
mike
p.s. be a bit careful about what information you send to Andy and what emails you copy
him in on. He’s not as predictable as we’d like
Mike Mann still doesn’t realize that what has happened to him and the Team is that they have just had their own “Deep Throat” experience. Given that we’re dealing with a Hockey Stick, we’re talking one heck of a deep throat, I might add…
Was the Washington Post ever going to abstain from going after Nixon just because the Watergate tapes were obtained illegally through a source deeply dug in on the inside? We know the answer to that one: it cost Tricky Dick his job.
What is truly mind boggling in its arrogance and callousness in the Mann email highlighted above by Mosher, is the deadpan slacking of Revkin’s trustworthiness and predictability as a media “instrument” in what amounts to an instruction to Jones on how to manipulate Revkin. I trust Dante has a special circle in hell for these guys
I’ll be interested to see what Andy thinks of the Team’s regard for his intellect and objectivity.
Steve–
1256735067.txt
I actually already have a draft post suggesting exactly that! I just have so much stuff up right now, I figured…. too many for one day!
lucia (Comment#24014) November 20th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
I confirmed this with revkin. its him. Pretty good for him that they dont think he is predictable. Andy is like the weather.
Lucia,
look for jones criticism of GISS. its in there.
But what about revkin made mann think he was “in the bag”
The crutape letters. uncle screwtape give his nephew wormwood
some advice.
crutape and ringworm. ha jones and mann.
Do you know it was hacked? What is your evidence it was hacked?
and
There isn’t any evidence that the system was “hackedâ€.
this is a typical denialist tactic. it is obvious that this was a hack. but real proof is difficult, typically takes months and a judge. and even then, there are revisions.
you are trying to abuse this tiny amount of doubt, to deny the obvious.
in reality, it was a hack. CRU brought in the police and said so, in an official statement. it was discovered, when an attempt was made to HACK realclimate to post the ,material there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
and even basically every “sceptic” site is calling it a hack. so why would you use this tactic?
———————
Sod. don’t assume the mails were not checked beforehand.
sorry Steven, but if you folks really checked this, before you published it on multiple sites, and you did not find anything but the stuff that we have seen so far, then you have failed.
i think that you are part of a pretty serious crime and morally unacceptable behaviour: you published stolen mail. i would expect a real smoking gun. what i have seen so far, simply does not legitimate this behaviour.
so i am waiting for the card up your sleeves..
In these mails there were many disgusting things, but what offended me the most was how they’ve seen to that no papers not toeing the line manage it to be published in the more influential journals or even not at all. While at the same time hinting about the “not publishing contrarians”. Maybe these papers weren’t without errors, but as Steve Mc has shown, their own also often did not pass the test. As a scientist myself, I was deeply shaken. And on the top of all that – these little notes about how the media should be informed and manipulated and who is suitable for this purpose.
BTW, Lucia, your activities aren’t welcome too:
“The kind of things we are hearing “no model showed a cooling”, the “data is outside the range of the models” need to be addressed directly.
Gavin”
And it’s nice that the archive is online and searchable, too.
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/search.php
Sod,
Stop being a hypocrite. You would not utter a peep if a hacker published private emails that supported your world view (oil company execs perhaps?). Your complaints now are simply a tactic to distract from the discussion of the substance of the emails.
The question of whether the system was hacked or not is rather immaterial. Who ever put the package together was extremely well informed and could not possibly be a random outsider. He/she had to been involved in the climate debate for last 10-15 years. Perhaps it was a disgruntled former employee who still had a network password.
Sod:
Did you even read read my blog post about the legality of posting stolen email? Did you even read what Orin Kerr (a law professor) said? Did you even what all the lawers said in comments at Orin Kerr’s blog? Finally: Did you read the SCOTUS (i.e. Supreme Court of the United States) decided about your theory?
Let me put it in bulletform:
If you want to make a case that it’s unethical, tacky, unkind, unfriendly, or you have some other gripe, advance that argument. But on the ethics issues I’ve heard bald claims with no reasons given. And the ethics arguments are weaker than that because the partial argument provided is that these are “private”. The use of that word is a stretch and those advancing that must know this.
In the case of CruGate (as opposed to the Palin hack) the emails are not strictly personal. They are business email. Moreover, there may be a public interest involved in these emails: If nothing else, people are learning how FOI words “on the ground”, and/or how any possible cliques might form and affect dissemination of publicly funded science work.
Is some of the email embarrasing? Sure. Is some of the email being taken out of context? Sure. I could pick a few I know have been taken out of context and defend why what they say might be ok. But there are a few that I can’t interpret entirely innocently even if I read them sideways.
Neven, sod, etc.
Comparing the discussion of a found archive of e-mails with the KGB demonstrates a level of reasoning that is ill-informed and poorly practiced on your part.
Asserting that discussing the contents of e-mails that are on the internet is not, in fact a crime.
Claiming that a crime has in fact been committed at all is not yet supported by the facts. We only have the word of a few who have been outted by the e-mails.
The issue is in fact the content of the e-mails.
Poor Sod is only concerned with the legality of distributing the emails. He shows no concern for the possible illegal activity of the Team.
Did you even read read my blog post about the legality of posting stolen email? Did you even read what Orin Kerr (a law professor) said? Did you even what all the lawers said in comments at Orin Kerr’s blog? Finally: Did you read the SCOTUS (i.e. Supreme Court of the United States) decided about your theory?
i did take a look. but even the simple fact that you bring up such legal opinions clearly demonstrates that you are aware of the possible legal implications.
there are major differences to the Palin case. the original article seems to be still on the gawker:
http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-emails
screenshots of a few e-mails vs 1000 e-mails. and we don t know what is in the rest of the stolen data yet. there are multiple countries involved in this case, which makes things much more complicated. and Palin was a person of public interest. again, we will see.
If you want to make a case that it’s unethical, tacky, unkind, unfriendly, or you have some other gripe, advance that argument. But on the ethics issues I’ve heard bald claims with no reasons given. And the ethics arguments are weaker than that because the partial argument provided is that these are “privateâ€. The use of that word is a stretch and those advancing that must know this.
there will be private parts in this type of e-mail, and you know that. there might also be stuff, that even a FOI request would not have revealed (there are exemptions) . again, we will see.
the ethical problem is pretty obvious. but i can t help you there. you must decide, what you do.
the problem i see is this: you accuse scientist of not sharing data with sceptics. now you have demonstrated, what you will do, if you are handed data, even if it is stolen one.
i don t think that you have strengthened your case.
funny thing at the end: here is, what Michelle Malking wrote about the Palin e-mail thing:
The law will catch up to the hackers, but what about the lowlifes who are now gleefully splashing the alleged contents of Palin’s private e-mail account all over the Internet?
…
You think this is just a harmless prank? Those of you who have had to deal with break-ins and identity theft know exactly what a burdensome process it is to recover from crimes like this.
her approach on the CRU hack is slightly different, of course.
Poor Sod is only concerned with the legality of distributing the emails. He shows no concern for the possible illegal activity of the Team.
i am very concerned about illegal activity!
please show me the part in the e-mails, that is as “illegal” as stealing e-mails!
Sod
Huh? What I was aware of was that Mann, like you, were suggesting posting was illegal. After I read the Mann quote I posted in ‘lucia (Comment#23932)’, I recalled an almost exact analog had been discussed at Volokh and did a google search. The search indicates mann– and you– almost certainly incorrect when you suggest reposting this material is illegal.
Oh? I know precisely the opposite.
I’ve downloaded the stuff. I’ve read lots, but not all, of them. One of the reasons I’m sure the archive is severely edited is precisely because I have found nothing personal. There isn’t even so much as a “Hey, everyone, let’s get together and eat Cake for Phils 55th birthday!” Whoever grabbed this stuff took out all or nearly all the personal stuff.
I think I did see one consolation for someone’s loss. I also saw some mention of Briffa’s having been ill. (The latter was already on the web.)
A lot of that going around.
Sod
So obvious you can’t even make the case. 🙂
The ethical case against genocide is obvious. And guess what? People who know this not only can, but do make the case!
First: Michelle appears to have been wrong on the law with respect to Palin. Lots of people discussed this after her Palin posts, and she may actually have learned she was wrong or she may have double standards in her misapplication of the law. I don’t know. Either way: The post by Orin with legal citations suggest that Gawker was not violating the law by posting illegally obtained emails. The fact that Michelle Malkin made this mistake does not magically transform the law such that you, sod, get to apply Michelle’s incorrect interpretation of the law to magically transform posting the CRU data into a crime.
Second: From an ethical point of view, reposting material from CRU hack is different from the Palin hack. The Palin stuff really was of a very personal nature. The Palin break in was to a personal account. Content affected the privacy of children and minors.
In contrast, CRU stuff appears to have been a on a government or university account of some sort and what we are seeing really is not personal. While the hackers themselves may have information putting the privacy of The Climatati’ at risk of identity theft or some other purely personal, non-work specific embarrassment, there is no risk of identity theft in the re-posted material which is free of that sort of material.
So, from an ethical POV, the two have very important differences that have enormous implications to anyone’s judgment on the ethics.
If you are too lazy to support your POV on the ethics, we can just say “is so”, “is not”, “is so”, “is not” till the cows come home. But, you might notice those who say the two are different are willing to explain why and how they differ while those who want to insist posting is unethical want to retreat to the mists of simple declaration, supported by “it’s obvious”. Well… that’s a pretty lame argument.
Sod,
Since SteveMc has posted on some of the things I alluded to I will let you go there to understand more.
sorry Lucia, but i think it is a little bit difficult to explain the ethics of not reading other peoples mail to a person, who is foreign to this concept.
so if a letter to one of your colleague ends up in your postbox or on your table, will you read it? if your colleague left his e-mail account open, will you read it? if your colleague reports to you, that his e-mail has been posted on the web by someone, will you read it? will you publish parts of it on your blog (i am not talking about the nice parts)?
if someone did anything of the above to you, would you think that there wasn t any ethical problem involved?
Has not everyone learned that all email is public one way or the other. Every email you write should be done with the back drop that everyone/anyone will see it in the end.
Neven: if the Cap and Tax bill passes, and I win the lottery (I’d better, so I will be able to afford electricity and gasoline), I’ll be sure to sue folks like Michael Mann for LYING with his data, and costing me money. Likewise Al Gore for making 100s of millions off of his carbon trading scam.
Yup. I think there should be a LOT of lawsuits over global warming. When the scientists lie, and governments set policies that pick my pocket, that makes them THIEVES.
The hack occurred in the UK, so the US law and constitution will not apply. Unless maybe the hacker was in the US when the computer was cracked.