Timothy B. Lee writes:
When Wayne Rogers, a New Jersey teacher, sat down in his school’s computer lab to check his e-mail, he bumped the mouse of the computer next to him. The screen on the adjacent computer came on, and Rogers saw that one of his colleagues, Linda Marcus, had left herself logged into her Yahoo e-mail account. He saw an e-mail thread with the subject “Wayne Update.” Curious, he clicked the e-mail and found it was a private discussion with another teacher of an argument between Rogers and Marcus.
Read more about the case on Ars Technica. There seem to be a number of ways this case could have been argued, but the bottom line is that the jury didn’t believe that the snooping co-worker actually knew he lacked authorization or exceeded authorization to access the emails. I find it somewhat hard to believe that he didn’t know he shouldn’t be reading a co-worker’s emails, even if she failed to log out of her account, but hey, that’s the jury system at work, I guess.
This ruling is stupid and inconsistent, so leaving my car unlocked gives burglars authorization to steal the radio? or even ride off in it? no didn’t think so! so stupid.