Cybercrime 5: Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Overview)

For the time being, we are skipping Week 4. We’ll come back to it!

This week’s reading:

Electronic Communications Privacy Act Case Law
Crowley v. CyberSource Corporation, 166 F. Supp. 2d 1263 (N.D. Cal. 2001)
White v. White, 344 N.J. Super. 211, 781 A.2d 85 (N.J. Super. Ct. Ch. Div. 2001)
Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 302 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2002)
Theofel v. Farey Jones, 359 F.3d 1066 (9th Cir. 2004)

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and its component parts are known by a variety of names. Wikipedia states that the ECPA is codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–2522, but actually that is only part of the act. For example, the Stored Communications Act, which is part of the ECPA, is codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 121 §§ 2701–2712. It’s not particularly important that you understand all of the variations, but it is important that you double-check any of your sources on the law because as the 9th Circuit says in Konop, it “is a complex, often convoluted, area of the law.”

Because the topic is so complex, I’m going to go ahead and give you next week’s reading (which will be in two weeks because spring break is coming up for us) so you can ask me any questions ahead of time. I’m also going to give you some resources below, which is something I’ve done a lot over at the Music Manumit Lawcast, but not something I’ve done here.

Reading for next week:

• US v Councilman, 418 F.3d 67 (1st Cir. 2005)
• Hall v EarthLink Network, Inc., 396 F.3d 500 (2d Cir. 2005)
• Commonwealth v Proetto, 771 A.2d 823 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2001)
• US v Kennedy, 81 F.Supp. 2d 1103 (D. Kan. 2000)
• US v Scarfo, 180 F. Supp. 2d 572 (D.N.J. 2001)

Resources

• EFF: Stored Communications Act
• EFF: Privacy
• Center for Internet and Society: Privacy
• Berkman: Recommended Readings
• Electronic Privacy Information Center: Policy Issues

In two weeks I’ll try to bring all of these resources together into a short piece on the ECPA!