Think before you snoop

While hacking into your wife’s email account might be thoroughly enjoyable it can also be confining … such as at President Jacob Zuma’s finest correctional facility.

Yes, I know there are things that you absolutely must check, eg. is she bonking around? But that doesn’t alter the fact that it could land you in jail.

Granted, this is very hypothetical, but you could land up being the test case for the National Prosecuting Authority.

The reason I’m telling you this is because in Rochester Hills, Michigan, some genius is going on trial for doing precisely that.

Leon Walker was the winner of the “you cannot be serious” award when he was charged with a felony after logging on to his wife Clara Walker’s Gmail account and learned that she was indeed having an affair.

The New York Daily News says that Leon is now facing prison time for logging onto a laptop at the couple’s home and reading her email.

When he saw that his wife was communicating with her second husband — who had previously been arrested for beating her in front of her son — Leon turned the emails over to Clara’s first husband and the child’s father.

That’s when he was charged with hacking — a statute normally used when someone has broken into highly sensitive government or business computers or systems or is suspected of identity theft.

Fox News says that Clara filed for a divorce, which was granted this month, and Leon will stand trial on February 7 on felony computer misuse charges.

Leon told the Oakland Press that he was trying to protect the couple’s children from neglect and calls the case a “miscarriage of justice”.

“I feel very strongly that I’ll be exonerated.”

Clara has been married twice previously, so Leon figured that she was probably taking their daughter over to the second husband’s house.

The Detroit Free Press says that he is being charged under the law on e-snooping, or more specifically in terms of Michigan statute 752.795, which reads, in part: “A person shall not intentionally and without authorisation or by exceeding valid authorisation do any of the following: Access or cause access to be made to a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network to acquire, alter, damage delete or destroy property or otherwise use the service of a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network.”

The Freep reports that legal experts say that it’s the first time the statute has been used in a domestic case, and it might be hard to prove.

They quote Frederick Lane, a Vermont attorney and nationally recognised expert who has published five books on electronic privacy: “It’s going to be interesting because there are no clear legal answers here.”

“The fact that the two still were living together, and that Leon Walker had routine access to the computer may help him. I would guess there is enough grey area to suggest that she could not have an absolute expectation of privacy.”

According to the Guardian Leon’s’ lawyer said the prosecutor was “dead wrong” about the law.

“I’ve been a defence attorney for 34 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Leon Weiss told the Detroit Free Press. “This is a hacking statute, the kind of statute they use if you try to break into a government system or private business for some nefarious purpose. It’s to protect against identity fraud, to keep somebody from taking somebody’s intellectual property or trade secrets.”

The bottom line however is that Leon is going to trial and could go to prison.

Many lawyers have found out — at great cost to their clients — that the unthinkable turns into reality in court.

Any lawyer will tell you that a bad settlement is better than a good case because anything can and does happen in court. It is highly unpredictable, which is why your lawyer usually refuses to guarantee results.

So while it is in the United States today, it might well be in a court near you tomorrow.

If you are hacking into your spouse’s email account then sort out your relationship and — as Arnold Schwarzenegger said in Kindergarten Cop — STOBBIT!