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Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge 240

Posted by simoniker from the get-orff-moi-server dept.
NearlyHeadless writes "The California Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings that ex-Intel employee Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi committed electronic trespass by sending e-mail to Intel employees, reports the San Jose Business Journal. E-mail has the same protection as other communication, according to the court's opinion, available here (PDF link)." We've covered Hamidi's case more than once in the past.
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Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge More

Court Rejects Intel Electronic Trespass Charge

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  • good... (Score:3, Funny)

    by goats_in_boats ( 655991 ) * on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:38PM (#6333275)
    ...now I can try this at the massive state gvmt where I work!
  • Can we hope the trend will continue?

  • Electronic Trespass (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cflorio ( 604840 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:41PM (#6333300) Homepage
    So, Can we sue spammers for Electronic Trespass?

  • Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NumberField ( 670182 ) * on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:41PM (#6333306)
    This new ruling seems like it could conflict with some of the efforts to fight spam. The ruling says:

    "After reviewing the decisions analyzing unauthorized electronic contact with computer systems as potential trespasses to chattels, we conclude that under California law the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning. Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property," the high court says.

    The ruling tried to address this ("Nor does our holding affect the legal remedies of Internet service providers (ISP?s) against senders of unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail (UCE)..."), but reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

    • Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by taybin ( 622573 ) <taybin@taybi n . c om> on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:46PM (#6333352) Homepage
      Well frankly, I'm not so eager to lose rights just to fight spam. I'm happy with this court's decision.

      I would say this was a victory for everyone except IBM.
      • I total agree. We need to make sure we look at the big picture. Giving up free speech to fight spam would be a terrible long term trade-off. However, I would not be surprised if some politician, say a current republican administration official, tried to limit free speech under the very guise of stopping both Spam and Terrorism (there is a link, you know).
        • "Giving up free speech to fight spam would be a terrible long term trade-off."

          Just because you have a right to "free" speech doesn't mean you have a right to force me to pay for your soapbox. It's not that kind of "free."
          • Yeah, I really forced you to install that mail server.

            • Yeah, I really forced you to install that mail server.

              Yeah, I really forced you to buy a car. So equally if I steal your car, I haven't forced you to buy another, claim on insurance, take a bus in the interim.

              Or... "I really forced you to have ears".

              If somebody else has their mail server for one purpose, and you exploit it for another contrary to their stated wishes, you are forcing that use on them, period. It's the owner of the thing that gets to say how it's used.

              Unfortunately this case was, IMO, v

              • So equally if I steal your car, I haven't forced you to buy another, claim on insurance, take a bus in the interim.

                Of course you haven't. Lots of people have had their cars stolen and didn't buy another, claim on insurance, and take a bus in the interim.

                Or... "I really forced you to have ears".

                That's an even better analogy. My freedom of speech means I can say what I want. Just because you hear me doesn't mean I forced you to listen.

                If somebody else has their mail server for one purpose, and you

                • Wow, that's just plain wrong. As wrong as it could possibly be. You simply do not have the right to determine how other peoples' stuff can be used, no matter how easy or possible it is to do so. You don't have that right morally, and you don't have it legally.

                  • You simply do not have the right to determine how other peoples' stuff can be used, no matter how easy or possible it is to do so.

                    But you yourself, by posting that message, just determined how Slashdot's hard drive is used.

                    You don't have that right morally, and you don't have it legally.

                    Morally? Morality knows no such thing as "ownership."

                    • But you yourself, by posting that message, just determined how Slashdot's hard drive is used.

                      With consent. This is not a right - it is a privelege granted by the owner (or more accurately, the possessor). I don't have a right to do so just because it's possible, but Andover consents to this use. Indeed there is implied consent to use the facility within its apparent purpose that arises from making the facility available, but if Andover told me to never post again, this would withdraw consent - both expre

        • Giving up free speech to fight spam would be a terrible long term trade-off.

          We've already given up free speech to fight communism, fight terrorism, protect national security, protect intellectual property, protect the children, etc. Getting rid of spam would be some small consolation.
      • You just *GAVE UP* rights with this.

        What happened to "My server, my rules"?

        • Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:31PM (#6333695)
          Your server, your firewall rules. However, if a message properly formated (with a truthful header, and no destructive code of any kind) and it gets past your rule set, that's your fault. You can't let the message through, and then decide you didn't like what it said.

          Moral of the story, block the home address of a fired employee if you know it...
          • Exactly. You shouldn't be to have a wide open mail server, and then elect when to sue people because you didn't like the contents of their non-commercial email.

            That would let people set up mail servers as traps. As soon as you get your victim to send an email to the server, you could sue them for electronic trespass.

            Luckily, this court ruling doesn't allow for that.
            • Some of the earlier Wired articles stated that Intel asked him to stop and attempted to block. He didn't. Why shouldn't they sue for trespass?
        • The court isn't saying that you can't block this guy's email. They're just are saying that the guy in question didn't tresspass.

          • The court isn't saying that you can't block this guy's email. They're just are saying that the guy in question didn't tresspass.

            Actually, they didn't say that he didn't trespass - quite the contrary, they said he did trespass. They then said, in a nutshell, "but we're not going to enforce trespass in California without proof of damage." They even admitted this is a departure from the law inherited from England.

      • Yes, both IBM and Intel are large corporations. Yes, IBM and Intel start with the letter "I".

        Other than these two similarities, IBM and Intel have absolutely nothing in common with each other. What are you going to do next, confuse Microsoft with MandrakeLinux?
      • No one has a right to clog your mail server with unwanted mail. The right to freedom of speech does not mean the right to a free platform for that speech. If I walk into a shopping mall and start babbling about whatever issue at the top of my voice, the owner has the right to legally kick me out. E-mail is a little trickier since your average company allows many different forms of mail to go through and doesn't mind. However, a person should be able to get a court order banning someone from emailing to his

    • Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grantsellis ( 537978 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:47PM (#6333359) Homepage
      reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...
      Not really. IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through. Witness the national do-not-call list.

      Now, if this guy had been trying to sell Viagra ...
      • "IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through."

        But I'd rather have a law that will also block "political" spam as well. Lord knows my telephone rings off the hook every other November as it is, and I'd rather not see that continue on into my e-mail box as well.

        I'm not happy with some speech being more free than others, either in theory or practice.

        "Witness the national do-not-call list."

        Witness the way neither state nor nat
      • "Not really. IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through. Witness the national do-not-call list. "

        My personal opinion is that treating commercial speech differently from noncommercial speech is unconstitutional. People should have the right to say whatever they want. That said, if a company lies about what their product can do, that is a breech of contract, which is a totally separate issue, which you should be able to prosecute
        • My personal opinion is that treating commercial speech differently from noncommercial speech is unconstitutional.

          It's not.

          if a company lies about what their product can do, that is a breech[sic] of contract

          This is why it's not. It's essentially illegal for a company to make false claims regarding its products for the same reason it's illegal to libel or slander someone. Freedom of speech has all sorts of reasonable limits. The reason commercial speech isn't as "protected" as (say) political speech is

      • IANAL, but there's a chasm between commercial speech and noncommercial speech you could drive several dump trucks through.

        Sure, but this ruling wasn't based on that chasm.

        Witness the national do-not-call list.

        But congress approved the national do-not-call list. Congress never approved a national do-not-email list. Once they do, then these spam problems will be solved. Let's go FTC.

    • Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Z0mb1eman ( 629653 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:51PM (#6333380) Homepage
      How this affects spam was one of the first things I thought about, as well. But from the ruling:

      >nor impairs its functioning

      I would argue that spam impairs my ability to use my computer - e.g. when 19 out of 20 messages are spam, and I either have to waste time getting to that one message I want to read, or miss it completely. Such an argument is easy to make, and anyone should understand it, even if they're not tech-savvy.

      I suppose the difference is between the ex-employee sending one or two emails to each individual, or mailbombing their inboxes with several hundreds or thousands of messages. Which means part of the spam problem is perspective - from my point of view, I am effectively under attack when I receive a few hundred spam emails; from the point of view of each individual spammer, they're only sending me one email, so how can they be blamed for that?

      Idle musings on a Monday afternoon.
      • >>nor impairs its functioning

        >I would argue that spam impairs my ability to use my computer

        The computer displays Spam without a problem, you're the one that has a problem dealing with it. But the ruling didn't talk about you, it talked about the computer.
        • Exactly. The ISPs are the only ones who have a case under the "impairs computer functioning", if they can show that they had to drastically increase the computing power and storage space of their system solely because of spam.

        • The computer displays Spam without a problem, you're the one that has a problem dealing with it.

          Part of the function of the computer and software combination is to efficiently deliver personal and solicited email communications and to sort them in a way that is conducive to efficient use. Spam impairs this efficiency and therefore impairs the function. This is only not impairment if the intention in installing the software is to display spam. This intention is not present.

      • I would argue that spam impairs my ability to use my computer - e.g. when 19 out of 20 messages are spam, and I either have to waste time getting to that one message I want to read, or miss it completely.

        Intel prosecuted this case based on trespass to the servers, not trespass to the end user desktops. Hence your point is valid, but was not relevant in the case.

    • Re:Victory for Spammers? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:53PM (#6333392) Journal
      The point of the anti-spam laws is that spam does impair functionality and incur measurable damages, at least in terms of company employees' time spent messing with the junk and high-traffic mail servers which process tons of the stuff.

    • Solicitation? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:56PM (#6333425) Homepage
      "After reviewing the decisions analyzing unauthorized electronic contact with computer systems as potential trespasses to chattels, we conclude that under California law the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning. Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property," the high court says.

      I think the difference can be understood in the realm of non-electronic world. Let's say I have a business. I have a customer inside, and one of his friends sees him and they end up having a conversation outside my door. Do I have a legitimate right to boot them? Probably not.

      However, this is different if the person is a solicitor, as I believe businesses do have the right to prevent solicitation on their premises. I would assume the same for email - ie, I have the right to restrict solicitation on my premises, but likely not non-disruptive legitimate communication.

      Not to mention which the server could make a strong argument toward spam impairing its functioning not to mention which eroding the value of the service they provide, ie, an email account to customers that isn't nailed by spam. This was alluded to by the decision. In the real world, this would be like a business owner who had so many solicitors on his doorstep that he had to clear them out so the customer could actually see the door.

      • I think the difference can be understood in the realm of non-electronic world. Let's say I have a business. I have a customer inside, and one of his friends sees him and they end up having a conversation outside my door. Do I have a legitimate right to boot them? Probably not.

        You most certainly do have a legal right to kick them out. It would be a strange thing to do, but you could legally do it.

    • This shouldn't. Spam should be illegal if you can't opt out or you keep receiving it if you do opt out. I know people who actually like receiving it.
    • Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property

      NOSIAL (Nobody on Slashdot is a lawyer) but in my reading this only applies to charges of tresspassing. I doubt anti-spam laws fall under tresspassing.
      • Well, Hawk [slashdot.org] is, but I'm pretty sure we can't afford his consultative fees. Heck, I haven't even seen a post from him in the past 9 months. Too bad, it was nice to have someone around who actually knew what they were talking about from a legal standpoint.
    • reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

      I disagree. In the ruling the statement was made that the e-mails were, "an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning." The quantity of e-mail sent by spammers can definitely slow down networks, gum up hard disks, and in general cost companies money. This guy was not spamming in the modern sense of the word, and the California court was very choo

      • This guy was not spamming in the modern sense of the word.

        You obviously have a bizarre definition of spam. It was unsolicited. It was bulk. It was email. Hence it was spam.

    • It only gives spammers charged with tresspass a defense. They are not charged as such. In fact spammers are only dealt with under specific provisions of the law introduced to deal specifically with spam. If Intel had gone after this guy as a spammer the entire case would have been different, although I doubt it would have been possible given the timeframe of the alleged offence.
    • I believe the article said that he gave subscribers to his email list the chance to opt out, and honored their wishes consistently. Which is more than I can say for the typical spammer. I think that alone is the significant difference.
    • but reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

      It really only gives non-commercial 'spammers' a defence. Somebody else already pointed out that the courts have a wide distinction between the protections afforded to personal speech and commercial speech (e.g. ads). They classified Hamidi's comments as non-commercial speech and then allowed it on that basis.

      This is also a relatively narrow ruling... it only applies to the 'trespass to chattels' issu

    • reconciling this ruling with anti-spam rules may be tricky since this gives spammers a defence...

      Fortunately, this case has almost no impact at all on the spam cases - if anything it makes the spam cases stronger. The decision is very narrowly confined on its facts and really is only likely to apply in a case where there is some pre-existing relationship between the sender and the victim.

      That said, the opinion still sucks for the fact that it tells Intel that they have no say in how their equipment is

  • Umm... blacklist? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince_Ali ( 614163 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:41PM (#6333307) Journal
    Does Intel lack the ability to block external e-mail addresses? Geez, I'm buying AMD next time!

    • Re:Umm... blacklist? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mojotooth ( 53330 )
      Does Intel lack the ability to block external e-mail addresses? Geez, I'm buying AMD next time!

      Contained in your joke is an interesting, non-funny point. This court ruling bodes bad for anybody who wants to retain the privilege of using email at work for personal purposes. The easiest way for Intel to remove malcontents' ability to communicate with its employees is to cut off all external email communication and restrict general email use to inside the corporation.

  • good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Muerto ( 656791 ) <{david} {at} {vitanza.net}> on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:41PM (#6333308)
    the more cases like this the better of we are. I'm tired of big companies pressing charges on people and winning because judge and jury have no idea about anything technical... nor do they understand our future is dependant on their disicions.

  • Silly case (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <<giles.jones> <at> <zen.co.uk>> on Monday June 30, 2003 @03:53PM (#6333393)
    Are people tresspassing if they phone you without your permission?

    Damn silly case, if you have a phone number, email address or postal address then people are going to use it.

    Nobody signs a lifelong contract preventing them from criticising their ex-employers.
    • " Are people tresspassing if they phone you without your permission?" yes, if you obtained telephone number in an unauthorized manner. if you work at telephone company and take away list of 35k people who are otherwise unlisted and call them for some solicitation, you are surely going to jail. hamid did exactly that. he took 35k email addresses from intel which is no where available publicly and send them email with his personal agenda.
  • "Electronic tresspass," my ass.

    It sounds from the case like Hamidi wouldn't stop emailing Intel employees even after the company asked him to stop.

    When Intel took measures to block Hamidi from the servers, and Hamidi continued to find a way around them, the appropriate crime to charge him with is "Harrassment."

    IANAL, but that would have been a HELL of alot easier to prove than "electronic tresspass" and probably wouldn't have ended up on the front page of Slashdot.

    -- Funksaw

    • Re:Intel acts like idiots (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:18PM (#6333577) Homepage
      He removed anyone from receiving the emails if they asked to be removed. Generally to be considered harassment you have to ask the offending party to stop their harassing behavior, and they have to ignore your request. The court mentions this in their statement, so it seems to be a well established fact. This "electronic tresspass" business is fairly scary, and I'm glad it was struck down.
      • " He removed anyone from receiving the emails if they asked to be removed. "

        by doing this, he may not be sued by individual recipient. however, when the company asked him to remove everyone from the list, he didn't do so and hence he kept himself open to being sued by the company for harassment. he obtained the list in an unauthorized manner and sent unsolicited mails to those people on the list. this is surely an abuse.

        in my college, i used to maintain list of emails in one of the organization. another p

  • I don't know... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:04PM (#6333477)

    I don't see why he had the right to use Intel's equipment (servers and associated hardware) to distribute his message. Granted, it's open to the public but that doesn't mean there is some right for anyone to use the equipment. The EFF said in an amicus brief [eff.org]

    ...Mr. Hamidi's state constitutional claim should prevail [over Intel's property rights] because Intel has opened its employee e-mail inboxes to the public. By voluntarily connecting its computer system to the Internet, Intel obviously wants to take advantage of the tremendous communicative power of cyberspace.

    While I understand EFF's argument and it is persuasive I still tend to fall on Intel's side. Looking at Intel's web site policy it doesn't say "we reserve the right to restrict your access" or something similar. I don't know...it's a tough call. I'll have to think about it...
    • If they wanted to use their right to restrict his access, they could have bounced his e-mail or deleted it before employees read it. They didn't, so they forgot to use that right.

      When you go out in public with your kids, you're taking a risk of somebody walking up and saying something you don't want them to hear. As a company connecting to the public Internet, they risk being sent e-mails they don't want to show their employees. If they want to shield from that, they may. But if they don't, that's their pr
    • I don't see why he had the right to use Intel's equipment (servers and associated hardware) to distribute his message. Granted, it's open to the public but that doesn't mean there is some right for anyone to use the equipment.

      ...but strictly speaking he didn't "use" any machines at Intel. The only machine he directly used was whatever machine he wrote the email on and whatever machine it connected to to send the message on. After that he has absolutely no control over which machines it passes through and,

      • Speaking as a European isn't one of the major points of the American constitution freedom of speech? (at least that's what you guys keep telling us all the time!)

        Speaking as an American, freedom of speech is indeed in the constitution, and the term is thrown around with much fervor, yet we're not above trying to silence any speech we find offensive. We even have banned books here, including the famous "Huckleberry Finn" (it's banned in many school districts), and occasionally burn books.

        Basically we're
    • Think about phone systems. If someone you don't like calls you, can you sue for electronic trespass? Why should mail servers be any different?

    • I don't see why he had the right to use Intel's equipment (servers and associated hardware) to distribute his message.

      That's absurd. If he had sent a message to "all@intel.com", and by some horrible misconfiguration of their e-mail system, this distribution list was accessible from the outside, you might have a point, but Intel provided a means for the employees to directly receive electronic communications through the e-mail system, and it was this functionality that the sender availed himself of.

      It i

  • SPAM vs. Mass Emailing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nagatzhul ( 158676 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:05PM (#6333484)
    Somehow they have to define, legally, a difference between mass emails and commercially driven mass emails (that is spam). Maybe it can hinge on the user being able to easily find the sender and remove themselves from the list.

    I have thrown around the idea a couple of times with friends the concept of having a domain (a SPM domain perhaps) that you have to register to send spam. All spam would originate from this domain and would be easy to block because of it. People who want it (brain damaged as they are) could get it and the rest of us could avoid it. And of course hiding the origin of the email would be a finable offense.

  • Okay... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Darken_Everseek ( 681296 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:22PM (#6333603)

    Granted, the email sent wasn't of a commercial nature, so probably couldn't be considered spam. You have to wonder though; at what point do 'damages' begin. This guy sent email to 30,000 people, on a more than on occasion. That's got to waste some company time.

    On a side note, he was also complaining about employment practices, and suggesting that people get a job elsewhere. I'd call that 'damage'. I'd also seeing about filing a libel suit.

    • Granted, the email sent wasn't of a commercial nature, so probably couldn't be considered spam.

      On a side note, he was also complaining about employment practices, and suggesting that people get a job elsewhere. I'd call that 'damage'.

      And I'd call it "commercial."

  • What the.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spiritraveller ( 641174 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:26PM (#6333639)
    hell was Intel thinking?

    Trespass to chattels?

    They basically argued that if I fire someone and that person emails his friend/coworker, it is as if that person had keyed my car on the way out.

    No Intel, you may not use the courts to silence dissent... do not pass go, do not collect $200.
    • "They basically argued that if I fire someone and that person emails his friend/coworker, it is as if that person had keyed my car on the way out."

      If he had stuck to emailing his friends and actual co-workers, Intel probably would not have cared. However, he emailed EVERYONE at Intel whose email address he could obtain, whether they knew him or not, he emailed them MULTIPLE times, with LENGTHY rants and diatribes about the unfairness of his getting fired.

      I had never heard of the jerk until he crapped i

  • The point here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:31PM (#6333691)
    The point here, and I agree with the S.C. on this, is that Hamidi did not cause damage to Intel's computer systems. The basis of the suit was electronic trespass which compromised Intel's communications network. Clearly, Hamidi's actions didn't damage any equipment, they simply annoyed a lot of people.

    From the article: "The consequential economic damage Intel claims to have suffered, i.e., loss of productivity caused by employees reading and reacting to Hamidi's messages and company efforts to block the messages, is not an injury to the company's interest in its computers -- which worked as intended and were unharmed by the communications -- any more than the personal distress caused by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient's mailbox, or the loss of privacy caused by an intrusive telephone call would be an injury to the recipient's telephone equipment."

    Precisely correct.

    Intel should have charged him with some form of harrassment. They picked the wrong charge, which was obviously bogus to begin with. For the S.C. to side with Intel on this would have set a terrible and incorrect precedent.

    Not that I particularly agree with Hamidi's actions, but this ruling makes sense IMHO.

    • "Clearly, Hamidi's actions didn't damage any equipment, they simply annoyed a lot of people."

      i don't agree on this. if you send 35k unsolicited email, you did affect productivity. this is precisely why we have legislation against spam.

      • Yes, but you haven't harmed the computers, hence can't be sued for harming them. You can be sued for other problems your mail causes, just as if you'd sent the same thing via snail-mail, but that's another claim and harder to prove in court.

  • Who'll hire Hamidi? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cpopin ( 671433 )
    Hamidi is now considered damaged goods though. Employers are not excited about hiring someone who bitches about worker's rights. If you ask me, Intel got their money's worth in legal fees.

    Of course, Hamidi took his career in his own hands when he pressed the Send button. I wonder if he's currently employed or bitter and still looking. If the latter, he might start sending bullets instead of e-mails.

  • Ever get an email like this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:34PM (#6333720)
    I got one once. One of our sales guys was secretly trying to get his own competing startup company going (after the boom was over- mistake #1), but he accidentally submitted his cellphone bill to the company for reimbursement (mistake #2) and they noticed the calls. When it hit the fan, he quit and sent a "swan song" email to the company and badmouthed a whole bunch of people in it (mistake #3). Most of us didn't know a thing about it until we came in one morning, checked our mail, and found the "fond farewell" in our inboxes. It didn't advertise any open positions in his new company (I guess that would make it commercial speech). It was just an emotional rant, with some badmouthing of a few specific individuals. Clearly he wasn't exercising good judgment when he sent it. But it blew over rather quickly. Nobody wasted too much time talking about it, other than to remark "well I guess X isn't working here anymore."

    I've never deleted that email. Every so often I open it again just to imagine the balls it must take to send something like that. If a court were to rule that such an email constituted "electronic trespass", I would be very upset. That having been said, I cannot stress enough that SENDING AN EMAIL LIKE THAT IS A MISTAKE. If you're ever tempted to do it, DON'T. Once you send it they'll be talking about what an idiot you are forever. If you're in a small industry, you'll forever be meeting people who have heard about it.

    He got work with another company after his startup failed. Ironically, we signed a deal with that company recently, so he'll be selling our products again. When he's not stabbing you in the back, he's a pretty good sales guy.

  • The pivotal issue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jayjaylee ( 684876 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:46PM (#6333811)
    The pivotal issue in this case was not privacy vs. freedom or liberty, it all came down to whether or not the email Mr. Hamidi sent amounted to a trespass to chattel.

    In first year of law school, people are generally introduced to a case in torts Compuserve. In this case, Compuserve won it's case against spammers on exactly this tort: trespass to chattel. The court ruled that the extensive use of the servers amounted to significant "dispossesion" of the chattel(property). The court talked about the significant useage of memory and CPU cycles.

    So the struggle the lower courts in this case were trying to resolve was whether or not this act of emailing 30,000 amounted to the detrimental use of Intel's chattel(property). It is important to note that you cannot win on this tort without showing damages occurred. And it was upon this very issue of damages that the S.C. decided that this did not meet the requirement of the tort.

    While the Compuserve case opened the door to allow lawsuits in the abuse of another's system through email, this case is a milestone in that it limits how wide the door is.

    The Supreme Court made the proper judgment.

  • we have (Score:3, Informative)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@nOspam.ivoss.com> on Monday June 30, 2003 @04:48PM (#6333819) Homepage Journal
    Another intel employee [freemikehawash.org] rotting away in federal prison as a "material witness" without being charged.
  • if he copied the entire mailing list from intel system while he was still at intel, then he indeed committed theft by stealing company property. if on the other hand, he compiled the list himself from the emails that he had recd over the period of time while still at intel, then it is okay.

    given the fact that he sent emails to as many as 35k employees, he mostly copied the list and i think that might put him in trouble. i for sure don't want an email from some ex-employess of my company whom i don't know a

  • clarification (Score:3, Insightful)

    by supernova87a ( 532540 ) <kepler1@@@hotmail...com> on Monday June 30, 2003 @05:04PM (#6333938)
    The court's ruling was not saying that it is ok to email employees with your gripes. The court was ruling on the tactic used by Intel to sue the guy -- namely that these emails caused damage to their computer system -- a very different matter. The legal name for this is "trespasses to chattels". They held that the email in this case is no such thing.

    Here is one very informative excerpt:
    The consequential economic damage Intel claims to have suffered, i.e., loss of productivity caused by employees reading and reacting to Hamidi's messages and company efforts to block the messages, is not an injury to the company's interest in its computers -- which worked as intended and were unharmed by the communications -- any more than the personal distress cuased by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient's mailbox, or the loss of privacy caused by an intrusive telephone call would be an injury to the recipient's telephone equipment.


    and another:
    our conclusion does not rest on any special immunity for communications by electronic mail: we do not hold that messages transmitted through the Internet are exempt from ordinary rules of tort liability. To the contrary, email, like other forms of communication, may in some circumstances cause legally cognizable injury to the recipient or to third parties and may be actionable under various common law or statutory theories. Indeed, on facts somewhat simliar to those here, a company or its employees might be able to plead causes of action for interference with prospective economic relations.


    So in short, the guy can be sued for those emails, but not on the basis of some "damage" they cause the company mail servers...
  • How Appealing [blogspot.com], the first and IMHO best blog devoted to appellate litigation, has numerous links to articles about this case, including one to this discussion. :) [blogspot.com]

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