Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Legal or illegal?

If a person is having a conversation over email and one of them post the emails for everyone to see without asking the other person, is it aganist that persons rights?


Asked on 4/22/09, 5:14 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Solomon Chang Law Office of Solomon Chang

Re: Legal or illegal?

Good Afternoon:

It sounds like you are referring to violations of your constitutional rights.

First, in general, our constitution only protects us from government action. So the first issue is who was re-broadcasting these emails? If it's not a government agent, then it'll be hard to claim constitutional violations.

Second, as a general rule, we do no have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our personal emails. This means that anything you write in an email can be broadcasted to the world and there is not much you can do. It's similar to a telephone conversation. If you talk on the phone with someone and that person records your conversation, there isn't much you can do.

I say these are general rules because there are almost always exceptions in the law and whether one of the exceptions applies to you will depend on the specific facts of your situation. Also, there may be other legal causes of action available. For example, defamation, false light, etc.

If you would like to discuss your situation in more detail, please feel free to contact me at http://www.SolomonChang.com.

Best Regards,

Solomon Chang

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Answered on 4/24/09, 2:50 pm


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