Examine Computer Forensics and Privacy
In 2008 a woman by the name of Jamie Staley was in a custody dispute with the father and his family of her child, without permission from those involved she gained access to several different email messages and social media accounts of those that were involved in the case, deleting important communications involving the case from the email of her child’s grandmothers email address.
With the help of the email provider and the FBI obtained search warrant for Ms. Staley’s computer they were able to trace the security breach back to her. With this information that government was able to charge Ms. Staley with felony unauthorized computer intrusion, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.
There are several laws that are in place for which Ms. Staley broke, such as Wiretap Act, Stored Wire and Electronic Communication Act, as well as privacy laws such as E-Government Act, Privacy Act Cable Communication Policy Act, and Mail Privacy Statute.
Forensic investigations often times requires that the privacy of a client is compromised, however for some clients that can be a welcomed problem because the investigation could result in the detection of a breach that the client may have suffered, such was the case in the mentioned example with a women hacking an email account and social media accounts of those persons involved in a child custody dispute with the woman. However other times an investigator may breach a persons or organizations privacy in order to investigate claims against them, and they may not always be aware of someone tracking them until they are charged with a crime or something questionable is brought to their attention by those that may be leading the investigation into them.