Rudy has admitted to copying the contents of the laptop to his own hard drive. That’s a crime. At most, if you get possession of someone’s abandoned laptop, you can wipe the drive and use the factory reset laptop as your own. You don’t get to copy the data and use it as you see fit, though.
There were digital “locks” to prevent people from reading the data. Giuliani (or, more likely, someone working for him) bypassed those locks to get the data. If you sneak into someone’s room, rip off the lock on their diary, take photos of various pages, and then share those with people online, you can definitely face civil charges.
Rudy has admitted to copying the contents of the laptop to his own hard drive. That’s a crime. At most, if you get possession of someone’s abandoned laptop, you can wipe the drive and use the factory reset laptop as your own. You don’t get to copy the data and use it as you see fit, though.
What crime is it? Is it illegal to pick up someones diary and read it?
There were digital “locks” to prevent people from reading the data. Giuliani (or, more likely, someone working for him) bypassed those locks to get the data. If you sneak into someone’s room, rip off the lock on their diary, take photos of various pages, and then share those with people online, you can definitely face civil charges.