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Ask Greplaw: Does Libel Apply to Email?
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posted by CopyGuru
on Thursday May 30, @10:24AM
from the case-studies dept.
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Paul writes "Are there any case studies involving slanderous emails? It seems that since the Internet is public and not secure that technically anyone with the proper skills could view the emails in question. Due to that public nature it would indicate to me that all emails including those that slander or contain hate messages are public and the rules for slander would apply. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated."
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Ask Greplaw: Does Libel Apply to Email?
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I'm not a lawyer, but from what I remember from my Journalism Law class in college, the rules of proof differ between public and private individuals. Since, you & your wife are private individuals, you have a larger burden of proof, than, say, Hilary Rosen would have.
Also, I take claim with the idea of email essentially being public: One has an expectation of privacy when using email. I believe this means the email communication would be considered private.
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I am not a lawyer either, however I read an acticle published in major IT magazine, which refered to an American Bar Association disposition indicating e-mail communications between you and your attorney are privileged[sp?]. That means that no one other than the recipient(s) is supposed to read them in my opinion, which implies they are private. Further, the Catholic Church is known to have taken confessions over the Internet - these normally are treated as private. There may be a difference between your opinion of a third party expressed to another via e-mail and the inclusion of such message in 'spam.' Couldn't one who uses the privacy of the Internet to defame another's character find themselves properly held subject to a libel or even a harassment complaint? While e-mail messages can become public information, at least initially they are private. I doubt that the issue of malice is lessoned in the context of e-mail communications but believe e-mail would be a libel issue rather than slander. I do not know of any cases on point. Post offices are open to the public but that does not make the communications going through them public. The law could hold that even one malicious e-mail is libel but I doubt the law would hold any e-mail message as slander. There is at least one person who went to jail because they were sending harrassing messages to a school.
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Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be
lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
- Isaac Asimov
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