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He clearly had lawful possession, it was left in his care. Isn't the shop owner relying on his boilerplate forms that abandoned devices become the property of the shop, to transfer ownership of the device?
Having seen and used similar service agreements copying and transferring data is frequently authorized.
When the geek squad finds child porn, is that hacking? How about if they rat out the perv to the FBI in exchange for cash. https://www.kron4.com/news/national/documents-fbi-paid-best-buys-geek-squad-for-child-porn-info/
Have we seen evidence that this device was connected to the internet at the time of the alleged hacking?
Calling it hacking is a canard to distract and suppress the content.
Absolutley. But that doesn't mean it wasn't.
And in fact the CSAM issue isn't cut and dried either, this is part of why it is legally grey:
"In fact, the government has relied on this concept to essentially enlist computer repair personnel as informants, using them to scan computers for things like CSAM (kiddie porn), or other things that the government might use as evidence. In a highly publicized case several years ago, the FBI was paying Best Buy “Geek Squad” personnel a bounty (and listing them as confidential informants) to search for files the FBI was interested in on computers brought in for repair, and to provide that information to law enforcement. While the bulk of these cases involve contraband like child pornography which is illegal to possess, and for which certain individuals have a legal duty to report, the question of whether the repair person, in lawful (but temporary) possession of the computer for one purpose (to repair it), may then examine the files on the computer for the purpose not of fixing the computer, but of reporting crime. "
Whether the abandonment gives you ownership of the data is not clear. It doesn't transfer copyright, so the images captured are still legally owned by Hunter, but the rest is unclear. Did he file the appropriate report with the Delaware State Escheator? The law specifies "abandoned tangible property" and to complicate things the Mac Shop had a contract which specifies equipment would become abandoned after 90 days:
"Both the Mac Shop contract and the Delaware Code do not resolve the question as to what exactly Biden might have abandoned in his failure to pick up his laptop and hard drive. The physical devices are one thing, but what about the underlying data? The Mac Shop’s contract is limited to “equipment” and does not extend to intangible or intellectual property. With respect to any data on which Biden has a copyright claim, for example, it does not seem reasonable that Biden granted anything more than a limited use license to access data for the purpose of recovering it. "
To be clear most of the people you are talking about are using the hacking issue as a figleaf for partisan purposes. Completely agreed. The thing with a figleaf though, is usually there is something actually there, and that appears to be the case here. Just because they are saying it is cut and dried one way doesn't mean it is actually cut and dried the other. There are a lot of nuances here.
Combined with the overbroad "hacking" laws, it is quite possible the repair guy committed a crime when he accessed and shared it. It is pretty possible that people who report CSAM on devices they are asked to repair are in fact accessing the data in an unauthorized way and could in theory fall foul of various computer fraud and hacking laws.
If you ask an expert whether repair guy was engaged in hacking the answer is:
"Personally, I think that when you ask someone to repair your computer, you are asking them to repair your computer — not authorizing them to copy anything they find and give it to others. On the other hand, when you hire a cleaning person to clean your house, you run the risk that they will call the cops to report the dead body in the living room or the cocaine stash in the medicine cabinet. That’s the thing about privacy. So did the repairman “hack” Hunter Biden’s computer? Magic 8 ball says, “Maybe.” "
It's possible he was fine when passing it to the FBI, but not when copying it for the purposes of giving it to Giuliani. It's possible he was fine for both. It gets even sillier. If he accessed emails that were held on the laptop that's one thing. If he used the credentials to log into the box live all of a sudden:
"That’s just the box — the computer itself. What about the email on the computer? Just because we like to make things complicated, the law treats stored email differently than it treats other files. Sometimes. Under the Stored Communications Act it is generally illegal to access “stored” communications without authorization. The law treats different kinds of stored communications differently, including those that are stored incident to transmission, those that are in temporary storage, and those that are in more permanent storage. The point was to approximate the IRL world of “interception” of communications in transmission (e.g., wiretaps), reading mail, and reading mail that’s been sitting on the recipient’s kitchen table for a few weeks. (like Jerry Seinfeld’s piece on when clothes become laundry — when does an Ikea catalogue stop being “mail?”) The problem is, the SCA focuses on accessing stored email that is stored by a communications provider, not email that I store on my computer itself. When I store my own email on my own computer, it becomes just another file."
The statement that there is no good faith argument that it is hacked material is I think false. That doesn't mean most people ARE using those argument in good faith.
The Mac Shops boilerplate refers to equipment left after 90 days, but also included a hold harmless for any damage or loss of property. Further it clearly says they will 'backup' data.
Being a canard makes it bad faith.
The accurate description would be, Mac repairman uncovers evidence of corrupt practices and drug use by Biden scion and is ignored by the FBI until going to the press.
Wasn't the hacking claim referring to alleged Russian hackers that then allegedly placed the material on the laptop to be discovered? Also a bad faith canard.
It says secure and backup no? If I can make it out properly. And sure that is why I say the public interest might outweigh how it was obtained. But the claim was there was no good faith way that it could be seen as hacked material and I think I have proved that to be false. It can be both obtained in an illegal manner and have been worth leaking. I think Snowden committed crimes but was correct in what he did as well for example.
Again, most people claiming it probably aren't being good faith, that's how politics plays out in my experience. But here at least we should be able to explore the nuances of the situation, without having to default to the fact of never giving ground, that it was either hacked material and therefore should be ignored, or that it showed corruption and therefore wasn't hacked. It's pretty possible it was obtained illegally and that this shouldn't matter from the point of view of public interest from publication.
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If you have a mechanic repair your car and you don't pay for the repair after X months, there should be no issue with the mechanic sizing the car in lieu of the unpaid bill. I see no issue with a computer repairer doing the same. If it happens that the most valuable use of an unclaimed computer is to sell it to a political campaign, that seems like a fine outcome.
One should pay their bills or suffer the consequences.
He can seize the computer, the issue seems to be the law doesn't allow you to seize the data as its ownership is not transferred. If he wiped the computer and resold it then that seems to be within the law as long as you jump through a few hoops (in Delaware anyway).
If you left your house keys in your car, it doesn't seem necessary for the mechanic to be able to sell those so that someone can gain access to your home. Likewise if you left your bank card in there, if he used it to buy other things that is probably fraud.
The ownership of the copies of the data written on that device is transferred. That doesn't include copyright, but that's irrelevant in this case. If a photographer abandons a briefcase of valuable art prints in your business, you can't sell copies of their photos, but you can certainly sell the photos themselves.
That appears to be unclear because the Delaware law refers to "tangible property" is data a tangible property? I would say not, but I am not a lawyer.
Material instantiations of data are tangible. Books are tangible, photographs are tangible, DVDs are tangible, hard disk platters and NVRAM, and their physical configurations are tangible as well.
The issue appears to be that this is unclear. Tangible property has come up in relation to insurance claims and tax laws that have gone to court as to whether coverage counts data or how it is to be taxed as tangible property, and the answers have not led to a specific ruling. So you could be correct, or you may not be.
"As a careful reading of these cases reveals, there still is no clear answer -- in the case law -- to the "tangible property" conundrum. Maybe the "perfect" fact pattern has not yet occurred that would place squarely before a court the question of whether computer data is "tangible property" or subject to "physical loss or damage." Maybe the courts are not publishing decisions on the issue, or maybe insurers are settling out of court and thereby preventing the development of a clearer body of law."
For your argument, the Louisiana Supreme Court agrees with you:
"When stored on magnetic tape, disc, or computer chip, this software, or set of instructions, is physically manifested in machine readable form by arranging electrons, by use of an electric current, to create either a magnetized or unmagnetized space.... The software at issue is not merely knowledge, but rather is knowledge recorded in a physical form which has physical existence, takes up space on the tape, disc, or hard drive, makes physical things happen, and can be perceived by the senses.... The purchaser of computer software desires nor receives mere knowledge, but rather receives a certain arrangement of matter that will make his or her computer perform a desired function.... One cannot escape the fact that software, recorded in physical form, becomes inextricably intertwined with, or part and parcel of the corporeal object upon which it is recorded, be that a disk, tape, hard drive, or other device."
As does Utah in a similar case, while the Connecticut Supreme Court and Arizona Supreme Court take the opposite approach. Now none of these cases are about abandonment laws but whether courts interpret clauses that say tangible property to include computer data or not does very much appear to be up in the air.
To the extent that at the very least there can be good faith disagreement on whether ownership of the data transferred or not and therefore whether the new owner of the laptop had the legal authorization to give copies of the data to other people.
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Sure house keys, but if you leave bullion in the trunk or a patent application or a business plan, or something that's valuable in itself that the mechanic uses I'd have a hard time voting to convict the mechanic for his use of them with my playground fairness sensibilities.
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