Issues of the Case
In Konop v. Haiwan Airlines, Inc., 302 F.3d 872 (9th Cir.2002), Konop, a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines Inc., sued his employer of interfering with the activities of a website he had developed to host bulletins critical of his employer, Hawaiian officials, and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). Most of these criticisms related to Konop’s objections to Hawaiian’s labour concessions to ALPA (Epic.org., 2013). Given that the ALPA concessions, Konop, through his website, rallied Hawaiian employees to reconsider alternative union representation.
Konop had control over the website through a username and password. He listed a number of people, mainly pilots and other Hawaiian employees, he considered eligible to access the website. In December 1995, the Hawaiian vice president James Davis requested a co-pilot of Konop’s to use his details to access the website (IACP, 2013). Later, Konop received a call from the ALPA’s chairman, Reno Morella, informing him that he had been contacted by Hawaiian president Bruce Nobels about the contents of the website. Konop and Morella held a conversation, from which Konop learned of the president’s plans to file a defamation suit basing on the contents of the website. This prompted Konop to take his website offline for the rest of the day but took up the following morning (Epic.org., 2013). Konop claimed that he only learned later how Nobles had gained access to the website after examining the system logs. Meanwhile, Davis persisted with monitoring of Konop’s website using pilot Wong’s details. Up to 1996, Konop’s records indicated that Davis had logged in to the website as Wong more than twenty times (Beatty & Samuelson, 2007).
Konop filed suit arguing claims under the federal Wiretap Act, the Railway Labor Act, the Stored Communications Act, and state tort law, emerging from Hawaiian vice president’s monitoring of his secure website (IACP, 2013). In addition, Konop claimed that Hawaiian sent him on medical suspension to retaliate his opposition to the labor concessions, thus violating the Railway Labor Act.
Ruling
The lower court passed judgment dismissing Konop’s Railway Labor Act claims against Hawaiian and its executive officials. However, the Ninth Court reversed the ruling and held that the unauthorized access together with the review of contents of Konop’s password protected website by Hawaiian’s officials amounted to violation of the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act (Epic.org., 2013). The court argued that the Stored Communications Act afforded users of a website to permit others to gain access to the website, but one needed to access the website to become a “user”; as such, absent access, a member of a website has no right to authorize a third party to have access to the website (IACP, 2013).
Application
Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines: case involved application of the Wiretap Act and Stored Communication Act that seeks to password protect on sites. The court of Appeal held the opinion that unauthorized access of messages posted on password protects websites is not against the violation of the Wiretap Act (IACP, 2013). This was due to the fact that the Wiretap Act only cover message intercepted during transmission but not storage interception. Therefore, the Appeal Court upheld the decision on the issues in favor of the defendant who was accused of retrieving messages under false pretences. Additionally, the Appeal Court reversed the District Court’s summary for the defendant on Stored Communication Act but only on few issues to this case (Beatty & Samuelson, 2007).
Criticism
Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines: case criticism is that from Part B Section 1 of the Wiretap Act defines the term “intercept” as only applies to electronic communication and refers solely to “comtemporaneous” acquisition. Therefore, the act fails to safe guard against “stored electronic communication” which could also be subject to abuse. It is necessary that the law should be brought in line with modern technology.
References:
Epic.org. (2013)_. Workplace Privacy. Retrieved from: http://epic.org/privacy/workplace/
IACP. (2013). Case Law: Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. (2002). Retrieved from: http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/Resources/CaseLaw/CaseLawDetails.aspx?cmsid=1358&termid=106&depth=2
Beatty, J. F., & Samuelson, S. S. (2007). Business law and the legal environment. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/West.
