Of course, I'm not a lawyer...

This decision does not seem to me to be about access to email and such, but about UNAUTHORIZED access. Subpoenas don't cover access to places or information that don't pertain to the suit, therefore trying to get at non-pertinent information via subpoena is not authorized either. For example, someone suing a contractor for shoddy workmanship can't subpoena the contractor's love letters to his wife.

"If we now call overbroad subpoenas an unauthorized access, then unwanted e-mail is a trespass. Linking to someone's website without permission is likewise a trespass."

How are these trespasses? The paragraph immediately prior begins "The... decision makes any access to such information a crime"... But the whole point is not ACCESS, but access by WHOM - a party who is not normally entitled to it, i.e. someone other than the email account holder.

Furthermore, how does "unwanted email" figure into even the broader question of access generally? If I send an email to someone who does not want it, or even does not want any email from me, in what sense have I "accessed" their private communications? Never before have I sent someone an email and thereby acquired the ability to read his/her email.

Now the general point about expanding concepts like "trespass" does appear to me to be troubling, or potentially so, if carried too far. But I don't see that in this decision, or at least not in the way it's been presented here. But maybe that's because I'm no lawyer!

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/183/22088#22088