IMO, that would be immoral. Looking inside someone's files is immoral. Using someone's passwords to crawl through their computer files is immoral.
Whether this was imooral or not is, on the facts, an interesting question, at least to me.
First, they didn't use anybody's passwords to crawl through their computer files.
These were, apparently, networked computers, and there were areas that all members of the committees and their staffs used regularly and had to access. There were other areas on the same computers that people didn't intend to share, but also hadn't passworded or protected in any way. They were the equivalent of in plain view, to use a legal term.
If I go into a public library which has purchases books some for restricted use and some for and unrestricted use, and I am browsing the unrestricted shelves and somebody has inadvertently put a book which was supposed to be on the restricted shelves on the unrestricted shelves, is it immoral for me to take thebook down and read it? |
