Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service

Steve Jackson Games, Inc. (SJG) (plaintiff) ran an online bulletin board that let users send and receive private emails, which sat on the board's computer until the recipient read and either kept or deleted them. After Bell Company alerted the Secret Service (defendant) to unauthorized distribution of a sensitive file that had appeared on the bulletin board (traced to an SJG employee with control over the system), the Secret Service obtained a warrant and seized SJG's bulletin-board computer, in the process reading and deleting private, unread emails stored on it. SJG sued, claiming this violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which separately bars intentional interception of electronic communications and intentional unauthorized access to stored electronic communications. The trial court found the Secret Service had violated the stored-communications provision but held there was no unlawful "interception" because the acquisition wasn't contemporaneous with transmission. SJG appealed only the interception ruling.