A Boeing employee who leaked confidential documents to the press is being charged by the company with “computer trespass.” Do they - and other companies trying to protect against document theft - have a case?

Here’s a rundown of what happened: Gerald Eastman worked in Boeing’s quality assurance department. He had concerns about the company’s quality assurance practices, which he tried to address through several channels before deciding to copy confidential computer files and leak them to the media.

After some articles appeared in the paper, the company discovered Eastman was responsible for the leak. They found the documents on his home computer and had him arrested.

Sure, he may have violated company policy but was what he did illegal? He claims he was a whistleblower and simply copied documents that he was allowed to access and used them to prove his concerns were valid.

On the other hand, the company’s accusing him of being, basically, a hacker. They say he wasn’t authorized to access the documents, which contained trade secrets about upcoming projects, sales figures, etc.

This case underscores the importance of setting authorization controls for sensitive information. Boeing says the info that was leaked had nothing to do with Eastman’s job as a quality assurance manager, but he claims he was allowed to access it anyway using his own username and password. If that’s true, and if the documents really were that sensitive, the issue could likely have been avoided by setting tighter controls.

We’ll keep you posted as the case develops.