privacy email social-media
Is it legal to publish email that wasn&#39;t sent to you, without the consent of the sender?
<p>Someone took a screen shot of an email I sent, and don't know if it was a person on the distribution list, or someone else.  But then another person posted that screen shot, with visible contact information.</p>
<p>Is that legal?</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, which generally includes the publication and dissemination of lawfully obtained information.</p>
<p>There may be some exceptions. It may be illegal to <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/united-states-code/title-18-crimes-and-criminal-procedure/part-i-crimes/chapter-119-wire-and-electronic-communications-interception-and-interception-of-oral-communications/section-2511-interception-and-disclosure-of-wire-oral-or-electronic-communications-prohibited" rel="nofollow noreferrer">publish information that you have illegally intercepted</a>, and it can also be illegal to <a href="https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/publication-private-facts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">publish extremely sensitive private information</a>.</p>
<p>But it doesn't sound like either exception would apply to your situation. There's no indication that either the person who took the screenshot or the person who posted it obtained it illegally, and the fact that you sent the e-mail to a &quot;distribution list&quot; suggests that none of the information in the e-mail is private or extremely sensitive. (This would include contact information, which courts would rarely treat as private or sensitive.)</p>
