In brief, when I worked on the Hatch staff a young colleague brought to my attention that we could freely access documents from the Judiciary shared network on our desktops through an icon called "My Network Places." Although I never discussed this with any other colleagues, I knew that other Hatch counsels and staff came to know about the glitch and that some had concluded that the access was not unlawful.

I determined for myself that no unlawful, unauthorized hacking was involved in reading these unprotected documents. I knew that in law the duty falls on the other party to protect their documents. I also considered and studied the propriety or ethics of reading these documents. I knew that in legal ethics there is no absolute prohibition on reading opposition documents inadvertently disclosed and that these ethics are stricter than our situation in government service. I knew that there is no privacy expectation to documents on a government server, documents that are regularly backed up and stored in a government facility. I knew that these were not confidential or classified documents. I knew that I was not in a relation of confidence to the Senators or documents in question.

Finally, I was told that the Leahy staff had been informed of their negligence, which solved the only possible ethical consideration left to me. In short, they did nothing to protect their documents, as the law requires, either before of after being informed, and in an obviously adversarial context.

I have recently studied the Code of Ethics of Government Service. In my opinion, a prohibition on the reading of such documents would signify duties and obligations antithetical to the letter and spirit of the Code.