The law appears ridiculously broad. But it's the law of the land in Minnesota and the statute's constitutionality was upheld by the MN Supreme Court.
Only facially. Facial challenges rarely succeed. For something to be unconstitutionally overbroad, the amount of unprotected conduct it prohibits has to be practically overwhelmed by the amount of protected conduct.
The failure of a facial challenge does not mean that the most broad possible interpretation of the statute is constitutional, just that the judicial system should only address its constitutionality if actually necessary in a specific case.
State v. Casillas would not be that case.
Here are the facts, as stated by the Minnesota Supremes:
FACTS
In 2016, Michael Anthony Casillas and his girlfriend A.M. were engaged in a three-month romantic relationship. During this period, A.M. gave Casillas access to her Dish Network account so he could watch television at work. After the relationship ended, Casillas used A.M.’s login information to access her other online accounts, including her Verizon cloud account. From the cloud account, Casillas obtained a photograph and a video that depicted A.M. engaged in sexual relations with another adult male.
Casillas sent A.M. a text message threatening to disseminate both the photograph and video while concealing his identity through fake email accounts and IP changers (devices used to obfuscate the identity of the person accessing the internet). A.M. told Casillas that sharing the photograph and video without her consent is a prosecutable offense. Undeterred by A.M.’s warning, Casillas carried out his threat by sending the video to 44 individuals and posting it online.
State v. Casillas,
952 N.W.2d 629, 634-35 (Minn. 2020).
Needless to say, this is completely unprotected conduct and would violate a number of other laws, including unauthorized use of her login information, as well as blackmail. The statute in this case was used for conduct that isn't even arguably protected.
He didn't even obtain the material by legal means, and there was clearly an expectation of privacy. You shouldn't need to be told you're not allowed to break into the computer account of your estranged ex and then use sexually embarrassing material in an attempt to blackmail them, then send it to dozens of people against her express notice that such conduct was illegal, while in addition also knowing it was illegal yourself and using subterfuge (albeit ineptly) to avoid getting caught, itself showing knowledge of guilt.
So clearly, if Kayla actually sent Aaron this material, he didn't obtain it illegally. The remaining question is as to the final element of the offense, and that is whether it was obtained in circumstances indicating a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
Lack of that would be fatal to the (nonsensical) felony, but also the misdemeanor. That's something the court will have to determine. If it turns out it's actually one of the nudes or lewds Kayla was sharing to a Locals audience at that time numbering over 5,000, that's going to be a hard case.
