Law violation? Stealing information from board.
 

Okay, this may be the wrong forum, hope not.

One of my users(user1) managed to log in under another users(user2) name to access that other users(2) private messages.

User 1 has decided to use those private messages to attempt to cause legal troubles for User 2, simply becuase User 1 is angry at User 2.

My question is: Has User 1 violated any tye of privacy law? Any law at all by "illegally" accessing the other users account? I have been told that email is protected and considered private, does anybody know if any of these protections are afforded to private messages on a message board which is password protected?

If you can provide references or ideas on where to look, I would be forever grateful.

Talk to Howard over at PirateReports.com
I'm sure he could point you in the right direction.

Thx. Anybody else, feel free to add to this.

As far as i know in most countries it is considered illegal to gain access to a protected area without having permission to do so (somthing like that in more legal terms;)).

Yeah - Regardless of whether or not he knew the password, he still didn't have permission to access and use that account. I don't think any court would accept evidence gathered from that sort of activity.