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How a Bitter Divorce Battle on Earth Led to Claims of a Crime in Space (archive)
Summer Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer living in Kansas, has been in the midst of a bitter separation and parenting dispute for much of the past year. So she was surprised when she noticed that her estranged spouse still seemed to know things about her spending. Had she bought a car? How could she afford that? Ms. Worden put her intelligence background to work, asking her bank about the locations of computers that had recently accessed her bank account using her login credentials. The bank got back to her with an answer: One was a computer network registered to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Ms. Worden's spouse, Anne McClain, was a decorated NASA astronaut on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. She was about to be part of NASA's first all-female spacewalk. But the couple's domestic troubles on Earth, it seemed, had extended into outer space. Ms. McClain acknowledged that she had accessed the bank account from space, insisting through a lawyer that she was merely shepherding the couple's still-intertwined finances. Ms. Worden felt differently. She filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and her family lodged one with NASA's Office of Inspector General, accusing Ms. McClain of identity theft and improper access to Ms. Worden's private financial records. Investigators from the inspector general's office have since contacted Ms. Worden and Ms. McClain, trying to get to the bottom of what may be the first allegation of criminal wrongdoing in space.
[...] One potential issue that could arise with any criminal case or lawsuit over extraterrestrial bank communications, Mr. Sundahl said, is discovery: NASA officials would be wary of opening up highly sensitive computer networks to examination by lawyers, for example. But those sorts of legal questions, he said, are going to be inevitable as people spend more time in outer space.
Welcome to the divorce of tomorrow!
Also at Space.com.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @05:37PM (3 children)
US law applies, of course.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 24 2019, @10:46PM (1 child)
This whole thing is stupid. If you're involved in a messy divorce, leave the other person's shit alone.
Anything either of you do can and will be misinterpreted by the other side in a messy divorce, which tends to bring out the drama queen in people.
One question the story doesn't answer is how come, if the groundhog told the bank to remove the astronut from the account, she (the astronut) still had access? If it was a joint account, then the astronut was legally entitled to access it until such time as a judge rules otherwise (simpler to just open a new bank account, end of problem).
If the astronut's pay was being deposited into a joint account, the groundhog is shit out of luck. One party cannot just tell the bank to terminate access by the other account holder.
Sounds to me like more stupid people tricks, and the groundhog is purposefully trying to stir up shit that she could have easily avoided by opening a separate account.
A real cat-fight.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 25 2019, @01:15AM
Meantime a hole was drilled in the skin of ISS supposedly to expedite the return. Hmm...
(Score: 3, Touché) by shortscreen on Sunday August 25 2019, @12:40AM
US law applies everywhere. Except off-shore tax havens.