There were digital “locks” to prevent people from reading the data. Giuliani (or, more likely, someone working for him) bypassed those locks to get the data. If you sneak into someone’s room, rip off the lock on their diary, take photos of various pages, and then share those with people online, you can definitely face civil charges.
the computer was unencrypted. there were no locks in place. “sneaking into someones room” is not a valid comparison when this laptop was dropped off there and never picked up.
A computer doesn’t need to be encrypted. It can just have a password to count as breaking into it/invasion of privacy.
Of course, all this assumes that the laptop was real in the first place. What also could have happened is that Rudy got his hands on some of Hunter Biden’s files (for example, via some group hacking Hunter’s actual computer). Then, they could toss those files on a laptop along with “evidence” that they manufactured (e.g. made up emails from Hunter about all the crimes he was going to crime). Then they would pull the hard drive and wave it around as iron-clad evidence.
With this method, Rudy would be mixing actual Hunter Biden content (e.g. the photos) with made up content to try to make the fictional content look legitimate. It would also count as an invasion of privacy since Rudy would have had to obtain those photos in an illegal manner and wouldn’t have had the right to distribute them.
