According to a California judge, not so much - she ruled that surreptitiously made copies of email were fine, because - technically speaking - they were copied from storage, not while in transmission:

The issue boils down to the judicial definition of an intercept in the electronic age, in which packets of data move from server to server, alighting for milliseconds before speeding onward. The ruling applies only to the 9th District, which includes California and other Western states, but could influence other courts around the country.

In August 2007, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the Central District of California, ruled that the alleged hacker, Rob Anderson, had not intercepted the e-mails in violation of the 1968 Wiretap Act because they were technically in storage, if only for a few instants, instead of in transmission.

If that definition holds up, then anyone could grab anything, and it wouldn't qualify as interception. Can someone apply some common sense to this?