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Abstract

In August 2019, a woman named Anne McClain logged into her ex-wife’s private bank account, violating privacy laws. While in any other case this would be just another issue of identity theft, this was no ordinary crime. Rather, McClain was 254 miles above the Earth, traveling 17,150 miles per hour aboard the International Space Station when she allegedly used a NASA-registered computer to log onto her estranged wife’s account. Hers was the first crime committed off planet Earth, and it raises the question: how do countries decide who investigates and prosecutes crimes committed in space? As space tourism, interplanetary travel, and international involvement in space grow, the legal questions of space exploration and research have become increasingly complicated and technical.

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