Penal Code - PEN 618. PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25. - 680.4.] TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594. - 625c.] Every person who willfully opens or reads, or causes to be read, any sealed letter not addressed to himself, without being authorized so to do, either by the writer of such letter or by the person to whom it is addressed, and every person who, without the like authority, publishes any of the contents of such letter, knowing the same to have been unlawfully opened, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Enacted 1872.