Suppose that Cassandra, the CEO’s executive assistant, had been involved in the criminal activity of selling company data. And suppose that when the anonymous tip came in, she deleted the message without bringing it to anyone else’s attention. Cassandra’s assignment is to delete any and all messages deemed to be “noise” or a nuisance and then bring the remaining messages to the attention of the CEO.

Questions:

Had she been in on the caper, would Cassandra’s act of deleting the message that prompted this response unethical? Would it have been illegal?