I guess we have a generation facing this new problem. I have only seem discussion about how services like Facebook should handle the data of deceased people. I didn't realize your kids (and spouse?) can just take your device and release it. This future seems scary to me.
Later on the drives were subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit and she made a copy of the contents and handed them over.
This is detailed in the New Yorker article linked in TFA.
It's not "scary," it's how property law has always worked.
If you don't want the contents of your hard drive released by your next of kin then encrypt it.
I don't see how this is easily comparable to my monetary properties.
Once someone is the owner of property they are usually free to do whatever they want with it, including giving it away.
This is how property law has worked for literally centuries.
I don't think I'll be caring much about what my spouse is doing with the contents of my hard drive if I'm dead.
It's not "his" data any more, by definition. He's dead. Your capacity to control things in the world, in any way, stops once you are dead. That's what "dead" means!
There are ways to create contracts with the living that will bind them to your (heh) will even after your death. They tend to be pretty complicated, unsurprisingly. But by default someone gets your stuff when you die, and they aren't you and don't necessarily have your opinions.
If you don't like this, well, I guess plan on immortality?
tl;dr: I don't think the ethical questions here are affected by whether the deceased's writing takes the form of ink on paper or bits on digital storage.
Before it was too late.
She was estranged from her father. After his death, her mother encouraged her to take the hard drives and USBs. Assuming that his wife was the legal owner after his death and it was in fact gifted her then it sounds legit.
I assume data is property.
In this case the mother already had joint possession (through marriage) of her and her husband's property. While we refer to it as "his USBs" because he probably bought them and used them exclusively, when you're married they are legally owned jointly by you and your spouse.
One exception would be if he did the work on behalf of a company and the company paid for the USBs. Then the company could probably sue to have their property returned. Or if he had a contract saying that he had to delete the data after the contract ended, that could probably be enforced as well.