http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/01/using-computer-drug-war-decade-dangerous-excessive-punishment-consequences/
By Hanni Fakhoury
Wired.com
01.23.14
Before Edward Snowden showed up, 2013 was shaping up as the year of
reckoning for the much criticized federal anti-hacking statute, the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"). The suicide of Aaron Swartz in
January 2013 brought the CFAA into mainstream consciousness, so Congress
held hearings about the case, and legislative fixes were introduced to
change the law.
Finally, there seemed to be a newfound scrutiny of CFAA prosecutions and
punishment for accessing computer data without or in excess of
"authorization" - which affected everyone from Chelsea Manning to Jeremy
Hammond to Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer (disclosure: I'm one of his lawyers
on appeal). Not to mention less illustrious personalities and everyday
users, such as people who delete cookies from their browsers.
But unfortunately, not much has changed; if anything, the growing
recognition of the powerful capabilities of modern computing and
networking has resulted in a "cyber panic" in legislatures and prosecutor
offices across the country. Instead of reexamination, we’ve seen
aggressive charges and excessive punishment.
This cyber panic isn’t just a CFAA problem. In the zeal to crack down on
cyberbullying, legislatures have passed overbroad laws criminalizing
speech clearly protected by the First Amendment. This comes after one
effort to use the CFAA to criminalize cyberbullying -- built on the
premise that violating a website’s terms of service was unauthorized
access, or the equivalent of hacking - was thrown out as
unconstitutionally vague.
[...]
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