The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued anopinionrejecting the government ’s attempt to hold an employee criminally liable under the federal hacking legislative act — theComputer Fraud and Abuse Act(“CFAA”)—for violating his employer - imposed computer use restrictions .
The conclusion is authoritative because it ascertain that employers and site owners do n’t have the power to criminalise a unsubtle image of innocent casual behavior , like check personal email or the score of a baseball game , through merely adopting use restrictions in their corporate policies or damage of use .
The tribunal also find that the politics can not hold hoi polloi reprehensively liable on the basis of purely fantastical statements they make online — i.e. ,thoughtcrime .
The suit , United States v. Gilberto Valle , receive a bunch ofattentionin the press because it involved the so - promise “ cannibal cop”—a New York City police officer who was charged with confederacy to kidnap for posts he write on fetish websites about cannibalism . Valle was also charge with violating the CFAA for access a police database to take care up data about people without a valid legal philosophy enforcement aim , in violation of NYPD insurance . The jury convicted Valle on all counts , but the test court overturn the jury ’s conspiracy finding of fact , tell that “ the nearly yearlong kidnapping cabal say by the political science is one in which no one was ever snatch , no essay snatch ever took place , and no real - domain , non - cyberspace - based step were ever taken to kidnap anyone . ” The trial motor hotel finally establish that holding Valle guilty of confederacy to kidnap would make him guilty of thoughtcrime .
But the trial court upheld the CFAA condemnation . And on appeal , we filed anamicus briefwith the Second Circuit , root on the courtto revolutionise the depleted court ’s dangerous opinion . We argued that the scurvy court ’s opinion would make felon out of jillion of ingenuous person , and the Second Circuit agreed — throwing out Mr. Valle ’s CFAA conviction and joiningtwo other Union circuit courtsin disdain the governance ’s attack to exposit the grasp of the mistily worded federal legislative act : “ We decline to take over the criminal prosecution ’s construction [ of the CFAA ] , which would criminalise the behavior of gazillion of ordinary computer users [ . ] ” The court went on :
While the Government might promise that it would not prosecute an individual for checking Facebook at work , we are not at impropriety to take public prosecutor at their word in such matters . A court should not maintain a extremely problematical interpretation of a legislative act merely because the administration promises to use it responsibly .
The Second Circuit also bear on the trial court ’s decisiveness to contrive out the conspiracy sentence , as we had barrack in asecond amicus brieffiled in the case , holding that “ [ t]he mere humoring of phantasy , even of the repugnant and unsettling variety here , is not , without more , criminal . ”
Thanks again to theCenter for Democracy & Technology , theNational Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers , and the Internet scholar who joined our CFAA amicus brief , and to UCLA law professorEugene Volokhof theScott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinicfor write our amicus legal brief regarding the confederacy explosive charge .
This articlefirst appeared on Electronic Frontier Foundationand is republished here under Creative Commons licence .
Image byHurst Photo / Shutterstock .
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