Deleting Files is a Crime?

cemaco writes "A former employee of International Airport Centers, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with them, returned his company laptop as required. Hoping to find incriminating evidence, I.A.C. attempted to retrieve deleted information from the laptop in question with no success. This employee had beaten them to the punch. He had used 'secure delete' software, in order to make sure nothing could be recovered. He is now being charged with a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."

Comments

Re:The judges are flat out wrong

[Em Ellel]

Nice troll

You say these things...I do not think that word means what you think it means. :-)

How exactly is this a troll? I merely READ the article and the court opinion and explained it to someone who seems to look at the misleading /. title and misunderstood what this was really about.

Quote directly from the Judge's opinion:

Citrin's breach of his duty of loyalty terminated his agency relationship (more precisely, terminated any rights he might have claimed as IAC's agent--he could not by unilaterally terminating any duties he owed his principal gain an advantage!) and with it his authority to access the laptop, because the only basis of his authority had been that relationship..

-Em