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Terry Childs Found Guilty
A jury in San Francisco found Terry Childs guilty of one felony count of computer tampering. The trial lasted four months. Childs now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
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he is a sysadmin that refused to disclose passwords to an office which had the prudence to disclose ALL of those LIVE passwords and usernames as evidence in a public court ... exposing personal information of millions of citizens in public databases ...
i doubt that randomly selected array of 20-30 americans would be able to understand how insanely stupid this is.
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Remind me never to do the right thing ever again.
It is my understanding his employment was specific in that he would only disclose the password to the mayor alone. This never happened, thus he never disclosed the password. This case did not require any technical knowledge to grasp the facts, so I am unsure how the jury could come to this result.
What this really all comes down to is that once a company fires you or lets you go you are still obligated to that company.
I don't care if it's a government organization or a corporation as far as I'm concerned once they let you go there should be no more ties to anyone from either side.
I guess it's true...the shackles don't come off even if they put you back in the general population.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
The lesson here is to do whatever your boss says, even if it is incredibly stupid and will make your job entirely unmanageable...
Well, I would have to agree that my 'inner security geek', would have had to swallow really hard a few time before stating production passwords over a teleconference with unknown people. Hell, I would expect to be fired just for doing that.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sometime you just have to suck it up and go look for another job. The sad part is that Terry was probably just a conscientous civil servant, and the boss was a know-nothing political appointee. Terry had probably seen more than a few of these appointed ass-hats come and go, and figured this was just another little tempest that would blow over.
Poor guy
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Fuck off. He followed the fucking city policy, maybe he was a jerk about it, but that doesn't make you right about him.
Let's say he was hit by a bus, killed, and consequently unable to disclose the password. Would he be guilty of computer tampering in that case? How about the bus driver?
Yes. Security rightly assumes that the weakest link of any computer/information protection is the humans. He followed their policy about how to deal with people trying to get access, no matter where or how powerful those people were.
He should be commended, not disgraced.
That's an excellent question. Throughout this entire case I've felt like I was only getting one side of the story. For example, I haven't seen any quotes from the prosecutor. Prosecuting someone for failing to disclose a password is absurd. There has got to be something else going on.
He was given the option to hand over the passwords and walk away or face jail time. He could have handed everything over (even though it violated a contract) and it would all be forgotten. Through some misguided sense of morals or utter stupidity he chose to let it go to trial.
Don't kid yourselves for one second, juries are stacked with wishy washy room temp IQ dullards who are easily swayed on emotional opinions. Do you think this jury had any clue what a password file or network topology was? He was portrayed as a rogue agent against the goody two shoes city and they fell for it.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Look. I know IT doesn't have a union. And I wouldn't want one as a programmer and sysadmin based one everything I've ever seen about a union. But this is the time to speak out through actions.
Any IT professional of any competence, and with any amount of self respect needs to refuse to do business with ANYONE who services the city of SF--directly or indirectly. I will be, and will indicate as much explicitly to anyone acting for or on behalf of the city--directly or indirectly that until a full pardon and compensation is paid to Childs, and the relevant individuals are removed from office for corruption, I will not provide any professional services.
If the relevant DA or mayor retires or resigns without reprimand and appropriate court sanctions, I will *never* provide such services.
Yes, I know many people say Childs acted unprofessionally--that's not the point. By refusing to provide the passwords, it would have been arguably justifiable to fire him. He was arrested for refusing to provide passwords after he was already fired--not his problem any more. Had they arrested him before firing him there *might* have been an argument.
I refuse to work for any organization that supports this. And I hope that the members of /. refuse to as well, unless or until the city releases far more compelling evidence of destructive intent than has come to light thus far.
Of course, it's easier for me to say as I'm two states east...but I've a client or two out there.
I wonder how the guys who took over Terry's job feel now. I'd be looking for alternative employment at this point -> like maybe a ditch digger or something that just might not get you pooched by the judicial system.
Talk about setting a dangerous precedent.
It was very probably being a jerk that got him convicted - people are much more likely to convict the headstrong than the guilty. I don't know if he really was guilty of anything, I've not really examined the evidence, but it's a well-documented psychological flaw of individuals that looks and personalities have a far far greater bearing on who is convicted than the actual evidence itself. There is no fix for this bug that is not worse than the bug itself.
Even if he were guilty, his real "crime" would be being a little too uptight, perhaps being an a-hole a little too often, and maybe being a little obnoxious. Note that these are only true if he actually is guilty of something. I fail to see how a purely punitive system is going to be useful in correcting these issues, which are not uncommon amongst those with Geek Syndrome (aka Asperger's). In the same way drunk drivers are sometimes ordered to attend AA meetings, the most suitable punishment (again IF he is guilty) would be to require him to attend an Asperger's group and/or get checked-out by a pdoc for some sort of treatment regimen. (Asperger's is not, technically, treatable but CAN aggravate other problems that are.) This would be cheaper than prison, by a LONG way, be far more likely to be effective, AND would be more likely to increase his value to society (whereas prison rots skills and therefore decreases value).
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This guy was in the employ of the city government, which necessarily acts differently than a corp, which makes your analogy false. His direct bosses don't make the rules, the elected officials do. The difference is crucial. Furthermore, his following the rules was not to the detriment of the city.
There's a simple lesson here: don't put policy over what the police tell you to do. Yes, the police may be wrong (and probably are), but that's not your problem. Remember, the police and the government here in America are utterly corrupt, and fighting against that is futile; it's like trying to fight against corruption in the Mexican government (our governments are just as corrupt as each other; the only difference is that Mexican citizens have no illusions about their government and police being anything but corrupt, unlike Americans).
Another simple lesson here: don't work in IT for a city or state government. There's plenty of private-sector jobs out there that pay at least as much, and the worst that can happen to you is you get fired, rather than going to pound-me-in-the-ass prison for 5 years.
Apparently it cost the city 200,000 dollars they wouldn't have had to spend. He caused a trial that cost more money. I'd say he did quite a lot of damage to the city and I call that detrimental.
Yes a city works slightly differently that a corp. Not much at his level.
Why bother
-Terry for the 50th time: what is the password?"
-"fuckyou"
Unfortunately that may be how the conversation actually went, but without the joke. I would like to think that in a situation like that most people would say something like: "I want to help, I really do, but if I may please explain, there is a policy..."
However real people under real stress can behave in less than rational ways. And, sadly, in the real world even a small single negative action can result in an avalanche of unpleasant reactions.
Slandering the jury is totally appropriate. It's part of the system. They made a bad call. They made a ridiculously bad call. They made a howlingly, ridiculously bad call. Morons, one and all.
Part of the loveliness of living in this country is that I now get to stand up and sing out like Monty Python that twelve mouth-breathing baboons -- no offense to the ACTUAL baboons in their red-butted glory, mind you -- twelve pin-headed boot-licking idiots just sent a man to prison for poor social skills.
And it is entirely appropriate that the denizens of this board call them on it.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
There is just no way around it, no matter how big a douche your employer is, or how wrong or unfair you think it is, or how big a mistake they are making... withholding your employers' passwords will land you in jail.
Some may work up some emotion over this, but I don't think this will really be a surprise to many people.
Here's a hint; when you end up in a room with the cops and a lot of your management, fine, ask for your lawyer, but don't plan on using that same management's written policy against them. They are management - they wrote the policy. They're telling you their new policy. Verbally. In no uncertain terms. With the cops present.
You cannot lock your customers out of their equipment. This is not a legal theory our society will ever adopt, nor should it. Imagine if the courts agreed that IT staff has discretion to withhold their customers' own passwords. "They weren't smart enough to have it." "They asked for it the wrong way." "They once had a written policy that I shouldn't tell them."
OK, so no one can ever fire you. When can't you come up with an excuse to lock the equipment and walk off? Imagine if the courts blessed it! You could pull that burn off and coast, untouchable. Yeah, that philosophy really has legs.
You: "Give me the password."
Your employee: "No."
You: "You're violating my policy - I need the password."
Your employee: "I disagree. I have my own interpretation of your policy."
You: "You're fired."
Your former employee: "Great, now I definitely won't give you the password."
You: "Obviously I'm not paying you to refuse to do what I'm asking. But you still have my passwords."
Your former employee: "Fine, but since you're not paying me, I'm not your slave. You can't force me to perform."
Hear that sound? It's the eyes of every slave who ever lived rolling back in their heads.
Think about it. Childs could, if he truly was motivated by fear of violating a policy, have called his lawyer into the room, to say: "no problem, we'll give you the passwords, we just need you to release us from liability for disclosing those passwords, one pager, sign here..." He didn't, because this was about ego, not policy. He just didn't want to have to cave and do what they said. He's not the first - many an outsized ego has landed its owner in prison.
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Oh, no, your poor behavior has caused me to hurt my fist when I punched your face in for it. I guess I'll just have to punch some more!
The cost of prosecuting him is not to be counted against what he cost the city unless I get to charge you for hurting my fist when I punch you.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
No if you assault me you can't get medical damages from me.
Funny thing: illegal aliens breaking into houses HAVE sued the homeowners for such things as falling on a knife and injuring their legs. Kids screwing around on the roofs of schools have sued the school district when they, illegally trespassing, nevertheless fell through a skylight and injured themselves.
In other words, the law is fucked up, and the fact that you can manage to empanel a jury of 12 retards who don't understand the law & policy, scare them with "wooh this was scary internets stuff", and then have a paid-off judge give the jury bad instructions doesn't help.
Fuck off
Let us know how that works out when Terry refuses to give you the passwords to your own equipment :-)
Is to perhaps not be knee jerk about what "the right thing," is. Don't presume you know better than everyone, don't presume you are the one with whom the buck should stop and so on. You need to be able to look at the bigger picture. While you might think "the right thing," is for you and only you to have access to the systems because you feel you are the only one smart enough to handle it properly, well consider two things:
1) What happens if you are rendered unavailable? You could die, become incapacitated, whatever. What happens then if you are the only one who has the keys to get in? All of a sudden "the right thing" turned in to a rather large disaster.
2) Consider that maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are, or perhaps that everyone else isn't as dumb as you think they are. Perhaps your boss is perfectly capable of having the password as a backup and not using it to cause any trouble. You might not think he's smart enough, but maybe you aren't evaluating the situation fairly.
Also just remember that you job in IT is customer service, even if you never deal with customers. Your job is to help make computers do what people want them to. They are tools to reach some goal, and you are someone who helps that happen. Part of that means doing what your customers (which are usually your coworkers) want. That doesn't mean giving them everything, but it does mean not being a stone wall that just refuses to do something. Work with people, try to persuade rather than intimidate and so on.
Finally, when it comes down to it, they aren't your systems, they are the organization's systems and if they want to fuck it up, that's their thing. Argue against it, document your objections, but if that's what they want, let them do it. It isn't your place to stop it.
Remember, the police and the government here in America are utterly corrupt, and fighting against that is futile
You know, staying stuff like this is an insult to people who live in / come from places where the government and police *are* truly corrupt. I once worked with a guy from Brazil who was happy when he went through a police roadcheck because it reminded him he wasn't in Brazil. In Brazil he would have had to have paid a bribe to the police, been detained hours, or risked being pulled from his car and beaten. Here it was a few questions and 'have a nice night, sir' - And he was an olive-skinned guy driving a new Nissan. In the USA if the police knock on your door and ask to come in you can tell them to go away - And they have to. In many parts of the world they'll kick your door in without asking, trash your house, and rape your daughter for good measure.
I know absolutely nothing about the San Francisco network. But I find it interesting that Childs said, "These idiots can't be trusted with the passwords," and the second the idiots got the passwords, they published them for the world to see.
Sure enough, those idiots should not have been trusted with the passwords. Hard to fault a guy when they immediately proved him right. :-)
By the way, since this is a municipal system, here are some of the functions I've seen municipal systems handle:
1. 911 calls over VoIP.
2. Fire dispatch, as in "Building on fire here"
3. Police dispatch, as in "Crazy guy with gun over here."
4. Police data, as in "The license plate you just pulled over is driven by a violent felon."
5. Videoconferencing that connects lawyers to their clients
6. Utility billing/disconnect, as in "These people need their water/power/garbage cut off."
I could go on and on.
Wanna see your basic "evil hacker" movie play out in real life? You couldn't take over the world, but you could make some people miserable. Maybe even get a few of them killed when help doesn't arrive when it should...
Not all computer networks are about making sure Sally in accounting gets her email.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Rather than investigate what you've just claimed, I'm going to ask if it makes any kind of sense to have a restrictive policy on disclosing one's user level password, and expect that you'll just turn over a system level password to an unknown number of unknown people.
Of course he shouldn't have had sole administrative access to the network; however, it seems likely that the fastest typist among the authorized, well intentioned people hearing this information would be far outpaced by the hypothetical fastest typist among any hypothetical bad guys.
Assuming youre assertion is correct, it is evidence that the people he worked for were even more incompetent to handle the network than he feared. That doesn't put him on the right side of the law, but it does make his position sound a lot more sane.
ivan
Like to brew? Want to talk about it? Brattlebrew: groups.yahoo.com/group/brattlebrew
This would be cheaper than prison, by a LONG way, be far more likely to be effective, AND would be more likely to increase his value to society (whereas prison rots skills and therefore decreases value).
Besides, taking someone with technical skills who, by the sound of it, has strong ethics and unfairly convicting him of a felony computer crime isn't particularly smart. When he gets out, he's not going to have much respect left for government, and as an ex-con probably won't be able to get legitimate work in his chosen field. Great way to turn an otherwise honest guy into a white-collar criminal.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is a post written by someone who has clearly never actually been to a country with corrupt police, and having been to a few my self I was quite happy to get back to Western Europe/N.A. where people don't realize just how lucky they are that bribery is something we talk about on TV not the only way to accomplish anything.
The police do not have the authority to force you to disclose passwords. You see, here in the US we have these things called rights.
I think Terry Childs would disagree with you. He didn't tell the police his passwords, and he went to jail for 5 years.
I was speaking metaphorically. I meant criminal. And, in my opinion, it's a gross miscarriage of justice to make someone pay for their own prosecution. It's basically punishing them for not pleading guilty and trying to defend themselves. That would have the effect of causing a lot of innocent people to plead guilty.
Of course, plea bargaining already does that, and in my opinion is a strong argument against plea bargaining. They all come from the mindset that a conviction is better than justice.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Hey, give 'em time. Our cops and government are still learning the ropes.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You say
essentially this juror went into deliberations, had already made up his mind, informed the rest of the jurors that he had thought about the matter on his own and made up his mind, and didn't want to hear anything more about it.
And yet you claim
He was not released for "having his own opinion" or being "a lone holdout".
It sounds to me from what you've written here that having his own opinion is exactly why he was removed.
This juror may not have explained his opinion to your (and perhaps other jurors') satisfaction - but unless I'm mistaken jurors are charged to render their verdict, not to satisfy the other jurors.
This person may have indeed had all the social graces of a rock, or it may have been the case they were being coerced by the mob behavior of the rest of the jury. I don't know, I certainly wasn't there. Important points may be in the full details you chose not to give. And we only have your experience of it - we don't have theirs.
It sounds like, if you were in fact on the jury, you were taking your responsibilities very seriously. But from what you've said this jury incident sounds a lot like the entire event in microcosm: someone with no social skills stands up for their principles in the face of public pressure to do the expedient thing, and is punished for it.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. It was really very helpful and illuminating. Thank you again.
Jury nullification consists precisely in ignoring that particular instruction: that you should only apply the law and not judge the law itself. Duh. This notwithstanding, if you say you agreed with the law, and thought it had broken it, well, then, obviously you did the right (moral) thing and have a lot more info on the case than random slashdotters. Well done.
Thanks for your service and your post.
Funny thing: illegal aliens breaking into houses HAVE sued the homeowners for such things as falling on a knife and injuring their legs. Kids screwing around on the roofs of schools have sued the school district when they, illegally trespassing, nevertheless fell through a skylight and injured themselves.
In other words, the law is fucked up, and the fact that you can manage to empanel a jury of 12 retards who don't understand the law & policy, scare them with "wooh this was scary internets stuff", and then have a paid-off judge give the jury bad instructions doesn't help.
I see you got that chain email too.
Care to show us these cases? I've started googling and have only come up with sites debunking it.
I know they're so easy to believe since the [skewed] McDonald's hot coffee case, but let's try and be skeptical when we hear about any ridiculous lawsuits.
You think he was acting professionally and following policy? Look, I'm aware that his defense spread some story about the rules. You haven't read them, but I have. Here's from their rulebook:
"In accordance with these strategies the following policy statements apply to the key areas and functions of the Security Perimeter. In all statements where the “County Authority” (CA) is mentioned, depending on the County reporting structure, this can be the CIO, CISO, CTO, CEO or COO and implies the CA or their designee(s)."
"If someone demands a password, refer him or her to this document or have him or her call someone in Information Security."
Obviously he hated having to do what his boss told him enough to go to prison. But something tells me that if we go through the records of all the people who asked him for the passwords (and by the end it was certainly more than just his boss), we would find that among them were at least one person "in Information Security," or who was "CIO, CISO, CTO, CEO or COO and implies the CA or their designee(s)." [emphasis added]
You can see for yourself his actions don't match policy. He was just crazy enough to think he could still use password-blackmail to torch his boss to the mayor - from jail.
And that's even without looking at the detailed information that emerged from the trial:
"This jury was not made up of incompetent people. ... I myself am a network engineer with a CCIE and thirteen years experience. ... No matter what you think ... you do not have ... even 10% of ... the full story. I am confident that we reached the correct verdict. ... ... [was] who is an "authorized user"? ... We did ultimately determine ... beyond any reasonable doubt ... his boss' boss was an authorized user."
One of the most difficult questions for us to answer
More here - this juror is a /. user and these are from his posts.
Funny how the truth gets buried and ego is always at the wheel.
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This was not a verdict that we came to lightly. There were very difficult points to overcome in reaching it. We were not allowed to let our emotions or biases determine the matter, because if they could there may have been a different outcome. Quite simply, we followed the law.
This is like that psych experiment where a test subject is given a buzzer and a set of questions. A lab assistant plays the role of another test subject behind a screen. The buzzer is supposed to deliver a shock for every wrong question. It doesn't, of course, but the lab assistant acts like it does. With each wrong question he screams louder, wimpers, begs to stop the experiment. The official-looking SCIENTIST in his WHITE LAB COAT reassures the skeptical test subject that the experiment should continue. Some subjects will walk about but others will keep administering shocks for unanswered questions even after the man behind the screen is no longer making any noises. Unconscious? Dead? Doesn't matter. The man in the white coat told me what to do. He has AUTHORITY.
If the case never should have come to trial, find him not guilty. The charges are obviously bullshit. Where is it written that conscience and compassion have no place in our courts? Ok, mandatory sentencing says we have to leave our brains at the door but fuck that.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Show me the case law. You are citing urban legends...
So let's assume that he violated policy in refusing to give the password to his boss's boss or create accounts for people. How does this amount to a criminal offense?
If he violates policy, then fire him. But it's the fault of his boss to let him be the only person with access to the system for this long. They should have had other qualified people working with him to help maintain what is described as such an important system. I'm confused about when this goes from being a personnel matter to a criminal matter. Is this just because he was a government employee, or does this extend to the private section? The implications of this become very scary.
While jury service is commendable, you sir should be ashamed of what you've done. This guy was put in a no-win situation, one which YOU YOURSELF could someday face. To equate what he did with felony computer tampering puts us all one bad situation away from being felons, damned if we do and damned if we don't. Juries are there to ask the tough questions, to make sure laws squash people who don't deserve it. One quote from the article describes Mr Childs as "egotistical and paranoid". Well, you'd better lock a lot of us up then, because when you hold heightened responsibility and are tasked with guarding that system, that's what you're actions are going to look like.
You state you "felt terrible" about the verdict. If that's true, then you made the wrong decision. And you've made life more dangerous for all network and systems professionals.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
Jury Nullification
Logic brought you to the conclusion that Mr. Childs was guilty based on the laws and definitions provided to you. However, you didn't like the verdict. Was jury nullification thought of?
I think this is the saddest thing I might have ever read:
This case should have never come to be. Management in the city's IT organization was terrible. There were no adopted security policies or procedures in place. This was a situation that management allowed to develop until it came to this unfortunate point. They did everything wrong that they possibly could have to create this situation. However, the city was not on trial, but Terry Childs was. And when we went into that jury room, we had very explicit instructions on what laws we were to apply and what definitions we were to follow in applying those laws.
Another poster already mentioned Jury Nullification; how can you, as a human being, convict another human being after saying you believe all of that?
And of course, the city can't be put on trial for it's portion in this, can it? Nobody from the city is going to go to jail (and the city itself won't be legally "incarcerated") no matter how wrong it was. But because of your strict interpretation of the law, and some "common sense" interpretation about who an authorized user was (even though it wasn't legally specified), he has to go to jail and have his life ruined.
What you did was reprehensible.
"We were not swayed at all by emotional opinion, because if we were we probably would have acquitted because we all agreed that the situation Terry Childs was put in was not called for. However, the facts in the case bore out the verdict we reached.
Quite simply, we followed the law. I personally, and many of the other juror, felt terrible coming to this verdict."
You just did what you were told to do. When one of your fellow jurors refused to go along, he or she was replaced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority." - Milgram
You've punished a man for something you don't think was wrong. May those who judge you be of greater morality.
-L4N
As an American, I am profoundly depressed by this thread. I respect the juror who is posting his perspective here, and greatly appreciate the fact he's taking the time to explain what happened from an insider's perspective. But his account reveals a terrible devolution of our system of justice: the ordinary citizens on a jury no longer protect us against an inappropriate or unfair application of the law.
It makes me furious every time I hear a juror come out of the jury room and say "I don't think he really did anything bad, but according to the judge's instructions, I had no choice but to convict." No, you had a choice. The brilliantly cynical and untrusting rebels who wrote the Constitution put you there to make the choice. Not an unfeeling robotic choice, not a judge-directed decision, but an independent decision that truly reflects the informed judgment of a "jury of peers."
The jury has become, not an independent check against the juggernaut of government prosecution, but a mere puppet of the system. In such a legal system, any one of us can be sent to jail for life on the government's whim, because there's not one of us who doesn't -- knowingly or unknowingly -- violate several laws daily; we count on juries to say, when appropriate, "ok, maybe he technically violated the law, but this prosecution is unreasonable, and we're not going along with it."
Our system was designed to make it really, really hard to convict. And really easy to acquit. If the prosecutor doesn't like the case, he can toss it out. If the judge doesn't like the case, he can toss it out. Heck, if the judge doesn't like the jury's "guilty" verdict, he can toss it out (but he can't set aside a "not guilty" verdict). Why has the jury come to believe they can't exercise at least the same power as the prosecutors and the judge routinely do: the power to toss out a case that just ain't right?
We specifically spent hours on the question of intent and making sure we were beyond a reasonable doubt. As to the removal of the other juror, there's way more to that story than any paper knows, and I don't want to go much into it, but he was definitely dismissed "for cause", not because he was some type of lone holdout or something like that.
The law we used was CA Penal Code 502. We did not make up any laws or definitions in reaching our decision. Just take a look at the number of posts and opinions here which fall in both directions. Do you think they have more facts about the case available to them, who may have read some articles and blogs about it? Or do you think I may have more information upon which to base my opinion, after listening to five months of testimony, reading hundreds of emails, many sent by Mr. Childs himself, showing his state of mind and intent? There's way more to the story here than simply a good tech guy all of a sudden being requested to turn over some passwords.
Yes, I was on the jury (see my post further on down). An essential part of jury deliberations is keeping an open mind, explaining your thoughts and opinions, and listening to the opinions of others. This was not the case here. I really won't go into the details on the matter as to not reveal personal information or background on the juror, but not only did he not do those items above, he also refused to follow the jury instructions and the legal definitions as provided by the judge that we had to use in our determination of the facts.
While you are allowed to look at testimony differently and debate that, you can't decide that a legal definition as provided by the judge is something you don't agree with and therefore won't follow. Essentially, you're supposed to follow the facts and then come to a conclusion. The problem here was that one person had a conclusion beforehand, and wanted to change the facts to fit it. It just doesn't work that way.
Definitely not an attorney. I just went and read the actual statute. This is slashdot, we rarely ever even bother to read the article. Thank you for your responses on this.
I have to say, it's amazing how many issues one run-on sentence in a legal statute. Personally, I still think that you collectively made the wrong call on this. Not as a matter of compassion or as a matter of balancing the scales against some clear injustices on the other side as many have suggested. Two things bother me. The definitions of authorized users and of denial in the context of this law.
You've addressed the authorized user question fairly extensively, but I still don't agree. You determined that Childs at one time believed his boss' boss to be an authorized user, but I think it's still reasonable for him to cease believing that his boss is an authorized user. At least to such a degree that there's reasonable doubt that he knowingly denied access to an authorized user. As others have said, if it took that long to work it out, how could Childs really have been sure. Especially given his apparent belief that incompetence was sufficient to disqualify a user from being authorized.
The issue of denial is the real biggie for me. I read that law and see the section that boils down to denial of computer services. In my mind, I have a very clear idea of what a denial of service attack is in the context of computer services and it's active, not passive. I keep thinking about what the situation would have been if he'd just quit and moved to Wyoming, etc. The law seems to be for attackers, not people who just cease to be helpful.
Here's a thought experiment from another post: Bob is a network administrator. Bob sets the password for the network but doesn't write it down directly. Instead, he just writes down a reminder. Bob gets hit by a bus, and the only thing everyone has to go on is a scrap of paper that says "the private nickname I had for my first girlfriend". So, they track down his first girlfriend and ask her what the password is. For her own reasons, she refuses to tell them, even after they prove to her that they are authorized users. So, based on this law, she is knowingly and without permission disrupting or causing the disruption of computer services or denying or causing the denial of computer services to an authorized user of a computer, computer system, or computer network. Using the definition of that law that was used to convict Childs, she would be just as guilty as Childs has been found. The only thing in the law that she might be able to argue is the permission bit, but clearly she doesn't have permission from anyone to deny them access to their network (as senseless as that is in this context, it's a hundred percent true), so she's a felon. The fact that she's not an employee of the owner of the network doesn't seem to protect her under this law. Employees get a little extra protection than her, in fact.
I just don't know anymore. It seems like more and more things are becoming life-destroying crimes that would have once been handled in-house or as civil matters or just not been crimes. Violation of computer use policies. Children looking at each other naked. Letting the kids have an unsupervised party. All manner of copyright violations. Being rude to flight attendants. So on and so forth. I may just be suffering from curmudgeons disease, but it seems like we're getting less and less free in just about every way. This case especially rubs me the wrong way because it hits so close to home.
I too really wish the case had been dismissed, but I think the city let this story get too large and didn't want to lose face by dropping all the charges. However, as a juror I cannot allow myself to make decisions based on why I think the city did what it did or whether I think that was right or wrong.
I'm sorry, but this is where you failed in your role as a juror. The whole point of a trial by jury is that you, the juror, is the last line of defense against injustice in all its various forms. You are supposed to use not only your intelligence, but also your common sense and personal sense of morality to render a truly just verdict.
The jury is a speed bump, a safety device, to prevent runaway application of the "just the facts" letter-of-the-law approach, and put the human element back into the justice machine. That's how the system was designed.
In your comments, you state that you wish the case had been dismissed, that the city was really crucifying Childs just so they could save face, etc. Obviously, you felt that finding Childs guilty was not just -- but you found him guilty anyway. I'm sorry, but if you truly felt what you state in your comments, then you failed miserably as a juror in this case.