Slashdot Mirror
Lawmakers Say CFAA Is Too Hard On Hackers
GovTechGuy writes "A number of lawmakers are using the death of Internet activist Aaron Swartz to speak out against the Justice Department's handling of the case, and application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The controversy surrounding the Swartz case could finally give activists the momentum they need to halt the steady increase in penalties for even minor computer crimes."
The main problem is that the law makers still have no clue about computers or technology in general. They hear 'hacker' and think that every kid with a computer in their room can launch a nuclear attack. This is why they try to execute anyone who knows more than them. Their narrow minded fear.
So when will we see charges pressed against Carmen M. Ortiz? There has to be some law which covers harassing someone to the point of suicide.
If this were a Chinese-American hacker stealing schematics from Raytheon we'd all be happy to see the harshest threats/penalties applied. The issue here was bullying at the DOJ. You can't fix that with a few tweaks to the law, and if you lower maximum penalties you will find yourself regretting it when someone actually does do something worthy of those maximum penalties.
But then he gets not prosecuted for stealing scientific articles, but for transmitting weapon secrets to foreign powers -- independently of the means to get his hands on said documents. Your argument seems to be that we need to have harsh penalties for wielding a knife, because someone may stab a person with a dagger.
He violated Terms of Service of JSTOR. And he took responsibility for it (by handing over his HD to JSTOR and admitting what he did). Everything else is overboarding prosecution and trying to boost one's career at the expense of someone vulnerable.
Then he should be prosecuted for what he actually did. You seem to conflate the means to commit a crime with the crime itself. If you stab a person in the back, you get persecuted for murdering a person, not for wielding a knife.
Even since Operation Sundevil, the US has had this COMPLETELY counterproductive policy of hounding talented crackers out of existence, rather than nurturing their talent. Utterly stupid, IMHO, and frankly, the people responsible for creating and enforcing this stupid policy should be ashamed of themselves.
The Chinese have this 'thousand grains of sand' thing they do, where they nurture a huge and thriving computer underground (rather than turning them all in involuntary organ donors as they would). They're sent out to smash and grab everything they can from the West, where anything garnered is processed through a specially designed intelligence gathering system, where useful material is routed to local companies and government decision makers.
Granted, the Chinese Communist Party has no morals, but we are in the world we live in, and we have to do the same to compete. I guarantee that if I had any kind of policy input anywhere, I'd be doing exactly this.
At the end of the day, we have a choice: we can either fight with all the tools in our arsenal and shape the world in the West's image -- a relatively peaceful prosperous and moral place. Or we can let the Chinese Communist Party turn it into a quasi-criminal dictatorial dystopia. It's really our choice. In any case, it's the height of suicidal stupidity to fight our enemies with our hands tied behind our backs.
Oh, I missed the memo. Is the revolution here? Is it time to line 'em up against the wall?
But seriously, lawmakers talking of laws being too harsh? Judges releasing people convicted under three-strikes in California? For America with its chart-topping prison population numbers, that's revolutionary enough.
But seriously, lawmakers talking of laws being too harsh? Judges releasing people convicted under three-strikes in California? For America with its chart-topping prison population numbers, that's revolutionary enough.
Indeed; I think that the problem isn't "the steady increase in penalties for even minor computer crimes," but the gradual increase in penalties for all crimes.
Rather than working on solving more crimes, the justice system seems to be trending toward making penalties harsher for the criminals that they do catch. This is a vicious circle; the harsher the penalties are, the more money we're spending on keeping people incarcerated.
I also find perturbing the technique used by prosecutors of charging people with a vast array of charges with huge possible penalties, so that they will have incentive to plea-bargain down to avoid the worst-case scenario that will be extremely harsh. This may indeed succeed for the prosecutors in getting guilty pleas, and succeed to some extent in saving the expense of trials-- but if some accused people actually are innocent (or even are guilty of minor crimes but not of everything in the book that they've been charged with), it is a failure of justice.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If you punch someone in the face and put them in the hospital, you don't get to say,"Oh, one punch to the face put you in the hospital? You really need to toughen up!" and get out of it. You still get arrested and go to jail.
And yet this is neither a face, nor is a hospital involved. This kind of retarded logic is similar to what corporations use to assign themselves rights that belong to people and not companies. Aaron may have been bringing those servers to a crawl, but he did so by using the websites, not a denial of service attack. By your logic, slashdot readers would be at fault for bringing down websites by simply trying to view their contents. Would you like to be in court for your part in "Slashdot Effect"?
The CFAA has immense penalties for two reasons:
1. Lawmakers look for any excuse to be "tough on crime".
2. Hackers are a small minority group that scare most people.
Combine these two things and one can see that hackers are an "acceptable target" for both the lawmakers and their constituencies, especially with the recent Chinese red scare going on.
Hackers need a PR firm.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If you're going to throw the book at someone for a computer 'crime'*, then maybe it should be an e-book instead of a book that is in in dead tree format.
*Especially when it is a 'crime' instead of real crime. You know, real crime, like the kind that involves violence, or the real crimes that occur in boardrooms, wall street and congress.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.