Aaron's Law Would Revamp Computer Fraud Penalties

An anonymous reader writes "Two U.S. lawmakers have introduced a bill that would prevent the Department of Justice from prosecuting people for violating terms of service for Web-based products, website notices or employment agreements under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). On Thursday, Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, introduced Aaron's Law, a bill aimed at removing some types of prosecutions under the CFAA." The bill is of course named for Aaron Swartz.

Comments

Not good enough.

[Hatta]

A better reform to honor Aaron Swartz would be the abolition of plea bargaining. Nobody should be coereced out of their right to a trial by an overzealous prosecutor with trumped up charges. Every prisoner, every single one, deserves a trial.

Re:Not good enough.

[dgatwood]

Maybe it should. After all, the broken justice system is the reason that we have more people in prison per capita than any other civilized nation on Earth. A complete collapse might just force some much-needed reform in a lot of areas.

Re:Not good enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

But abuse of the system does not mean it should be thrown out entirely.

Of course it should; it's disgusting.

Maybe if we didn't go after so many people for petty nonsense (drugs, copyright infringement, etc.), the court system wouldn't be overburdened to such a ridiculous extent. Besides, I'd rather have the courts be overburdened than allow plea bargaining to take place.

Re:Not good enough.

[Hatta]

Plea bargaining was created as i understand it so that it could alleviate some pressure from the court system

If you want to reduce pressure on the court system, reduce the number of offences, or reduce the incentives people have to commit offences. Both solutions will lead to a healthier society than allowing the powerful to bully common people into prison sentences they don't deserve. Punishing people for exercising their right to a trial is off the table for any society that wants their justice system to actually deliver justice.

If enforcing a law isn't important enough to justify paying for the trials, then the law isn't important enough to be on the books.

so that it could be used as a bargaining chip to get them to comply with providing information about associates.

By giving people an incentive to lie about their fellow citizens. How is that supposed to be a good thing?

But abuse of the system does not mean it should be thrown out entirely.

Every use of plea bargaining is an abuse. Everyone has a right to a trial, even those who are most definitely guilty of a crime.

Re:Not good enough.

[Hatta]

Everyone already has the right to a trial; plea bargains do not take that right away.

Punishing someone for exercising a right IS taking that right away. The government here is deliberately increasing the cost of exercising your right to a trial in order to discourage you from doing so. I don't know how that could be more clear.

You might as well say "everyone has the right to free speech if he purchases a $100,000 free speech license for 24 hours". Yes, in some sense it's true that everyone still has that right. But what good is a right you cannot exercise?

You're confusing "fellow citizens" with "accomplices" here.

Until they are proven guilty, they are merely "fellow citizens". If you were a criminal scumbag and you thought you could get off easy by incriminating your upstanding neighbor, why wouldn't you?

There's nothing wrong with getting a robbery suspect to turn on his accomplices

There is something wrong with encouraging neighbors to spy on neighbors.

Re:Not good enough.

[ThisIsNotAName]

When the option is to accept a plea bargain with a minor sentence and a lesser criminal record versus going to trial for everything the prosecutor can throw at you while you're bleeding to death paying a lawyer or have an overworked public defender, it seems like trials become more of a right that exists exclusively for the wealthy.

Or repeal CFAA altoghther

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

You have DMCA, mail fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud etc. that covers almost all sorts of illegal activities regarding computers. And of course, prosecutors always have the ultimate ace in the hole called "criminal conspiracy" if all other charge fails.

No need for the redundancy of the CFAA.

Thank you Ron.

[conspirator23]

I don't have the privilege of living in Sen. Wyden's district any longer, but I always voted for him when I did, and that was well before his name became associated with civil liberties in the digital age. He played a critical role in getting the NTSB to conduct a much-needed-and-unheard-of civilian investigation of a C-130 crash that killed 10 Oregon National Guardsmen. From then until now he has repeatedly demonstrated tenacity, intellectual curiosity, and a willingness to say unpopular things for as long as I've cared to watch his performance as a Senator.

Yes, I realize Slashdot is probably the absolute last place on earth to say anything positive about an elected official. I should be trying to hype some unelectable wacko instead. Sorry to dissappoint.

For example, picking up a feather

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Go out in your yard. Pick up a feather. Is that feather from a hawk? Congrats you just committed a crime http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/prog/blm_special_areas/birds_of_prey_nca/links/raptor_possession.html http://www.gpnc.org/raptors1.htm

CFAA is bad and should be repealed

[Camael]

I agree. The true problem is not the plea bargain system, its the fact that the badly and loosely drafted CFAA passed by politicians allowed the prosecutor to file so many ridiculous charges against Aaron in the first place.

Here's a summary of the charges Aaron faced, from wiki:

On July 11, 2011, Swartz was indicted in Federal District Court on four felony counts: wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer. On September 12, 2012, the prosecution filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts.

Seth Finkelstein analysed the charges explained what it meant :-

And as I've said before - they don't like him. They really don't like him. Previously the indictment had alleged four "counts" of different legal violations each, making four felonies in total. There are now 13 felony counts in the new indictment, derived from claims of multiple instances of breaking those four laws. In specific:

Wire Fraud - 2 counts
Computer Fraud - 5 counts
Unlawfully Obtaining Information from a Protected Computer - 5 counts
Recklessly Damaging a Protected Computer - 1 count

It's beyond my pay grade to figure out how many years in prison that all could be, when taking into account the complexities of sentencing law. Let's leave it at a large scary number. Enough to ruin someone's life.

CFAA is too loosely drafted, provides for punishments grossly exceeding the nature of the crime, with no sense of proportionality and is abusive. That is the real problem.