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Blogger Fined €3,000 for 'Publicizing' Files Found Through Google Search
mpicpp points out an article detailing the case of French blogger Olivier Laurelli, who had the misfortune to click links from search results. Laurelli stumbled upon a public link leading to documents from the French National Agency for Food Safety, Environment, and Labor. He downloaded them — over 7 Gb worth — and looked through them, eventually publishing a few slides to his website. When one of France's intelligence agencies found out, they took Laurelli into custody and indicted him, referring to him as a 'hacker.' In their own investigation, they said, "we then found that it was sufficient to have the full URL to access to the resource on the extranet in order to bypass the authentication rules on this server." The first court acquitted Laurelli of the charges against him. An appeals court affirmed part of the decision, but convicted him of "theft of documents and fraudulent retention of information." He was fined €3,000 (about $4,000).
I HATE it when governments do this. They can't simply admit to having made a mistake and made those files public (albeit difficult to find). They have to fine this poor person just for coming across something interesting and posting it.
Fuck them. Fuck them hard with a chainsaw, every last one of them who pushed for this.
Just because you CAN do something, it doesn't mean it's okay to do it. This creates a horrible survival-of-the-fittest arms race techno-bureaucracy where values are absent.
In this case, when a PUBLIC agency violates their own security protocol, and turns over all its internal documents to the internet, it means EXACTLY that it is OK to do so.
Your analogy of walking into an unlocked office fails the sniff test. (not to mention the stupid analogy test).
He did not break. He did not illegally enter. There was no door. He didn't deprive them of anything. The documents might as well have been stacked neatly in the public park, with signs and arrows pointing to the juicy bits.
The government agency already published the documents.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Thing is. In the US you can be tried twice for the same crime. It all depends on how far the prosecutor (and you) want to push things. This is what various appeals courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court are.
nopee. the first court is the only court that hears matters of fact, i.e. evidence, witnesses, etc. all the appeals courts only hear matters of law, i.e. whatever. further, if the defendant wins a court case, the prosecutors can't appeal. So, no you can't be tried more than once.
In the US, you can be convicted in absentia as well. Take Andrew Luster as an example.
The supreme court has ruled over and over and over again that people have the right to be present at trial, and if a trial happens without them it is a violation of due process protections. Congress codified this in 1946 to lay out specific protections and enumerate specific exemptions. One exemption "the defendant waives his or her right to be present if he or she voluntarily leaves the trial after it has commenced". Your dude Andrew Luster bolted from the trial and fled the country. He got sentenced anyway.
You sir are my chief pedant of the peasant's pedant brigade. USA is an exceptional nation.