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'Aaron's Law' Introduced To Curb Overzealous Prosecutions For Computer Crimes
SonicSpike writes: Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced bipartisan legislation today to better target serious criminals and curb overzealous prosecutions for non-malicious computer and Internet offenses.
The legislation, inspired by the late Internet innovator and activist Aaron Swartz, who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience, would reform the quarter-century old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to better reflect computer and internet activities in the digital age. Numerous and recent instances of heavy-handed prosecutions for non-malicious computer crimes have raised serious questions as to how the law treats violations of terms of service, employer agreements and website notices.
"Aaron’s Law would change the definition of 'access without authorization' in the CFAA so it more directly applies to malicious hacks such as sending fraudulent emails, injecting malware, installing viruses or overwhelming a website with traffic."
The legislation, inspired by the late Internet innovator and activist Aaron Swartz, who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience, would reform the quarter-century old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to better reflect computer and internet activities in the digital age. Numerous and recent instances of heavy-handed prosecutions for non-malicious computer crimes have raised serious questions as to how the law treats violations of terms of service, employer agreements and website notices.
"Aaron’s Law would change the definition of 'access without authorization' in the CFAA so it more directly applies to malicious hacks such as sending fraudulent emails, injecting malware, installing viruses or overwhelming a website with traffic."
who faced up to 35 years in prison for an act of civil disobedience... he was offered a 6 month sentence if he would plead guilty. 35 years was the "street value" of his sentence. He killed himself rather than serve 6 months.
You're a fucking moron. How does "access without authorization" warrant a 35 year sentence? Rapists and murderers get less than that. That's the whole problem here. Fuck you.
Period
Hacking is relatively benign compared to the damage a prosecutor with an agenda can do. The latest round of these travesties is now going on in Wisconsin http://www.wsj.com/articles/ri... , It seems we get these popping up about once a year lately and it's been accelerating.
"Access without authorization" is best defined as, well, access without authorization.
Intent is frequently considered in the prosecution of crime. And evidence of intent can and should dramatically change the sentencing.
If I come home and find a note that my lock is weak pasted to my fridge, and my home otherwise undisturbed that's one thing. (And the perpetrator should be caught and punished.)
But If I come home and find you busily listing all my stuff on craigslist, while you arrange it all at the door for people to come pick up... Even if a sale hasn't actually been completed and nothing is actually missing yet.
It's still something else entirely, and we both know it.
What and why he did it.
I am currently doing some research and I can't you how many times I run across a paper that would be perfect or to see that I buy it or I could "rent" it for $$$ for 48 hours. If the author got a piece of it, then I could possibly stomach it, but they don't. And when you have to read dozens of papers, it could easily cost you thousands of dollars to research something that you won't see a single dime in income.
I once met an author/professor who wrote a case study for the Harvard Business School. He says they don't get paid. Harvard has no problem charging big bucks for those things.
Aron had a real point about the absurd pricing of journals and academic papers.
He was charged with 35 years, so you don't know what he would have received. That's what the prosecutor wanted. A system which threatens minor crimes with draconian punishment needs to be reformed. As for you, I hope some cop shoots you.
Why stop at "over" zealous?
Zealotry should also be stopped.
If you've followed US politics over the past few years, it's not surprising at all. Rand is the only Republican that groks IT at all. If he wasn't also in the Koch's pocket, he would be the perfect candidate. He's still far better than Hillary "what email server?" Clinton...why the Republicans won't actually nominate him I'll never understand. He would pull conservative Democrats to him, and is a positive force for both Libertarians and Progressive Republicans (in the vein of Eisenhower). He's spoken out against the NSA, against drones, He's an actual MD. He voted against extending the PATRIOT Act.
My main issue is he's too anti-government, and wants to cut into the Department of Education, and is way too "pro-life". But weighing these against his positives, we'll not find another candidate who scores better. Of course the Republicans will give the nomination to someone else; someone who is more in-line with the $$$ and is a war-mongering corporate shill instead. And when they do, Hillary will sweep this election...it's almost like the Republicans like loosing on purpose.
Since it occurred at MIT, the bastion of clever hacking, it's fairly likely Aaron never imagined his hacktivities would be treated criminally, let alone get to a zealous prosecutor. IIRC, the most egregious prior transgressions were charged with trespassing and little else.
Sure. He was ill equipped to handle the fallout of being made an example of. It probably never happened to him before. To be fair though, his response was as big an overreaction as that of the prosecutor.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I find myself wondering how much of his "pro-life" schtick is genuine, and how much is pandering in hopes of winning the primary. This is one instance where I hope it's pandering.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It is truly a travesty that a privileged asshole like Aaron who was handled with kiddy gloves all the way through gets this kind of credit, when there are numerous well documented cases of the actual overzealous persecution in the computer hacking world and beyond. People who were put into prison for decades, people who had the prosecuter lie and fake evidence, people who were unconstitutionally confined to solitary for months at a time.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Why not? Isn't it like shrinkwrap licences on software where you can't review the terms until you've agreed to them?
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
If he wouldn't have received 35 years, then why the hell were they threatening it? This stuff affects people, guilty or innocent. They should be required to determine a reasonable set of charges and stick with it - they're the experts, and having them act as henchmen is demeaning to the process of justice.
Unfortunately, that's not how the current system works. The current system is designed to avoid expensive, nasty trials where someone might actually have to work to put someone behind bars. The current system has the D.A. pile on as many charges as she can remotely sound plausible to scare the defendant into plea bargaining regardless of their guilt or innocence.
Someone I know recently had this happen. 95 different charges were made with effectively "You'll never see the light of day again" thrown at him. His fist (incompetent) lawyer said "you better take the deal for 5 years." His second (competent) lawyer got a plea down to a misdemeanor, time served, and parole.
It's probably good to remember we don't have a justice system, but a legal system. Justice has next to nothing to do with it except by unexpected coincidence.
You're a fucking moron. How does "access without authorization" warrant a 35 year sentence?
I can't believe that after all these years there are still people who believe that Swartz faced a 35 year sentence. He did not. The algorithm the DoJ uses to get a number to trumpet in a press release ignores the rules of sentencing, and in all but the simplest of cases gives a wildly inflated number. There are two main factors that the press release algorithm ignores.
First, there is a range of possible sentences for a given crime. Where a particular instance falls on that range depends on the severity of that instance. To get the maximum, you have to have done a lot of damage, be a repeat offender, and so on. The prosecutors in the indictment were not alleging the various factors necessary to push Swartz up to the high end on any of the counts.
For the press release, they do not consider this. So if a crime might result in 1 year for someone who caused under $5k damages, and 10 years for someone who caused over $100k in damages, they will count it as 10 years in the press release, even if they are only alleging that the defendant caused $1k damages.
Second, federal crimes are divided into groups, and when one particular act leads to multiple charges from the same group, you will only be sentenced for one crime from the group even if convicted for all of them.
In the press release, they just add up the maximum sentences for each charge, completely ignoring the grouping.
If he wouldn't have received 35 years, then why the hell were they threatening it? This stuff affects people, guilty or innocent. They should be required to determine a reasonable set of charges and stick with it - they're the experts, and having them act as henchmen is demeaning to the process of justice.
Unfortunately, that's not how the current system works. The current system is designed to avoid expensive, nasty trials where someone might actually have to work to put someone behind bars. The current system has the D.A. pile on as many charges as she can remotely sound plausible to scare the defendant into plea bargaining regardless of their guilt or innocence.
Someone I know recently had this happen. 95 different charges were made with effectively "You'll never see the light of day again" thrown at him. His fist (incompetent) lawyer said "you better take the deal for 5 years." His second (competent) lawyer got a plea down to a misdemeanor, time served, and parole.
It's probably good to remember we don't have a justice system, but a legal system. Justice has next to nothing to do with it except by unexpected coincidence.
We do have a justice system, but only if you can afford it. If you can't, then you get caught up in the legal system....
I can't believe that after all these years there are still people who believe that Swartz faced a 35 year sentence. He did not.
^^^ this. and mr. swartz most certainly knew that also. as another post stated, he was likely to get somewhere between a few months and a few years. after which he'd be a folk hero and have his choice of employment or continued studies.
Intent is often very important to the guilt phase of a trial, depending on the offense involved.
Homicide is one of the clearest examples, going from first degree murder, to manslaughter, to negligent homicide, depending of the jurisdiction.
But it can come up in other situations, for example, you can find many states will accept a defense of life endangerment for speeding.
I'm so tired of seeing people masterbating over chances to honor Aaron Swartz I wish I could vomit on the laps of these political idiots. Yeah, the prosecution was heavy handed but that completely overlooks the fact that Swartz broke the fucking law and was a total idiot about it. He had the constitutional right to defend himself in court and face his accusers. He did not, however, have any constitutional right to enter the wiring closet at the library and interfere with other peoples' ability to use library resources just to further his agenda.
I even agree that the papers should be accessible. But I do not agree with his methods. He could have downloaded all these papers from his own desk instead, but he had to make it into performance art and go enter the library wiring closet. And don't use the fact that the door was not properly locked as a defense, either - no reasonable person would have assumed that a wiring closet was intentionally left unlocked so people could monopolize library bandwidth at their leisure.
In short, let the dead kid lay dead. He doesn't deserve any honors. He didn't deserve the ones he has already been given and doesn't deserve any additional ones either. He was a fool and a coward to boot.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
We do have a justice system, but only if you can afford it. If you can't, then you get caught up in the legal system....
I respectfully disagree. The person that I know who got off with the misdemeanor, time served, and parole destroyed two lives in the process of committing his crime. I would be really hard pressed to say that justice was served with the light sentence that he received.
One of the victims (I have the joy of knowing both perp and victims) is constantly, angrily pointing out that the life of the person who attacked her is now completely back to normal while hers and the other victim are still dealing with the aftermath of the crime.
Perhaps justice is a myth.
Perhaps true, but he threatened a much longer term to get the plea. Legal intimidation.
There are many factors that should be taken into account in sentencing. The risk of reoffending, difficulty of rehabilitation, the extent to which the sentence acts to dissuade others from carrying out the same crime. Satisfying the victim's desire for vengence is not one of these. Punishment for punishment's sake is not justice, however much it makes people feel better.
The prosecution can just borrow the RIAA's accountants.
What does punishment achieve? Makes people feel a bit better? The crime has been done: The focus of the justice system should be on minimizing future crimes, and punishment should be regarded only as a tool towards that end. Not a means to satisfy some perverse public desire to see others suffer so they can feel like some scales have been balanced.
Being genuinely "anti-war" during a period of international strife isn't necessarily a wise position. Had the North capitulated to the demands of the South, would the US still be a nation with slavery? Where would the world be today if FDR had been anti-war and shrugged off the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor? Much of the British population was so opposed to war that it delayed Britains rearmament prior to WW2, which almost brought it to ruin. Had the Nazis met resistance in remilitarizing the Rhineland it might very well have prevented much grief later. More than one foreign leader has made the mistake of believing the US response would be weak if the US was attacked, including the Japanese and Bin Laden. Being weak in a world of predators such as them invites attack. It is generally a good thing to avoid war if possible, but not every war is avoidable.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Yes, because it would be 2009.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The internet existed in 1983, and was spreading quickly in 1986. Computer crime has existed since at least the 1960s. How could you imagine that hostile foreign governments and other bad actors didn't obain Top Secret US intelligence information via Snowden since it was published in newspapers while the US is engaged in armed conflict and confronting various threats to NATO and other allies?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You are grossly misrepresenting the problem. The fact is that Schwartz was facing 13 federal felony counts in the indictment. That's nothing you can just wave off as a minor inconvenience.
Even if he had pleaded guilty and the prosecutor only sought a two year sentence overall, the sentencing would be at the discretion of the judge - the prosecutor can only recommend things. And judges have proven to a) be prone to displays of political show-offs of being "hard on crime" and b) have a poor understanding of the real severity of technology-related crimes. That means to a judge without tech understanding (which is most of them) a one year sentence pro federal felony served consecutively might seem lenient and 2-5 years pro felony might seem as a "good message to digital criminals"
Aaron Schwartz was facing a threat much more serious than you make it out to be
I can't believe that when you're charged with a crime with a 35 year sentence possible because of stacking, you think you're not facing up to 35 years in prison.
Did you fail at maths even to the level of recognising numbers being identical???
See the recent case of a judge sentencing teachers to over a decade in prison for helping students cheat at exams.
The internet existed in 1983, and was spreading quickly in 1986.
Yeah, in the sense that it exploded in usage from 0.01% to 0.04% of the American population. The Internet was not on anyone's radar outside of specific groups in the military, scientific, and academic communities.
This.
When you strip away all the pretty philosophy about what it "ought" to do, a justice system fundamentally exists to prevent people from retaliating personally against others who commit criminal acts against them. Since most people don't have the means or inclination to e.g. lock up someone who has stolen from them for a couple of months, the only practical retribution where a justice system does not exist, or is inadequate, is physical violence.
The contract is: the State provides for fair prosecution and punishment, and the People agree not to take matters into their own hands to "balance the scales". This precludes victims from having to resort to violence, and protects criminals from punishment out of proportion to their crimes. A necessary part of this equation is that the punishment be perceived as sufficiently severe in relation to the nature of the crime; otherwise, victims will resort to vigilantism, and the contract falls apart.
He was offered that deal in exchange for pleading guilty. If he exercised his right to a trial, he would have gotten some other amount not capped at 6 months.
I'm gonna need a spec.
Well it was the hight of Wikileaks and the trial could have lasted to the Manning and Snowden incidents, so it would be reasonable to imagine they might have wanted to make an example. If the DOJ is on your arse, you can presume they will do ANYTHING to get a conviction. Not like they have such crazy concepts like moral or rule of law to guide them.
You're a fucking moron. How does "access without authorization" warrant a 35 year sentence? Rapists and murderers get less than that. That's the whole problem here. Fuck you.
+1
Under our laws, violating a trivial TOS has no statute of limitations and penalties more severe than anything but treason or first degree murder. It is completely F*ed up!
No one in 1983 outside of a few academics in collegiate CS departments had any idea what the Internet was, and it sure as hell wasn't "spreading quickly" unless perhaps you mean that some more college CS departments were getting connected. It was completely unknown to the general US public until 1988 or 89, when Kevin Mitnick made the national news for his worm and the newscasters had to explain to everyone what the Internet was and why his crime was a crime. Even then, people forgot about it pretty quickly. It didn't really become part of the national consciousness until around 1994 when AOL got on the internet and we had the Eternal September, and then it became commercialized in the Dot-Com boom.
How about reparations of some sort? I'm not a big fan of vengeance, but in this case a person did a bad thing and got off easier than his victims. If, as a condition of parole, the guy was ordered to do something to help his victims (I'm not sure what, but the fact that he got a second and competent lawyer suggests he has some money), it would seem more just. Maybe assign him his victims' medical expenses?
One of the ancient ideas behind some sort of justice system has been to arrive at a settlement people can live with, even if they aren't real happy about it. The modern justice system ignores that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes