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ACLU Lawsuit Challenges Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice contending that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act's criminal prohibitions have created a barrier for those wishing to conduct research and anti-discrimination testing online. The ACLU have pursued the matter on behalf of a group of academic researchers, computer scientists and journalists seeking to remove that barrier to allow for third-party testing and research into potential online discrimination. In a public statement the ACLU contend: "The CFAA violates the First Amendment because it limits everyone, including academics and journalists, from gathering the publicly available information necessary to understand and speak about online discrimination."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit
Well there's a fucking surprise...
Nothing but a bunch of lawbreaking anti-Christian God-Hating Jesus-fucking queer-loving sons of bitches who want to surrender America to terrorism.
Thank God President Trump will finally destroy them.
and the SJW articles are beginning. Oh that's right... /. sold out those those fart quaffers so they don't even pretend this is a site with news for nerds anymore.
I read the article... it says that the CFAA somehow prevents people from doing legitimate research, but fails to even give a single example of actually how this happens. How does the law that is supposed prevent computer fraud stop a person from doing research, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Around blacks, never relax!
Avoid the 'groid.
ACLU: Anal Copulators and Lesbians Union
My life's ambition has long been to invent a new crime. People will say 'that has to be illegal', it will be made illegal after I do it.
The computer fraud and abuse act ruins that. Anything a federal judge doesn't like, crime...ipspostfacto, schmipspostfacto.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If you go to doctor's office and start video recording everyone to collect data on discrimination, will it allow it? Same way, website can limit recording of publicly available information. Doctor's office will also ask you provide true information just like websites do. I don't see much difference between the two. There are many private clubs which limit do the same. I don't see Facebook, Twitter any different than YMCA etc where if I want to be in, I have to become member, pay, provide my true information and then can do limited recording. If you ask online sites to allow fake id, unlimited recording, then why not doctor's office, gyms, hotels etc?
Now I've heard of everything.
in it's definition of "Unauthorized". If you don't like how someone is using information you've made publicly accessible on your web site then it's suddenly "Unauthorized" and congrats, you're perl script just committed a felony for you. This isn't like walking into a house with it's doors unlocked. It's more like you wrote down advertised prices from billboards, aggregated the data, and when somebody notices you doing that doesn't make them look so good they throw you in prison.
/.. It seldom comes up because most of us are working for large corps doing what we're told and so have a bit of the corporate veil to protect us. Someone trying to research a politically unpopular idea (racial profiling is being used to target minorities for expensive high risk loans and exclude them from cheaper low risk ones they otherwise qualify for) has to worry about this. If your study shows a pattern of abuse from on the part of a multi-billion dollar mortgage company expect to see some charges.
This has been discussed multiple times on
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To be guilty of a crime one must intend to commit the crime but also there must be evil implied. A person who hacks into computers or networks with a real intention of doing good has no criminal liability if police and courts support the concept in law of intent. Here is a common type of issue that makes law enforcement next to impossible. There are many sites, such as Craig's List that have sections in which supposed prostitutes solicit business. Yet simply asking for money for sex is usually not what it appears to be. A person may post only to collect names, pics and cell phone numbers and also steer men to certain sites such as supposedly safe sites to insure the trick is not a maniac. Just because they claim to solicit as prostitutes is not at all related to their intentions as many of them have never prostituted themselves ever in their entire lives. This puts modern law enforcement in a real bind. We are at the point at which a girl can offer a man sex fro $200. and actually has no intention of breaking any laws at all. That makes her equal to a female cop who also solicits tricks and then arrests the guy who says yes. Fraud schemes could also make use of such a tactic in that the absurd offer is only made to create a list of greedy gullible people and the list is then sold to other fraud groups with no intention by the first group to ever defraud anyone. Imagine what such tactics can do to keep the courts in totally overwhelmed burdens of pseudo cases.
So who decided "choice" was bad? Who has admonished you, through the media, every day since the day you were born, not to "discriminate", i.e. not to CHOOSE?
The most fundamental human right of all is freedom of NON-association- the right to NOT associate with people you don't want to. If most white people want to simply live around other white people, who decided we can't do that? Why, the eternal JEW. Google it. Don't believe me.
I'm pretty sure it took some significant research to find this area where CFAA limitations might be causing problems. Unfortunately the area they have found is so narrow that it is almost completely useless to anyone living in the real world. Most of the world's population is not doing research on discriminination, at least via means of hacking to protected computer systems. Further, there is no real proof that these considerations are not taken into account whenever CFAA is being applied to real use cases. So their lawsuit is academic at best, and misleading at worst.
The people whose activities CFAA are targeting, are much more significant problem. Computer systems gets hacked and password protections skipped, bots are sending millions of spam messages, protected computer systems integrity violated in blatant way, worms, viruses and randomware are spreading all over our networks. ACLU can get minor exceptions to CFAA passed, but they have no way of overthrowing the whole act. Minor tweaking is just fine, but they can't claim significant victories for those.
On Slashdot, you occasionally see comments that refer to three "boxes" used in nonviolent defense of liberty: soap box, ballot box, and jury box. Respectively, these refer to petitioning the government, voting out the bastards who disregard said petitions, and challenging constitutionality of legislation. But some people are opposed to use of the jury box as a substitute for the soap box and ballot box. They use "activist judges" as an epithet for those who use the power of judicial review in a way that they don't like. The problem is that the present campaign finance environment encourages use of the jury box, as it is perceived as the box least subject to manipulation by plutocratic rent-seekers.