Advice To Twitter Worker Who Deactivated Trump's Account: 'Get A Lawyer' (thehill.com)

An anonymous reader quotes The Hill: A prominent attorney for cybersecurity issues has this advice to the unnamed Twitter worker said to have pulled the plug on President Trump's Twitter account: "Don't say anything and get a lawyer." Tor Ekeland told The Hill that while the facts of the case are still unclear and the primary law used to prosecute hackers is murky and unevenly applied, there is a reasonable chance the Twitter worker violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act...widely considered to be, as Ekeland explained it, "a mess." Various courts around the country have come up with seemingly contradictory rulings on what unauthorized access actually means. Ekeland said the Ninth Circuit, covering the state of California, has itself issued rulings at odds with itself that would have an impact on the Trump Twitter account fiasco as a potential case. The Ninth Circuit ruled that employees do not violate the law if they exceed their workplace computer policies. It has also ruled that employees who have been told they do not have permission to access a system cannot legally access it. Depending on which ruling a court leans on the hardest, a current Twitter employee without permission to shutter accounts may have violated the law by nixing Trump's account.
Ekeland points out that just $5,000 worth of damage could carry a 10-year prison sentence.

Friday the New York Times also reported that the worker responsible wasn't even a Twitter employee, but a hired contractor, adding that "nearly every" major tech company uses contractors for non-technical positions, including Google, Apple, and Facebook.

Comments

A mess?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fucking travesty!

Had this been any other president or political candidate, airlines would be diverting traffic to extradite this guy already.

But hey, if 'cause Trump' finally gets the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act the scrutiny it sorely needs, then I'm all for it.

Damage turning it back on

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the employee who turned it back on? How much damage is that?

No way he can claim this was accidental

[thrillseeker]

Assumptions based on what I've read: The contractor's actions appear to have been intentional, applied after termination, done without company directive, and did harm to the business. I think this ticks a lot of the boxes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the action was "easily" (I assume) undone without loss of data, the negative reactions to the company must have a bottom line calculation. Hell, if Twitter doesn't sue the contractor then it can be viewed as condoning the act, and Twitter's public shareholders likely have a class-action suit ready-made for lack of effort regarding their fiduciary responsibility, since being publicly traded comes with a responsibility to act in the best interests of their shareholders, and a multi-billion dollar company is a juicy target.

Re:Part of Job Description

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be that this person was a moderating who decides if a person violated the term of service based on the companies policies.
Maybe this person decided to finally correctly apply this to this twitter account.

If that is the case, the lawsuit is going to be interesting.

Re: Hate Crime if it had happened 2 Obama

[Troy Roberts]

If you want to make it unprofitable for undocumented foreigners, then the government should prosecute the employers that hire them.

However, that won't happen, because the Republicans don't really want to change anything. They just want to use the issue politically.

Re:Hate Crime if it had happened 2 Obama

[Powercntrl]

Remember forks censorship is ok when the left does it.

This wasn't "the left". It was a lone wolf performing an act of digital vandalism, and he'll face the consequences of his actions.

That being said, it might benefit his approval rating if Trump spent less time incessantly whining on Twitter about sensationalized issues du jour, and more time learning how to suck less at being president. He could start by reading the Constitution.