This is a very good article at WSJ about the Government's very quiet move to criminalize the population. It isn't just about using a psuedonym on your dating page and a picture of Beyonce as "your" picture to fetch a man.
No, the language that exists, RIGHT NOW in Federal Law, is that you may not do anything that exceeds authorized use from a particular computer.
And Federal Prosecutors are already taking advantage of the broad language. So are silly Citizens to bring civil suits.
Consider: You are at work on Monday morning and your company has a "Work Only" policy regarding use of ANY company owned device online. You check the NFL standings at lunch from your company desktop or Blackberry - Welcome to my world. Federal Felon.
The article is very good, and should have all of us resolved to one simple reality:
We're screwed. There's going to be a fight. Let's win.
Here's the piece.
Kerodin
III
Not sure if you caught the update, but an amendment was added to the CFAA so that "Terms of Service" and other trivial things are not even crimes, let alone felonies.
ReplyDeleteKashmir Hill at Forbes has the story.
Still, it ain't over till it's over, so let's email our senators.
The Forbes article did not appear to address the issue of use of company computers on your lunch break to check email, access the news, make a hotel reservation, etc. Since that isn't addressed by TOS, but could certainly be considered "unauthorized use", it could indeed become a felony. I've worked one job for the State of California (CHP) and one for the Federal government (VA), and in both it was accepted practice to utilize Internet access during your lunch or breaks, and many employees - including most of those working in administration - did so routinely at other "quiet" times during their workday.
ReplyDeleteThose who did so risked a misdemeanor charge, although I never heard of one being filed (the brass would have to give up their web surfing, too), but I do believe changing that to a felony would quite likely encourage some US Attorneys to score points in that fashion, especially with those they dislike - such as Len Savage, for example?