[ale] [OT] RIP Aaron Swartz
Jay Lozier
jslozier at gmail.com
Sun Jan 20 10:40:34 EST 2013
On 01/20/2013 03:02 AM, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> On 01/19/2013 07:27 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> There is a Senator introducing a bill to return TOS violations back to
>> the realm of contract law and away criminal law. It's being call Aaron's
>> Law.
>>
> Haven't yet read the proposed bill, but I support the idea wholeheartedly.
>
> --- Mike
>
The reports indicate that one reading of the CFAA, the act used to
charge Aaron, allows prosecutors to charge someone for serious computer
crimes if one violates the TOS agreement. Apparently Aaron only violated
the MIT and JSTOR TOS when he did the downloads and did not actually
break into the system from the outside.
The complaint with Ortiz is that she does not or refuses to acknowledge
the difference between violating a TOS and hacking. She used a mid
1980's law intended to protect against hacking for a TOS violation.
Unfortunately the law was never amended to exclude TOS and related
violations. According to Ortiz most computer users are felons waiting to
be charged because they violated their TOS at some - hopefully the
statute of limitations has run out.
Another issue Aaron's death raises is that some slimey prosecutors abuse
the system to coerce a guilty plea by abusing plea bargaining and
prosecutorial discretion. Aaron was charged under an outdated law so
that Ortiz could get a felony conviction against the "notorious hacker".
--
Jay Lozier
jslozier at gmail.com
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