[ale] [OT] RIP Aaron Swartz

[Jay Lozier]

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 Aaron was charged under an outdated law so 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