<story><title>In the Wake of Aaron Swartz&apos;s Death, Let&apos;s Fix Draconian Computer Crime Law</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/aaron-swartz-fix-draconian-computer-crime-law</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>polemic</author><text>There should also be a push for better use of discretion and &apos;common sense&apos; from the US judiciary. Most (all?) laws are, by their nature, crude sticks that have to be wielded carefully.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not sure that in this case, the law is &apos;wrong&apos;. As has been outlined elsewhere, by a reasonable reading of the applicable law Aaron&apos;s actions were criminal and (in my opinion) the law itself, in spirit, is not unreasonable.&lt;p&gt;What &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; unreasonable in this case, appears to be the application of the law, and more generally, the cost in time and money that is required to mount an adequate defence.&lt;p&gt;It should &lt;i&gt;never take two years and millions of dollars to have a case like this settled&lt;/i&gt;, one way or the other. It seems a basic violation of human rights that it &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; happen. This is the general problem that needs to be solved in the US.&lt;p&gt;To end with a favourite quote that feels timely:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity - a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;-- Isaac Asimov, Foundation, 1951.&lt;p&gt;Let&apos;s hope that&apos;s not entirely true.</text></comment>
<story><title>In the Wake of Aaron Swartz&apos;s Death, Let&apos;s Fix Draconian Computer Crime Law</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/aaron-swartz-fix-draconian-computer-crime-law</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>AnIrishDuck</author><text>The CFAA is far too big a stick to trust with federal prosecutors. Aside from the case the EFF names, it was also used to threaten geohot [1] when he first released details on the PS3 jailbreak. Sony argued that geohotz&apos;s access to his own (!) PS3 constituted unauthorized access to a protected computer and this claim survived a preliminary motion to dismiss.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110218181557455&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110218181557455&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I do realize that geohotz&apos;s case is civil; in my opinion &lt;i&gt;both&lt;/i&gt; the civil and criminal aspects of the statute are wrong.</text></comment>