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An anonymous coward writes:

Ken White over at Popehat has review of the documentary film by Brian Knappenberger: "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz".

One unique aspect of this review is the perspective of a practising criminal defence attorney, and former federal prosecutor, on the attitude of the justice system.

My fortunate clients are the most outraged at how they are treated by the criminal justice system, and most prone to seeing conspiracies and vendettas, because they are new to it they have not questioned the premise that the system's goal is justice. My clients who have lived difficult lives in hard neighborhoods don't see a conspiracy; they recognize incompetence and brutal indifference and injustice as features, not bugs. "Justice system" is a label, not a description.

White also notes the possible impact of depression in this case, referencing back to an article he wrote which challenges many of the common perceptions about the case.

Phoenix666 writes:

Gizmodo:

Nearly two years before the U.S. government's first known inquiry into the activities of Reddit co-founder and famed digital activist Aaron Swartz, the FBI swept up his email data in a counterterrorism investigation that also ensnared students at an American university, according to a once-secret document first published by Gizmodo.

The email data belonging to Swartz, who was likely not the target of the counterterrorism investigation, was cataloged by the FBI and accessed more than a year later as it weighed potential charges against him for something wholly unrelated. The legal practice of storing data on Americans who are not suspected of crimes, so that it may be used against them later on, has long been denounced by civil liberties experts, who've called on courts and lawmakers to curtail the FBI's "radically" expansive search procedures.

The government does store information indefinitely that can be used against you later at a more convenient time.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Supreme Court reins in definition of crime under controversial hacking law:

The Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday that imposes a limit on what counts as a crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

The case involves a former Georgia police sergeant who "used his own, valid credentials" to get information about a license plate number from a law enforcement database, the court decision said. The sergeant ran the search in exchange for money and for non-law enforcement purposes, violating a department policy. He was charged with a felony under the CFAA, which says it's a crime when someone "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access." He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison in May 2018.

A federal appeals court upheld the conviction, but the Supreme Court reversed it today in a 6-3 decision that said Van Buren did not violate the CFAA. Justices found that the cybersecurity statute does not make it a crime to obtain information from a computer when the person has authorized access to that machine, even if the person has "improper motives."

The court wrote:

upstart writes:

Supreme Court Overturns Overbroad Interpretation of CFAA, Protecting Security Researchers and Everyday Users:

EFF has long fought to reform vague, dangerous computer crime laws like the CFAA. We're gratified that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that overbroad application of the CFAA risks turning nearly any user of the Internet into a criminal based on arbitrary terms of service. We remember the tragic and unjust results of the CFAA's misuse, such as the death of Aaron Swartz, and we will continue to fight to ensure that computer crime laws no longer chill security research, journalism, and other novel and interoperable uses of technology that ultimately benefit all of us.

[...] Today's win is an important victory for users everywhere. The Court rightly held that exceeding authorized access under the CFAA does not encompass "violations of circumstance-based access restrictions on employers' computers." Thus, "an individual 'exceeds authorized access' when he accesses a computer with authorization but then obtains information located in particular areas of the computer— such as files, folders, or databases—that are off limits to him."

Read our detailed analysis of the decision here.

Original Submission