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mendax [soylentnews.org] writes:

El Reg published a story [theregister.co.uk] which lets us know that:

the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) should be stricken for being unconstitutional.

The civil rights group said in a filing [PDF] to the Washington, DC, District Court that the CFAA prevents researchers and whistleblowers from carrying out their work and violates both the free speech and due process clauses in the First and Fifth Amendments.

The suit ... asks that the courts invalidate the law, which has been the basis for hacking and computer crime prosecutions since its enaction by Congress in 1986.

According to the ACLU, the CFAA illegally prevents researchers from doing their jobs by restricting activities to those approved by a product's terms of service (TOS). Because the Act counts violating a TOS as "unauthorized" access, the ACLU argues that companies are able to effectively write their own criminal laws with a TOS.

The article notes :

The ACLU is filing the suit on behalf of a group of researchers who wish to investigate whether the Fair Housing Act (FHA) is being violated by real estate sites that would provide different results for users based on their race or ethnicity.

The researchers claim that in order to test for discrimination, they would need to present as different individuals of varying races and compare the results. Because falsifying this information would violate a site's terms of service, however, the researchers say they would be in danger of criminal prosecution under the CFAA.

As a result, the suit alleges, the ability of researchers to uncover FHA violations in these services is being blocked by the law, and in the process has a "chilling" effect on free speech and due process.

It's about time!

Original Submission