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"Valle was also charged with violating the CFAA for accessing a police database to look up information about people without a valid law enforcement purpose, in

"Valle was also charged with violating the CFAA for accessing a police database to look up information about people without a valid law enforcement purpose, in violation of NYPD policy." I find it odd that the prosecutors decided to go with a computer fraud charge for this crime, aren't there any laws that would prohibit this action regardless of method used? If he chose to lookup paper files on unrelated people, would he be immune to prosecution?

HarryHirsch 11y ago
It's disquieting that this isn't sanctioned. There ought to be a law against this.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  You're seeing the justice process work as intended. The CFAA is absolutely the wrong statute to be prosecuting his crime under. But we need actual, real-world cases to highlight these discrepancies. Now legislators can come up with a law that covers the specific case of government workers abusing the tools of state for their personal ends. Perhaps it already existed, that means the prosecutors screwed up and charged him under the wrong statute. Now they know the limits of that law and so will use the right law next time. It's tempting to want a perfect judicial code, but it's impossible, iterated law is really the only way.
  - HarryHirsch 11y ago
    I'm looking at this from a more practical angle. Government employees are in a position of trust because you cannot choose not to deal with them, and sometimes are backed up with force of arms (like our friendly policeman). Besides, traditionally, because of the sheer expense, large databases with potential for abuse would belong to governmental entities. Things like Facebook and Google are upstarts, the legislative hasn't had time to deal with those yet in any way. That's why I'm saying that I'm surprised that there isn't a law. The problem must have come up before. Someone asking about a competitor's tax records because the sister-in-law works at the IRS, arrest records of a political competitor becoming public the week before election, that sort of thing. Perhaps a suitable statute is on the books but the prosecution picked the CFAA instead, hoping the case would get thrown out or go to revision and then get thrown out. It's within the realm of possibilities.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
I thought the CFAA, like the UK equivalent Computer Misuse Act 1990, governed unauthorised access to computer systems and data. Seems appropriate to me. Paper files would probably be locked up - the equivalent prosecution would then be something like trespass, breaking and entering, or what have you. If you have access to data for operational purposes then access outside of operational needs is just unauthorised access which on computer systems is an offence in itself because physical access is already historically covered under various laws.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > Paper files would probably be locked up - the equivalent prosecution would then be something like trespass, breaking and entering, or what have you. You're making the right analogy but then the analogous thing has the same problem. The bad thing isn't trespassing, the bad thing is misusing police records. Trespassing or B&E doesn't fit at all, because he is legitimately allowed to be there (which is what that crime prohibits) and even to have that information, but isn't allowed to use the information for that purpose, which is something else entirely. The penalty for trespassing is also the wrong one because misusing police records is worse than trespassing. So if trespassing is the worst you can charge then you end up either having to make the penalty for trespassing far too severe for most other instances of trespassing, or the effective penalty for misusing police records would be too lenient. Which is why we need laws against specific things with penalties appropriate to the crime, rather than one overly broad law with severe penalties that effectively says don't do anything you aren't supposed to do.
  - forgotpwtomain 11y ago
    > You're making the right analogy but then the analogous thing has the same problem. The bad thing isn't trespassing, the bad thing is misusing police records. Trespassing or B&E doesn't fit at all, because he is legitimately allowed to be there (which is what that crime prohibits) and even to have that information, but isn't allowed to use the information for that purpose, which is something else entirely. Exactly - though in most cases being fired from your position would be appropriate and the end of the story (unless there were actual people whom were harmed or material damages involved). In particular I think the comments/judgements regarding this issue are subconsciously harsher due to the subject matter.
ams6110 11y ago
He violated a workplace policy, not the law cited. He might have been able to be charged under some kind of invasion of privacy statute, but that doesn't seem to be what the prosecution chose to do.

HarryHirsch 11y ago

It's disquieting that this isn't sanctioned. There ought to be a law against this.

vinceguidry 11y ago
You're seeing the justice process work as intended. The CFAA is absolutely the wrong statute to be prosecuting his crime under. But we need actual, real-world cases to highlight these discrepancies. Now legislators can come up with a law that covers the specific case of government workers abusing the tools of state for their personal ends. Perhaps it already existed, that means the prosecutors screwed up and charged him under the wrong statute. Now they know the limits of that law and so will use the right law next time. It's tempting to want a perfect judicial code, but it's impossible, iterated law is really the only way.
- HarryHirsch 11y ago
  I'm looking at this from a more practical angle. Government employees are in a position of trust because you cannot choose not to deal with them, and sometimes are backed up with force of arms (like our friendly policeman). Besides, traditionally, because of the sheer expense, large databases with potential for abuse would belong to governmental entities. Things like Facebook and Google are upstarts, the legislative hasn't had time to deal with those yet in any way. That's why I'm saying that I'm surprised that there isn't a law. The problem must have come up before. Someone asking about a competitor's tax records because the sister-in-law works at the IRS, arrest records of a political competitor becoming public the week before election, that sort of thing. Perhaps a suitable statute is on the books but the prosecution picked the CFAA instead, hoping the case would get thrown out or go to revision and then get thrown out. It's within the realm of possibilities.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

I thought the CFAA, like the UK equivalent Computer Misuse Act 1990, governed unauthorised access to computer systems and data. Seems appropriate to me. Paper files would probably be locked up - the equivalent prosecution would then be something like trespass, breaking and entering, or what have you. If you have access to data for operational purposes then access outside of operational needs is just unauthorised access which on computer systems is an offence in itself because physical access is already historically covered under various laws.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> Paper files would probably be locked up - the equivalent prosecution would then be something like trespass, breaking and entering, or what have you. You're making the right analogy but then the analogous thing has the same problem. The bad thing isn't trespassing, the bad thing is misusing police records. Trespassing or B&E doesn't fit at all, because he is legitimately allowed to be there (which is what that crime prohibits) and even to have that information, but isn't allowed to use the information for that purpose, which is something else entirely. The penalty for trespassing is also the wrong one because misusing police records is worse than trespassing. So if trespassing is the worst you can charge then you end up either having to make the penalty for trespassing far too severe for most other instances of trespassing, or the effective penalty for misusing police records would be too lenient. Which is why we need laws against specific things with penalties appropriate to the crime, rather than one overly broad law with severe penalties that effectively says don't do anything you aren't supposed to do.
- forgotpwtomain 11y ago
  > You're making the right analogy but then the analogous thing has the same problem. The bad thing isn't trespassing, the bad thing is misusing police records. Trespassing or B&E doesn't fit at all, because he is legitimately allowed to be there (which is what that crime prohibits) and even to have that information, but isn't allowed to use the information for that purpose, which is something else entirely. Exactly - though in most cases being fired from your position would be appropriate and the end of the story (unless there were actual people whom were harmed or material damages involved). In particular I think the comments/judgements regarding this issue are subconsciously harsher due to the subject matter.

ams6110 11y ago

He violated a workplace policy, not the law cited. He might have been able to be charged under some kind of invasion of privacy statute, but that doesn't seem to be what the prosecution chose to do.