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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.