ToS Violations No Longer a Crime (On Their Own)

nonprofiteer writes "The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act previously made 'unauthorized access to a computer system' a crime — meant to apply to hackers, it also criminalized violations of a website's ToS or of a workplace's computer policies. The law is being changed to make the crime a felony rather than a misdemeanor, which led some to worry about the potential for its abuse. However, Senators Franken and Grassley added an amendment (PDF) to exempt violations of ToS and employer policies from the lists of felony activity. w00t for common sense."

Re:Sorry but....

[immakiku]

Franken worked to exempt TOS violations from being a felony...

Re:Sorry but....

[dkleinsc]

Franken might be against the whole damned thing, but in favor of putting in the amendment because he thinks the entire bill will likely pass and he wants to make it suck less.

And the whole point of the amendment is that TOS violations won't be a felony.

Re:Sorry but....

[DrgnDancer]

The law that mad it a misdemeanor was already on the books. Did Franken vote for it? I rather doubt it, he hasn't been in office all that long, and the act is rather old. When you get elected to a senatorial post you don't get to review all the old laws on the books and call for a revote.

Re:Sorry but....

[DrgnDancer]

No, they changed the definition of the crime itself to exclude violations of TOSes and similar. Read the amendment, it's like a whole paragraph of reading.. Or, ya know, just scream and cry that your rights are being violated reflexively.

Re:Still crimes, even on their own

[Fieryphoenix]

I see no provision in the amendment that reduces from felony to misdemeanor, only language that exempts ToS violations etc. from whatever it is the bill stipulates in the section being amended. There not being a link to the law itself, I haven't seen it, but I sincerely doubt the original law says that ToS violations can alternately be considered misdemeanors, thus I deem it probably the law simply states that unauthorized access is a felony, without mentioning ToS etc. Since the amendment states that ToS etc. are exempted, then the amendment does NOT create them misdemeanors, and since AFAIK nothing else creates ToS violations as crimes, I don't think the amendment leaves them a crime of any kind at all.

Re:Sorry but....

[Dishevel]

I agree.
Can we also throw out all the laws that were passed by Democrat whores?
Or do you think that laws passed by them are "All Good"?

Re:Still crimes, even on their own

[maxume]

Here's the text of the current law:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html [cornell.edu]

(go yell at Cornell if you think it is not an accurate reflection of the current U.S. code, I don't care)

Section 1030(e)(6) defines the term âoeexceeds authorized accessâ as used in the law. The amendment to the proposed bill changes the definition explicitly to exclude TOS violations as a sole basis for determining unauthorized access.