Aaron's Law: Violating a Site's ToS Should Not Land You in Jail 246
Freddybear writes "Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren proposes a change to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) which would remove the felony criminal penalty for violating the terms of service of a website and return it to the realm of contract law where it belongs. This would eliminate the potential for prosecutors to abuse the CFAA in pursuit of criminal convictions for simple violations of a website's terms of service."
Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the violation of ToS is due to an illegal action like posting things that are illegal both for the location of the site and the poster it should still land into the legal system, but the large volume of ToS violations should at most render the offender a permanent banning from that site or in milder cases a temporary ban.
Re:Depends on... (Score:4, Informative)
If something is illegal in it's own right, then it still remains illegal, even if it also happens to be a violation of the ToS.
Re:Depends on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there a larger issue here though? (Score:5, Interesting)
A larger problem however is the expectation of non-legal laymen to read and agree to what are ostensibly binding TOS contracts.
I have seen TOS contracts that (in non-digital format) would be dozens of pages long. Users simply click "Ok" with the assumption that "There's probably nothing bad in there". But this assumption is clearly false in a large number of cases when one considers privacy and security clauses.
I have seen "Digital trespassing" (which are protected by the DMCA) buried in the TOS carrying agreed monetary damage amounts.
Consider that a TOS could expressly forbid users to use AdBlock and consider all users of AdBlock to be digital trespassers. You say "Bollocks" (as would I, for the record) but that doesn't change the fact that a TOS can say whatever it wants and the law has already decided that online consent to contracts can be binding. (Not to confuse the greater issue with the legality of this one example of course.)
The issue ultimately comes down to:
1) The expectations of lay-people to understand and agree to complex, binding agreements, the vast majority of which are never read.
2) The binding nature of a click-to-sign agreement.
Re:Is there a larger issue here though? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I'd get rid of all contracts of adhesion. Contracts should only have the force of law if they are original creative works authored by both parties. For standard transactions like buying homes/etc you can use a form-based contract, but only if it is embedded in a law (ie the government explicitly approves all standard contracts and their terms).
Really this amounts to nothing more than actually enforcing the whole "meeting of the minds" bit which is supposed to be at the center of contract law anyway. There is no meeting of the minds when your boss says "sign this or I will fire you" or whatever.
Re:Is there a larger issue here though? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have often thought that a binding TOS / EULA should be mandated to take the following form, with very clear language:
>>
You agree not to distribute a bazillion copies of our software [Yes] [x No]
You agree that we own your content [Yes] [x No]
You agree that we are not liable for damage [Yes] [x No]
You agree to not sue us if we lose your credit card information [Yes] [x No]
I'm sorry, it seems we cannot agree on a contract. In particular, these terms are mandatory:
* You agree not to distribute a bazillion copies of our software
* You agree that we are not liable for damage
* You agree not to sue us if we lose your credit card information
The following would be stored as a user preference:
* You agree that we own your content: NO (Note: May limit functionality)
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It doesn't depend on anything like that. If you broke a law in your land that is the law that applies. It doesn't matter if the TOS includes reference to a law. The TOS cannot change a law and should have no legal authority."
But that is exactly the issue here. Because the law as enacted was rather vague, some prosecutors have been claiming that violation of TOS means violation of the CFAA law... regardless of the fact that a TOS can vary widely from company to company or site to site.
If so, that would mean, in effect, that a company (or just website) could write its own law by just putting it in the TOS... which is absolutely contrary to our customary legal principles and concept of justice here in the U.S.
THAT is why we want it changed, and clarified.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
any trespassing cases based on odd store rules? (Score:3)
any trespassing cases based on odd store rules out there??
And let's say there is some whites only rule at one (let just say it's old but is still on the books or say on a sign that may be still up even if it's just for show or history) that can still be used as a part of a Throw the Book at someone in court.
Re:any trespassing cases based on odd store rules? (Score:5, Insightful)
Store rules are actually a good way of looking at this sort of thing.
If you do something really obnoxious in a store they can ask you to leave. If you refuse to do so they can call the police. You can of course sue the store for discrimination, and the police might not even make you leave if the basis for the removal is so egregious.
Website TOS's should be similar. If somebody doesn't like what you're doing on their website they should ask you to leave, and if you cooperate then no crime has occurred. Unfortunately that isn't what this law was being used for - imagine if you wear a hat in a store that has a "no hats" policy and the owner just called the police, and they showed up, and then charged you with a felony for violating the store rules.
Trespassing is only trespassing if somebody actually asks you to leave. Now, if you walk into a store and set fire to it then you can be arrested on the spot, but not for trespassing.
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I'm actually fine with having Aaron charged with trespassing for going in that server closet. However, that should really be a misdemeanor, as should be trespassing in general.
In the US at least in most areas I could actually walk up to the store owner and punch him in the face and it would only be a misdemeanor, as long as I didn't proceed to beat him into a pulp, and I didn't have a history, and I didn't rob him/etc.
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-- just so long as the server is in international waters and outside any country's territorial limit!
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Google? Is that you?
*waves*
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It should be fairly amusing to see you attempt to extradite people who violate your TOS.
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No, that's not the way it works. It's "if you broke a law in your land or if you didn't but what you did was still against the law in the USA, even if that's not where you were".
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the violation of ToS is due to an illegal action like posting things that are illegal both for the location of the site and the poster it should still land into the legal system.
Say what?!
No one is talking about removing ToS violations from the legal system. Rather the idea is that a breach of contract (such as violating a ToS) be dealt with under contract law, where imprisonment is unavailable as a remedy. While the mere breach of contractual terms would no longer be a crime in its own right, any crimes committed in effecting or pursuant to such a breach they would still be dealt with by the criminal justice system. Obviously.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
ToS aren't even a viable contract IMHO. No-one reads them, if you edit them the web site rarely bothers to check before accepting your terms and quite often the terms are unenforceable anyway.
We need to move to a system of standard ToS and EULA agreements defined in law that a web site or software vendor can apply to their products. That way we only have to deal with a handful of licenses which are known to be reasonable and will stand up in court.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
ToS aren't even a viable contract IMHO. No-one reads them, if you edit them the web site rarely bothers to check before accepting your terms and quite often the terms are unenforceable anyway.
Many of them also include "we may change this ToS at any point of time", which is pretty much the opposite of a contract. For example, cell-phone companies could not enforce a mandatory fee for a paper-bill, because that technically constitutes a violation of the already established contract.
Even better, some ToS state that it is YOUR responsibility to regularly visit their website to see if they changed it (i.e. they are not even responsible for notifying you of the change). So it better be unenforceable...
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"we may change this ToS at any point of time"
it is YOUR responsibility to regularly visit their website to see if they changed it
Are you my health insurance provider? Seems I had this exact conversation with them just a few days ago.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is more along the lines of a sites ToS stating "You shall not offend anyone for any reason"
This is justification for being banned from the site, NOT justification for going to prison.
Currently, it is a federal crime to "offend someone for any reason" if that is listed in the sites ToS. Or to put it another way, all I have to do is claim your statement offends me and oops you just committed a felony.
This change is simply trying to remove that insanity.
Re:Depends on... (Score:4, Interesting)
But if you do something that is legal (like say give your password to your spouse) but is against the TOS, that should NOT land you in the legal system. Any more than any other breach of contract. Seems like a big case of "DUH" to me.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Seems like a big case of "DUH" to me."
Tell it to the prosecutors, because some of them don't seem to understand that.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the UK for example, it is illegal to access a computer system without the owner's permission. You could argue that the TOS set out the terms under which the owner is prepared to give permission to access their system, and if you violate them, you don't have permission to access the site, and are therefore breaking the law. I guess it is much the same in the US.
How do you deal with that? How do you draw the line between a website that is clearly open to the public and an intranet site that is only open to selected people?
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you deal with that? How do you draw the line between a website that is clearly open to the public and an intranet site that is only open to selected people?
An intranet site that is only open to selected people should have a frigging password protection. Hacking that is presumably a crime on its own accord
Making a public website and putting a ToS file that says "this is a private internal site" should not be the way to go.
If I bought a huge parking lot in the city and put a little sign that said "no trespassing" in the corner of the lot -- is that enough to prosecute anyone who steps across an unmarked border? (i.e. I have no fence marking my lot)
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What were you doing, thinking you were going to get a free parking spot in the first place
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OK, there's lots of sites where you have to sign up for an account before you can get in, and accessing the content requires a password. If slashdot decided not to allow Anonymous Cowards it would be an example of such a site. Would that make it an intranet site?
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I suspect that if you put up website such that it is publically accessable then there is every expectation that people will access it and by publishing the website you have granted them permission to do so. If, OTOH you put a password on the first page, then you have denied access and any attempt to bypass the password is a mis-use
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Re:Depends on... (Score:4, Insightful)
If the violation of ToS is due to an illegal action like posting things that are illegal both for the location of the site and the poster it should still land into the legal system, but the large volume of ToS violations should at most render the offender a permanent banning from that site or in milder cases a temporary ban.
Evading the ban, or continuing to access the site after ordered not to, by the owner, should land you in jail :)
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? I mean seriously why does everything in America have to involve jail. Do you really think that makes us safer? Eventually somebody will do the math -- 35 years for TOS violations, 15 for rape -- and figure that rape looks like a better deal. You know, if your going to do the time, might as well do a crime to fit it. And that ultimately makes us all less safe. That's the problem with Americans' draconian attitudes.
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Informative)
Why? I mean seriously why does everything in America have to involve jail. Do you really think that makes us safer? Eventually somebody will do the math
Someone already has done the math
Private prisons are a booming industry (instead of being an abomination that should not exist).
Private prison contracts have clauses guaranteeing prison utilization (~90% or ~95%). Some states may be in danger of defaulting on their prison contract... so that's probably why.
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Re:Depends on... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like going to a restaurant.
By default everyone is welcome.
Now the management can kick you out for any reason they want, for violating rules (and techinically even if you don't)
And unless/until that happens you're welcome.
If you go back, however, it's trespassing.
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And just how much time could you be threatened with for that real world trespass? Days -- maybe a month or two at most. But apparently for digital trespass, the correct measure is virtually the rest of your life apparently.
Redundant (Score:3)
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But there is no need for a special law for this. If something is illegal, then it's illegal. The ToS don't even come into the equation. The problem with the law was that completely legal actions could suddenly become crimes if they conflicted with a site's ToS (which only a few % of users will ever read).
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If the violation of ToS is due to an illegal action like posting things that are illegal both for the location of the site and the poster it should still land into the legal system
Yes...and the sky is blue.
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I have one. Handicapped parking should be called Sheldon's law... "You're in my spot"
Unfortunately, this "law" cost a life (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree that there are way too many "laws".
It's just unfortunate that in this case this particular "law" cost the life of a very promising young guy.
The damn system did him in.
Re:Unfortunately, this "law" cost a life (Score:5, Informative)
The system didn't do him in. PEOPLE caused his death. By taking away all other acceptable options.
The powers that be decided he must be "MADE AN EXAMPLE OF". Because "minor maybe crime" on a "computer" (ooo scary! hackers! cyber! oh nos!).
And he was smart enough to realize just how totally screwed he was. Now and in the decades coming of his future.
He took the only option left to anyone who doesn't like rape and a ruined life plus being billed for it. Death.
And the powers that be. Will never miss one night of sleep over it. Nothing will ever happen to them. And they will continue to do this to other people.
The wheels of the american justice machinery grind exceedingly slow and very fine.
Beware you don't get caught in them. Or else death is the only logical option open to you. Unless handcuffs, bars, rape and abuse is your thing.
Re:Unfortunately, this "law" cost a life (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Depends on... (Score:5, Funny)
For that jaded Grammar Nazi who thinks he's seen it all...
What is it with all the 's laws...
*looks for something dull and rusty to gouge eyes out with*
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I guess that's like cole'slaws, or some other cabbage/salad-based concoction.
While I think this is ostensibly a good idea... (Score:5, Informative)
While I think this is a good idea, I think that it's really too superficial. It very narrowly addresses a very specific problem with the law.
There are two really great little tidbits I found online that talk about what the actual problems with the law are:
The first link is actually a really great series that provides a very nice explanation for a lot of things about how criminal law works.
Re: (Score:2)
I trust you've all signed the petition to Fire Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann [whitehouse.gov]
Re:While I think this is ostensibly a good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
And you demonstrate his point perfectly. How many people know that collecting stray bird feathers lying on the ground might get them jail time? Is that an intended consequence of the law? It sounds like you know that regulation better than anybody and don't even care about any wider implications that will have surprising and awful effects, just like the bureaucrat guy in the comic.
As for the turtle example, the comic author explicitly gives the common snapping turtle as an example. A non-endangered species. State X passes a law about the snapping turtle at time T. And time T + 10 he does a vendor audit and after a lot of effort realizes that one of his vendors is now in a jurisdiction in which its illegal for them to sell him common snapping turtles. Unfortunately, the feds noticed at time T + 1. Oops, he's guilty and intent has nothing to do with it because the law isn't written that way.
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You are conflating ignorance of the law with ignorance of the facts (and you appear to have copious amounts of both).
A pre-existing patent is not law, it is fact. IBM advises its employees to remain ignorant of other patents while working on products because if those products are later found infringing then their liability is reduced.
I was a Master Inventor at IBM before I quit in 2010 and we absolutely did check for pre-existing patents before filing anything new. Occasionally this would lead to wasted eff
Felony Abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well we are talking about some serious crimes here. 6 months divided by 13 felonies is like what, 14 days each?
Yeah, maybe at least a year for a federal case, or its disproportionate to call it a felony and ruin a guy's life over.
Re:Felony Abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Get off your Smug Horse because that's not how it works -- even with the "six month" plea agreement he could have spent years in jail, maybe decades:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2 [stanford.edu]
Agreed, but ideally one should drop plea bargins (Score:2)
I'd agree we should repeal the CFAA entirely, ditto PATRIOT Act, etc.
Ideally, one should halt plea bargains entirely as well though, civilized countries forbid that barbaric practice. It's plea bargains that create the need for these insane laws with which prosecutors beat defendants into guilty pleas.
I doubt we'll correct these systemic problems though because the prison-industrial-prosecutorial complex has far too effective a lobby.
I suspect me must demonstrate the capacity to derail the profesional liv
Too little too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't mod this up. Common sense doesn't need moderation points. I'm venting.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't mod this up. Common sense doesn't need moderation points.
Mod him DOWN!!!
Common sense has no place on slashdot!
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I mean, seriously, the guy had promise and vision. I don't consider myself a depressed person, but I'd probably off myself too if JSTOR fucked me in a federal court and then rubbed salt in the wound by giving away for free everything they fucked me over for.
Profit (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd probably draw a distinction between when money changes hands relating to TOS-violations, and otherwise. There need to be tools to fight botters, for example.
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I'd probably draw a distinction between when money changes hands relating to TOS-violations, and otherwise. There need to be tools to fight botters, for example.
If the ToS and the site requires you represent something, that the organization running the site is entitled to rely upon the accuracy of due to the ToS requirement, and you intentionally make a false representation, in violation of the ToS, in order to profit from the situation, and you do derive that benefit.
They ought to still be able to n
Repeat after me: (Score:4, Insightful)
*JSTOR could have sued him for lost earnings or copyright, but chose not to.
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The Terms of Service are a contract.
The ToS can only be a contract, if the person who signed up to access the site, furnished accurate information, and actually intended to abide by the terms. If you sign a document, in real life, supplying a false name, or false address, or someone else's identity, and/or have no real intention whatsoever to make good on the terms, while you take off with whatever thing of value you received from the other party, then in this case, it's not merely a breach of contract,
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The Terms of Service are a contract.
ToS are not a f**king contract. Almost every ToS "contract" states that it can be changed (by one side -- I'll let you guess which one) at any time. That's pretty much the OPPOSITE of a contract.
In some cases, the ToS can be changed without notification to you. Then it is your responsibility to visit the website and see if they changed it.
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I'd probably draw a distinction between when [...], and [...]
Then narrow the law.
Far too many of our laws are written with the broadest possible application,
even if the legislative intent is narrow and focused on a specific problem.
Like how the anti-terrorist Patriot Act is mostly being used to go after drug dealers, money laundering, and organized crime.
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I'm quite aware what it means. I was a volunteer moderator for a moderately large MMORPG, and spent considerable time using tooks to boot the thousands of bots that were continually swarming onto the system.
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And by tooks I mean tools. Sorry. It's late at night :)
You know we have a problem when... (Score:2, Insightful)
You can get more time for breaking a ToS than for...
- Manslaughter
- Robbing a bank
- Child porn with intent to distribute
among other things. Pathetic.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/14/1441211/killers-slavers-and-bank-robbers-all-face-less-severe-prison-terms-than-aaron-swartz-did/
Gotcha! (Score:3, Funny)
1) Your navigation to this website is considered agreement to the following terms
2) You shall not view, consider or think about this website
3) Breach of these conditions will result in all your base belong to us.
I for one (Score:4, Funny)
Think that if you violate a TOS you should land in jail it only makes sense.
--
Note: by reading this comment you agree to pay me a fee of $1,000,000 if the fee is refused I reserve the right to throw you in jail.
Conduct of Federal Prosecutor Carmen Ortiz (Score:5, Interesting)
ArsTechnica has a good article on this case, which quotes Columbia law professor Tim Wu on the appalling behavior of federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz:
In our age, armed with laws passed in the nineteen-eighties and meant for serious criminals, the federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz approved a felony indictment that originally demanded up to thirty-five years in prison. Worse still, her legal authority to take down Swartz was shaky. Just last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a similar prosecution. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a prominent conservative, refused to read the law in a way that would make a criminal of “everyone who uses a computer in violation of computer use restrictions—which may well include everyone who uses a computer.” Ortiz and her lawyers relied on that reading to target one of our best and brightest... The prosecutors forgot that, as public officials, their job isn’t to try and win at all costs but to use the awesome power of criminal law to protect the public from actual harm... Today, prosecutors feel they have license to treat leakers of information like crime lords or terrorists. In an age when our frontiers are digital, the criminal system threatens something intangible but incredibly valuable. It threatens youthful vigor, difference in outlook, the freedom to break some rules and not be condemned or ruined for the rest of your life.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/opening-arguments-in-the-trial-of-public-opinion-after-aaron-swartz-death
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/01/everyone-interesting-is-a-felon.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/17/silverglate-three-felonies-book
Academic publishers have been price gauging universities and students for a long time, but to their credit at least JSTOR had the brains to tell the feds to back off. Oritz should have listened to them. Their behavior is merely greedy. Hers is unforgivable: there is no place in government for public officials who abuse their power and harm the public for their own personal advantage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices [guardian.co.uk]
http://enculturation.gmu.edu/knowledge-cartels [gmu.edu]
http://boingboing.net/2010/01/03/prescription-for-con.html
http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2012/ending-knowledge-cartels/ [outsidethetext.com]
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Academic publishers have been price gouging universities and students for a long time
FTFY...
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Right -- after you're bankrupted, your career destroyed, maybe even some time in jail, your conviction gets tossed. Do the Feds give you your life back? Fuck no. It's a lose/lose situation caused by people who lost sight of their job -- to protect people from bad guys, but the Feds are more interested in making everyone a "bad guy" because it means they just have more power. The power of tyranny and we get to suck it up while they enrich their benefactors.
news! (Score:2)
It is a crime right now?
Seriously?
AFK - I need to add "you agree to only use this site while standing on your head naked at the center of a busy intersection" to my ToS. Burried somewhere in the middle. And then send out anonymous invitations to everyone I dislike...
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no the power will get to who ever is in the chair and turn them into an a-hole. power corrupts.
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In other words: The chair fills the asshole...
We all have seen some of the more colorful parts of the internet.
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http://2girls1cup.nl/ [2girls1cup.nl]
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I'd settle for having somebody constantly watching over them... "Sure you want to do that? Looks like an asshole move to me!"
They could have a quota for identifying a minimum number of asshole prosecutors, and their career progression could depend on declaring powerful people to be assholes.
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You must secretly be an asshole, waiting for your day to shine. Power attracts certain dysfunctional personality types. It's not that good people are so rare but it is so rare that good people find themselves in powerful positions.
This is the most unfortunate problem inherent in any democratic system. The rule of the petty tyrants.
And it's easy to understand why: good people find better use for their time than power games.
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That is difficult to fix because senior prosecutors use their position to run for office or become a judge while junior prosecutors use their position to become senior prosecutors. Both of these require making a name for yourself. And there are no penalties for overcharging and intimidating defendants because the prosecutor can simply claim that they were following the law and that their plea bargains are reasonable (so reasonable that even innocent people commonly take them /sarc). Congress isn't going to
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More likely to see the otherwise ordinarily bullied up against the wall first in revolution.
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Sorry but the sheer mechanics of what your proposing totally and utterly mind boggling.
I'm pretty sure no matter how good the prosecutor is, his/her's a sphincter is actually going to occupy that chair. Then you're proposing that people who do sit in a particular chair should be thrown in jail?
Lunacy! but not so far fetched considering what the US Govt. did to Swartz.
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I have a document in my backpack; my personal ToS. It states that everyone who shakes my hand must give me $20. By shaking, they agree.
Fails. Firstly other party is unaware of the terms prior to the hand shake and as you will remember from 1st year law school, past consideration is no consideration. Even if they were it still fails for lack of consideration: the other party suffers a detriment both in paying $20 and in shaking your hand, so the consideration only flows in the same direction ... twice.
Re:No one reads the TOS. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a document in my backpack; my personal ToS. It states that everyone who shakes my hand must give me $20. By shaking, they agree.
Even if they were it still fails for lack of consideration: the other party suffers a detriment both in paying $20 and in shaking your hand, so the consideration only flows in the same direction ... twice. :p
Easy fix: switch the places between the hand and the ToS... put the hand in the backpack (detach it if necessary) and offer the ToS to be shaken.
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I have a document in my backpack; my personal ToS. It states that everyone who shakes my hand must give me $20. By shaking, they agree.
Fails. Firstly other party is unaware of the terms prior to the hand shake and as you will remember from 1st year law school, past consideration is no consideration. Even if they were it still fails for lack of consideration: the other party suffers a detriment both in paying $20 and in shaking your hand, so the consideration only flows in the same direction ... twice. :p
I believe that is how most TOS and EULA's seem to work anyway.
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Wrong.
Courts have upheld the ToS/EULA contained within a shrink-wrapped bundle in a way unreadable from the outside that states that by opening this bundle you agree to the contents and forfeit any rights to return the merchandise except where covered by warranty. Microsoft used these for a decade.
The correct way to handle the Microsoft EULA was to not open it and by other means access their website, read the EULA there and then you'd still have the option to return everything. Later they simply packaged th
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I have a document in my backpack; my personal ToS. It states that everyone who shakes my hand must give me $20. By shaking, they agree.
Fails. Firstly other party is unaware of the terms prior to the hand shake and as you will remember from 1st year law school, past consideration is no consideration. Even if they were it still fails for lack of consideration: the other party suffers a detriment both in paying $20 and in shaking your hand, so the consideration only flows in the same direction ... twice. :p
So put the TOS document in shrinkwrap, then it should be binding.
Re:I'm confused... (Score:5, Insightful)
A law, duly enacted, which makes it a felony to violate such ToS, makes criminal procedure apply. That law has to be fixed, and then that particular violation of contract will revert to the normal civil procedure.
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"A law, duly enacted, which makes it a felony to violate such ToS, makes criminal procedure apply. That law has to be fixed..."
The thing is: Congress probably never intended it to apply to a mere violation of TOS. The ultimate problem is that it is vague, and some prosecutors have chosen to interpret it that way.
The central issue is not "How can we prosecutors interpret this law to put more people in jail for worse 'crimes'?" There are actually two other questions here: "What was the intent of Congress?" and "Does that represent justice?"
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the m
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Generally, but not always.
Breach of contract is something that is generally settled in civil court but there are some laws which can add criminal teeth to breaches of contract.
misappropriation of trade secrets is a breach of contract which can have contractual, civil, and criminal remedies depending on what's involved.
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A Democrat not siding with the
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Greed is extremely logical. It's self-gratification on a feedback loop.
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Changing mac and ip addresses for the purpose of evading a ban is much closer to the sort of trespass the CFAA was designed to prevent than mere tos violations.
It's like a bar.
You can get 86'ed any time by the bartender but that's the worst they can do.
Go back and it's trespassing
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Yes, it would have been a terrible precedent to use that law for that purpose, but the fact she escaped any legal responsibility for her predatory behavior is also a terrible precedent. From my POV the US justice system failed to deliver justice in both cases.
I don't know the case, but it sounds like she was only guilty of harassment and the victim was dead.
The fact that the victim committed suicide doesn't change the crime she committed. Anyways, I imagine that harassment is hard to prove, especially with the victim being unable to witness...
I'm not saying what she did was acceptable, nor that it wasn't technically illegal, but that if you have free speech, convicting people of bullying can be very hard... And even when done, the punishment is often insignif
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Offering 6 months if you accept guilt and waive your right to a Trial V/s We will get you for 50 years. That's as bad as the mafia asking for protection money - Pay $100 a day OR we'll demolish everything in your shop or break your knees.
Re:Great cases make bad law (Score:5, Insightful)
That is some serious bullshit there. The "guilty conscience" thing? Seriously, that's just crap. That is not how people work, and that is not how reality works. There are lots of people who know perfectly well that there is a law they have technically broken, but who do not feel guilty about it at all -- but who might not be surprised to face jail time if a prosecutor happened to pick them to make an example of. The problem with this, apart from the victim-blaming, is that you're assuming that "violated a law" and "guilty" are the same thing in any kind of ethical sense. Similarly, "he knew he was guilty, so the probation he would have recieved was deserved."
This doesn't logically follow, because "deserve" is a moral claim, but you're basing it on the legal system. Legal systems are not moral systems. You can quite easily be fully aware that you have done a thing which is prohibited by a law, but not feel that you deserve jail time for it. Or you might feel that a misdemeanor charge that's in some way related to what you did is justified, but that multiple felony counts aren't.
The fact is, nothing he did merits years of jail time, and the claim that the prosecutor was "asking for" six months minimum security is highly misleading at best. They were, quite clearly, aiming to make an example of him. Look at previous cases Ortiz prosecuted against people who could afford defense teams, and tell me how "deserved" those outcomes were.
Long story short, even if we ignore the fact that he was depressed, this was a crazy thing and your attempts to make it look less crazy are disturbing. The just world fallacy is called a fallacy because it is not actually valid reasoning. Your attempts to make yourself feel okay with the world by pretending that what happens is okay and justified are unpersuasive at best. And yet. We know he was depressed, and we know a fair amount about what depression does to people's ability to evaluate things and make decisions. It's bad enough that prosecutors are trying really hard to make dramatic examples of people by going after huge piles of charges without regard to the actual severity of the underlying acts; cherry-picking for depressed people because they're easier to bully is despicable. So's trying to defend it.
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would you be in favor of this law if it had been proposed out of pure wisdom and legal consideration?
if not, GTFO. seriously. kill yourself.
if so, why does it matter what prompted it?
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The guy was a felon
No he was an alleged felon. He had not been convicted of any of the crimes he allegedly committed.
But then since you're posting anonymously, you don't appear to me to be prepared to stand behind the statement you made.