Court to DOJ: Surfing on Work PC Isn't Hacking
Have you ever checked your personal email from a work computer? The idea that checking email, or a quick visit to Facebook, Twitter or other any social media site might be considered "hacking" and land you in prison is preposterous. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals injected a dose of sanity into the government's insane push to make people criminals under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for violating their employer's computer use policy. The 9-2 decision in U.S. v. Nosal will make it difficult for the Justice Department to successfully use the same twisted CFAA argument to prosecute Bradley Manning.
Remember when the DOJ claimed you might be a felon if you click a link or open an email under the government's broad interpretation of CFAA? That's because according to the Department of Justice, any employee who violates their company's computer use policy "exceeds authorized access." If that were true, most Americans were headed to prison. But you can breathe easy for now as we're not all doomed . . . yet.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski who wrote the court's decision asked, "What exactly is a 'nonbusiness purpose'?" Checking the weather, a dating site, or playing Farmville? The court noted, "Were we to adopt the government's proposed interpretation, millions of unsuspecting individuals would find that they are engaging in criminal conduct."
