Talk:18 USC § 1030

Misuse?

On the front page, we're saying that this statute can be used to prosecute anyone who vandalizes Conservapedia.

This is ... not entirely true. Certainly someone who broke into the servers and replaced the MediaWiki engine with a vulgar site (just an over-the-top example) would run afoul of this law if interpreted broadly enough (though the fact that it's neither a government nor financial system casts some doubt on that), but the "without authorization" provisos of this statute pretty much exclude the activities of any registered user to the site. Such vandalism certainly might not be what we had in mind, but is at best a lapse in judgment and at worst an abuse of granted privileges. It's NOT unauthorized access, however. Threatening someone with a law that doesn't actually apply doesn't really improve Conservapedia's reputation any, I would imagine, so I'd suggest striking that section of the MainPage blurb, unless someone can produce a lawyer (I'm not one) who can explain how this law would apply. -Harmil 13:52, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Andrew Schlafly is a lawyer. JamesK 14:01, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

The only section of this statute that could possibly apply to Conservipedia is (a)(5) as it is the only section that doesn't deal with intent to defraud or to access protected data and that section only covers protected computers which are defined by the statute at (e)(2) as being Government computers (which this is not), computers of a financial institution (which this is not) or "is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce of communication of the United States" (Which this probably is not).

Absent some case reading this statute very differently than the plain meaning of the statute, I'd have to agree that this could not be used to go after vandals who hurt this site and the empty threat on the main page should be taken down (it makes the site look bad). --Reginod 15:16, 14 March 2007 (EDT)