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)