1. Hongkong Cyber Security HassAssociates Aarons Law to honor
Internet activist,redefine computer fraud
2. A California congresswoman says the federal law used
toprosecute Internet activist Aaron Swartz should be changed
to"prevent what happened to Aaron from happening to otherInternet
users.Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes Silicon
Valley,floated herproposal for what is being called "Aarons Law"on
Reddit. "Theres no way to reverse the tragedy of Aaronsdeath, but
we can work to prevent a repeat of the abuses ofpower he
experienced," she wrote.Swartz, 26, who helped create RSS as a
teen, reportedly took hisown life last Friday. His family and
partner said in a statementthat his death is "not simply a personal
tragedy. It is the productof a criminal justice system rife with
intimidation andprosecutorial overreach." 3. A passionate advocate
for making as much information public as possible onthe Web, Swartz
was under indictment by the federal government on chargesof wire
fraud and computer fraud. In an attempt to provide free access
toJSTOR, a subscription service for science and literacy journals
on MITsnetwork, he downloaded nearly the entire library of 4.8
million articles anddocuments to make it publicly available.The
government was prosecuting Swartz based on violations of
theComputer Fraud and Abuse Act."It looks like the government used
the vague wording of those laws to claimthat violating an online
services user agreement or terms of service is aviolation of the
CFAA and the wire fraud statute," Lofgren said on Reddit."Using the
law in this way could criminalize many everyday activities andallow
for outlandishly severe penalties.Lofgren said a "simple way to
correct this dangerous legal interpretation is tochange the CFAA
and the wire fraud statutes to exclude terms-of-serviceviolations."
She said she plans to introduce a bill, known as "Aarons Law,"that
will do that, and will try to get both Democrats and Republicans to
co-sponsor the bill. 4. Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff attorney
with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, saidin a blog post that
the government "should never have thrown the book at Aaron
foraccessing MITs network and downloading scholarly research.
However, someextremely problematic elements of the law made it
possible.She also wrote that violations of the law are "harsh and
disproportionate to themagnitude of offenses. Even first-time
offenses for accessing a protected computerwithout authorization
can be punishable by up to five years in prison each (10 yearsfor
repeat offenses) plus fines. Its worth noting that five years is a
relatively lightmaximum penalty by CFAA standards; violations of
other parts of that law arepunishable by up to 10 years, 20 years,
and even life in prison.Lawrence Lessig, professor of law and
leadership at Harvard Law School, wrote Wednesday in The Atlantic
that it was appropriate Lofgren first introduced her draft bill on
Reddit, "a platform Aaron had helped to build.The bill, he wrote,
"would limit the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
andexclude crimes that are nothing more than a breach of contract.
Had that changebeen made before Aarons death, the governments
felony charges would likely havecollapsed. Had the governments
charges collapsed, Aaron Swartz, in my view, wouldstill be
frantically working to make the world a better place."
