It’s go time! The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is crazy, and probably means that the Department of Justice thinks that you’re technically a federal criminal.
We’re asking IDL members to join Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Demand Progress, Reddit, Boing Boing, and others in a week of activism for reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
We need to beat back that bad proposal to expand the CFAA — in a hurry. So we’re asking the Internet Defense League to snap into action this week, starting today — Monday — for as long as possible.
To learn more, go here: http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
The expansive CFAA was first passed in the mid-1980s, before most households had computers, let alone Internet access. Yet law enforcement has interpreted it to criminalize even mundane Internet use, such as petty violations of websites’ fine-print terms of service agreements. Under this interpretation commonplace Internet use would technically be criminalized, including:
-Sharing passwords for Facebook or other social media sites with friends;
-Starting a social media profile under a pseudonym;
-Exaggerating your height on a dating site;
-Visiting a site if you’re under the stipulated age requirement (under 18 for many sites)
-Blocking cookies in a way that enables you to circumvent a news site’s paywall. (For instance, the New York Times website cannot block those who delete cookies from reading more than the allotted number of free articles each month.)
Additionally, it is under the CFAA that law enforcement has undertaken a recent spate of prosecutions of questionable merit — including that of our friend and Demand Progress cofounder Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide earlier this year while being prosecuted for downloading too many academic articles from JSTOR.
We’ve been pushing to change this, and have made some progress: Reps and Senators are pulling together a proposal called “Aaron’s Law”.
But… then last week members of the House Judiciary Committee floated an audacious proposal that would actually expand and harshen certain parts of the CFAA. Think of it as the opposite of Aaron’s Law. And we’re hearing that it could come up for a vote as soon as next week.
We need your helping mobilizing your visitors as we strive to beat back this awful proposal and to build momentum for Aaron’s Law.
Click here to read more here:
http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
Aaron’s death was tragic, but it has helped attune people to this terrible law, and now represents our best chance to fix it — or at least make sure that it doesn’t get any worse. Please join us in those efforts.
Thanks team!
-Holmes Wilson
Internet Defense League
