Aaron Swartz’s death galvanized CFAA reform in his name. Image: Paretz Partensky/Flickr
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Aaron’s Law would refocus the CFAA to target more extreme criminal activities like phishing for credit card information and injecting viruses onto servers, which was actually the original purpose of the law before it became a favorite litigious tool for all manner of digital crime. This refocusing of the CFAA would come from defining “access without authorization” to mean “actual unauthorized access to information by circumventing technological or physical controls—such as password requirements, encryption, or locked office doors,” wrote Aaron’s Law co-sponsors in Wired last year.Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Senator Ron Wyden introduced Aaron’s Law last June to much fanfare and positive press—they even got the internet to look over it before they took it to Congress—and now, with the Aaron Swartz documentary Internet’s Own Boy in theaters, I decided to check on the amendment’s progress. Given the internet’s support for the amendment and for all things Swartz, I had high hopes. Shockingly, Aaron’s Law has gone nowhere since last year, and hasn’t even budged from the subcommittee it was introduced in.In an interview with a Canadian-based news outlet, Internet’s Own Boy filmmaker Brian Knappenberger cited Oracle Corporation and CEO Larry Ellison as the company primarily responsible for the Congressional inaction. Founded in 1977, Oracle sells tech products ranging from computer hardware like graphics cards to database software. Oracle had financial reasons for keeping the CFAA as is, Knappenberger was told, which included the continued ability to go after competitors aggressively."Tech companies wanted to be able to threaten their employees and contractors with jail time if they misuse company information.”
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Despite the pushback from Oracle Corporation and hesitation from unnamed tech companies, the supporters and co-sponsors of Aaron’s Law remain positive, saying the proposal has already had a legal impact. Demand Progress’ David Segal wrote in an email, “Aaron's Law doesn't look poised to move just now, but it's served a very important purposehaving it introduced makes it far less likely that the CFAA will be expanded, and we've found ourselves having to fend off expansion efforts at least twice in the last year.”Aaron’s Law co-sponsor Senator Wyden told Motherboard in a statement he is still working on building support for the amendment and that the current proposal “is sending a clear signal to the Department of Justice and overzealous prosecutors.” He added, “Americans should not be subject to felony prosecution, for example, for violating a Term of Service”—which sadly “wasn’t the case with respect to Aaron.”Near the very end of the Internet’s Own Boy, George Washington University Law School professor Orin Kerr tells Knappenberger the legal system is “still trying to figure out what’s the line between less serious offenses and more serious offenses” when it comes to computer crimes and misuse and the CFAA. But how can lawmakers figure out where that line is, when they’re influenced by big money fighting every effort to define it?Swartz’s death galvanized CFAA reform in his name, with a proposed amendment called “Aaron’s Law.” It was one bright spot in an otherwise bleak time.