All three Trump appointees to the Supreme Court joined its three liberal members in a decision limiting the application of a federal anti-hacking law
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court Thursday narrowed the scope of a federal anti-hacking law, ruling that it doesn’t cover individuals who use their authorized access to obtain information for improper purposes.who ran a woman’s license plate in exchange for cash from a man, something that “plainly flouted his department’s policy,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for a 6-3 court.
To read the law more broadly “would attach criminal penalties to a breathtaking amount of commonplace computer activity,” Justice Barrett wrote. “Employers commonly state that computers and electronic devices can be used only for business purposes. So on the Government’s reading of the statute, an employee who sends a personal e-mail or reads the news using her work computer has violated the CFAA,” she wrote.
Likewise, many websites and online services impose fine-print terms and conditions that sweep broadly but rarely are read. The government’s theory would “criminalize everything from embellishing an online-dating profile to using a pseudonym on Facebook,” Justice Barrett wrote, citing an argument Berkeley law professor Orrin Kerr raised in a friend-of-the-court brief.
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