

Aaron’s Law Reintroduced: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Didn’t Fix Itself - CapitalistCartr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/aarons-law-reintroduced-cfaa-didnt-fix-itself

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tptacek
What part of this bill would have made it harder to put Swartz in the bind he
ended up with? His offenses weren't committed for financial gain. The market
value of the information he took --- easily established from JSTOR's fee
structure --- exceeded $5000. The tweaks to the definition of "unauthorized
access" seem almost shrink-wrapped around what Swartz was actually accused of
doing. And "Aaron's Law" doesn't modify the Wire Fraud statute, which Swartz
was also charged under.

There needs to be an "Aaron's Law", but it should actually fix the core
problem with the CFAA, which is that sentences and offense severity are graded
by imputed damages, rather than actual financial gain.

 _The text of "Aaron's Law", the CFAA, and the Swartz superseding indictment
are here:_

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-
bill/2454...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-
bill/2454/text)

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030)

[http://ia600504.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.mad.137...](http://ia600504.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.mad.137971/gov.uscourts.mad.137971.53.0.pdf)

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icebraining
Why should sentences be graded by financial gain instead of damages? Wouldn't
that lead to someone who wrecks a whole network just for kicks and notoriety
to be less punished than someone who, say, earns a $50 credit by abusing a
race condition on some HTTP server?

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rjaco31
Because it's usually potential damage instead of actual damage.

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organsnyder
Then let's focus on making it actual damage rather than potential damage.
Whether financial gain is considered is a separate issue.

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rjaco31
It would be great, but in most computer fraud cases, actual damage is almost
impossible to quantify. (or you end up with stupidity like "$5 per song, so
damages sum up to 2 millions"..)

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DannyBee
I'm cynical about it ever moving forward.

These acts often get introduced just so the sponsors can say they introduced a
bill.

(This is why, for example, people introduce bills right before going home to
stump, knowing it will achieve nothing, but enabling them to say "Because i
care so much about you guys, i just introduced a bill in congress to fix
this!")

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gtaylor
Would you rather them not be introduced at all?

It's one thing to be cynical, and it's another to be apathetic. This bill has
a low chance of passing, but it will get some people talking about the issue
at hand. There's a slim possibility that if they keep going, future versions
will see more support.

It's unlikely that positive change can be made without these initial small
steps (or failures).

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gizmo686
Introducing a bill that you have no intention of passing (or do not expect to
pass) is like submitting a pull request that you know will get rejected.

It would be much better to do your job and, instead of submitting something
that will get rejected for the sake of submitting it, spend the time to draft
a solution that has a chance of passing.

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dragonwriter
Passing laws requires getting other people to vote on them, which in practice
requires mobilizing groups interested in the topic, which in turn requires
getting attention on the issue, which in turn is often served by introducing
bills on the issue, even if those don't pass.

So, even if one views the job of a legislator as "passing laws", introducing
bills that are not expected to pass as a means of raising awareness, in order
that bills on the issue may be more viable to pass in the future, _is_ a
legislator doing their job.

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DannyBee
"Passing laws requires getting other people to vote on them, which in practice
requires mobilizing groups interested in the topic, which in turn requires
getting attention on the issue, which in turn is often served by introducing
bills on the issue, even if those don't pass."

Actually, in practice, it happens exactly the other way around.

IE you get support first, then introduce the bill.

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late2part
Of course it didn't fix itself. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of
evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

Too many of us are doing nothing. We need to do more. We should actively
demand that our representatives fix this problem, or vote in people who will.
I'm doing this. Please join me.

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Istof
Because you vote for somebody who says he will fix something doesn't mean he
will... they need to be held accountable somehow... Obama is an example of
this.

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meric
Check out Demoex,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex),
where each bill is voted on by all residents, the party's representatives must
vote for the corresponding bill in the same proportion as the votes received
for each bill. This is how you can sneak direct democracy into a
representative democracy through the front door.

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sergiosgc
Purely direct democracy does not work. Representative democracy is needed
because you can't possibly design a system where everyone has to be bothered
to assess every new law proposal. Most of the bills are about subjects people
know nothing about. It takes time to research the subject, gather expert
opinion and then emit a well grounded vote. That's why you need to assign a
group of people full-time to the task of assessing new bills, aka
representative democracy.

In direct democracy, you either have populist votes or non-participation. It
is inescapable.

The fact that the current system is broken is no excuse to move to one that is
flawed from the start. We now have the technological means for an evolution of
representative democracy: Liquid Democracy, or delegative democracy. It's
representative democracy with "continuous elections". It might work (better).

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meric
You could use the same method as demoex to achieve that - take the idea of
"proxies" from shareholder votes. Anyone and pick anyone as a proxy. Now all
you've got to solve is the problem of cycles.

