All Americans who have ever used the internet have violations of the CFAA, since website TOS violations are legally as criminal as hacking NORAD (the CFAA was passed after Reagan saw wargames ) normally letting your twelve-year-old start a Facebook account gets you 25 years, if some prosecutor wanted to enforce it. And they think that’s ridiculous and don’t.
However, if that prosecutor wants to turn a five month sentence into a ten year sentence, then the suspect’s CFAA violation history might be useful after all.
And that is just one of the laws that overreaches and is easily broken and not usually enforced.
Suddenly you may have something to hide after all, say if they’re rounding up gay felons and any petty felony would make your gay ass qualify. (The German SD and US ICE both ignore violent felon requirements when they’re rounding up folk to be detained and deported)
@uriel238 @pivot_root Not all TOS violations are relevant at all the CFAA, and very few are after the significant narrowing of the CFAA by the Supreme Court in 2021 in Van Buren v United States.
Yes! That was a vast improvement. It’s not the only way that Americans are felons if the state needs to decide they are, or if they need to add charges / sentencing considerations if the prosecutors really want to throw away the key, such as embarrassing VIPs or killing rich people.
Still, you don’t want the police looking at your entire internet history, even if you believe you have nothing to hide, they will find things that they find objectionable enough to justify treating you roughly.
