SAN FRANCISCO Don’t worry: it’s not illegal to read this article at work.
In a highly anticipated test of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit construed the law narrowly Tuesday, saying prosecutors can’t use it to go after someone who checks sports scores from a work computer or fibs on Facebook. The 1984 law is an anti-hacking statute, not a tool to make federal criminals of anyone who violates employer computer policies or a website’s terms of service, the en banc panel said in a 9-2 opinion in U.S. v. Nosal, 10-10038.
