It’s probably not going to change anything, but the Democratic National Committee has sued Russia (and members of the Russian establishment), members of the Trump campaign, and Wikileaks regard the 2016 election security breaches. The DNC’s complaint includes almost every claim imaginable in response to a hacking incident. If nothing else, it’s a good model for lawyers to crib from. More
This is a cross-post from our sister blog, Massachusetts Noncompete Law:
Judge Peter M. Lauriat of the Massachusetts Superior Court decided late last year that an employee who takes confidential documents from her employer’s electronic document system to use in a discrimination lawsuit against her employer is not liable to the employer under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), especially when the employer knew about the lawsuit but nonetheless did not restrict the employee’s access to those documents while she was working for the employer. … More
In the cross-post from our Noncompete Blog, another CFAA decision is discussed.
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Echoing a new theme in the federal district court in Massachusetts, last month Chief Magistrate Judge Leo T. Sorokin refused to dismiss a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) claim brought against the former CEO of a company, but did so without prejudice, meaning that the defendants could ask the Court to dismiss the claim again later in the case.… More
The United States District Court for the Northern District of California recently refused to dismiss a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) claim with an unusual twist: the defendant allegedly circumvented an IP address block after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the plaintiff and therefore is alleged to have acted “without authorization” in violation of the CFAA.
The dispute began with Craigslist Inc.… More
Originally posted on July 30th, 2013 by Brian P. Bialas
An interesting article by Jeffrey Spear that appeared in the New Hampshire Bar News in July shows that the federal district court in New Hampshire is struggling with the same question as the district court in Massachusetts: What is the proper interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”)? … More
In the following article from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (reprinted with permission), Brian Bialas comments on the latest Computer Fraud and Abuse Act case, and the resultant split in the District of Massachusett on how to interpret the CFAA:
Ex-employees sued over computer use
Judge narrowly construes CFAA
By Eric T. Berkman
A technology company could not sue former employees for downloading proprietary information onto personal storage devices before they joined a competitor without showing that the employees had physically accessed the information through fraudulent or unlawful means,… More
Posted on March 15th, 2013 by Brian P. Bialas
on our sister blog, Massachusetts Noncompete Law.
I’ve written many times More about the significant split in circuit courts’ interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which affects whether an employer can sue an employee for violating computer use restrictions, usually embodied in a confidentiality agreement or company IT policy, when an employee downloads confidential information he is permitted to access but then takes that information to a competitor. …
Feb 18, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court takes pass on CFAA lawsuit; uncertainty remains
In 1st Circuit, ‘ball in employer’s court’
By Correy E. Stephenson More
The U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act case leaves employment lawyers in the 1st Circuit and beyond with continuing uncertainty.Employers frequently add a CFAA claim to suits against former employees that take confidential information from company computer systems.…
As posted earlier today by Brian P. Bialas on the Massachusetts Non-Compete blog, a recent case from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire highlights the split between the District of New Hampshire and the District of Massachusetts over the proper interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030, in particular the phrase “exceeds authorized access.”… More
(This post also appears in www.massachusettsnoncompetelaw.com)
Below is an article that I wrote for the June edition of Massachusetts Lawyers Journal, the monthly publication of the Massachusetts Bar Association. It discusses an important case that interprets the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Moreand the split in the law that case has created with the First Circuit, which includes Massachusetts.The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has noted that employers are increasingly using the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) “to sue former employees and their new companies who seek a competitive edge through wrongful use of information from the former employer’s computer system.” But in April,…