Today Judge Phantly R. Bean of the 14th US District
Court released the two hackers that were arrested in the case of the liquified
natural gas railcar that was hacked last month. Bean ruled that the two could
not be charged with federal computer fraud charges. The two were subsequently
arrested on State charges as they left Federal custody.
Bean ruled that Federal prosecutors erred in charging the
two under 18 USC 1030, the Federal criminal code chapter dealing with computer
fraud. This is the chapter under which most computer hackers are charged. “While
this computer fraud chapter is broadly written, none of the elements of crime
described in the chapter pertain to the actions alleged to have been conducted
by these two individuals;” Bean wrote in his decision; “With that firmly in
mind, I hereby grant the defense motion to dismiss the charges.”
Junio Butts, the lawyer defending the two in Federal Court declared
that: “This is a good day for the American judicial system. Bean recognized that
the actions of my clients was a modern-day issue of civil disobedience not
fraud. We are currently discussing with Pennsylvania State prosecutors an
appropriate charge to which my clients can legitimately plead guilty.”
Bean has testified before Congress on the inadequacies of the
§1030 language with respect to attacks on computers that are part of a control
system of some sort. He testified last summer that “Industrial control systems
do not fit well into the description of fraud related offenses listed in §1030(a)
and Congress needs to address this issue before the Courts are forced to deal
with the situation.”
Rep Harvey Milk (D,CA) is reportedly working on legislation
that would add a new paragraph to §1030 that would specifically address the
issue of attacks on industrial control systems. “My staff has been working with
tech industry lawyers to craft language that would address attacks on these
increasingly important information systems.”
CAUTIONARY NOTE: This is a future news story –
No comments:
Post a Comment