Forbes: No, Faking Your Name On Facebook Will Not Be A Felony

In order to step up the prosecution of hackers and scary cybercriminals, the feds are changing a law to make unauthorized access to a computer system a felony rather than just a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor. That means making a change to something called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Currently, that law includes criminal penalties for "exceeding authorized access" on a computer. The Justice Department has interpreted that to mean violating a website's "terms of use" or breaking your work's rules about how you use your computer. Yes, that law meant that checking your fantasy football scores at lunch or using a fake name on Facebook equaled criminal activity (the latter was one of the charges prosecutors levied at Lori Drew in the MySpace-suicide case).

Legal scholar Orin Kerr wrote an alarming op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, warning people that "faking your name on Facebook could be a felony" when the law is changed. But a lot changed since yesterday morning. An amendment was added to the bill during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday morning, so that people who violate website's terms of service are not considered felons.

© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2011. |



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