People charged with hacking defend themselves this way all the time. And other people defend them in the same terms.
Recently a guy was charged for accessing public URLs. Sure, they were specifically made available to the public, but the public wasn't supposed to look at them.
...no evidence was advanced at trial that the account slurper ever breached any password gate or other code-based barrier. The account slurper simply accessed the publicly facing portion of the login screen and scraped information that AT&T unintentionally published. [0]
[0] http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/weevru...
For traders, we don't have all-encompassing laws covering tax avoidance. Plus, traders have money for hiring professional for finding loopholes.
That's the difference.
Because the CFAA is pretty universally hated and makes for bad outcomes.
This is a pretty common argument, actually, when it comes to questions of "allowed" API access.
*good as being defined as likely a net positive value on society similarly bad as being defined as a net negative for society
Heaven help those who are unpopular or of a class that is widely discriminated against under such a system.
For example, in the UK peers (of the realm) used to have the right to trial by jury of fellow peers (of the realm).
They are now the victims of inequality - while commoners have the right to a trial by their commoner peers, peers (of the realm) have only the right to a trial by commoners!
You end up with a "can't go wrong buying IBM" mentality, but for society.
You also use this word "democratic" in a way that does not mean "rule by the majority".
I’ll take the bait. “Democratic legal system” is, according to you, an oxymoron because of the “rule by the majority” part? A common sentiment although easily debunked, since there are always rulers in any system with legal codes. In any case this seems pretty off-topic.
Another in any case (since I can’t help myself): when political scientists talk about “modern democracies” they mean liberal democracies with rule of law etc. Even though very few modern countries are truely democracies.
However words are important and are used to disguise what is occurring. Had the parent wrote "presumably not compatible with a non-democratic legal system." they would have been more accurate.
Rule of law is not accurate either. Purely democratic states can fall well within rule of law. The issue here is that there is some law that democracies cannot pass because it violates a higher law.
Piketty writes about this issue in regard to slavery. To free slaves (in the USA) without compensation was regarded as not following within the higher law which is ~ the law of property.
The same issue would be faced with trying to free the "ill gotten gains" of "bankers" from their holdings. The childish subtext of our propertarian legal system is "new rules dont count".
“Bankers don’t have morals,” the 50-year-old said on a video call. “Hedge-fund managers, and so on, they don’t have morals. I made the money legally.” [...] “Prove that any law was broken,” Shah said. “Prove that there was fraud. The legal system allowed it.”
At least he's honest in his contempt for normal ethical mores - there's none of the vacillating bull we associate with PR from say, big corporate tax dodgers.
Naive, idealistic me has often wondered how possible an abstract law of last resort for prosecuting people who exploit loopholes in what a jury of their peers would consider to be an unethical way; but I guess it would be to open to abuse by dodgy governments and other entities and presumably not compatible with a democratic legal system.