Good Work

If you want to see what an absolutely first-class appellate brief looks like, look no further than Petitioner’s Brief in U.S. v. Auernheimer, authored by Tor Ekeland and Mark Jaffe, Hanni Fakhoury of the EFF, Marcia Hofmann (ex-EFF, now in private practice) and Orin Kerr (GWU Law).

If I’m ever convicted of reading and copying stuff off an unprotected web page, I want these guys as my lawyers.

And, yes, that’s the essence of the felony conviction being appealed:

The government charged Auernheimer with felony computer hacking under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) for visiting an unprotected AT&T website and collecting e-mail addresses that AT&T had posted on the World Wide Web. The government also charged Auernheimer with identity theft for sharing those addresses with a reporter.

…

Auernheimer’s convictions must be overturned on multiple and independent grounds. First, Auernheimer’s conviction on Count 1 must be overturned because visiting a publicly available website is not unauthorized access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C). AT&T chose not to employ passwords or any other protective measures to control access to the e-mail addresses of its customers. It is irrelevant that AT&T subjectively wished that outsiders would not stumble across the data or that Auernheimer hyperbolically characterized the access as a “theft.” The company configured its servers to make the information available to everyone and thereby authorized the general public to view the information. Accessing the e – mail addresses through AT&T’s public website was authorized under the CFAA and therefore was not a crime.

Incredible.

Disclosure: I’m on the EFF Advisory Board, but have no connection to the case other than liking those of the lawyers I know.

Update (7/2/13): Here’s EFF’s official announcement, Appeal Filed to Free Andrew ‘Weev’ Auernheimer.