[I posted this on comp.org.eff.talk and misc.legal.computing a moment
ago, so my apologies if you see it twice.]

[and darn it, it got swallowed by sending it to the wrong address,
so now it's even more timely... please give me input no later than
friday!]

I've been the defendant in an ongoing criminal case since the end of
1993, regarding my system administration activities while employed as
a contractor at Intel. The public details of this case are published
at the "Friends of Randal Schwartz" web site at
<http://www.lightlink.com/fors/>.

The State of Oregon Appeals court gave no consideration to what we
believe is a bad law (more on that in a minute) and the Oregon Supreme
Court recently chose not to hear the case at all. I'm looking at
options regarding a federal appeal. I believe a federal review will
give the law itself the examination to determine why a law that makes
everyday activities an indefensible felony should be allowed to remain
on the state books, not just in Oregon, but any similar law as well.

/// sidebar - why I believe the law is flawed

Put simply, the Oregon law makes any "unauthorized" "alteration"
of a "computer" a class C felony, punishable by up to $100K in
fines, plus restitution if any, plus up to five years in jail.
"computer" is basically everything with electrons in it these
days, and "unauthorized" and "alter" are not defined in the law,
leaving it to the interpretation of a lay jury and the court
system. The problem with this is that the line is not objective.

In fact, in my case, one of my three felonies involved activities
which at the time were resolved simply by a conversation to clear
up my confusion (but no further action) six months before my
termination, and yet later resulted in a convicted felony. The
chalk lines were moved underneath me, from "this is bad but
doesn't warrant early contract termination or other penalty" to
"this is a felony", simply by fiat.

Imagine your boss getting angry at you, and going off to Telecom
to see what phone numbers you dialed with your company cell phone
or desk phone during the past three months. You made 38 "personal
calls", when the company policy is "no personal calls with your
desk or cell phone". That's 38 felonies under this law! If
"three strikes, you're out" what does 38 strikes get you?

Thus, I have argued in court that the law is flawed... it's
overbroad (making illegal everyday activites) and vague (a person
of reasonable intelligence cannot determine whether or not they
are within the law through a reasoned reading). Thing is, this
isn't just written like this in Oregon... there are many states
with similarly worded laws.

\\\ end sidebar

Now, my question to y'all is:

Given the current political climate, does it make any sense for me to
spend the time and energy to pursue a federal appeal? Or will we have
to wait for another "$state vs $random_IT_professional" case at a
later time to get this fixed once and for all? My personal and
business life has already been wrecked by the choices I made in 1993
while unaware of the legal climate... so this isn't about me. It's
about y'all. I'll fight the good fight, if there's even a chance of
winning.

I need to make a timely decision. Deadlines are looming.

If you want to discuss this on my mailing list, see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fors-discuss for signup instructions and
archives. I'll also be watching the responses here.

Thank you.

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@...> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!