]
] 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.

The results of using the legal system in the conventional way
for defence so far have not been encouraging.

I would like to see people (not just Randal) try to think from
a judo perspective, and use this law's over-breadth and vagueness
against it.

Two approaches that I can see are:
(1) Oregon residents use this law to lodge a deluge of complaints
about minor incidents (like someone visiting your web site
without authority, or sending you email without authority)
and see how the legal system copes with that.
(2) Use this law to attack spammers (actually do some good!).
I mean they alter the mail spool on your computer without
your authority, isn't that a felony too? Bonus points if
you get a case against a spammer who makes donations to
Oregon politicans (the spammer might actually lobby the
state legislature to get the law narrowed).

One of the most interesting things to come from this would be
learning how what sort of defences the legal system allows
in other cases. These could provide some useful information
for Randal's case.

If the police/legal system decline to enforce the law when
it is used in this way, I would have thought Randal would be
able to launch legal action which basically says "why aren't
you enforcing the law on them, when you did enforce it on me?"

Especially after the legal system has had some practical
demonstrations of how broadly the law can be interpreted.

In those circumstances, Oregon may find its easier to fix
the law (narrow it) than to deal with all the complaints
about breaking the law, and defend the charge of arbitrary
enforcement of the law.

I am not a lawyer, just a Sys Admin in a foreign country
trying to think outside the box.

__________________________________________________________________________
David Keegel <djk@...> URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management