WASHINGTON — In advance of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed overhauling a federal law used to prosecute hackers. His suggested revision has come under fire from fellow Democrats and tech experts, who said that it would make a bad law worse, discourage cybersecurity researchers from doing their jobs, and expand penalties even for hacktivists like the late Aaron Swartz, who killed himself while under federal indictment.
The president’s measure, which arrived last week after a high-profile cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, aims to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by beefing up penalties for hacking offenses and broadening the definition of hacking.
“There are problems with the CFAA as it is. … What the president’s proposal would do would be to actually broaden the act,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). “It’s the wrong thing to do.”
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The revised CFAA would turn hacking into a racketeering offense, which means it could sweep in those who were simply “giving advice to people,” Wired wrote. It would also allow the government to seize the individuals’ assets before conviction. Lofgren said that it was “bizarre” the proposal would expand civil forfeiture even as the attorney general is moving in the opposite direction in the nondigital world.
“There’s also the concern that the breadth of the proposal could result in politically motivated prosecutions,” Rottman said. “Imagine what the Nixon administration could have accomplished in a digital world with a law that allows you to prosecute dissenting hacktivists with a severe federal felony,” he added.
