After Aaron Swartz committed suicide several politicians claimed they would make an effort to reduce the penalties of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was the law being used to nail Swartz to the wall. I’m not surprised to find out that the politicians are planning on doing the exact opposite of what they promised:
So, you know all that talk about things like Aaron’s Law and how Congress needs to fix the CFAA? Apparently, the House Judiciary Committee has decided to raise a giant middle finger to folks who are concerned about abuses of the CFAA. Over the weekend, they began circulating a “draft” of a “cyber-security” bill that is so bad that it almost feels like the Judiciary Committee is doing it on purpose as a dig at online activists who have fought back against things like SOPA, CISPA and the CFAA. Rather than fix the CFAA, it expands it. Rather than rein in the worst parts of the bill, it makes them worse. And, from what we’ve heard, the goal is to try to push this through quickly, with a big effort underway for a “cyberweek” in the middle of April that will force through a bunch of related bills. You can see the draft of the bill here (or embedded below. Let’s go through some of the pieces.
Exploiting the dead to push an agenda is nothing unusual for statists, in fact it’s their standard mode of operation. It’s unfortunate that this is the outcome of Swartz’s death, but we need not worry for there are solutions to state’s encroachment on the Internet.