Computer Fraud And Abuse Act (CFAA) Of 1986

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1986 is a foundational piece of legislation that has shaped computer crime laws for the United States. It was spawned from Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Section 1030 that established three new federal crimes to address computer crimes. According to Sam Taterka, “Congress tailored the statute to three specific government interests: national security, financial records, and government property” (Taterka, 2016). The statue was criticized for the narrow range of issues it covered and vague language.

In response, Congress expanded the statue in 1986 by passing Pub. L. No. 99-474. The expansion included thee new prohibitions “Section 1030(a)(4) prohibits unauthorized access to a computer with

Circuit Courts are divided if “unauthorized use” and “exceed use” can be applied using CFAA. Clearly the former employee stole information but when they accessed the information they were still employed by that employer. Where they “unauthorized”? The Circuit Courts that follow a narrow definition of CFAA are concerned “that a broad interpretation of the CFAA would mean that routine violations of employer computer use policies, such as "g-chatting with friends, playing games, shopping or watching sports highlights," could be transformed into potential criminal violations. The court therefore concluded that "exceeds authorized access" in the CFAA was "limited to violations of restrictions on access to information, and not restrictions on its use" (Dial, Moye, & Townsend, 2013). Whereas, if an employee that has access to network and uploads malware, which is a technique used by hackers, the CFAA would

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was drafted to encourage and protect whistleblowers from retaliation after the fraud scandal that cause the collapse of Enron in 2001. In a 2010 Senate Report found that “external auditors detected only 4.1 percent of uncovered fraud schemes, “whistleblower tips detected 54.1% of uncovered fraud schemes in public companies” and were thirteen times more effective than external audits” (Turpan, 2016). Whistleblowers serve an important service to the public and are more effective than external audits. The CFAA has been used to by employers to retaliate against employees who act as informants for agencies like Internal Revenue Service or Security Exchange Commission to expose fraud. There employees, not to their financial gain, gather information as evidence of fraud by the company. With a broad interpretation of CFAA, the employee would "exceed their authority" and was "unauthorized" to access the information, therefore allowing the company to hide their illegal