Below is a cross-post with the
Security, Privacy and the Law blog.
Employers increasingly are suing former employees who have left
to join or form competing companies using the civil remedies
available under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
("CFAA"), 18 U.S.C. § 1030. They use the CFAA to
prevent their former employees from using sensitive information
obtained from the former employer's computer system. The scope
of the CFAA, however, is subject to hot debate among the federal
courts, as highlighted by a recent case from the District of
Minnesota.
In Walsh Bishop Associates,
Inc. v. O'Brien, Civil Action No. 11-2673 (DSD/AJB), 2012
WL 669069 (D. Minn. Feb. 28, 2012), the court interpreted a
provision of the CFAA, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C), which
subjects an individual who "intentionally accesses a computer
without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby
obtains information from any protected computer" to civil
liability should the plaintiff meet
