Senator Targets Anyone Who Messes With School Computers

from the reasons-why-we-need-better-tech-education-for-our-government dept

Here's a good example of why people with no technical knowledge should not be allowed to write legislation that has to do with technology. A New Jersey senator has introduced a bill that makes any unauthorized action that purposely "affects" a school computer a federal crime that you can go to jail for. The term "affect" is a bit broad, and seems like it can cover all sorts of actions that no one deserves to go to prison for (or even get in trouble at all for). For instance, what happens in the situation where someone installs SETI@Home on a school computer? Send 'em to jail for 10 years! There are plenty of quotes from people in the article who seem to agree that this is a terrible bill.

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