Florida country radio morning-show hosts Val St. John and Scott Fish are currently serving indefinite suspensions and possibly worse over a successful April Fools' Day prank. They told their listeners that "dihydrogen monoxide" was coming out of the taps throughout the Fort Myers area.

[A]pparently, the station, the water works, and perhaps the authorities are still trying to figure out if the two hosts could face felony charges for, again, reporting that the scientific name of water was coming out of the pipes. "My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue," Diane Holm, a public information officer for Lee County, told WTSP, while Renda stood firm about his deejays: "They will have to deal with the circumstances."

The law must allow "prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider," -- Richard Downing, Justice Department's deputy computer crime chief

“The DoJ is in no way interested in bringing cases against people who lie about their age on dating sites, or anything of the sort. We don’t have the time or resources to do that,”

The problem is that a lot of routine computer use can exceed "authorized access." Courts are still struggling to interpret this language. But the Justice Department believes that it applies incredibly broadly to include "terms of use" violations and breaches of workplace computer-use policies.

Breaching an agreement or ignoring your boss might be bad. But should it be a federal crime just because it involves a computer? If interpreted this way, the law gives computer owners the power to criminalize any computer use they don't like.

Mitch Glazier, executive vice president of public policy for the RIAA, said the bill is a necessary protective measure as digital technology evolves. The music industry has seen its domestic revenue plunge by more than half in 10 years, from $15 billion to $7 billion, he said.

the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works

• Patrick Leahy
• Orrin Hatch
• Chuck Grassley
• Charles Schumer
• Dianne Feinstein
• Sheldon Whitehouse
• Lindsey Graham
• Herb Kohl
• Chris Coons
• Richard Blumenthal
• Al Franken <-- Updated to include, missed him on the first pass

• Amy Klobuchar
• John Cornyn
• Chris Coons, who has the distinction of sponsoring both dreadful bills

Federal criminal law has two overlapping misdemeanor criminal offenses that prohibit hacking into an e-mail account. The first, 18 U.S.C. 2701, specifically prohibits hacking into an e-mail account stored on an ISP’s server. The second, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2), generally prohibits hacking into any computer, which will always be implicated when a person hacks into an e-mail account. The present overlap is largely a historical accident. When the two sections were enacted, both in 1986, Section 1030’s scope was very narrow. There was little overlap. But Section 1030 has been expanded over time so that it now covers every computer. As a result, 2701 in its current form is redundant: It doesn’t do any work that 1030 doesn’t already do. However, that overlap matters because violations of 2701 and 1030(a)(2) are normally misdemeanors, but Section 1030 contains an enhancement: The crime becomes a felony if it is conducted in furtherance of another crime. The present overlap between 1030 and 2701 raises the prospect that prosecutors might try to use the felony enhancement to engage in a kind of double-counting. Here’s the question: Can DOJ charge hacking into an e-mail account as a felony by claiming that it is a 1030 violation in furtherance of a 2701 violation?

Looking simply at the allegations of Count 2, it does appear that the government charged Cioni with unauthorized access or attempted access to information in [Victim 1]'s e-mail account and sought to elevate that charge to a felony by alleging that the access to [Victim 1]'s e-mail also constituted a violation of § 2701. Moreover, the facts that the government offered into evidence in support of Count 2 confirm this reading. . . . We thus conclude that a merger problem did arise, implicating double jeopardy principles, and that therefore the felony conviction on Count 2 must be vacated, and, as requested by Cioni, the count remanded for entry of a simple misdemeanor conviction, under § 1030(a)(2)(C).

. . . . Count 4, which claims two crimes, one in furtherance of the other, is actually based on Cioni’s single unsuccessful attempt to access [Victim 2]'s AOL electronic e-mail account. Moreover, this is all that the government proved at trial. If the government had proven that Cioni accessed [Victim 2]’s e-mail inbox and then used the information from that inbox to access another person’s electronic communications, no merger problem would have arisen. But the government charged and attempted to prove two crimes using the same conduct of attempting, but failing, to access only [Victim 2]’s e-mail account. This creates a merger problem, implicating double jeopardy principles.

"If you insinuate that you want to have sex with young children in Muskegon County and put that in the Internet, you've got a problem with the law," Tague said.

"As prosecutor of Muskegon County, I feel I have a strong obligation to vigorously defend all the children in our county. To insinuate on a tape that you want to perform perverted acts on children is clearly within the scope of the law with which Mr. Emory is charged."