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Article: Employee Mobility Alert: Ends Versus Means: Courts Vary In Their Interpretation Of Employee Liability Under The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act.
- Article from:
- Mondaq Business Briefing
- Article date:
- October 28, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Mondaq Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The federal courts are currently split on the question of whether an employee can be held civilly liable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for misappropriating confidential company information that the employee is permitted to access within the scope of his or her employment. The CFAA, 18 U.S.C. s. 1030 et seq., is primarily a criminal statute but provides for a private cause of action against a person who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains...information from any protected computer." 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2). Recently, the Ninth Circuit, in LVRC Holdings LLC v. Brekka, et. al., joined a ...