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''United States v. Nosal'' is a ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which holds that employees can not be criminally prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for violating their employer’s computer use policies. In particular, the ruling establishes that employees have not "exceeded authorization" for the purposes of the CFAA if they access a computer in a manner that violates the company's computer use policies— if they are authorized to access the computer and do not circumvent any protection mechanisms. On April 24, 2013, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag announced that Nosal was convicted by a federal jury of all charges contained in a six-count indictment.〔"(Executive Recruiter David Nosal Convicted of Computer Intrusion and Trade Secret Charges )." ((Archive )) Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved on June 19, 2013.〕 The defense announced that it intended to appeal this decision too, making the Ninth Circuit, address the scope of the CFAA yet again.〔(Guilty Verdict In Critical Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Trial )〕 ==Background== In October 2004, David Nosal resigned from his position at Korn/Ferry, an executive search and recruiting company. As part of his separation agreement, Nosal agreed to serve as an independent contractor for Korn/Ferry and not to compete with them for one year; in exchange, Korn/Ferry agreed to compensate Nosal with two lump-sum payments and twelve monthly payments of $25,000.〔 A few months after leaving Korn/Ferry, Nosal solicited three Korn/Ferry employees to help him start a competing executive search business. Before leaving the company, the employees downloaded a large volume of "highly confidential and proprietary" data from Korn/Ferry's computers, including source lists, names, and contact information for executives.〔 On June 26, 2008, Nosal and the three employees were indicted by the federal government on twenty counts of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The government alleged that the defendants "knowingly and with intent to defraud" exceeded authorized access to Korn/Ferry's computers. Nosal appealed the indictment, claiming that the CFAA was "aimed primarily at computer hackers" and that it "does not cover employees who misappropriate information or who violate contractual confidentiality agreements".〔 Nosal further argued that the employees were, in principal, permitted to access the information in their role as Korn/Ferry employees, and thus they did not "act without authorization" or "exceed authorized access" as written in Section (a)(4) of the CFAA.〔 After initially rejecting these arguments, the district court eventually agreed with Nosal and dismissed the five counts of the indictment arising from Section (a)(4).〔 The government appealed this decision, arguing that Nosal and his accomplices did indeed exceed authorized access because they violated the company's computer access policies, which restricted the "use and disclosure of all () information, except for legitimate Korn/Ferry business". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States v. Nosal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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