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Comment by PeterisP | Hacker News Reader

It's not being talked about because there's no evidence of "new CFAA interpretation" until the court says something like that. It's very common for parties to try and argue all kinds of extreme interpretations of law that might favor their case, with the expectation that it most likely will be refused but hey, it's worth to try; but they are not newsworthy until/unless the court actually considers the argument as valid.

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This is like when Oracle argued that APIs can be copyrighted. Nobody was scared until the CAFC agreed.

> This is like when Oracle argued that APIs can be copyrighted. Nobody was scared until the CAFC agreed.

Which is the appropriate time to get scared. If you took half seriously the bogus theories that are floated in legal complaints, even restricting one to those penned by reputable lawyers, you'd swiftly conclude your car is a hippopotamus.

Ours courts are adversarial. Both sides are trying novel arguments. Through this, the law is actually strengthened--the court dismissing the argument leaves a precedent where, previously, there may not have been one.

So only after it’s precedent and harder to undo then does it matter?

This is basically saying there’s no point in testing software, ship every line to prod and see what happens.

This is exactly the kind of political ennui the system purposely tries to inculcate. Not fine grain mind control, but indifference.

Laws dictate acceptable social agency. One might think we’d take what ends up in them at least as seriously as rich man’s busy work.

It would be appropriate to start such a discussion once a single court ever has accepted such an argument and it gets appealed and starts a years-long process where it might become precedent for some wider area; it would be absolutely ridiculous to consider every theory put forth by a litigating lawyer as worth of a public discussion - I mean, there are so many of them and usually the judges shoot many of them down without a discussion because it's not worth a discussion even for the people it directly affects, much less general public.

What do you think will happen if you start campaigning against a certain interpretation of the law now?

The court will still decide based on what is actually written down.

If it needs to be changed that has to come from the politicians.

Trial courts do not set precedent. The only way precedent will get set is if this arguement is taken up on appeal.

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