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Comment by Delenda | Hacker News Reader

So many people seem to miss this point! Regular meatspace trespassing already has laws surrounding it. Laws that don't destroy your life. Step back into a store you're banned from in disguise and get caught? You're not faced with losing your ability to vote, no chances to acquire work, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, decades of jail time, etc. Felony charges ruin lives, and shouldn't be just lightly sprinkled into otherwise mundane cases like these.

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I think you are stretching things a bit. Having a felony record is not the death sentence you make it out to be. Felony Disenfranchisement[1] (aka "losing voting rights") isn't really that much of a thing anymore (at least in the US). Outside of the banking industry, lots and lots of places don't care too much about a felony anymore. Some of them don't even ask you to divulge that info if it was x-years ago. And as far as hundreds of millions of dollars in debt... that would depend entirely on what sort of restitution you need to pay and how much your lawyer charges... but hundreds of millions of dollars is extremely high.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#Unite...

I'd assume that's one of the benefits of the "3 felonies a day"[1] mindset is that if everyone has a conviction for something, it loses its stigma.

IMHO it rightfully should. Considering you can get felony sex offender (a double whammy) status for taking a leak in a dark alley, the word needs to lose all connotation that it means anything beyond "actions a bureaucrat, not necessarily a reasonable person, really doesn't like for whatever reason".

[1] http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

While I agree that the CFAA is hugely problematic, regular meatspace trespassing does not carry with it the ability to replicate the property being trespassed down to the atomic level. Digital trespassing, well... does.

Point being that there are differences and pretending they don't exist doesn't help anyone. The metaphor is extremely useful, but it's a start for understanding and usefully engaging, not the end.

There is in fact such a thing as felony trespassing. I suggest you consult Google before firing off legal opinions.

You're not faced with losing your ability to vote, no chances to acquire work, hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, decades of jail time, etc.

You know anything involving a jail sentence of over a year is a felony, right? You seem to think felony crimes all carry a life sentence or somesuch.

You know anything involving a jail sentence of over a year is a felony, right?

Actually, I did NOT know that... part of me thought it couldn't be right. But here you go: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3559 Thanks.

>There is in fact such a thing as felony trespassing.

There is in fact no such thing as non-felony computer trespassing. Which was kind of my point, your snark aside.

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