The suicide of online activist Aaron Swartz might give the United States a wake-up call about its legislation, namely the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFFA) of 1984. The 29-year-old law has been used by the American authorities to hit hackers with draconian court cases over what is supposed to be legal technicalities and misdemeanors.

Under this law, Aaron Swartz faced years in prison and enormous fines for downloading academic articles from a private database of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Swartz’s defense was handicapped by bullying prosecutors who threatened to use the full force of legislation which could put people in jail for lying about their real identity on Facebook and remove files from their work laptop before they quit.

The case of the American Attorney was based on the CFAA legislation. However, many legal experts contend that the latter has been amended so many times that some parts of it no longer make sense. For instance, the penalties for minor cyber offences exceed those for more serious crimes.

The industry observers claim that so much has changed and become more complicated, while the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has kept Frankenstein-ing. The others pointed out that the US Attorney followed the dodgy legislation too closely in bringing charges against Aaron. For instance, courts across the United States are split about what constitutes unauthorized access, which would be very important in a hacking case.

Despite this, American prosecutors have already bought almost 300 federal criminal cases under this law and related computer fraud laws within the last three years. For instance, an individual was charged because of deleting files from his corporate laptop after he was fired, as well as the one who set up a fake Facebook account. Some of the defendants face millions of dollars in fines and long jail sentences.

Nevertheless, it isn’t only the government prosecutors who follow the nebulous legislation. Aside from the above mentioned cases, there have been over 300 civil lawsuits brought in during private disputes which referred to the CFAA and related laws. Consumer outfits claim that prosecutors just take advantage of the vague terms in order to add huge penalties to lesser cases.