Worse, such laws are by no means exceptional. Massachusetts is an exception, partly because Governor William Weld, in a move hailed by the geek community, sought the advice of Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties watchdog that guards privacy and freedom of expression in the electronic world. With the help of Kapor, Massachusetts passed the Computer Crime Bill of 1994, which has been widely cited as a model of good sense. It is considerably less broad than the Oregon statute, but it is far from perfect. Schwartz might have run into similar trouble on the second part of the statute, too, if circumstances had been different.
Many companies rely on computer-service specialists to handle their information system.
The point is not that Big Brother is lurking, although the Schwartz case has its Orwellian flavor. Rather, our society is having trouble with the legal implications of the omnipresent beige boxes in our lives. Because of the potential for misuse, society naturally has an interest in ensuring that access is controlled. But because of the very ubiquity of computers, laws concerning their use spill over into the most unexpected aspects of life. Conceivably, broad interpretations of computer-crime laws could lead to the criminalization of much ordinary behavior.