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12 

VAN BUREN v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

computer system,” such as files, folders, or databases.6  It is 
thus  consistent  with  that  meaning  to  equate  “exceed[ing] 
authorized access” with the act of entering a part of the sys-
tem to which a computer user lacks access privileges.7  The 
Government and the dissent’s broader interpretation is nei-
ther the only possible nor even necessarily the most natural 
one. 

B 
While the statute’s language “spells trouble” for the Gov-
ernment’s position, a “wider look at the statute’s structure 
gives  us  even  more  reason  for  pause.”    Romag  Fasteners, 
Inc. v. Fossil Group, Inc., 590 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (slip 
op., at 2–3).

The  interplay  between  the  “without  authorization”  and
“exceeds  authorized  access”  clauses  of  subsection  (a)(2)  is 
particularly  probative.   Those  clauses  specify two  distinct 

—————— 

6 1 Oxford English Dictionary 72 (2d ed. 1989) (“[t]o gain access to . . . 
data, etc., held in a computer or computer-based system, or the system 
itself ”); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 11 (2d ed.
1987) (“Computers. to locate (data) for transfer from one part of a com-
puter system to another . . . ”); see also C. Sippl & R. Sippl, Computer
Dictionary and Handbook 2 (3d ed. 1980) (“[c]oncerns the process of ob-
taining  data  from  or  placing  data  in  storage”);  Barnhart  Dictionary  of 
New English 2 (3d ed. 1990) (“to retrieve (data) from a computer storage
unit  or  device  . . .  ”);  Microsoft  Computer  Dictionary  12  (4th  ed.  1999)
(“[t]o gain entry to memory in order to read or write data”); A Dictionary
of Computing 5 (6th ed. 2008) (“[t]o gain entry to data, a computer sys-
tem, etc.”). 

7 The dissent makes the odd charge that our interpretation violates the 
“ ‘presumption  against’ ”  reading  a  provision  “contrary  to  the  ordinary
meaning of the term it defines.”  Post, at 9.  But when a statute, like this 
one, is “addressing a . . . technical subject, a specialized meaning is to be 
expected.”  Scalia, Reading Law, at 73.  Consistent with that principle,
our interpretation tracks the specialized meaning of “access” in the com-
puter context.  This reading is far from “ ‘repugnant to’ ” the meaning of 
the phrase “exceeds authorized access,” post, at 9—unlike, say, a defini-
tional  provision  directing  that  “ ‘the  word  dog  is  deemed  to  include  all 
horses.’ ”  Scalia, supra, at 232, n. 29.