Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf
Page Number: 28

4 

VAN BUREN v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

and “entitled” to “use such access” to park and retrieve it.
But he is not “entitled” to “use such access” to joyride.  See, 
e.g., Ind. Code §35–43–4–3 (2020) (felonious criminal con-
version to “knowingly or intentionally exer[t] unauthorized 
control over property of another” if “the property is a motor 
vehicle”); In re Clayton, 778 N. E. 2d 404, 405 (Ind. 2002) 
(interpreting this statute to cover misuse of property a per-
son otherwise is entitled to access).  And, to take an exam-
ple closer to this statute, an employee of a car rental com-
pany may be “entitled” to “access a computer” showing the
GPS location history of a rental car and “use such access”
to  locate  the  car  if  it  is  reported  stolen.    But  it  would  be 
unnatural to say he is “entitled” to “use such access” to stalk 
his ex-girlfriend.

The majority offers no real response.  It notes that “enti-
tled” is modified by “so” and that courts must therefore con-
sider whether a person is entitled to use a computer to ob-
tain information.  Ante, at 10.  But if a person is not entitled 
to obtain information at all, it necessarily follows that he
has  no  “right  to  access  the  information  by  using  a  com-
puter.”  Ante, at 9.  Van Buren was not entitled to obtain 
this  information  at  all  because  the  condition  precedent 
needed to trigger an entitlement—a law enforcement pur-
pose—was absent. 

2 
Next, the majority’s reading is at odds with basic princi-
ples of property law.  By now, it is well established that in-
formation  contained  in  a  computer  is  “property.”    Nobody
doubts, for example, that a movie stored on a computer is 
intellectual property.  Federal and state law routinely de-
fine “property” to include computer data.  E.g., 12 U. S. C. 
§5433;  N. Y.  Penal  Law  Ann.  §155.00  (West  2010).    And 
even  the  majority  acknowledges  that  this  statute  is  de-
signed to protect property.  Ante, at 2.  Yet it fails to square
its interpretation with the familiar rule that an entitlement