O'Brien has acknowledged this is the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case.Rebecca Lonergan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Southern California, has said use of statute, known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, may be open to challenge.Lonergan said the crimes covered by the law involve obtaining information from a computer, not sending messages out to harass… [read post]

O'Brien. [read post]