Amicus Brief of Professor Orin S. Kerr in Van Buren v. United States
Orin S. Kerr · SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020
In Van Buren v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the proper scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The petitioner, Van Buren, was a police officer who accessed a sensitive government database for improper purposes despite an imposed rule that the database could be accessed only for law enforcement purposes. The question in the case is whether Van Buren's violating this rule exceeded his authorized access under the CFAA. Professor Kerr's amicus brief offers five points of context in support of reversal.