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The City of Fullerton, California has abandoned a lawsuit against two bloggers and a local website. The suit dangerously sought to expand California’s computer crime law in a way that threatened investigative reporting and everyday internet use.
The city’s lawsuit against the bloggers and the website Friends For Fullerton’s Future alleged, in part, that the bloggers violated the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act because they improperly accessed non-public government records on the city’s file-sharing service that it used to disclose public records. But the settlement agreement between the city and bloggers shows those allegations lacked merit and badly misrepresented the city’s online security practices. It also vindicates the bloggers, who the city targeted for doing basic journalism.
The city’s poor approach to online security was apparent from the start. The city used Dropbox to create a shareable folder, which it called the “Outbox,” that was publicly accessible to anyone who had the link. And evidence in the lawsuit showed that city officials did not enable any of Dropbox’s built-in security features, such as requiring passwords or limiting access to particular individuals, before making the Outbox link publicly accessible.
Then the city widely shared the Outbox URL with members of the public, including the bloggers, when disclosing public records and for other city business. And because there were no restrictions or other controls on the Outbox folder, anyone with the link could access all the files and subfolders it contained, including files city officials claimed should not have been publicly accessible.
The crux of the city’s lawsuit alleged that the bloggers, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, accessed some Outbox subfolders and files “without permission,” in violation of California’s computer crime law, because the individuals did not follow officials’ direct
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Read the original article: Victory! California City Drops Lawsuit Accusing Journalists of Violating Computer Crime Law