The Idiot At Twitter Who Deleted Trump’s Account Could Face Federal Hacking Charges

The liberal doorknobs of Twitter were CHEERING when some rogue d-bag decided to be a hero and delete Trump’s twitter account.

While Twitter initially called it “human error” they eventually fessed up to an employee purposely shutting down the Don’s account on his last day.

Hannah and I talked about it … we wondered HOW and WHY a lower-level employee had this kind of access to the president’s account. Surely there must be internal safeguards at a company of this size protecting users from the actions of petty, disgruntled employees?

Can you imagine if instead of deleting it, he would have tweeted something stupid out?

It could have been a disaster.

Well… it looks like this little punk may get what’s coming to him.

Lol owned https://t.co/C4LqXryMq5

— Gab (@getongab) November 4, 2017

According to the above Washington Post article :

Despite some onlookers calling him — or her — a hero, the anonymous Twitter employee who pulled the plug on President Trump’s Twitter account Thursday night before leaving the company may want to lawyer up, according to experts on computer law.

Whether or not Twitter pursues legal action against its former worker, federal officials could be motivated to prosecute — if only to deter future cases, analysts say.

“If I were this employee, I’d be hiring a good criminal defense lawyer who knows something about the CFAA,” said Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University.

The CFAA — short for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — is the federal government’s premiere anti-hacking law. It’s been used, controversially, to go after information activists such as Aaron Swartz as well as the former Reuters journalist Matthew Keys. And it gives the government wide latitude to pursue those who have allegedly accessed a computer “without authorization” or in ways that exceed the level of authorization they’ve been given.

“If this was beyond what the employee was authorized to do, one could argue he ‘exceeded authorized access,’ ” said Chris Calabrese, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. He added: “[That’s] a phrase we’ve critiqued, because it empowers private actors to exercise criminal penalties over what are essentially contractual/civil disputes.”

How much legal risk does Twitter’s former employee really face in light of this law? That depends on a number of factors, chief among them being how difficult Twitter makes it for employees to deactivate user accounts.

Under one theory, the worker may not have violated the CFAA if Twitter’s internal policies on the matter were lax or nonexistent. But the employee could be in much greater jeopardy if Twitter’s policies were much more strict.

“If they have layer after layer of training and passwords and signs on the wall that say, ‘Do not delete accounts without permission or out of spite,’ ” said Ohm, “if they have anything like that, it becomes a much more prosecutable offense.”

HA. Hope it was worth it, dumba$$.