“A federal appeals court on Friday unanimously threw out the conviction of an Arkansas man for stealing the personal data of about 120,000 Apple iPad users, including big-city mayors, a TV news anchor and a Hollywood movie mogul,” Jonathan Stempel reports for Reuters. “The reason: Prosecutors brought the case in the wrong state.”
“The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the prosecution of Andrew Auernheimer did not belong in New Jersey, hundreds of miles from his alleged crimes, and as a result, his November 2012 conviction and 41-month prison sentence could not stand,” Stempel reports. “Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Michael Chagares also admonished prosecutors that the Internet’s ‘ever-increasing ubiquity’ did not give the government carte blanche to prosecute cybercrime wherever it wishes.”
“‘The court merely determined that the Department of Justice brought this case in the wrong state, and we are reviewing our options,’ said Matthew Reilly, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey, who handled the prosecution. Auernheimer, 28, has been serving his sentence at a prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, federal records show,” Stempel reports. “Prosecutors said Auernheimer used an ‘account slurper'” to extract data about iPad users from AT&T servers, and then shared information with a reporter for the website Gawker who wrote an article naming some well-known people with compromised emails. Among those affected were ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein.”
Read more in the full article here.
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U.S. investigators set to press criminal charges over theft of AT&T iPad users’ personal info – January 18, 2011
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