Tag Archive for: supreme

Cell phone in prison not an automatic security risk, rules state Supreme Court

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An inmate can’t automatically be designated a security risk for possessing an illegal mobile phone. That ruling was released Friday by the Michigan Supreme Court.

A Michigan Department of Corrections policy says phones, like guns and drugs, pose a threat to security in a facility. That’s why Hamin Dixon, an inmate at the Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, had security points added to his record after he was found in a bathroom with a mobile phone, after a search of his cell also turned up a phone charger, and after he pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a cell phone.

That matters because those points help determine security levels and privileges for inmates.

But the Supreme Court, in a closely divided decision, said phones don’t pose the same threat as guns or drugs, and can be used for purposes that don’t pose a security threat.

“A hypothetical threat isn’t enough,” wrote Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack in the majority opinion. Also:

“For example, someone who was not authorized to possess a gun in prison, but was found in possession of one, would threaten the security of a prison through possession alone. But determining whether possession of a cell phone threatens the security of a prison requires an assessment of the accused’s conduct beyond the possession itself because, unlike a gun, a cell phone has many nonthreatening uses.”

Justice David Viviano wrote a dissent:

“Common sense and the overwhelming consensus of legal authorities tell us that prisoners who possess cell phones within the prison walls pose an obvious danger to prison staff and other prisoners, whether or not the phone has been used or is being used at the precise moment of discovery to commit a new crime.”

The Supreme Court decision overturns a Court of Appeals opinion. The high court decision requires Dixon to be re-sentenced.

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Kapil Sibal Tells Supreme Court

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In the Pegasus issue, the petitioners on Monday did not take kindly to the Centre telling the Supreme Court that it has nothing more to say than what has been said in its first and only affidavit (described as “limited” by the court)- that it does not deem it appropriate to state whether any particular software was employed or not, that there has been no illegal interception, and that it is willing to quell the concerns of the petitioners by constituting an expert inquiry committee.

The following are the arguments by the battery of senior advocates for the petitioners before the bench of Chief Justice N. V. Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli.

The CJ had told the senior advocates to keep in mind that the proceedings are at an interim stage at present- “You have placed some material before us. We have given enough opportunity to the government to make some statement. They are saying- for whatever reason, I don’t want to make any comment on that- that they don’t want to file an affidavit. We have no option now but to pass whatever order we have to pass. We thought if the government will file some counter-affidavit, how to go further would depend on that. Now we will consider what are the interim orders that we will have to pass”

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, for N. Ram, former Editor of The Hindu, and Sashi Kumar, Chairperson of the Asian College of Journalism

Beginning, Mr. Sibal indicated the observations of the Supreme Court in the 2011 case of Ram Jethmalani v. UOI, where the court had noted that the burden of protection of fundamental rights is primarily the duty of the State, and hence, withholding of information from the petitioners, or seeking to cast the relevant events and facts in a light favourable to the State in the context of judicial proceedings, would be destructive to the guarantee in Article 32, and the State has the duty to reveal all the facts and information in its possession to the Court, and also provide the same to the petitioners.

“This is their duty, My Lords. They cannot say that I will not tell anything! What is happening today is that the government and the State are now telling you that we will not tell you the facts. It is its bounden duty! All…

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Indra hacking group blamed for attack on Iranian railway system that trolled country’s supreme leader • Graham Cluley

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Indra hacking group blamed for attack on Iranian railway system that trolled country's supreme leader

On 9 July, Iran’s railroad system came under attack from hackers.

The attackers posted messages on station departure boards warning of “long delay[s] because of cyberattack”, and suggesting inconvenienced passengers call “64411” for more information.

64411 is reportedly the telephone number of the office of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.

The following day, Iran’s transport ministry said that its computer systems and website had suffered “widespread disruption…probably due to a cyberattack.”

An analysis by experts at Sentinel One pointed the finger of blame towards MeteorExpress (also known as Meteor), a previously unseen type of wiper malware that wiped computer file systems and locked out users.

Inevitably, Iran wasn’t terribly pleased about having its systems attacked by the hackers, and there have been reports that a subsequent drone attack by Iran against an Israeli-operated oil tanker, which resulted in the death of two crew members, might have been launched in a tit-for-tat response to the cyber attack.

However, an investigation by security researchers at Check Point has concluded that the attack was the work of a hacking gang called Indra that works against the Tehran regime, rather than an attack sponsored by a nation state such as Israel.

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Was it Israel? Was it Indra? Was it Indra working under the orders of Israel?

It’s hard to be certain.

But whoever was responsible for the attack on Iran’s train system which trolled the country’s supreme leader should probably consider that it’s no laughing matter, and that things could very quickly and seriously escalate.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter to read more of the exclusive content we post.

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Supreme Limits The Scope Of Computer Fraud And Abuse Act – Technology

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United States:

Supreme Limits The Scope Of Computer Fraud And Abuse Act

21 June 2021


Ballard Spahr LLP


To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

In a long awaited opinion, the Supreme Court recently resolved a
circuit split regarding the proper interpretation of a statute
implicated in many post-employment disputes. Since its enactment,
federal courts of appeal have been divided over the proper
interpretation of the phrase “exceeds authorized access”
under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), a
primarily criminal statute that also includes a civil cause of
action where an individual accesses a protected computer without
authorization or exceeds authorized access. Some courts have held
that the “exceeds authorized access” requirement only
applies where the individual was authorized to access the computer
itself but not the particular files or information that are the
subject of the dispute.Conversely, the
majority of federal appellate courts have interpreted the phrase to
mean that an individual exceeds authorized access where they are
permitted to access the files or information but only for specified
purposes, typically business purposes. For example, many employers
have instituted computer usage policies that limit an
employee’s authorized access to company documents for the
purpose of performing their employment duties. As a result, a
common CFAA fact pattern involves a so-called disloyal employee
exceeding their authorized access by…

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