United States v. Nosal

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 10-10038
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
v.  3:08-cr-00237-
DAVID NOSAL, MHP-1
Defendant-Appellee.
 OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Marilyn H. Patel, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted
December 15, 2011—San Francisco, California

Filed April 10, 2012

Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Harry Pregerson,
Barry G. Silverman, M. Margaret McKeown,
Kim McLane Wardlaw, Ronald M. Gould, Richard A. Paez,
Richard C. Tallman, Richard R. Clifton, Jay S. Bybee and
Mary H. Murguia, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Chief Judge Kozinski;
Dissent by Judge Silverman

3855
3858 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
COUNSEL

Jenny C. Ellickson (argued), Lanny A. Breuer, Jaikumar
Ramaswamy, Scott N. Schools, Kyle Francis Waldinger,
United States Department of Justice, San Francisco, Califor-
nia, for the plaintiff-appellant.

Ted Sampsell Jones (argued), Dennis P. Riordan, Donald M.
Horgan, Riordan & Horgan, San Francisco, California, for the
defendant-appellee.

Kathryn M. Davis, Law Office of Kathryn M. Davis, Pasa-
dena, California, filed a brief on behalf of amicus curiae En
Pointe Technologies, Inc., in support of the plaintiff-
appellant.

Geoffrey M. Howard, David B. Salmons, Bryan M. Killian,
Bingham McCutchen, LLP, San Francisco, California, filed a
brief on behalf of amicus curiae Oracle America Inc., in sup-
port of the plaintiff-appellant.

Kenneth M. Stern, Law Offices of Kenneth M. Stern, Wood-
land Hills, California, filed a brief in support of the plaintiff-
appellant.

Marcia Hofmann, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Fran-
cisco, California, filed a brief on behalf of amicus curiae Elec-
tronic Frontier Foundation in support of the defendant-
appellee.

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Chief Judge:

Computers have become an indispensable part of our daily
lives. We use them for work; we use them for play. Some-
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3859
times we use them for play at work. Many employers have
adopted policies prohibiting the use of work computers for
nonbusiness purposes. Does an employee who violates such
a policy commit a federal crime? How about someone who
violates the terms of service of a social networking website?
This depends on how broadly we read the Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

FACTS

David Nosal used to work for Korn/Ferry, an executive
search firm. Shortly after he left the company, he convinced
some of his former colleagues who were still working for
Korn/Ferry to help him start a competing business. The
employees used their log-in credentials to download source
lists, names and contact information from a confidential data-
base on the company’s computer, and then transferred that
information to Nosal. The employees were authorized to
access the database, but Korn/Ferry had a policy that forbade
disclosing confidential information.1 The government indicted
Nosal on twenty counts, including trade secret theft, mail
fraud, conspiracy and violations of the CFAA. The CFAA
counts charged Nosal with violations of 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(a)(4), for aiding and abetting the Korn/Ferry employ-
ees in “exceed[ing their] authorized access” with intent to
defraud.

Nosal filed a motion to dismiss the CFAA counts, arguing
that the statute targets only hackers, not individuals who
access a computer with authorization but then misuse infor-
mation they obtain by means of such access. The district court
initially rejected Nosal’s argument, holding that when a per-
son accesses a computer “knowingly and with the intent to
defraud . . . [it] renders the access unauthorized or in excess
1
The opening screen of the database also included the warning: “This
product is intended to be used by Korn/Ferry employees for work on
Korn/Ferry business only.”
3860 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
of authorization.” Shortly afterwards, however, we decided
LVRC Holdings LLC v. Brekka, 581 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir.
2009), which construed narrowly the phrases “without autho-
rization” and “exceeds authorized access” in the CFAA.
Nosal filed a motion for reconsideration and a second motion
to dismiss.

The district court reversed field and followed Brekka’s
guidance that “[t]here is simply no way to read [the definition
of ‘exceeds authorized access’] to incorporate corporate poli-
cies governing use of information unless the word alter is
interpreted to mean misappropriate,” as “[s]uch an interpreta-
tion would defy the plain meaning of the word alter, as well
as common sense.” Accordingly, the district court dismissed
counts 2 and 4-7 for failure to state an offense. The govern-
ment appeals. We have jurisdiction over this interlocutory
appeal. 18 U.S.C. § 3731; United States v. Russell, 804 F.2d
571, 573 (9th Cir. 1986). We review de novo. United States
v. Boren, 278 F.3d 911, 913 (9th Cir. 2002).

DISCUSSION

[1] The CFAA defines “exceeds authorized access” as “to
access a computer with authorization and to use such access
to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser
is not entitled so to obtain or alter.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(6).
This language can be read either of two ways: First, as Nosal
suggests and the district court held, it could refer to someone
who’s authorized to access only certain data or files but
accesses unauthorized data or files—what is colloquially
known as “hacking.” For example, assume an employee is
permitted to access only product information on the compa-
ny’s computer but accesses customer data: He would “ex-
ceed[ ] authorized access” if he looks at the customer lists.
Second, as the government proposes, the language could refer
to someone who has unrestricted physical access to a com-
puter, but is limited in the use to which he can put the infor-
mation. For example, an employee may be authorized to
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3861
access customer lists in order to do his job but not to send
them to a competitor.

[2] The government argues that the statutory text can sup-
port only the latter interpretation of “exceeds authorized
access.” In its opening brief, it focuses on the word “entitled”
in the phrase an “accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter.”
Id. § 1030(e)(6) (emphasis added). Pointing to one dictionary
definition of “entitle” as “to furnish with a right,” Webster’s
New Riverside University Dictionary 435, the government
argues that Korn/Ferry’s computer use policy gives employ-
ees certain rights, and when the employees violated that pol-
icy, they “exceed[ed] authorized access.” But “entitled” in the
statutory text refers to how an accesser “obtain[s] or alter[s]”
the information, whereas the computer use policy uses “enti-
tled” to limit how the information is used after it is obtained.
This is a poor fit with the statutory language. An equally or
more sensible reading of “entitled” is as a synonym for “autho-
rized.”2 So read, “exceeds authorized access” would refer to
data or files on a computer that one is not authorized to
access.

In its reply brief and at oral argument, the government
focuses on the word “so” in the same phrase. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(e)(6) (“accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter”
(emphasis added)). The government reads “so” to mean “in
that manner,” which it claims must refer to use restrictions. In
the government’s view, reading the definition narrowly would
render “so” superfluous.

The government’s interpretation would transform the
CFAA from an anti-hacking statute into an expansive misap-
propriation statute. This places a great deal of weight on a
2
Fowler’s offers these as usage examples: “Everyone is entitled to an
opinion” and “We are entitled to make personal choices.” “Fowler’s Mod-
ern English Usage: Entitled,” Answers.com, http://www.answers.com/
topic/entitle (last visited Mar. 5, 2012).
3862 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
two-letter word that is essentially a conjunction. If Congress
meant to expand the scope of criminal liability to everyone
who uses a computer in violation of computer use restrictions
—which may well include everyone who uses a computer—
we would expect it to use language better suited to that purpose.3
Under the presumption that Congress acts interstitially, we
construe a statute as displacing a substantial portion of the
common law only where Congress has clearly indicated its
intent to do so. See Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 858
(2000) (“[U]nless Congress conveys its purpose clearly, it
will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-
state balance in the prosecution of crimes.” (internal quotation
marks omitted)).

In any event, the government’s “so” argument doesn’t work
because the word has meaning even if it doesn’t refer to use
restrictions. Suppose an employer keeps certain information
in a separate database that can be viewed on a computer
screen, but not copied or downloaded. If an employee circum-
vents the security measures, copies the information to a thumb
drive and walks out of the building with it in his pocket, he
would then have obtained access to information in the com-
puter that he is not “entitled so to obtain.” Or, let’s say an
employee is given full access to the information, provided he
logs in with his username and password. In an effort to cover
his tracks, he uses another employee’s login to copy informa-
tion from the database. Once again, this would be an
employee who is authorized to access the information but
does so in a manner he was not authorized “so to obtain.” Of
course, this all assumes that “so” must have a substantive
3
Congress did just that in the federal trade secrets statute—18 U.S.C.
§ 1832—where it used the common law terms for misappropriation,
including “with intent to convert,” “steals,” “appropriates” and “takes.”
See 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a). The government also charged Nosal with violat-
ing 18 U.S.C. § 1832, and those charges remain pending.
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3863
meaning to make sense of the statute. But Congress could just
as well have included “so” as a connector or for emphasis.4

While the CFAA is susceptible to the government’s broad
interpretation, we find Nosal’s narrower one more plausible.
Congress enacted the CFAA in 1984 primarily to address the
growing problem of computer hacking, recognizing that, “[i]n
intentionally trespassing into someone else’s computer files,
the offender obtains at the very least information as to how to
break into that computer system.” S. Rep. No. 99-432, at 9
(1986) (Conf. Rep.). The government agrees that the CFAA
was concerned with hacking, which is why it also prohibits
accessing a computer “without authorization.” According to
the government, that prohibition applies to hackers, so the
“exceeds authorized access” prohibition must apply to people
who are authorized to use the computer, but do so for an
unauthorized purpose. But it is possible to read both prohibi-
tions as applying to hackers: “[W]ithout authorization” would
apply to outside hackers (individuals who have no authorized
access to the computer at all) and “exceeds authorized access”
would apply to inside hackers (individuals whose initial
access to a computer is authorized but who access unautho-
rized information or files). This is a perfectly plausible con-
struction of the statutory language that maintains the CFAA’s
focus on hacking rather than turning it into a sweeping
Internet-policing mandate.5
4
The government fails to acknowledge that its own construction of “ex-
ceeds authorized access” suffers from the same flaw of superfluity by ren-
dering an entire element of subsection 1030(a)(4) meaningless. Subsection
1030(a)(4) requires a person to (1) knowingly and (2) with intent to
defraud (3) access a protected computer (4) without authorization or
exceeding authorized access (5) in order to further the intended fraud. See
18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4). Using a computer to defraud the company neces-
sarily contravenes company policy. Therefore, if someone accesses a com-
puter with intent to defraud—satisfying elements (2) and (3)—he would
invariably satisfy (4) under the government’s definition.
5
Although the legislative history of the CFAA discusses this anti-
hacking purpose, and says nothing about exceeding authorized use of
3864 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
The government’s construction of the statute would expand
its scope far beyond computer hacking to criminalize any
unauthorized use of information obtained from a computer.
This would make criminals of large groups of people who
would have little reason to suspect they are committing a fed-
eral crime. While ignorance of the law is no excuse, we can
properly be skeptical as to whether Congress, in 1984, meant
to criminalize conduct beyond that which is inherently wrong-
ful, such as breaking into a computer.

[3] The government argues that defendants here did have
notice that their conduct was wrongful by the fraud and mate-
riality requirements in subsection 1030(a)(4), which punishes
whoever:

knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses a
protected computer without authorization, or exceeds
authorized access, and by means of such conduct
furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of
value, unless the object of the fraud and the thing
obtained consists only of the use of the computer and
the value of such use is not more than $5,000 in any
1-year period.

information, the government claims that the legislative history supports its
interpretation. It points to an earlier version of the statute, which defined
“exceeds authorized access” as “having accessed a computer with authori-
zation, uses the opportunity such access provides for purposes to which
such authorization does not extend.” Pub. L. No. 99-474, § 2(c), 100 Stat.
1213 (1986). But that language was removed and replaced by the current
phrase and definition. And Senators Mathias and Leahy—members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee—explained that the purpose of replacing the
original broader language was to “remove[ ] from the sweep of the statute
one of the murkier grounds of liability, under which a[n] . . . employee’s
access to computerized data might be legitimate in some circumstances,
but criminal in other (not clearly distinguishable) circumstances.” S. Rep.
No. 99-432, at 21. Were there any need to rely on legislative history, it
would seem to support Nosal’s position rather than the government’s.
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3865
18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4). But “exceeds authorized access” is
used elsewhere in the CFAA as a basis for criminal culpabil-
ity without intent to defraud. Subsection 1030(a)(2)(C)
requires only that the person who “exceeds authorized access”
have “obtain[ed] . . . information from any protected comput-
er.” Because “protected computer” is defined as a computer
affected by or involved in interstate commerce—effectively
all computers with Internet access—the government’s inter-
pretation of “exceeds authorized access” makes every viola-
tion of a private computer use policy a federal crime. See id.
§ 1030(e)(2)(B).

[4] The government argues that our ruling today would
construe “exceeds authorized access” only in subsection
1030(a)(4), and we could give the phrase a narrower meaning
when we construe other subsections. This is just not so: Once
we define the phrase for the purpose of subsection 1030(a)(4),
that definition must apply equally to the rest of the statute
pursuant to the “standard principle of statutory construction
. . . that identical words and phrases within the same statute
should normally be given the same meaning.” Powerex Corp.
v. Reliant Energy Servs., Inc., 551 U.S. 224, 232 (2007). The
phrase appears five times in the first seven subsections of the
statute, including subsection 1030(a)(2)(C). See 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(a)(1), (2), (4) and (7). Giving a different interpretation
to each is impossible because Congress provided a single def-
inition of “exceeds authorized access” for all iterations of the
statutory phrase. See id. § 1030(e)(6). Congress obviously
meant “exceeds authorized access” to have the same meaning
throughout section 1030. We must therefore consider how the
interpretation we adopt will operate wherever in that section
the phrase appears.

In the case of the CFAA, the broadest provision is subsec-
tion 1030(a)(2)(C), which makes it a crime to exceed autho-
rized access of a computer connected to the Internet without
any culpable intent. Were we to adopt the government’s pro-
3866 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
posed interpretation, millions of unsuspecting individuals
would find that they are engaging in criminal conduct.

Minds have wandered since the beginning of time and the
computer gives employees new ways to procrastinate, by g-
chatting with friends, playing games, shopping or watching
sports highlights. Such activities are routinely prohibited by
many computer-use policies, although employees are seldom
disciplined for occasional use of work computers for personal
purposes. Nevertheless, under the broad interpretation of the
CFAA, such minor dalliances would become federal crimes.
While it’s unlikely that you’ll be prosecuted for watching
Reason.TV on your work computer, you could be. Employers
wanting to rid themselves of troublesome employees without
following proper procedures could threaten to report them to
the FBI unless they quit.6 Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted
crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.7
6
Enforcement of the CFAA against minor workplace dalliances is not
chimerical. Employers have invoked the CFAA against employees in civil
cases. In a recent Florida case, after an employee sued her employer for
wrongful termination, the company counterclaimed that plaintiff violated
section 1030(a)(2)(C) by making personal use of the Internet at work—
checking Facebook and sending personal email—in violation of company
policy. See Lee v. PMSI, Inc., No. 8:10-cv-2904-T-23TBM, 2011 WL
1742028 (M.D. Fla. May 6, 2011). The district court dismissed the coun-
terclaim, but it could not have done so if “exceeds authorized access”
included violations of private computer use policies.
7
This concern persists even if intent to defraud is required. Suppose an
employee spends six hours tending his FarmVille stable on his work com-
puter. The employee has full access to his computer and the Internet, but
the company has a policy that work computers may be used only for busi-
ness purposes. The employer should be able to fire the employee, but
that’s quite different from having him arrested as a federal criminal. Yet,
under the government’s construction of the statute, the employee “exceeds
authorized access” by using the computer for non-work activities. Given
that the employee deprives his company of six hours of work a day, an
aggressive prosecutor might claim that he’s defrauding the company, and
thereby violating section 1030(a)(4).
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3867
Employer-employee and company-consumer relationships
are traditionally governed by tort and contract law; the gov-
ernment’s proposed interpretation of the CFAA allows private
parties to manipulate their computer-use and personnel poli-
cies so as to turn these relationships into ones policed by the
criminal law. Significant notice problems arise if we allow
criminal liability to turn on the vagaries of private polices that
are lengthy, opaque, subject to change and seldom read. Con-
sider the typical corporate policy that computers can be used
only for business purposes. What exactly is a “nonbusiness
purpose”? If you use the computer to check the weather report
for a business trip? For the company softball game? For your
vacation to Hawaii? And if minor personal uses are tolerated,
how can an employee be on notice of what constitutes a viola-
tion sufficient to trigger criminal liability?

Basing criminal liability on violations of private computer
use polices can transform whole categories of otherwise
innocuous behavior into federal crimes simply because a com-
puter is involved. Employees who call family members from
their work phones will become criminals if they send an email
instead. Employees can sneak in the sports section of the New
York Times to read at work, but they’d better not visit
ESPN.com. And sudoku enthusiasts should stick to the
printed puzzles, because visiting www.dailysudoku.com from
their work computers might give them more than enough time
to hone their sudoku skills behind bars.

The effect this broad construction of the CFAA has on
workplace conduct pales by comparison with its effect on
everyone else who uses a computer, smart-phone, iPad, Kin-
dle, Nook, X-box, Blu-Ray player or any other Internet-
enabled device. The Internet is a means for communicating
via computers: Whenever we access a web page, commence
a download, post a message on somebody’s Facebook wall,
shop on Amazon, bid on eBay, publish a blog, rate a movie
on IMDb, read www.NYT.com, watch YouTube and do the
thousands of other things we routinely do online, we are using
3868 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
one computer to send commands to other computers at remote
locations. Our access to those remote computers is governed
by a series of private agreements and policies that most peo-
ple are only dimly aware of and virtually no one reads or under-
stands.8

For example, it’s not widely known that, up until very
recently, Google forbade minors from using its services. See
Google Terms of Service, effective April 16, 2007—March 1,
2012, § 2.3, http://www.google.com/intl/en/ policies/terms/
archive/20070416 (“You may not use the Services and may
not accept the Terms if . . . you are not of legal age to form
a binding contract with Google . . . .”) (last visited Mar. 4, 2012).9
Adopting the government’s interpretation would turn vast
numbers of teens and pre-teens into juvenile delinquents—
and their parents and teachers into delinquency contributors.
Similarly, Facebook makes it a violation of the terms of ser-
8
See, e.g., Craigslist Terms of Use (http://www.craigslist.org/about/
terms.of.use), eBay User Agreement (http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/
user-agreement.html?rt=nc), eHarmony Terms of Service (http://
www.eharmony.com/about/terms), Facebook Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities (http://www.facebook.com/#!/legal/terms), Google Terms
of Service (http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/), Hulu Terms of
Use (http://www.hulu.com/terms), IMDb Conditions of Use (http://
www.imdb.com/help/show_article?conditions), JDate Terms and Condi-
tions of Service (http://www.jdate.com/Applications/Article/
ArticleView.aspx?CategoryID=1948&ArticleID=6498&HideNav=True#
service), LinkedIn User Agreement (http://www.linkedin.com/static?key
=user_agreement), Match.com Terms of Use Agreement (http://
www.match.com/registration/ membagr.aspx?lid=4), MySpace.com
Terms of Use Agreement (http://www.myspace.com/Help/Terms?pm_cmp
=ed_footer), Netflix Terms of Use (https://signup.netflix.com/
TermsOfUse), Pandora Terms of Use (http://www.pandora.com/legal),
Spotify Terms and Conditions of Use (http://www.spotify.com/us/legal/
end-user-agreement/), Twitter Terms of Service (http://twitter.com/tos),
Wikimedia Terms of Use (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_
of_use) and YouTube Terms of Service (http://www.youtube.com/t/
terms).
9
A number of other well-known websites, including Netflix, eBay,
Twitter and Amazon, have this age restriction.
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3869
vice to let anyone log into your account. See Facebook State-
ment of Rights and Responsibilities § 4.8 http://
www.facebook.com/legal/terms (“You will not share your
password, . . . let anyone else access your account, or do any-
thing else that might jeopardize the security of your
account.”) (last visited Mar. 4, 2012). Yet it’s very common
for people to let close friends and relatives check their email
or access their online accounts. Some may be aware that, if
discovered, they may suffer a rebuke from the ISP or a loss
of access, but few imagine they might be marched off to fed-
eral prison for doing so.

Or consider the numerous dating websites whose terms of
use prohibit inaccurate or misleading information. See, e.g.,
eHarmony Terms of Service § 2(I), http://
www.eharmony.com/about/terms (“You will not provide
inaccurate, misleading or false information to eHarmony or to
any other user.”) (last visited Mar. 4, 2012). Or eBay and
Craigslist, where it’s a violation of the terms of use to post
items in an inappropriate category. See, e.g., eBay
User Agreement, http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-
agreement.html (“While using eBay sites, services and tools,
you will not: post content or items in an inappropriate cate-
gory or areas on our sites and services . . . .”) (last visited
Mar. 4, 2012). Under the government’s proposed interpreta-
tion of the CFAA, posting for sale an item prohibited by
Craigslist’s policy, or describing yourself as “tall, dark and
handsome,” when you’re actually short and homely, will earn
you a handsome orange jumpsuit.

Not only are the terms of service vague and generally
unknown—unless you look real hard at the small print at the
bottom of a webpage—but website owners retain the right to
change the terms at any time and without notice. See, e.g.,
YouTube Terms of Service § 1.B, http://www.youtube.com/t/
terms (“YouTube may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise
these Terms of Service and policies at any time, and you
agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions.”) (last
3870 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
visited Mar. 4, 2012). Accordingly, behavior that wasn’t crim-
inal yesterday can become criminal today without an act of
Congress, and without any notice whatsoever.

The government assures us that, whatever the scope of the
CFAA, it won’t prosecute minor violations. But we shouldn’t
have to live at the mercy of our local prosecutor. Cf. United
States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 1591 (2010) (“We would
not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the
Government promised to use it responsibly.”). And it’s not
clear we can trust the government when a tempting target
comes along. Take the case of the mom who posed as a 17-
year-old boy and cyber-bullied her daughter’s classmate. The
Justice Department prosecuted her under 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(a)(2)(C) for violating MySpace’s terms of service,
which prohibited lying about identifying information, includ-
ing age. See United States v. Drew, 259 F.R.D. 449 (C.D. Cal.
2009). Lying on social media websites is common: People
shave years off their age, add inches to their height and drop
pounds from their weight. The difference between puffery and
prosecution may depend on whether you happen to be some-
one an AUSA has reason to go after.

In United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931 (1988), the
Supreme Court refused to adopt the government’s broad inter-
pretation of a statute because it would “criminalize a broad
range of day-to-day activity.” Id. at 949. Applying the rule of
lenity, the Court warned that the broader statutory interpreta-
tion would “delegate to prosecutors and juries the inherently
legislative task of determining what type of . . . activities are
so morally reprehensible that they should be punished as
crimes” and would “subject individuals to the risk of arbitrary
or discriminatory prosecution and conviction.” Id. By giving
that much power to prosecutors, we’re inviting discriminatory
and arbitrary enforcement.

We remain unpersuaded by the decisions of our sister cir-
cuits that interpret the CFAA broadly to cover violations of
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3871
corporate computer use restrictions or violations of a duty of
loyalty. See United States v. Rodriguez, 628 F.3d 1258 (11th
Cir. 2010); United States v. John, 597 F.3d 263 (5th Cir.
2010); Int’l Airport Ctrs., LLC v. Citrin, 440 F.3d 418 (7th
Cir. 2006). These courts looked only at the culpable behavior
of the defendants before them, and failed to consider the
effect on millions of ordinary citizens caused by the statute’s
unitary definition of “exceeds authorized access.” They there-
fore failed to apply the long-standing principle that we must
construe ambiguous criminal statutes narrowly so as to avoid
“making criminal law in Congress’s stead.” United States v.
Santos, 553 U.S. 507, 514 (2008).

We therefore respectfully decline to follow our sister cir-
cuits and urge them to reconsider instead. For our part, we
continue to follow in the path blazed by Brekka, 581 F.3d
1127, and the growing number of courts that have reached the
same conclusion. These courts recognize that the plain lan-
guage of the CFAA “target[s] the unauthorized procurement
or alteration of information, not its misuse or misappropria-
tion.” Shamrock Foods Co. v. Gast, 535 F. Supp. 2d 962, 965
(D. Ariz. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Orbit One Commc’ns, Inc. v. Numerex Corp., 692 F. Supp. 2d
373, 385 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (“The plain language of the CFAA
supports a narrow reading. The CFAA expressly prohibits
improper ‘access’ of computer information. It does not pro-
hibit misuse or misappropriation.”); Diamond Power Int’l,
Inc. v. Davidson, 540 F. Supp. 2d 1322, 1343 (N.D. Ga. 2007)
(“[A] violation for ‘exceeding authorized access’ occurs
where initial access is permitted but the access of certain
information is not permitted.”); Int’l Ass’n of Machinists &
Aerospace Workers v. Werner-Masuda, 390 F. Supp. 2d 479,
499 (D. Md. 2005) (“[T]he CFAA, however, do[es] not pro-
hibit the unauthorized disclosure or use of information, but
rather unauthorized access.”).

CONCLUSION

[5] We need not decide today whether Congress could base
criminal liability on violations of a company or website’s
3872 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
computer use restrictions. Instead, we hold that the phrase
“exceeds authorized access” in the CFAA does not extend to
violations of use restrictions. If Congress wants to incorporate
misappropriation liability into the CFAA, it must speak more
clearly. The rule of lenity requires “penal laws . . . to be con-
strued strictly.” United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. (5
Wheat.) 76, 95 (1820). “[W]hen choice has to be made
between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a
crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alterna-
tive, to require that Congress should have spoken in language
that is clear and definite.” Jones, 529 U.S. at 858 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted).

The rule of lenity not only ensures that citizens will have
fair notice of the criminal laws, but also that Congress will
have fair notice of what conduct its laws criminalize. We con-
strue criminal statutes narrowly so that Congress will not
unintentionally turn ordinary citizens into criminals.
“[B]ecause of the seriousness of criminal penalties, and
because criminal punishment usually represents the moral
condemnation of the community, legislatures and not courts
should define criminal activity.” United States v. Bass, 404
U.S. 336, 348 (1971). “If there is any doubt about whether
Congress intended [the CFAA] to prohibit the conduct in
which [Nosal] engaged, then ‘we must choose the interpreta-
tion least likely to impose penalties unintended by Con-
gress.’ ” United States v. Cabaccang, 332 F.3d 622, 635 n.22
(9th Cir. 2003) (quoting United States v. Arzate-Nunez, 18
F.3d 730, 736 (9th Cir. 1994)).

[6] This narrower interpretation is also a more sensible
reading of the text and legislative history of a statute whose
general purpose is to punish hacking—the circumvention of
technological access barriers—not misappropriation of trade
secrets—a subject Congress has dealt with elsewhere. See
supra note 3. Therefore, we hold that “exceeds authorized
access” in the CFAA is limited to violations of restrictions on
access to information, and not restrictions on its use.
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3873
[7] Because Nosal’s accomplices had permission to access
the company database and obtain the information contained
within, the government’s charges fail to meet the element of
“without authorization, or exceeds authorized access” under
18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4). Accordingly, we affirm the judgment
of the district court dismissing counts 2 and 4-7 for failure to
state an offense. The government may, of course, prosecute
Nosal on the remaining counts of the indictment.

AFFIRMED.

SILVERMAN, Circuit Judge, with whom TALLMAN,
Circuit Judge concurs, dissenting:

This case has nothing to do with playing sudoku, checking
email, fibbing on dating sites, or any of the other activities
that the majority rightly values. It has everything to do with
stealing an employer’s valuable information to set up a com-
peting business with the purloined data, siphoned away from
the victim, knowing such access and use were prohibited in
the defendants’ employment contracts. The indictment here
charged that Nosal and his co-conspirators knowingly
exceeded the access to a protected company computer they
were given by an executive search firm that employed them;
that they did so with the intent to defraud; and further, that
they stole the victim’s valuable proprietary information by
means of that fraudulent conduct in order to profit from using
it. In ridiculing scenarios not remotely presented by this case,
the majority does a good job of knocking down straw men —
far-fetched hypotheticals involving neither theft nor inten-
tional fraudulent conduct, but innocuous violations of office
policy.

The majority also takes a plainly written statute and parses
it in a hyper-complicated way that distorts the obvious intent
3874 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
of Congress. No other circuit that has considered this statute
finds the problems that the majority does.

18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4) is quite clear. It states, in relevant
part:

(a) Whoever—

(4) knowingly and with intent to defraud,
accesses a protected computer without
authorization, or exceeds authorized access,
and by means of such conduct furthers the
intended fraud and obtains anything of
value . . .

shall be punished . . . .

Thus, it is perfectly clear that a person with both the requi-
site mens rea and the specific intent to defraud — but only
such persons — can violate this subsection in one of two
ways: first, by accessing a computer without authorization, or
second, by exceeding authorized access. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(e)(6) defines “exceeds authorized access” as “to
access a computer with authorization and to use such access
to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser
is not entitled so to obtain or alter.”

“As this definition makes clear, an individual who is autho-
rized to use a computer for certain purposes but goes beyond
those limitations is considered by the CFAA as someone who
has ‘exceed[ed] authorized access.’ ” LVRC Holdings LLC v.
Brekka, 581 F.3d 1127, 1133 (9th Cir. 2009).

“[T]he definition of the term ‘exceeds authorized access’
from § 1030(e)(6) implies that an employee can violate
employer-placed limits on accessing information stored on the
computer and still have authorization to access that computer.
The plain language of the statute therefore indicates that
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3875
‘authorization’ depends on actions taken by the employer.” Id.
at 1135. In Brekka, we explained that a person “exceeds
authorized access” when that person has permission to access
a computer but accesses information on the computer that the
person is not entitled to access. Id. at 1133. In that case, an
employee allegedly emailed an employer’s proprietary docu-
ments to his personal computer to use in a competing busi-
ness. Id. at 1134. We held that one does not exceed authorized
access simply by “breach[ing] a state law duty of loyalty to
an employer” and that, because the employee did not breach
a contract with his employer, he could not be liable under the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Id. at 1135, 1135 n.7.

This is not an esoteric concept. A bank teller is entitled to
access a bank’s money for legitimate banking purposes, but
not to take the bank’s money for himself. A new car buyer
may be entitled to take a vehicle around the block on a test
drive. But the buyer would not be entitled — he would “ex-
ceed his authority” — to take the vehicle to Mexico on a drug
run. A person of ordinary intelligence understands that he
may be totally prohibited from doing something altogether, or
authorized to do something but prohibited from going beyond
what is authorized. This is no doubt why the statute covers not
only “unauthorized access,” but also “exceed[ing] authorized
access.” The statute contemplates both means of committing
the theft.

The majority holds that a person “exceeds authorized
access” only when that person has permission to access a
computer generally, but is completely prohibited from access-
ing a different portion of the computer (or different informa-
tion on the computer). The majority’s interpretation conflicts
with the plain language of the statute. Furthermore, none of
the circuits that have analyzed the meaning of “exceeds
authorized access” as used in the Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act read the statute the way the majority does. Both the Fifth
and Eleventh Circuits have explicitly held that employees
3876 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
who knowingly violate clear company computer restrictions
agreements “exceed authorized access” under the CFAA.

In United States v. John, 597 F.3d 263, 271-73 (5th Cir.
2010), the Fifth Circuit held that an employee of Citigroup
exceeded her authorized access in violation of § 1030(a)(2)
when she accessed confidential customer information in vio-
lation of her employer’s computer use restrictions and used
that information to commit fraud. As the Fifth Circuit noted
in John, “an employer may ‘authorize’ employees to utilize
computers for any lawful purpose but not for unlawful pur-
poses and only in furtherance of the employer’s business. An
employee would ‘exceed[ ] authorized access’ if he or she
used that access to obtain or steal information as part of a
criminal scheme.” Id. at 271 (alteration in original). At the
very least, when an employee “knows that the purpose for
which she is accessing information in a computer is both in
violation of an employer’s policies and is part of [a criminally
fraudulent] scheme, it would be ‘proper’ to conclude that such
conduct ‘exceeds authorized access.’ ” Id. at 273.

Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit held in United States v.
Rodriguez, 628 F.3d 1258, 1263 (11th Cir. 2010), that an
employee of the Social Security Administration exceeded his
authorized access under § 1030(a)(2) when he obtained per-
sonal information about former girlfriends and potential par-
amours and used that information to send the women flowers
or to show up at their homes. The court rejected Rodriguez’s
argument that unlike the defendant in John, his use was “not
criminal.” The court held: “The problem with Rodriguez’s
argument is that his use of information is irrelevant if he
obtained the information without authorization or as a result
of exceeding authorized access.” Id.; see also EF Cultural
Travel BV v. Explorica, Inc., 274 F.3d 577, 583-84 (1st Cir.
2001) (holding that an employee likely exceeded his autho-
rized access when he used that access to disclose information
in violation of a confidentiality agreement).
 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL 3877
The Third Circuit has also implicitly adopted the Fifth and
Eleventh circuit’s reasoning. In United States v. Teague, 646
F.3d 1119, 1121-22 (8th Cir. 2011), the court upheld a con-
viction under § 1030(a)(2) and (c)(2)(A) where an employee
of a government contractor used his privileged access to a
government database to obtain President Obama’s private stu-
dent loan records.

The indictment here alleges that Nosal and his co-
conspirators knowingly exceeded the authority that they had
to access their employer’s computer, and that they did so with
the intent to defraud and to steal trade secrets and proprietary
information from the company’s database for Nosal’s compet-
ing business. It is alleged that at the time the employee co-
conspirators accessed the database they knew they only were
allowed to use the database for a legitimate business purpose
because the co-conspirators allegedly signed an agreement
which restricted the use and disclosure of information on the
database except for legitimate Korn/Ferry business. More-
over, it is alleged that before using a unique username and
password to log on to the Korn/Ferry computer and database,
the employees were notified that the information stored on
those computers were the property of Korn/Ferry and that to
access the information without relevant authority could lead
to disciplinary action and criminal prosecution. Therefore, it
is alleged, that when Nosal’s co-conspirators accessed the
database to obtain Korn/Ferry’s secret source lists, names, and
contact information with the intent to defraud Korn/Ferry by
setting up a competing company to take business away using
the stolen data, they “exceed[ed their] authorized access” to
a computer with an intent to defraud Korn/Ferry and therefore
violated 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4). If true, these allegations ade-
quately state a crime under a commonsense reading of this
particular subsection.

Furthermore, it does not advance the ball to consider, as the
majority does, the parade of horribles that might occur under
different subsections of the CFAA, such as subsection
3878 UNITED STATES v. NOSAL
(a)(2)(C), which does not have the scienter or specific intent
to defraud requirements that subsection (a)(4) has. Maldonado
v. Morales, 556 F.3d 1037, 1044 (9th Cir. 2009) (“The role
of the courts is neither to issue advisory opinions nor to
declare rights in hypothetical cases, but to adjudicate live
cases or controversies.”) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). Other sections of the CFAA may or may not
be unconstitutionally vague or pose other problems. We need
to wait for an actual case or controversy to frame these issues,
rather than posit a laundry list of wacky hypotheticals. I
express no opinion on the validity or application of other sub-
sections of 18 U.S.C § 1030, other than § 1030(a)(4), and
with all due respect, neither should the majority.

The majority’s opinion is driven out of a well meaning but
ultimately misguided concern that if employment agreements
or internet terms of service violations could subject someone
to criminal liability, all internet users will suddenly become
criminals overnight. I fail to see how anyone can seriously
conclude that reading ESPN.com in contravention of office
policy could come within the ambit of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4),
a statute explicitly requiring an intent to defraud, the obtain-
ing of something of value by means of that fraud, while doing
so “knowingly.” And even if an imaginative judge can con-
jure up far-fetched hypotheticals producing federal prison
terms for accessing word puzzles, jokes, and sports scores
while at work, well, . . . that is what an as-applied challenge
is for. Meantime, back to this case, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4)
clearly is aimed at, and limited to, knowing and intentional
fraud. Because the indictment adequately states the elements
of a valid crime, the district court erred in dismissing the
charges.

I respectfully dissent.