Clerk Printed Lottery Tickets She Didn't Pay For But Didn't Break Hacking Law

Violating a company rule is not -- and should not be -- a computer crime, that was the ruling of the Oregon Supreme Court in State v. Nascimento file. The Oregon's highest court ruled that while a convenience store clerk was guilty of stealing lottery tickets through the store's computer system, she did not violate the state's anti-hacking law while doing so. ArsTechnica shares more details: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which appeared on Caryn Nascimento's behalf during the case as an amicus curae (friend of the court), announced the narrow victory on Tuesday. According to the Supreme Court's decision, the case dates back to 2007, when Nascimento began working at Tiger Mart, a small convenience store in Madras, Oregon, about 120 miles southeast of Portland. In late 2008 and early 2009, a company vice president began investigating what appeared to be cash shortages at that store, sometimes about $1,000 per day. After reviewing video recordings that correlated with Nascimento's work schedule, this executive began to suspect that she was buying lottery tickets but not paying for them. Eventually, Nascimento was charged not only with aggravated first-degree theft but also of violating the state's computer crime law, which includes language that "any person who knowingly and without authorization uses, accesses or attempts to access any computer, computer system, computer network, or any computer software, program, documentation or data contained in such computer, computer system or computer network, commits computer crime." She was convicted on both charges at trial. On appeal before the Oregon Supreme Court, Nascimento's lawyers argued that while their client may have violated a company policy to not print lottery tickets that she did not receive payment for, she was, in fact, authorized to access the lottery printing computer.