Citrin pointed out that his employment contract permitted him to "destroy" data in the laptop when he left the company. But the 7th Circuit
didn't buy it, and reinstated the suit against him brought by IAC.
Looks to me like his contract said he could do just that. He used this part of his contract as justification. IAC is suing because they can't
recover the files THEY SAID he could delete. I have a problem with the district court not accepting this part of the contract. Why bother making
stipulations in a contract if they're not going to be followed.
The provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on which IAC relies provides that whoever "knowingly causes the transmission of a program,
information, code or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer (a defined
term that includes the laptop that Citrin used)," violates the Act. Citrin argues that merely erasing a file from a computer is not a
"transmission." Pressing a delete or erase key in fact transmits a command, but it might be stretching the statute too far (especially since it
provides criminal as well as civil sanctions for its violation) to consider any typing on a computer keyboard to be a form of "transmission" just
because it transmits a command to the computer...
This part makes me a little nervous too. 
[edit on 10-3-2006 by Rasobasi420]
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