tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post6450148874069174243..comments2024-01-16T05:48:33.523-05:00Comments on Errata Security: Technical terms are not ambiguousDavid Maynorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09921229607193067441noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-33684271072369374622015-02-20T06:48:48.510-05:002015-02-20T06:48:48.510-05:00The judge here is emphatically correct on the law....The judge here is emphatically correct on the law. It's as concrete a rule of statutory construction there is that undefined terms are given their common language meaning. And this is because it would obviously be unfair to charge the general public with knowledge that is by definition not general.<br /><br />Good drafting mitigates this problem by defining terms, especially when statutes deal with technical matters.<br /><br />Your argument that we implicitly agree to technical documents defining internet transactions and so forth is not one the law would agree with. Knowledge of "usage of trade" and "customs of practice" are generally imputed only to those involved professionally.<br /><br />I'm sympathetic to the idea that these rules are "impossible" for sophisticated people to understand though. I don't think I've ever actually heard this argument before (and I'm not totally convinced that it's true). Weev's situation struck me as one in which his conduct was entirely within the common language interpretation of "authorize," but I can sort of imagine cases in which the two would conflict.<br /><br />In that case, you could argue vagueness, but even if a court agrees that a statute is vague, a lot of conduct would probably still fall into the "obviously within the scope of the prohibited conduct" exception to vagueness attacks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37798047.post-72554612408605993802015-02-12T19:09:45.775-05:002015-02-12T19:09:45.775-05:00The judge is wrong.
In the quote you cited, the j...<i>The judge is wrong.</i><br /><br />In the quote you cited, the judge is not saying that he/she thinks that authorization ought to be defined that way. The judge is saying that it is a "point of agreement" among the courts that it should be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com