Destroying the TSA&#39;s equipment So let's say that you were detained by the TSA on your way out of the US. They demand your phone password and you give it too them. Now when they attempt to plug your phone, you phone breaks their computer (either by accident or on purpose). Would the TSA be able of charging you for anything and would they be able to inflict any repercussions on you (except for detaining you for longer)?
Intentional sabotage of a TSA computer system is almost certainly a serious crime and would also almost surely give rise to civil liability, although you might avoid both if you warned the TSA that the phone was set up to intentionally break their system, in which case it might be confiscated as contraband. If the product had a "feature" unknown to you and that you had no reasonable reason to know of that caused the harm, you would ultimately have no criminal or civil liability, although the manufacturer might be strictly liable to the TSA under a product liability theory, and you would probably be detained as a witness to figure out what happened. If the product had a "feature" that broke the TSA computer that could be de-activated and that you meant to de-active but carelessly failed to, you would have negligence liability to the government and might or might not have criminal liability (I'm not enough of an expert in the relevant statutes to know). You might be liable for a strict liability Federal Communications Commission offense for having a device that is in violation of their regulations.
I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about having "jurisdiction" over an IP address, for the purposes you're discussing. If you wanted to sue the IP address itself--something that is possible under limited circumstances--then you might need to locate it for jurisdictional purposes. But I don't think that's what you're talking about. You're talking about taking civil or criminal action against the people who are using the IP address to commit crimes. What matters, in that case, is not a theoretical legal question about the location of an IP address. It's questions like: where do these people live? Where do the people downloading the illegal content live? Where are the physical servers located? ("In the cloud" is not an answer--there are physical servers somewhere making up that cloud). For jurisdictional purposes, the chair they're sitting in when they upload the illegal data, and the location of the AC power outlet the physical server is plugged into, are as important as, if not more important than, the metaphysical "location" of the IP address of the server.
I don't know of any federal law that is violated. US labor law is generally favorable to employers, compared to many other countries, and gives employers a lot of freedom in setting policies and rules, The theory is that an employee who doesn't like it can go and work somewhere else, and an employer with unreasonable policies will eventually be unable to get people to work for them. In particular, it surprises some people that employers aren't legally obligated to reimburse travel expenses at all: The FSLA does not have any rules regarding an employer's obligation to reimburse an employee for business-related travel expenses. No federal law requires reimbursement. So it would be perfectly legal for the company to require employees to pay for all their own meals when traveling on business. Given this, I'd expect that the company would have pretty broad discretion to place conditions and restrictions on reimbursement, including what they will and won't pay for. If an employee had a disability or religious beliefs that required them to eat meat, and the company wouldn't grant them an exception, they might have a claim under the ADA or Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act respectively. But if it's just that they happen to prefer meat, I don't think there's a law to guarantee them such a right. Some states could have their own laws that might be violated, though I tend to doubt it. If you have a particular state in mind, please specify.
Clauses (a) and (c) are potentially relevant. You have to look in the Rules &amp; Regulations to see what exceptions are permitted. Although firearms and especially shotgun shells are of a "dangerous, flammable or explosive character", it is reasonable to believe that when stored properly, they do not unreasonably increase the danger of fire or explosion, and would not be considered hazardous or extra hazardous by any responsible insurance company. On the latter point, you could ask any responsible insurance company if they would consider such shells to be hazardous. While in ordinary language simple possession of a firearm is not a threat of violence, the wording of clause (c) is open to a wider interpretation, since acts considered to be a threat of violence include displaying or possessing a firearm, knife, or other weapon that may threaten, alarm or intimidate others. The fact is that many people are alarmed by the simple existence of a weapon, so simply possessing a weapon could be interpreted as a "threat" in this special sense. Since you are not in the position of having signed the lease and now need to deal with the consequences of this clause, the simplest solution is to explain your interest, and ask them if having your gear in your apartment would be a violation of the lease. Be really clear about this and get it in writing in some form, if they say "no problem". Then either pick a different place, pick a different hobby, or find a separate storage facility.
Hacking into a computer owned by someone else and accessing the data stored on it without permission is a misdemeanor according to StGB 202a (de|en). But only if it's successful. So a failed attempt isn't a misdemeanor yet. When you notice that someone might have committed a criminal offence (regardless of whether you are a victim or just a witness), then the usual procedure is to report it to the police. If they consider the crime serious enough to investigate, then they will request the identity from the ISP. But the copyright lawsuits which are filed in bulk by law firms working with media companies are not crime reports. They are civil lawsuits. A civil lawsuit is when someone had a tangible damage because of something someone else did, and now they want money in compensation. When there is no damage, then there is nothing to sue for. So when you want a judge to file an injunction to force an ISP to give them the identity of one of their users, then you would first have to explain to them how much financial damage you had because of that person and that this is enough damage to make it worth everyone's time. That might be quite challenging for nothing but a failed SSH login attempt. But it might be possible if a single person made so many login attempts that it incurred you non-negligible bandwidth cost or even caused a denial-of-service.
I'm confident that there has been no successful breach of contract lawsuit on that basis: that is not the right legal basis. Actions against a shoplifter would either be under tort law or, much more likely, criminal law. Put simply, theft is a crime, encoded in the laws of all nations, and the government will shoulder the burden of punishing a shoplifter. Since the goal of criminal law is to guarantee a well-ordered society (not to restore the victim of the crime), a victim of theft may have to pursue their own legal case against the criminal, if they want to be restored for their loss (let us say that the criminal also ate the evidence).
This is the cited article. Thankfully, the interviewee provided a scan of the police letter he received, so the rest of this question is relatively easy to answer. He was specifically charged with Störung der öffentlichen Ordnung (lit. Disturbance of the public order) persuant to &sect;&nbsp;81(1) of the Sicherheitspolizeigesetz, which reads (after putting it through Google Translate): Who by a behavior that is likely to arouse legitimate annoyance, disturbs public order, commits an administrative offense and is punishable by a fine of up to 500 euros, unless the behavior is justified, in particular by the use of a constitutionally guaranteed right , In the event of aggravating circumstances, instead of a fine, imprisonment can be imprisoned for up to one week, or up to two weeks for repeated offenses. This law is almost certainly constitutional as it specifically allows exercise of constitutional rights. Note this also includes human rights, as Austria has included the European Convention on Human Rights as part of its constitution. Given that, I'm guessing if the interviewee had wanted to, he would have had a decent shot at having this charge dismissed.
Surely such a well meaning albeit naive driver wouldn't stand a chance in court if they said that it's because they've a section 230-like protection. Because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act explicitly protects computer service providers from such charges. A driver is not a computer service provider, and the US legislature has never voted to offer similar protection to drivers picking up hitchhikers. You say that an email can easily be classified as fraudulent, but that's not true. Spam detection has gotten pretty sophisticated, but they still get plenty of false positives. They were a lot less sophisticated back in 1996 when the Communications Decency Act was passed.