The city of Madison, Wisconsin uses a computer-based radio system for police, fire, ambulance and other emergency communications. The radio system spreads transmissions across 20 frequencies, one of which is reserved as a control channel for initiating conversations. On multiple occasions between January and August 2003, mobile radio units in Madison mysteriously malfunctioned, and on Halloween of that year the city’s entire radio system went down because a powerful signal blanketed the city and prevented communications over the control channel. As a result, public safety departments were unable to coordinate their activities.
After the police used radio direction finders to locate the source of the signal, they arrested Rajib Mitra, a student in the University of Wisconsin’s graduate business school. A jury convicted Mitra on two counts of violating 18 USC § 1030 – commonly known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) – and he was sentenced to 96 months in prison.
On appeal, Mitra argued that he did not violate § 1030 because his conduct was akin to an unauthorized radio broadcast, whereas the statute was only intended to cover activities like hacking into a computer to steal or alter information. Mitra also argued that he was wrongfully convicted because Madison’s radio system is not “used in interstate or foreign commerce” as required by the statute.
In an opinion by Judge Easterbrook, the Seventh Circuit affirmed Mitra’s conviction. The court agreed with the prosecutor’s theory that Madison’s radio system constitutes a “protected computer” because the frequencies it uses have been allocated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for police, fire and other emergency services. The court also agreed with the prosecutor’s claims that Mitra’s transmissions on Halloween included “information” that interfered with the radio system’s control channel and caused “damage” in the form of a citywide outage.
In response to Mitra’s argument that Congress could not have intended the statute to have such wide coverage, the Seventh Circuit held that the legislators’ intent was immaterial because “it is the statutes they enacted -- not the thoughts they did or didn’t have -- that courts must apply.” Following this approach, the court held that the statute was “general” in nature and did not need to specify unauthorized radio broadcasts in order to cover Mitra’s activities. Moreover, the court observed that “[a]s more devices come to have built-in intelligence, the effective scope of the statute grows.”
The Seventh Circuit also disagreed with Mitra’s claim that his broadcasts were beyond the scope of the statute because he did not affect any radio systems outside the state of Wisconsin. The court held that § 1030 “does not ask whether the person who caused the damage acted in interstate commerce; it protects computers (and computerized communication systems) used in such commerce, no matter how the harm is inflicted.” Therefore, because Madison’s radio system operates on spectrum licensed by the FCC, the court held that the system satisfied the statute’s interstate commerce requirement.
After the Seventh Circuit announced its decision in April 2005, Mitra filed a petition for writ of certiori to the Supreme Court. On October 31, the Supreme Court denied Mitra’s petition, allowing the Seventh Circuit’s decision to stand.