On the November 20, 2017 episode of Illinois Public Media's Legal Issues in the News, Professor Jay Kesan spoke about how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act might apply to a potential lawsuit against the former Twitter employee who temporarily deactivated President Trump's Twitter account.

"For eleven minutes on November 2nd, President Trump’s personal Twitter account was deactivated. Twitter’s initial explanation was that the deactivation was due to human error. But it seems that this was no accident. Rather, it was a defiant final action of an employee on his or her last day of work.  

"What comes after viral fame? Some attorneys warn that the ex-Twitter employee should lawyer up.  That is because a federal cybercrime law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, has been interpreted very broadly by courts. The CFAA is usually thought of as an anti-hacking statute. But prosecutors have argued in a variety of situations that a particular defendant accessed a computer without authorization or exceeded authorized access, in violation of the CFAA."

Listen to the full episode.