Law / United States / 
Vermont
Vermont Computer Crimes Act, unauthorized access
In force.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- User location
- Obligation class
- Access restriction
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Ordinary access to a Vermont-connected public web page does not by itself violate this statute; the offense requires knowingly and intentionally accessing a computer, system, network, software, program, or data without lawful authority.
- This statute carries no exception for the absence of malicious intent or a deceptive means, so a bare lack of authority is enough on its face; no Vermont case confirms whether a wide-open public page counts as accessed without authority.
- Damaging, altering, deleting, or taking data or property in connection with the access exposes you to Vermont's more serious computer-crime offenses, with penalties escalating up to ten years' imprisonment and a $25,000.00 fine where the loss exceeds $500.00.
- A person damaged by a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action for damages, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Section 4102 is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months' imprisonment or a $500.00 fine, or both. Sections 4103 to 4105 escalate to felony-level exposure of up to ten years' imprisonment and fines up to $25,000.00 where the loss or value exceeds $500.00.
Penalty structure
Cap stated is for a bare violation of section 4102 (up to six months' imprisonment or a $500.00 fine, or both). Related offenses under sections 4103 to 4105 (fraudulent access, alteration, damage, interference, theft, or destruction) escalate on the value of the loss: up to one year and $5,000.00 for a first offense not exceeding $500.00 in loss, up to two years and $10,000.00 for a second or subsequent such offense, and up to ten years and $25,000.00 (or $10,000.00 for fraudulent access alone) where the loss or value exceeds $500.00.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 500
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Vermont state and local prosecutors (State's Attorneys and the Attorney General), through ordinary criminal prosecution
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does "without lawful authority" in section 4102 reach a person who accesses a publicly available web page against the site operator's stated terms?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 4102 makes it an offence to knowingly and intentionally and without lawful authority access a computer, computer system, computer network, software, program or data, punishable by up to six months in prison or a $500 fine. It imposes no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record. The venue section of the same chapter, 13 V.S.A. 4107, deems a violation of the chapter committed in Vermont where Vermont is the state from or to which the use of a computer or network was made, and that is the hook recorded.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 4102 makes it unlawful for a person to knowingly and intentionally and without lawful authority access any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program, or data contained in one, punishable as a misdemeanor by up to six months' imprisonment or a $500.00 fine, or both.
Unlike Virginia's computer trespass statute, section 4102 carries no built-in exception for conduct that lacks malicious intent or a deceptive means; it is a bare without-lawful-authority test closer to the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act's own wording.
Related offenses in the same chapter reach access for fraudulent purposes (section 4103), alteration, damage, or interference (section 4104), and theft or destruction (section 4105), each requiring an additional element (a fraud scheme, or actual damage, deletion, or taking) that ordinary, non-disruptive automated collection does not supply on its own; penalties for those sections escalate with the value of the loss, up to ten years' imprisonment and a $25,000.00 fine where the loss or value exceeds $500.00.
A person damaged by a violation of the chapter may bring a civil action for damages, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees under section 4106. Its history note names 1999, No. 35, § 1 as the act that added it. No day on which that act came into force has been located.
When LexLint raises it
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