Did Obama break law to win re-election?

 

Did Barack Obama win re-election by violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

This is the question posed by former Homeland Security attorney Stewart Baker, a blogger for The Volokh Conspiracy, a group blog organized by Eugene Volokh, a professor of American law at the UCLA School of Law.

Baker’s credentials make the question a serious one.

A partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, he returned to private law practice after serving for three and a half years as the assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, where he created and managed the 250-person DHS Policy Directorate responsible, among other duties, for relationships with law enforcement and public advisory committees.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, enacted by Congress in 1986, is a broadly written law that in practice regulates virtually all computers and cellphones, largely because communications over the Internet tends to have implications for interstate commerce.

Baker argued that the Obama presidential campaign in 2012 possibly violated the act by an arrangement with Obama supporters posting on Facebook. It allowed the Obama campaign to search the person’s Facebook network for likely voters the campaign could identify as unmotivated or unregistered.

The likely voters would then get tailored messages from their Facebook friends urging them to register and turn out.

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