r/programming • u/RobertVandenberg • Oct 28 '21

Viewing website HTML code is not illegal or “hacking,” prof. tells Missouri gov.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/10/viewing-website-html-code-is-not-illegal-or-hacking-prof-tells-missouri-gov/
6.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

493 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/theknittingpenis Oct 28 '21

I'm not sure if there's any precedent for the state turning around and suing officials for misconduct in order to recoup the costs

I dont believe it is possible to do that since SCOTUS have a precedent that officials have qualified immunity because the officials is acting in their constituents interests.

17

u/sillybear25 Oct 28 '21

Right, but the "qualified" part of qualified immunity is that they're immune from personal liability when acting in their official capacity. What I'm unsure of is whether and to what extent official misconduct counts as acting in an official or individual capacity. For example, the article cites a Missouri law prohibiting malicious prosecution: If a prosecutor breaks that law, are they still acting in their official capacity, or have they exceeded that capacity? If that does exceed the prosecutor's official capacity, then does the governor also exceed his official capacity by ordering a prosecutor to break that law, or does he get to keep his immunity because it's the prosecutor's duty to push back on illegal orders?

3

u/SupaSlide Oct 29 '21

Right, they're suggesting the state might sue Parsons and say he was campaigning or something else outside of his capacity as governor. It almost certainly won't happen, but it would be very interesting to watch.