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Sounds like he has a case.
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Yep.
The mistake was going for criminal prosecution rather than civil.
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I can't see him losing -- and he'll probably be able to file a civil suit against the firm, for damages.
But be ready to be handed half-@rsed "we've got to protect ourselves!" contracts, written by half-brained HR morons, from now on.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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In Italy he would lose sorely since one of the fundamental tenets of the entire corpus of law dedicated to wor is the "trust relationship" between employer and employee. If that is broken by one side then that side is going to be sore - the employer usually by being forced to reintegrate the worker and pay damages, the employee by paying a awful lot of damages and standing trial if penal law is involved.
Unless the sysadmin can prove that he did his actions for sound reasons and that side effects were unpredictable then the best he can hope for is playing dumb and run for "negligence" instead of deliberate effort.
* CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
* GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
* Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
* I'm a puny punmaker.
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Other countries' employment affairs are built more on mistrust -- "It's only business".
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Unofficially it's like that in Italy too, but most of the law is very protective of the weak sides - employees vs employers, tenants vs landlord, and so on - almost to a fault (in Italy it's often better to let an owned apartment empty than to rent it because of the costs, obligations and risks involved. If the tenant doens't pay you for months you might be compelled to let him and his family live there for several other months before maybe being able to force them out. Maybe).
Things are subtly and slowly changing though, especially for the work related laws.
* CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
* GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
* Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
* I'm a puny punmaker.
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Mark_Wallace wrote: I can't see him losing
Not with rock-solid defenses like
digging up their policy manuals: there was nothing in ClickMotive’s policies that said Thomas couldn’t do exactly what he did.
Pretty sure there was also nothing in those manuals that said he couldn't murder his boss or burn the office to the ground.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: Pretty sure there was also nothing in those manuals that said he couldn't murder his boss or burn the office to the ground.
But there was nothing that authorised him to do either, either.
Criminal law concerning contracts revolves around the precise wording of the contracts. Right and wrong don't enter into it, unless, as you say, there are clauses which require a contractee/contractor to break a law of the land.
So if there's no specific mention of "malicious intent", or similar, he's free and clear -- and since his lawyer is pressing the point, I think we can assume that to be the case.
Had they gone for a civil case, as GenJerDan mentioned, they could have argued the right and wrong of it, but there's no justice in criminal law; just the letter of it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It's unlikely his actions will be covered by civil law, they will be covered by criminal law. If you murder your boss is the company going to pour over your contract to see what the small print says? Or are they going to go for a criminal prosecution? It's much the same thing, what he did was criminal and the solution is not going to lie in civil matters such as the wording of his contract.
As for the lawyers, they are paid regardless of what stupid arguments they pursue so don't put too much faith in that.
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With civil law, they would be suing for damages, which they could win by proving that he intentionally caused damage.
Under criminal law, it doesn't look like he's broken any. You can't call activities that are in his job description hacking, and the fact that he did it with malicious intent is a matter for the (US equivalent of the) industrial tribunal, not the law courts.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Under criminal law, it doesn't look like he's broken any
What qualifies you to make such a statement?
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What qualifies you to disagree with it?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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From your attempt to dodge the question I will assume you have no reasonable basis whatsoever to state that so there is no real reason to believe it is true. As it forms the basis of your argument we must also assume the rest of what you said wasn't true either.
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I'm not dodging questions; I'm just not interested in giving away personal information on the Interwebs, or getting into an argument with someone who is obviously angling for one.
If you want an argument, go say something intelligent to the mutt muncher.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Ah, I see...so a web developer from The Netherlands is actually also an expert on American criminal law but just doesn't want to say so on a public forum....gotcha 
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I'm not a web developer, and I'm not from the Netherlands.
Take it elsewhere, now.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Developers, who had previously been expendable, became indispensable. Charged with creating the code that would underpin businesses’ newfound success, they became royalty. "It's good to be the king."
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I am surprised the author of this puffery didn't claim that DevOps+Cloud (from his company, Accenture) would make the blind see, and bring about world-peace 
«When I consider my brief span of life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, now rather than then.» Blaise Pascal
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On Monday, the Microsoft founder and co-chair of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hosted an "AMA," or "ask me anything," session on Reddit, during which a participant inquired, "If you could give 19-year-old Bill Gates some advice, what would it be?" Invest in Apple stock?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Invest in Apple stock?
I think you'll find he did.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Computers running artificial intelligence programs will exceed human intelligence within three decades, Masayoshi Son, founder of the Japanese technology and telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank Group, said on Monday. I think some people decided to get there early
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The only thing computers are good at is concentrating.
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I, for one, welcome our digital masters.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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They're already smarter than clickbait authoring "journalists". 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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