Kerr also challenged the government's assertion that Auernheimer's act constituted illegal access to the AT&T server. He maintains that Auernheimer only visited a publicly accessible site and collected information.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is also helping in the appeal.
In a statement, EFF staff attorney Marcia Hoffman noted that Auernheimer faces more than three years in prison for essentially pointing out AT&T's failure to properly secure iPad subscriber data.
The EFF noted that the Auernheimer case is but the latest to highlight problems with how prosecutors use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. "Since the tragic death of programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz in January, EFF has redoubled its efforts to reform the law," the statement said. "The punishments for computer crimes are seriously off-kilter, and Congress needs to fix them."
The EFFs attorneys and Kerr will join Auernheimer's trial consul in fighting the sentence.
Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan, or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.
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