The appropriate section of Sarbanes-Oxley reads as follows: Khairullozhon Matanov, a friend of the Tsarnaev brothers, the Boston Marathon bombers was interviewed by the Federal authorities about his association with them. However, the federal authorities never accused him for any activity linked to the bombing nor have they said that he was having knowledge of their plans or felt for them. During the interviews, he did however perpetrate a few small lies, of which none had any actual relation to the case. For instance, he lied that he had last time prayed with Tamerlan Tsarnaev together. On that grounds, Based on the records section of Sarbanes-Oxley mentioned above, the last charge was applied. The law meant to stop and punish corporate wrongdoing is instead used as a hammer against a private citizen to a great extent. Some people may feel that any possible application of a law is tolerable, especially in the continual war on terror. However, if that law is ever used against them, they might end up feeling differently about it. The most unpleasant or offensive part of this is that it is being used to punish “pre-crimes.” When Matanov deleted his browser history, he had not been accused of anything and was not aware that he was under a formal inquiry. His crime was not predictable that federal agents may someday make a decision to examine him and thus failing to maintain any self-incriminating potential evidence. As Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation put it, the government is saying: The article in The Nation shows that this is not an remote and unfair use of Sarbanes-Oxley, discussing many other similar cases. Traders and bankers danced away with multi-million dollar bonuses after their criminally reckless maneuvering almost put an end to the global economy. Their companies paid fines that are not worth to be considered for market manipulations and criminal money laundering. Until now, none of them have go to jail and none of them have been sued under Sarbanes-Oxley. However, it is a different rule of law for an undistinguished or average citizen. As more and more data are stored online, the government wants and believes it has the rights to access that data for policing purposes. But Fakhoury disagrees. This law has been in the books for thirteen years now. It has not managed to control the corporate wrongdoing, but it is proving to be having a negative effect on citizens who have never swindled a shareholder in their lives. Combined with federal investigations through our online communications and their efforts to break secure encryption in our data storage, they want us to completely give up our personal freedom of thought and privacy.
