Amy Coney Barrett ends streak of complete agreement with Clarence Thomas

Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday ended her streak of complete agreement with Justice Clarence Thomas after the two conservatives faced off in a case involving computer law.

The case, the first in which the court addressed the scope of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, concerned whether Nathan Van Buren, a Georgia police sergeant, violated the law when he took outside payment to run a license plate search on his police computer. Lower courts ruled that, in addition to violating department police rules, Van Buren had broken federal law because the search exceeded his “authorized access.”