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Tough Cybercrime Laws Questioned
From: William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 13:30:42 -0600
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=35425 Dan Verton, Computerworld Monday, November 20, 2000 A leading criminal defense attorney who specializes in cybercrime stunned a crowd of industry security experts last week, charging that computer crime laws are too vague and that tougher penalties for hackers would do little to enhance security. "Without clarity in the criminal law, we don't know what our goals are," said attorney Jennifer Stisa Granick, speaking at the San Francisco-based Computer Security Institute's 27th Annual Computer Security Conference and Exhibition. She added that some of the proposals now being debated are fraught with problems. (See "Looking for Help to Fight Cybercrime." ) For example, Granick argues that harsher sentences for hackers wouldn't serve as a deterrent. "When people do the crime, they don't think they're going to get caught," the San Francisco-based lawyer says. She also says stiffer sentences might encourage false guilty pleas by forcing defendants who maintain their innocence to choose a two-year plea bargain arrangement to avoid the possibility of losing in court and getting a 10-year jail term. 'Penalty Should Match the Crime' Daniel J. Ryan, a lawyer and former director of information systems security at the Pentagon, says that while he also has never met a criminal who thought he would be caught, that's not an idea upon which to base laws. "There are organized hacker groups to which the [racketeering] laws probably can and should be applied," Ryan says. "The penalty should match the crime and fit the harm that's caused," says David Loundy, an attorney who specializes in technology issues at the firm D'Ancona & Pflaum LLC in Chicago. Teenage hackers who frequently don't have a criminal motive are too often "treated as if they are the most evil people in the world," he says. However, Granick accuses the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation of "chilling" legitimate research by law-abiding citizens. She says she has received complaints at meetings of a Chicago-based group of legitimate security professionals and hackers called "2600" that FBI surveillance has crossed the line, with FBI officials warning some members that they shouldn't be associating with certain individuals. "People who should be beneath the notice of law enforcement" are being told that what they're doing is wrong, Granick says. Steven Berry, a supervisory special agent at the FBI, denies the allegations. "The FBI fully supports the right of each and every American citizen to join any group which he or she wishes to join," he says. "The FBI's only concern is when the actions of these groups violate any laws over which the FBI has been given jurisdiction." Anthony D'Amato, Leighton professor of Law at Evanston, Illinois-based Northwestern University, says he considered attending the last meeting of the 2600 group. "If I had done so, I'd prefer being warned by the FBI to being watched by the FBI," he says. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
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- Tough Cybercrime Laws Questioned William Knowles (Nov 23)