RE: Civil Disobedience

["Chris Wicklein" <chrisw () wicklein org>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joel Rivers [mailto:rivers () lcms org] 
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 12:48 PM
> To: John Thornton; declan () wired com; ah () well com; 
> vuln-dev () securityfocus com; oth () 2600 com
> Subject: RE: Civil Disobedience
>
>
> What civil liberties are we giving up?  Since when is 
> hacking, virus-writing, and website defacing a civil liberty? 
>  I will agree that life imprisionment is a little harsh for 
> defacing a web site but I think that harsher penalties 
> hopefully will serve as a deterent for this type of behavior.

The eighth amendment to the Constitution prohibits excessive bail,
excessive fines, and cruel or unusual punishment.  "Hacking" and
"website defacing" are arguably analogous to criminal trespass;
Virus-writing is at best protected speech and at worst criminal
negligence.  To punish these offenses as if they were as serious as
terrorism or murder is unconstitutional if "cruel or unusual punishment"
is interpreted to include punishment which is a harsh juxtaposition to
the usual practice of assigning punishments to fit crimes.