NCJ Number
133255
Journal
American Criminal Law Review Volume: 28 Issue: 3 Dated: special issue (1991) Pages: 393-405
Date Published
1991
Length
13 pages
Annotation
The current status of computer crime in the United States is considered.
Abstract
Including a description of the Federal computer crime statute, this survey examines enforcement, defenses, and issues ancillary to computer crime; summarizes State computer crime law; and analyzes the interaction of the Federal computer crime law, other Federal statutes potentially useful for prosecuting computer crime, State legislation, and currently pending Federal computer crime legislation. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, the primary Federal computer crime legislation, served to tighten, extend, and clarify the 1984 legislation and is directed at unauthorized intentional access to government computers. Lack of prosecution under the Federal statute may be due to the relatively sparse reporting of computer crime, the difficulty of prosecuting computer crime, or the ease of prosecution under more traditional crime statutes. As the Federal Computer Crime Act is limited in application to a small subset of computer crime occurring in the United States, prosecutors must use the various State computer crime statutes which generally require three elements: malice or intent, knowledge, and authorization. Pending legislation that may assist prosecutors includes the Computer Protection Act and the Computer Virus Eradication Act. 97 footnotes