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Non-Tech : Binary Hodgepodge -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ~digs who wrote (265)	9/28/2001 7:54:28 PM
From: ~digs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6763

New law will treat hackers as terrorists By David Legard September 28, 2001 1:58 am PT LEGISLATION UNDER CONSIDERATION in the U.S. Congress to combat terrorism will treat low-level computer crimes as terrorist acts and threaten hackers with life imprisonment, civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said Thursday. EFF said that the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) will add low-level computer intrusion, already a crime under other laws, to the list of "federal terrorism offenses," creating penalties of up to life imprisonment. The act will also add broad pre-conviction asset seizure powers and serious criminal threats to those who "materially assist" or "harbor" individuals suspected of causing minimal damage to networked computers, EFF said in a statement. Treating relatively harmless online pranksters as terrorists is not an appropriate response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, EFF Executive Director Shari Steele said in the statement. The ATA contains many other provisions that severely impact the civil liberties of people living in the United States, EFF said. These include the following: -- It would make it possible to obtain e-mail message header information, Internet user Web browsing patterns, and "stored" voice-mail without a wiretap order. -- It would remove most controls on roving wiretaps. -- It would permit law enforcement to disclose information obtained through wiretaps to any employee of the Executive branch. -- It would reduce restrictions on domestic investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). -- It would permit grand juries to provide information to the U.S. intelligence community. -- It would permit the president to designate any "foreign-directed individual, group, or entity," including any U.S. citizen or organization, as a target for FISA surveillance. -- It would prevent people from providing "expert advice" to terrorists. -- And it would extend the federal DNA database to every person convicted of a federal terrorism offense that includes low-level computer intrusions. EFF urged Congress to consider less stringent regulations proposed in alternative legislation called the Uniting and Strengthening of America Act (USAA). David Legard is a Singapore correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate. infoworld.com