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EFF: New law will treat hackers as terrorists

InfoWorld
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By David Legard

(IDG) -- Legislation under consideration in the United States Congress to combat terrorism will treat low-level computer crimes as terrorist acts and threaten hackers with life imprisonment, according to officials of the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

EFF says 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.

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Treating relatively harmless online pranksters as terrorists is not an appropriate response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, EFF's executive director, Shari Steele, says in the statement.

The ATA contains many other provisions that severely impact the civil liberties of people living in the United States, EFF says. These include -- in the EFF's opinion -- the following items.

•  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.

•  It would extend the federal DNA database to every person convicted of a federal terrorism offense that includes low-level computer intrusions.

EFF is urging Congress to consider less stringent regulations proposed in alternative legislation called the Uniting and Strengthening of America Act (USAA).


 
 
 
 


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