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FC: Sen. Torricelli's "anti-hacker" bill puts parents, kids in jail

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 11:20:15 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@politechbot.com Subject: FC: Sen. Torricelli's "anti-hacker" bill puts parents, kids in jail Send reply to: declan@well.com

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45752,00.html

Senator Targets School Hackers By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com) 6:48 a.m. Aug. 1, 2001 PDT

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Robert Torricelli claims he wants to put hackers who disrupt school computers in prison.

"Computer hackers who prey upon unsuspecting schools, striking fear in the hearts of entire communities with threats of violence, cannot go unpunished," the New Jersey Democrat said this week.

But educators, programmers and civil libertarians say Torricelli's recently-introduced School Website Protection Act of 2001 does more than place wrongdoers behind bars. They say the bill is worded so vaguely it would turn commonplace activities into federal crimes to be investigated by the U.S. Secret Service.

"I think the bill misses the mark," says Jim Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It is written in an overly broad fashion. Sending one unsolicited e-mail affects a computer. If I send an e-mail to my student's teacher and I didn't have her permission, I violate the act."

Dempsey is talking about the bill's sweeping language, which punishes activities that affect a computer rather than ones that damage it or successfully penetrate its security. Contrary to what the name of the bill implies, the measure covers any school computer system, not just websites, and could criminalize pranks such as sending mail from a friend's computer when they've left themselves logged in.

Torricelli's measure says anyone who "knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education" will to go federal prison for up to 10 years.

[...]

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