Bill Would Give ID Theft Victims More Weapons
Quote:
A bill that includes anti-cybercrime provisions proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is awaiting the President Bush's signature after it passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.
The provisions in the bill would make it easier for federal agencies to pursue cyber criminals, and increase the penalties for convictions of many cyber-crimes.
According to Sen. Leahy's office, the provisions included in the Former Vice President Protection Act would include the following:
- Give victims of identity theft the ability to seek restitution for the loss of time and money spent restoring credit and remedying the harms of identity theft;
- Enable prosecution of those who steal personal information from a computer even when the victim’s computer is located in the same state as the thief’s computer. Under current law, federal courts only have jurisdiction if the thief uses an interstate communication to access the victim’s computer.
- Make it a felony to employ spyware or keyloggers to damage ten or more computers regardless of the aggregate amount of damage caused, ensuring that the most egregious identity thieves will not escape with a minimal, or no, sentence.
- Makes it a crime to threaten to steal or release information from a computer. Current law only permits the prosecution of those who seek to extort companies or government agencies by explicitly threatening to shut down or damage a computer. Violators of this provision are subject to a criminal fine and up to five years in prison.
- Add the remedies of civil and criminal forfeiture to the arsenal of tools available to federal prosecutors to combat cyber crime, and mandate that the U.S. Sentencing Commission review and update its guidelines for identity theft.
InternetNews Realtime IT News - Bill Would Give ID Theft Victims More Weapons
