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House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers
ByteHog writes "The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Monday to create a new punishment of life imprisonment for malicious computer hackers. The article on MSNBC also mentions that police can conduct internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order. Says a Rep from Texas: 'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'" Other articles can be found here and the text of the bill is available.
Well, if hacking actually resulted in deaths, a life sentence would be applicable. Has it?
Build your own computer? You're a terrorist.
Run an "unsecured" operating system? You're a terrorist.
Share files? Terrorist.
Complain about corporate abuse? Terrorist.
Demand your Fair Use rights? Terrorist.
Fail to consume your fair share? Terrorist.
Shooting people to pursue political gain? Not sure. Depends.
Holding a population hostage via threats of violence? Depends who does it.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
English is not my native language so sometimes when I don't know a word I have to guess it's meaning from the context. The last year or so I have come to the following:
Terrorist: used by people to indicate other people that say or do things that the first group of people doesn't approve of, doesn't understand or isn't receiving any money for.
War on terrorism: The act of violating every basic human right of terrorists.
Peace: A situation where all terrorists are either dead or in prison.
From your post I see my self guessed definitions are pretty close to the real meaning of those words. (and boy will the world be a quiet place when the American government finally decides there's peace)
The 20 year penalty is for "an attempt to commit bodily harm". The Life sentence is for "an attempt to cause a death".
Nevertheless, the bill does not *merely* do what the news reports claim, and in that, it is alarming.
The interesting part is the definition of "protected system", which is taken from "18 U.S.C. 1030" (search for it in your favorite search engine), and the modifications made to it by the bill.
It does not involve only government computers, as the text of the bill itself implies. It also involves "any restricted data, as defined in paragraph y. of section 11 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954" -- most of which is public information these days, and available from many web sites containing information on basic high energy physics (apparently, congress-critters believe that if they can't figure something out without a crib sheet, neither can your average university-trained physicist or engineer, which is why they think they could successfully legislate against light switches).
Further, it includes records from "information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602(n) of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer", per "15 U.S.C. 1681".
This can be loosely interpreted to mean "any system which stores credit card numbers".
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The real question that we should be asking is whether this is a Writ Of Mandamus... it seems so, since there do not appear to be practical restraints on use of information gathered under the terms of this bill (i.e. "We thought he was a terrorist; as it turns out, our justification was bogus, but we still get to use the evidence gathered to inform against him for that Metallica MP3 he downloaded").
From my reading, it's unconstitutional, under the 4th Ammendment.
Of course, since it passed by such an incredible amount in the House, there no reason to believe that it will not quickly become law: it clearly has wide bipartisan support, and will clearly get the White House's approval (see below).
What that effectively means is that it will remain law, until it is challenged by a perpetrator on the basis of constitutionality. Basically, the law will have to be violated to be tested, at considerable risk to the violators, given the tendency recently for the Federal Government to use the Bill Of Rights in place of toilet paper.
I guess the only thing we don't know is whether this is an overreaction to last September, or if its an overreaction to the lack of consumer confidence in the market, where they think if they can point to themselves "*doing* something about some real market risk", we will forget all about "the man behind the curtain", and not insist on substantive tort reform.
If you read the House Report version of the bill, you'd think the latter (e.g. reaction to "Enron")... almost all of the listed congressmen are from -- *surprise!* -- Texas.
The Constitutional basis for incorporation itself is to serve the public and shareholders interests (read the relevent USC on incorporation, if you don't believe me); this seems to have been reduced to nothing more than "fiduciary responsibility to protect shareholder value, and screw public interst". More fundamental reform is required: this is not about people not acting like a--holes for fear of the penalty, it's about people not acting like a--holes because they *aren't* a--holes.
-- Terry
"You actually think Americans call anyone who has a differing opinion a terrorist?"
I'm sorry, I thought you were referring to the term: "Freedom Fighter".
So Jews are justified to live on land b/c they evicted others by force. Palastinians are *not* justified to live because jews were evicted by force.
Arabs are *evil* b/c of war to take over land. Jews *rightfully* conquered land through war.
You Sir, are a logical three ring circus.
-b
People become terrorists because they are terrified. A Muslim whose education at a madrasas has consisted totally of reading the Koran for its power, is terrified by the powers we in the West gain from our books and films and (relatively) free communnications, so, terrified, they seek to return the terror to what they see as its source.
When I was training typical office workers in using computers back in the 80s, the most difficult hurdle was that most of them were terrified that the computer was sentient enough to become offended if they did something 'stupid' and intentionally punish them for their mistakes. Just as Muslims see a god in their book, even 'modern' Americans tend to see gods in their boxes - and both are terrified that those gods will punish them if they stray, even in ignorance, from their presumed commandments.
And now the Congress is terrified of computer networks, and seeks to terrorize those who appear to be favored by special powers by the new network gods, who must be made fearful of Congress's powers lest they reach out through the networks to strike them dead.
Lesson: Anyone whose power source is different from your own is guilty of witchcraft (whether that source is more or less advanced than yours makes little difference - thus 'modern' medicine derides 'witch doctors'). Since that witchcraft terrorizes you, you must hold the witches in check by terrorizing them in return. This is all simple anthropology.
Sometimes the witches (fundamentalist Muslims) are trying to kill you; sometimes they (sysadmins) aren't. The key to maximizing peace is overpowering the first group either with new culture or, if that fails, with containment or death; and overpowering your own paranoia regarding the second group, by whatever means are available. The tricky part comes if our own Congress continues towards behavior equivalent to that of fundamentalist Muslims. Our first course should be to ease their paranoia.
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"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton