Internet Crime Sparks Legislative Blitz

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LINKWorries About Internet Crime Spark Legislative Blitz

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- America Online Takes New Opinions to Capitol Hill; E-Commerce Delegation in Europe ASHINGTON -- Lawmakers will open a new round of hearings addressing recent attacks on Web sites Tuesday, with civil libertarians warning them to be careful when looking for solutions in a frenzy of legislation.

Jim Dempsey, senior staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, plans to tell a joint House and Senate oversight panel that some of the proposed laws could trample on the privacy of Internet users.

Among the proposals being discussed by some House members is a bill that would make it easier for companies to provide information to the government about electronic attacks and security issues by exempting that data from the Freedom of Information Act. Some companies are concerned that without this exemption, their proprietary data could be released to the public. But advocates are worried about providing exemptions to a law designed to insure that the government is accountable to the people.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is using the hacker scare to try to find a sponsor for the Cyberspace Security Act. The proposal it has drafted would set legal standards under which law officers could gain access to codes used to unscramble encrypted digital communications.

The proposed legislation "is fraught with problems and could reopen the encryption debate," the Center for Democracy and Technology said in an e-mail bulletin late Friday. "It has no connection with the denial of service attacks (no connection with Internet security, period), but the FBI has been shopping it in recent weeks as a response to the attacks."

Dempsey said the bill is just one example of the bad laws that could get passed amid an Internet security frenzy on Capitol Hill.

"The fear is of the Christmas tree effect, that something that may start out modest and focus on narrow changes in the law becomes a Christmas tree as members in both the House and Senate rush forward to hang their own ideas on it," Dempsey said. "Not only do we fear that some bad laws will be included, but that the privacy side of the equation will be ignored."

Dempsey pointed out that fears of privacy invasions are the biggest concerns people have about using the Internet. "So if the concern here is trust, which it is, and the denial of service attacks undermine trust in the Internet, the way to solve that is not to give more power to the government," he said.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), February 29, 2000

Answers

If the IT companies are not backing additional legislation, we may infer they fear the Government more than hackers. (The IT response to government intervention was posted earlier by the way).

And this says ?????????

-- mike in houston (mmorris67@hotmail.com), February 29, 2000.


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