To: CLS Participants (Web only; e-mail alert)

From: Nicholas Johnson

Re: CLS/Reading Assignments for March 22, 2000

Note: The following material, as always, will be the subject of a brief quiz. Page numbers are indicated to give a rough sense of length of material and are taken from my printed copies.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1030 (1996) (4 pages). See also [but not covered on the quiz] The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, U.S. Department of Justice, "The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996: Legislative Analysis" (10 pages).

United States v. Czubinski (D. Mass. 1997) (8 pages). This opinion is insightful not only for what it provides about wire fraud (18 U.S.C. Secs. 1343  and 1346) and computer fraud (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1030(a)(4)) but for the questions it raises for us regarding protection of the private details contained in an institution's computerized data base available to all employees. Should those details be protected from unofficial perusal? How can they be protected?

United States v. LaMacchia (D. Mass. 1994) (12 pages). What exactly did David LaMacchia do? Did he violate the Copyright Act? What do you learn from this case about the circumstances under which a copyright violation (involving computers and the Internet) becomes a crime? How was Paul Dowling's "crime" (discussed in LaMacchia) distinguishable?

United States v. Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir. 1991) (6 pages). What was the crime for which Robert Morris was prosecuted? What had he done? Why did he do it? Should that be relevant? What were his arguments? Did you find any of them persuasive?

United States v. Sablan (9th Cir. 1996) (5 pages). What had Bernadette Sablan done? How is it similar, or distinguishable, from what Morris did (a case on which the Sablan court relies)? What are the restitution issues?

Corcoran v. Sullivan (7th Cir. 1997) (2 pages). How is the legal issue in this case distinguished from that in the prior three? Would the result have been different if Corcoran had been more precise in his efforts and destroyed only the programming on which he clearly held the copyright?

North Texas Preventive Imaging v. Eisenberg (C.D. Calif. 1996) (7 pages). How were Eisenberg's actions distinguishable from Corcoran's -- if at all? How does Sec. 1030(a)(5)(A) change the statutory impact from the cases above?

United States v. Riggs, 743 F.Supp. 556 (N.D. Ill. 1990) (5 pages). How are these facts distinguishable from those in the prior cases? What were the defendants' goals?

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Technology, Executive Summary, "Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare-Defense (IWD)" (Nov. 1996) (3 pages; read from the center heading "Executive Summary" to "Recommendations" -- although you are, of course, not forbidden to read more).

Although not on the quiz, if you are interested in reading more about cybercrimes, see the Web page with that name maintained at the University of Dayton School of Law: "Cybercrimes."