Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

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Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Everything is stored on the internet including highly classified government information, and your bank information. How do we make sure no one steals, views, or sells your passwords, and private information? Congress passed a law in 1986 called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to protect the government’s information. Many laws have been passed that revises the CFAA. The CFAA has imprisoned many people, and many people want changes to the CFAA today.
The CFAA was made to cover the majority of computer crimes. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was created because the United States Secret Service, and other government agencies needed a law to allow them to investigate cyber-crimes. The United States government also needed a way to discourage and stop people from hacking, accessing data, and many other internet crimes from a government computer. With computers on the rise, and the government converting to computers, the government needed a way to discourage and prosecute someone that damaged or gained access to the government’s information, and any other kind of computer. This law was also made to protect any kind of businesses computers or servers. The CFAA also is considered a net that Congress throws all the bad fish in. Including “fraud, hacking, piracy, DOS (Denial of Service) attacks, trafficking passwords, (selling, stealing, and buying passwords), and distributing malicious code.” To summarize the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act it protects “anything that connects to the internet”.
Computers were on the rise (being used more often), and so were computer crimes. How did Congress prosecute these criminals? They didn’t because couldn’t. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was the solution to intern...

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...4 2014.
Dawson, Christian. http://blog.servint.net/2013/10/17/short-history-u-s-internet-legislation-computer-fraud-abuse-act/. 17 October 2013. 3 February 2014.
Doyle, Charles. fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20830.pdf 27 December 2010. 29 Januaray 2014.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act_(CFAA). 24 April 2013. 27 January 2014.
Fowler, Bree and Joe Mandack. http://news.yahoo.com/hackers-may-used-pa-company-hit-target-195942337.html. 7 February 2014. 11 February 2014.
Hendler, James. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-times-reform-computer-fraud-abuse-act/. 16 August 2013. 24 Janurary 2014.
IT Law Wiki. http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act_of_1986. 2 Januarary 2014. 10 February 2014.
PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/blame/crimelaws.html. 1995-2014. 27 January 2014.

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