[E. Pluribus Unum]

To date no terrorists are known to have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But several recent hacker cases would have qualified as "Federal terrorism offenses" under the Justice Department proposal...

Go after the guys who didn't do it. Makes sense to me.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Life in prison for hackers?

Bummer.

[zog]

--check this out. "Freeping" a governmental officials email address could be construed as a DOS attack. RICO. organized on a website, and etc.

Don't laff, 1500 farmers are out of water under the BUSH administration, for a suckerfish. would anyone have though that possible even 10 years ago?

I keep thinking, wtc/pentagon was just too useful a happening to pass up exploiting by the goons. We'll see more loss of freedoms over this incident than over the sum total of everything else the past 30 years, and just wait until the next attack.

[Dog Gone]

As far as I'm concerned, hackers, and creators of computer viruses, ought to be hung. Even that's too lenient.

[BigOrra]

As a "Federal terrorism offense," the five year statute of limitations for hacking would be abolished retroactively -- allowing computer crimes committed decades ago to be prosecuted today...

Isn't there a little thing called the Constitution of the United States of America that contains a clause prohibiting the creation of ipso facto laws. It has always been my understanding that changing the wording of a law in any way basically creates a new law, and if hopping on one leg was legal yesterday and illegal today, I couldn't be prosecuted on evidence that I hopped on one leg in the past, even if the statute of limitations for hopping on one leg were unlimited. A statute of limitations, cannot go back to before the day a law was enacted. A$#croft is really outdoing himself for striking while the iron is hot to usurp our civil liberties. It almost makes me miss Janet Reno...
What's next, will jaywalking be classified as "deliberate obstruction of mass transit" and punishable by life in prision?

[Hank Rearden]

I thought I saw Janet Ashcroft rubbing "his" hands together in glee this weekend.

[Ol' Sparky]

I don't how a conservative could oppose the most severe punishment for hackers that spread viruses. We should be increasing the punishment for other crimes and be thankful for proper punishment for losers that create viruses.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You all are working under the impression that we even have rights.

We don't.

We only have the illusion of freedom (not freedom itself). Which some of you are about to find out the hard way.

Paul C. Jesup

[The Duke]

If hackers are to face life in prison then I guess that means that spammers will be drawn and quartered???

[jackbill]

Hackers, virus-writers and web site defacers would face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under legislation proposed by the Bush Administration that would classify most computer crimes as acts of terrorism.

Frankly, I'd use the death penalty on the bastards.

[Liberal Classic]

Wait just a moment. Many convicted murderer do not even receive life in prison. Defacing a website is similar to vandalism. Using an exploit to get computer codes, or other propriety data is form of theft. Let's have some sense of proportion, and recognise that computer intrusion is a form of trespassing, not tantamount to murder.

[Fred25]

Only “life”? I was hoping it would be death by firing squad at dawn.

[B Knotts]

and assaults designed to change the purpose of government."

Hmmm...come to think of it, under this definition, this proposal itself qualifies as a terrorist act.

So, the Attorney General may have to prosecute himself.

Don't get me wrong; I agree with him on a lot of stuff. But on this, he's all wet.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Question : Who wrote this Legislation? DOJ with input their attorneys? Ashcroft himself? ex-judges? How do these things take shape?

To say a teenaged hacker trying to impress his girlfriend is a terrorist is a bit of a stretch. Yes, he should have been punished, and punished severely. But life in prison?

Looks like the feds think zero-tolerance is the way to go.

Just damn. I love my country, I support my president, but that does not mean I will roll over and play dead when it comes this.

[Bobsat]

If the most severe penalty for cyber-terrorism we can get is life imprisonment, I'll settle for it despite how I really feel....

[clee1]

As a long time IT professional, let me tell you that hacking deserves a LONG jail sentence.(I don't support life w/o parole, though). Even the most innocent of intrusions cost billions a year to businesses, and any info stolen could be as dangerous to the general public as an opressive fed gov't can be.

[spunkets]

So teenage script kiddies will now get more time than child molesters? Sounds like the terrorists fogged DC with LSD.

[genxer]

As you all laugh, I can tell there aren't many sysadmins amoung you. I own a hosting company and one hack alone cost over $50K in refunds, downtime and repair fees. We have a 99.9% uptime guarantee and refund customers if they are down for more than 30 minutes a month.

This type of damage almost put us out of business and killed our American Dream. We work 18-20 hours per day 7 days a week, working to keep our customers safe from people who have too much time on their hand and try to hurt other people just for the fun of it.

In this last month we recieved over 35 orders from foreign countries, using stolen american credit cards, stolen how, by hackers.

It's not funny. This last Nimda Virus, took out Phone Companies, Insurance Companies, Large Corporations that provide vital services for this nation. This poses a national threat a threat the could cripple the entire country.

[Enough is ENOUGH]

The latest endangered species: The Hacker

Save The Hacker cries were heard as the Administration proposed it's anti-terrorism bill. One well-known ACLU activist was heard telling a crowd of on-lookers "I don't care if a thousand terrorists get through to accomplish their missions as long as we can save one Hacker."

Yeah, it's a Catch-22 situation because we don't trust our politicians or future leftist administrations with these powers and we won't admit to ourselves that the terrorists are homicidal maniacs that are out to nuke-bio-chem us to oblivion so they can go to heaven to get laid.

We're all nuts. How did we ever get to this point? Anybody got any ideas on how to catch terrorists during their planning stages?

[PatrioticAmerican]

This sort of extremism is EXACTLY why many people are turned off by the Republican party. Many people think bashing the living sh*t out of someone for such an offense is totalitarianism at its worst. Punish the little creeps, but "life"? Perhaps that is why a rapist gets on everage 3-7 years, but someone caught with 2 ounces of pot can be considered so horrible as to need 10 minimum. It seems overreating to crime is the RNCs MO. Of course, crimes committed by government officials are rarely prosecuted.