Comprehensive Crime Control Act Of 1986 (CFAA)

Computer technologies continue to improve every day and there are people who use those technologies for illegal activity. Laws were created to try to enforce people not to use computers for illegal activity and to penalize people who do break the law with fines and/or imprisonment. There are several laws that have impact U.S. society and one of them set up a foundation for other laws created afterwards, which is The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA). As with non-computer laws, there are penalties and fined that exist for people who are convicted of violating the CFAA. The law has been effective in convicting offenders and there may be some modification needed to improve on the law. Any of the changes to the laws would affect society

While the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 was not adequate the CFAA was created with computer crime in mind. One of the main aspects of the CFAA was to be able to convict a person for accessing a computer without permission to steal, damage, or modify information. Another aspect of the CFAA was to make it a crime to knowing causing a transmission of a malicious program to damage or access a computer intentionally without permission. For an example a black hat hacker sending a virus to a company computer to access or damage information without permission could be convicted. A white hat hacker, which is hired by a company, could send a virus to a test computer for testing

One of the changes to the CFAA would give more specifics and definitions to what some of the wording means in the CFAA. For an example with the case about the fake account created with MySpace.com, specifics can be made to point out that violating the TOS of a website does not make the act illegal unless if it is something that is illegal by federal or state law. The creating of fake profiles is not illegal by any laws, but the websites that prohibit the creation of fake profiles have their own penalties such as deleting the profile. The effect on society would be that people who have fake profiles would not have to worry about being prosecuted due to creating those accounts, which could be thousands of people. It would be a waste of money and of time of courts and law enforcement who should focus on criminal cases. Another addition to the Act would be to define what is considered to be a computer such as the smart phones, tablets, person digital assistant, and other devices. The definition may include hardware that is capably of connecting by wireless, cable connection, or mobile data and send pictures, text, and other files to be consider as computers under the CFAA for crimes that could be committed with these devices. According to Washburn (2011), the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th circuit believes that the cell phone is