Courses

    This course will examine the key legal and policy issues associated with cybercrime – i.e., crimes in which computers and the Internet serve as targets, as storage devices, and as instrumentalities of crime – as a global phenomenon. As the Internet has become a truly global medium for commerce and communication, nations are gradually recognizing that new technology can not only expand the reach and power of traditional crimes, but foster new forms of criminal activity as well, throughout the world. The course will adopt an explicitly comparative legal approach to the problem of cybercrime, focusing principally on nations in North America, Europe, and Asia, and address pertinent international legal issues where appropriate. It will first address basic issues in comparative criminal law, as well as background information on computing and Internet technology. It will then address some of the most prominent topics in the substantive law of cybercrime (e.g., pornography and obscenity, "hate speech," cyberstalking, hacking, fraud, intellectual property offenses such as software piracy and economic espionage, and other issues associated with privacy and anonymity on the Internet). It will then turn to major issues in the procedural law of cybercrime (e.g., surveillance technologies such as Carnivore and legal standards for interception of electronic communications). Given the rapid pace of developments in computing and Internet law, the course will incorporate the most current materials available online and in hard copy. Students will be expected to use the Internet for intraclass communications and access to certain course materials, but need not have a detailed knowledge of computing or the Internet. [Prerequisite: Basic course in Criminal Law] [25-page paper]