Introduction
Computer laws provide the legal terms to be taken upon individuals who are found guilty of cyber-related crimes. Cybercrimes can either comprise computers, mobile gadgets or internet events (Barnes, 2006). These crimes can either be crimes committed by the computer networks or illegal actions that directly target computers.
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986
Electronic Communication Privacy Act 0f 1998 (ECPA) was billed by the United States’ associations to expand government regulations on wiretaps from blower call to confine out sending of electronic information by a computer such as stored communication Act and annexed pen trap supply that allows the evidence finding of a telephone conversation. The Act added new amounts restricting access to stored electronic discussions. ECPA was a reform to credit 3 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act of the year 1968 which was structured to stop illegal government access to personal electronic communication. The ECPA, as improved, keeps safe wire, oral and electronic communication during the communication process and when they are being stored in electronic devices. The Act applies to email and telephone communications (Mulligan, 2003) .
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United States v. Councilman case
This was a criminal case that involved a group of three judges. In the first circuit court of appeal ruled that an organization did not break national wiretap law when it utilized the email services. Since it necessitates its subscribers to access their emails so that it could see written text sent to them by competitor organization. The controversy, in this case, was whether an intercept of an exchange of information happened within the meaning of the wiretap act. During the second ruling, the court held that electronic exchange of information was not intercepted if the exchange of information was accessed while it was in temporary storage. In this case, the initial circuit overruled the panel’s ruling (Oyama, 2006).
Importance of this case to the act
The ruling that an electronic exchange of information temporally stored while in transits does not break the wiretap act if intercepted contributed to the history of the Electronic Communication Acts since it helps in defining what precisely a written message in transit is versus and message in storage ( Martin, & Cendrowski, 2014)
A recent case of identity theft
Identity theft is a phrase used to delegate all kinds of acts committed in violation of the law in which an individual unlawfully acquires and utilizes a different individual's data in ways that entangle fraud or misleading actions generally for economic gain. A recent case of identity theft was in May 2011, where a craft store by the name Michaels experienced a security breach, more so those clients who had made purchases between February and May. This led to revealing of data of clients who had transacted PIN-founded purchases. A class action case was made formally against Michaels in the court of Passaic which is located in New Jersey, following the security breach event. The same company experienced a similar incidence in April 2014 (Bilge, et al., 2009) .
Recent laws dealing with identity theft in my state of residence
Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act is an example of contemporary law dealing with identity theft. The bill was proposed into law in 1998 by the Congress. This regulation prohibits knowingly conveying or utilizing, without legitimate authority, a means of understanding of a different individual with the purpose to commit, or to assist or encourage, any illegal action that constitutes a transgression of the federal law. This crime in many situations carries a jail term of up to 15 years or a fine. Other statutes include computer fraud and mail fraud. Crimes involving either computer, identification or credit card fraud carry significantly high penalties such jail imprisonment of up to 30 years, fines and legal actions whereby the convicted individual loses all interest in the forfeit property ( Romanosky et al., 2011). In conclusion, Computer actions committed in violation of the law are a top interest of the legal organizations. Computer crimes comprise both the fixed and unalterable parts of the computer as well as encoded computer instructions.
Reference
Barnes, S. B. (2006). A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States. First Monday , 11 (9).
Bilge, L., Strufe, T., Balzarotti, D., & Kirda, E. (2009, April). All your contacts are belong to us: automated identity theft attacks on social networks. In Proceedings of the 18th international conference on World wide web (pp. 551-560). ACM.
Martin, J. P., & Cendrowski, H. (2014). Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Cloud Computing and Electronic Discovery , 55-74.
Mulligan, D. K. (2003). Reasonable expectations in electronic communications: A critical perspective on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Geo. Wash. L. Rev. , 72 , 1557.
Oyama, K. A. (2006). E-mail privacy after United States v. Councilman: Legislative options for amending ECPA. Berkeley Technology Law Journal , 499-529.
Romanosky, S., Telang, R., & Acquisti, A. (2011). Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft?. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management , 30 (2), 256-286.
