Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair
Computer Crimes and Prosecutions on the Rise: Cyber Espionage, Theft of Corporate Trade Secrets and Identity Fraud Continue to Increase
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Every human invention designed to benefit mankind has always been corrupted for illegal and immoral purposes. It’s a flaw inherent in the human soul. So it is with the computer—one of man’s most significant inventions and which someday may well be the cause of man’s downfall, at least according to some prophets of doom. While the computer is essentially a wonderful device that services billions of legitimate purposes, it is also an attractive vehicle for criminal pursuits.
From well financed foreign government intelligence operations to small-time identity thieves, the computer is being used to revolutionize crime. The current boogie-man in the computer world is China. From presidential wannabes like Donald Trump to global computer giants like Google and Microsoft, China is seen not only as a global business competitor but also as a communist spy and saboteur that sneaks into our country via the internet.
In 1998 when China had far more people than computers there were only 148 computer crime cases reported in that country. By 2009, that number had increased to 48,000. The crimes include distributing obscenity and child pornography, gambling, producing and spreading viruses, and computer and networking hacking, according to a white paper titled The Internet in Chinawhich was issued by China’s Office of the State Council. The report added that in 2009 more than one million IP addresses in China were controlled from overseas and that 42,000 websites were destroyed and another 18 million Chinese computers were infected by the Conflicker virus on a monthly basis—some 30 percent of the nation’s computers.
“China is one of the nation’s suffering the most from hacking,” the paper lamented.
The Chinese government apparently took notice from its own computer criminals as well as those from abroad. The government discovered that hacking and website invasion made for excellent military and technology information gathering. A recent report by McAfee Inc. disclosed that hackers from China stole sensitive information from oil companies, adding to the growing prevalence of computer crimes being committed by the official Chinese government.
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Youthful Pirate Faces Life in Federal Prison if Convicted on Piracy Charges
By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, the lone survivor of the four Somali pirates who attacked the United States flagged-ship Maersk Alabama on April 8, 2009, was recently indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on five criminal counts, including piracy under Section 1651 of the Title 18 of the United States Code. The other three pirates did not fare as well. They were killed four days earlier in spectacular fashion by Navy Seals sharp shooters who also rescued the captain of the Maersk Alabama. If convicted of piracy, Muse will face a life sentence under United States Code Title 18, Section 1651.
The Maersk Alabama case, which drew around-the-clock media attention, provoked intense discussions in American households and work places about the issue of piracy and what to do about it. The only real frame of reference most Americans had of piracy before this incident was the swashbuckling kind portrayed in Disney’s Pirates of Caribbean. The Maersk Alabama made the horrible act of piracy personal because the freighter was flying an American flag and was being captained by an American citizen. In effect, the four pirates had attacked America and held the nation hostage for four days until the Navy Seals shut down the high seas drama with three simultaneous, perfectly-placed bullets that not only killed three of the Somali pirates but sent a message to other potential pirates that the American military will take no prisoners when Americans are attacked on the high seas.
One hundred and eighty-nine years ago the United States Supreme Court held that the U.S. Congress had the power “to define and punish piracy and felonies committed on high seas, and offenses against law of nations.” 1/ Forty-one years later a Massachusetts court ruled that the U.S. Constitution conferred upon Congress the power to not only punish piracy under the Law of Nations but to define piracy in its own terms even if the high seas acts committed were not considered piracy by the Law of Nations.2/ Larry Howard, a professor at the Maritime College branch of the State University of New York, and an expert on piracy, said these definitions were embraced by the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas which defined piracy as “any act of depredation, committed for private ends.”
The Supreme Court in 1893 defined “high seas” as open waters of oceans and seas 3/, and forty-two years later a California federal court held that the territorial waters of the United States are not considered “high seas.” 4/ Under the Law of Nations, any robbery committed on the high seas is piracy 5/ and Article 3 of the Law of Nations defines the term “law of nations” as “the science of the rights which exist between Nations or States, and of the obligations corresponding to these rights.” (more…)
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