The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 1986

Information Technology Acts

University of Phoenix

BIS/220 Introduction to Computer Application and Systems

Donald Hunter

January 21, 2013

Information Technology Acts

In the 21st century information technology has continual moved ahead over the years, ethical concerns are now issues today? Accordingly, the government executed specific acts to govern these concerns. In this paper two of those Acts will be addressed, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 1986 and Children's Internet Protection Act, 2000.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 1986.

Years ago there were no laws were established to monitor or regulate the usage of computers. Laws are created to respond to ethical concerns or social issues, in the early 70's and 80's there were no know problems pertaining to the use of computers. In the mid 1980's technological advances brought personal computers into widespread use in homes, high schools, colleges, and businesses (Encyclopedia Computer Science 2002). The use of telephone lines and modems became the interconnections of computers. People could now store confidential and personal information on home and business computers, which made the information vulnerable to interferences.

The U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 was an amendment to the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984(Encyclopedia Computer Science 2002). It was the first comprehensive legislation in the US to identify and provide for the persecution of crimes committed through and against computer systems. In 1984, there were only three areas of this Act that were covered as it relates to crimes related to the use of computers. The three areas was all related to the unauthorized access of federal government data, consumer credit information and unauthorized access to a computer used for, or on behalf of, the U.S government. Because the 1984 Act was limited to government computers the Act of 1984 was superseded in 1986. In 1986 the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 was established to include government and non-government computers. The U.S. government has the right to regulate commerce between or among several states (Computer Law 1991). It was illegal to intentionally without authorization, attempt to obtain protected information.

In the 1980's, personal computers were new and the programming was not as sophisticated then as it is now. High school and college students were responsible for programming the computers, and the vulnerability to sensitive information becomes easy for curious outsiders, hackers, and high school and college students to gain unauthorized access to this information. The existing laws would not be adequate enough to deal with the theft or spying of the new technologies,