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The Role of Federal Agencies in Fighting Digital Crime 2
Abstract
The threats coming from the actions of digital criminals and terrorists produce a variety of challenges for federal agencies and all other law enforcement units which have the responsibility to protect private business, the individuals and governments from these threats.
The political leaders as well as the leaders of law enforcement agencies realize the necessity to be upgraded, to have new priorities, strategies and innovations to encounter the constantly growing threats of computer crime.
When internet became affordable and easy to access for ordinary people a new frontier was opened without any limits, bringing lots of advantages and lots of threats for law enforcement at the same time.
Nowadays, after two decades cyberbullying, cyberstalking, theft of wireless services, obscenity, etc. are criminalized and we have plenty of laws but the investigation and bringing the intruders to Court is still far from reality.
Many agencies as Secret Service, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Federal Trade Commission and Bureau of Customs and Borders have specialized units which unite their efforts to combat the more spreading digital crimes.
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“Effectively combating cybercrime requires a mix of strategies. Think of it as a three-legged stool, comprised of legal remedies, technology and practical experience which work together to prevent attacks like password breaches and online fraud” (1).
The US legislation, especially the regulatory branch of it, enacts the following agencies, because of their wide jurisdiction. to take the responsibility of combating law enforcement by digital crimes.
Secret Service deals with the enforcement of three high profile digital crimes:
- Identify and investigate financial institutional fraud such as banks, saving and loans;
- The jurisdiction in cases involving access devised fraud which are under Title 18 ( credit cards, personal identification numbers and pass words.)
- Investigation of computer crimes involving federal interests.
Federal Bureau for investigation persecutes domestic criminal acts that computers are involved like internet fraud, hacking, obscenity, etc. which are crossing state lines. Together with DOJ they form The National Infrastructure Protection Centre to protect federal computer system against computer terrorist actions.
National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for designing and maintaining computerized coding system to protect the US information system from violations. It has the most highly trained professionals as computer scientists, researchers and engineers.
S. H. Foss Jr., COO. NorseCorp. “Limitations of Law Enforcement in Fighting Cyber Crimes”,
SC Magazine, July 18, 2012
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Federal Trade Commission (DTC) deals mainly with the traditional criminal activities which are performed online such as false marketing crimes, credit repair scam and financial pyramid schemes.
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection is responsible for detecting and seizing child pornography which crime more and more is performed through internet. It established The Customs Cyber Smuggling Centre which deals also with international money laundering, illegal arms trafficking and violations of intellectual property.
The Federal Government Agencies have a significant role in combating cybercrimes. They possess the best technologies and specialists, political power and financial resources to combat computer crime at national level.
They successfully cooperate with the digital crime units formed within the big computer corporation. Very good example for that is the cooperation between Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit and US marshals and a Consortium of Financial Services Security Firms which prevented more than ten thousands of citizens that may have taken more than $ 100 million, known as Operation B71 (2).
Unfortunately the United States do not have a strategy exclusively focused on combating computer crimes but other broad strategies that have digital crime components such as those targeting cyber security or transnational cyber crime. It may be questioned whether these broad strategies provide specific cybercrime-related objectives and clear means to achieve these goals. As Scott Charney writes “greater attribution and clear rules for responding to both non-attributed and attributed attacks would enable the development and implementation of better strategies and tactics for responding to cyberthreats.”(3).
As a conclusion we have to say that cyber-criminals are not sitting still and they are probably increasing the distance between themselves and the law enforcement has no option but to come up with them which means recognition of the problem and mobilizing all efforts to meet the challenge no matter what it costs.
S. h. Foss Jr., COO, NorseCorp. “Limitations of Law Enforcement in Fighting Cyber Crimes”
SC Magazine, July 18, 2012
Scott Charney, “Rethinking the Cyber Threat: A Framework and Path Forward”.
Trustwurthy Computing Group, Microsoft Corp., 2009, p. 12
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Reference
Scott Charney, “Rethinking the Cyber Threat: A Framework and Path Forward”.
Trustwurthy Computing Group, Microsoft Corp., 2009, p. 12
S. h. Foss Jr., COO, NorseCorp. “Limitations of Law Enforcement in Fighting Cyber Crimes”
SC Magazine, July 18, 2012
