Analyzes Two Legal Cases Related to Cybercrime - Research Paper Example

? Identify two reported court cases that have impacted the evidentiary process or analysis in digital forensic cases The study analyzes two legal cases related to cybercrime. The cybercrime cases considered for the paper were ‘United States of America v. Jeanson James Ancheta’ and ‘107 F3d 4 United States V. Fernandez Lee’. Both cases were summarized as well as analyzed to conclude its effects and significances. United States of America v. Jeanson James Ancheta Synopsis Jeanson James Ancheta (the defendant), a 21 year old boy of Downey, California was accused as per the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, for the abuse of CAN-SPAM Act and for accessing the protected computers of US governmental agencies for committing fraudulent crimes and causing damages to the computers of the Federal used for the purpose of national defense. The defendant was consequently sentenced to the federal prison of the US for 57 years, which was recorded to be the longest term of imprisonment in the constitution of cyber crimes. The prosecution of the court revealed that the defendant was using the Federal protected computer ‘botnets’ for creating spam-wire all over the internet, launching of critical cyber attacks and to receive the fixing adware that caused immense threat to the confidential data protection of the government. During the hearing process, the defendant also committed that he had gained over $3,000 by selling the access of his botnets, which further deepened the seriousness of the cybercrime threatening the national security (The Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2006). He had sold the botnets to others who were using it for sending spontaneous commercial spam and the launch of Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS). Ancheta also provided his customers with carious knowledge regarding the use of botnets and proper maintenance of the DDOS attacks and the commercial spam that were considered as against the Federal law (Samaha, 2010). Holding The US court charged Ancheta with a number of acts under the constitution of cyber crime laws. The defendant was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (a)(5)(A)(i) and 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (a)(5)(B)(i) for making attempts to the transmission of code to a protected computer, under 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (a)(5)(B)(v) against the attempts to make the transmission of code to the computers used by the government for the national defense, under 18 U.S.C. § 371 against conspiracy of Federal and national defense information, under 18 U.S.C. § (a)(4) against the access to the computers with an intention to commit fraud, and under 18 U.S.C. § 1956 (a)(1)(A)(i) against his activities to promote money laundering (Imhof, 2010). Analysis In the case of Ancheta, the decision levied by the court was justified as his crime was found to be severely threatening for the US national security. The acts those were imposed on him were all in accordance to the law. The court also instructed Ancheta to pay $51,000 to the Federal against the damage caused to their computers (Imhof, 2010). Furthermore, the defendant’s 57 months of imprisonment created a record of the longest term of punishment in the US, which was very much justified if his severity of fraud was to be kept in consideration. Affect The case of United States of America v. Jeanson James Ancheta is often considered as a landmark case in the history of cyber and telecommunication crimes. The rule of the case contributed towards the development of stricter and a more advanced framework to identify and penalize the persons found guilty for committing cyber fraud or unauthorized access to protected computers being treated as unlawful (Schiller & Binkley, 2011). 107 F3d 4 United States V. Fernandez Lee Synopsis In the month of December 1992, Mr. John Lee was accused with the charge of framing a conspiracy to possess as well as use a cyber device, which was not authorized as per regulatory norms. This approach of the accused was found to be violating the section 18 U.S.C. § 371 of the Federal Conspiracy law, which later resulted in his imprisonment for one year followed by a day and three years of supervised release on the ground of his past community services. However, after a certain period of time, the probation office in the US found him guilty of violating the conditions of his supervised release under the charges that he failed to be in contact with the ‘community service agency’ during his supervised release, being in association with co-conspirers and denying FBI with the delivery of information regarding his crime for which he was considered liable for imprisonment upto two years. In the 1996 trial on the case, the court penalized Lee with imprisonment of one year on the grounds of the reports presented and the advice of the probation officer on the same. Lee also appealed against the decision of the court and stated that his sentencing was not taken into consideration with the policy statement presented in the case law of United States v. Anderson, 15 F.3d 278, 284 (2d Cir.1994). The trail of Mr. Lee further illustrated that he was fully aware of the policy statement but delivering judgment on such basis would have been completely inappropriate as it was only providing limited information regarding the entire scenario (Open Jurist, 1997). Holding The court charged Mr. Lee for his unauthorized access to computers and conduct of a wire fraud. This approach comes under 18 U.S.C. § 371 of the law, which yield an imprisonment of five years in usual cases (Legal Information Institute, n.d.). However, the court, owing to the services of Mr. Lee towards community services, limited his sentence to one year along with a three year supervised release. His approach during the supervised release also came under the scanner when he violated several terms and conditions of the same, resulting in imprisonment of one year (Open Jurist, 1997). Analysis The decision of the court in the initial trail of the case was completely centered on the illegal conduct of the defendant in terms of an unauthorized access to Federal computers and damaging confidential information thereafter. As the conspiracy was against the welfare of the US, the misconduct as treated under 18 U.S.C. § 371 of the Federal Conspiracy law, for which, the defendant was rightly sentenced for one year and three years of supervised release, although it can be argued as quite a limited penalty for such offenses. In the later stages, Lee was again imprisoned owing to his illegal conduct being in supervised release. Affect The case can be considered remarkable in its own sense. Firstly, the court decided to provide the benefit of supervised release to Mr. Lee owing to his noteworthy services in the past. This rule can be considered as an exception but should only be considered in future cases that impose lesser threat to national security. Secondly, in the trial concerning the defendant’s violation of terms and conditions of supervised release, the court penalized Mr. Lee, based on the grounds of the suggestive report of a probation officer, ruling that the current evidences must be considered with greater significance based on case requirements. References Imhof, R. (2010). Cyber Crime and Telecommunications Law. Introduction, 1-221. Legal Information Institute. (n.d.). 18 USC § 371 - Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States. Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 Open Jurist. (1997). 107 F. 3d 4 - United States v. Fernandez Lee. Retrieved from http://openjurist.org/107/f3d/4/this-summary/3 Schiller, C., & Binkley, J. R. (2011). Botnets: The Killer Web Applications. Boston: Syngress. Samaha, J. (2010). Criminal Law. United States: Cengage Learning. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2006). The Case of the “Zombie King”. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/may Bibliography Findlaw. (n.d.). United States of America v. Jenson James Ancheta. Retrieved from http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/program/law/08-732/Crime/usVancheta.pdf Public Resources. (n.d.). United States court of appeals tenth circuit. Retrieved from https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/219/219.F3d.1263.99-3277.html Read More