Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05@uow.edu.au>
Reno Urges Crackdown On Cybercrime In The Americas
RTos 26-11-1998 07:21
By Joelle Diderich
BRASILIA (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday
the Americas should unite in a crackdown on cybercrime, warning that the
use of new technologies posed an increasing threat to the hemisphere.
"Today a man can sit in his kitchen in New York City and steal from a
bank in Chile," Reno told the 10th Inter-American Congress of Public
Prosecution, which brought together attorneys general from North, Central
and South America and the Caribbean.
Law enforcement authorities have so far failed to keep up with the
explosion of computer networks and the Internet, and "already
technological advances have empowered criminals to move their illicit
wealth from bank to bank and country to country in the blink of an eye,"
Reno said.
"We cannot hope to prevail against our criminal adversaries unless we
begin to use the same interactive mechanisms in the pursuit of justice as
they use in the pursuit of crime and wealth," she told the seminar in
Brazil's capital.
The attorney general also called for closer cooperation between
specialists in computers and experts on crime, to pinpoint existing
loopholes in the law.
Justice officials should build on agreements signed at the Summit of
the Americas in Chile last April to form a united front against crimes in
cyberspace, Reno said.
"Let us work together to come to agreement on a common statute or
legal regime to address the issue of cybercrime," she said, without
elaborating on the proposal. "We must and we can make sure that we control
the technology."
Intellectual property rights are another area in which authorities
are lagging, allowing trade in fake copies of CDs, video games, computer
software and videos to flourish, she noted.
Many countries in Latin America, under pressure from the United
States and other powerful trading partners, have recently started to bring
their copyright piracy laws up to date, although cyberspace remains a gray
area for most.
Paraguay earlier this month signed a bilateral accord with the United
States to strengthen its copyright laws, seeking to shed its reputation as
a haven for counterfeiters supplying pirated goods to the rest of the
region.
Brazil and Argentina updated their laws this year to make computer
piracy a crime.
Before the new law came into effect, illegal copies accounted for 68
percent of all computer programs sold in Brazil, according to the
Brazilian Association of Software Companies.
Reno suggested using new technologies to swap information and
proposed an increase in the use of videoconferencing and the creation of a
Justice Studies Center, a legal database for the region.
She stressed the importance of improving extradition procedures to
make sure there were no safe havens for criminals, saying this could best
be achieved through informal contacts between nations.
"Let's discard the outdated formalities," she said. "When we didn't
do something right, pick up the phone and call me."
-o-
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Received on Tue Dec 8 08:59:50 1998