After working together for more than a month on a bill to combat cybercrime and create online privacy protections, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and ranking member Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., parted company and late Thursday introduced separate bills on the subject.
Hatch introduced the Internet Integrity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, S. 2448, with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. The 75-page bill would stiffen penalties against cybercrime, permit law enforcement to obtain national "trap and trace" court orders, and boost resources to combat computer crime internationally.
The measure also includes language devoted to privacy protections that would require Web-based businesses to give consumers with the right to "opt-out" before sharing or reselling personally identifiable information.
Meanwhile, Leahy introduced the more limited Internet Security Act, S. 2430, after meetings with Hatch staffers broke down over the extent to which penalties for hacking would be strengthened and whether there should be protections against privacy abuses by law enforcement.
Leahy's bill broadens the scope of the existing $5,000 loss minimum before the federal government obtains jurisdiction over computer hacking cases. It also eliminates the use of mandatory minimum sentences for certain hacking crimes, a measure requested by the Justice Department. And it provides law enforcement officials with the ability to obtain national "trap and trace" court orders, but only in exchange for greater judicial review of such orders.
Leahy delayed introducing his own bill last month when Hatch asked him to collaborate on drafting a bipartisan bill addressing Justice Department proposals for dealing with cybercrime. Leahy's office said that Hatch's staff members refused to clarify whether they had excised offending sections from a 90-page draft bill that has been circulating since late March. A Hatch spokeswoman said the office had no comment on Leahy's proposals, but added that it was not too late to co-sponsor Hatch's bill.
Leahy's office was concerned with provisions that call for a doubling of the prison sentences for hackers to 10 years, cutting off all their student aid, and maintaining a mandatory 6-month minimum sentence for lesser computer crimes. Justice Department officials have said that the mandatory minimum sentence deters prosecutors from bringing smaller cases.
On free speech and privacy issues, Leahy objected to a section of Hatch's draft bill that gave businesses additional rights to sue individuals who disparage their products over the Internet, and to a separate section that limit individual rights against the search and seizure of cable television viewing records.
Although a copy of the Hatch-Schumer bill was not immediately available, a summary of the measure provided by Hatch's office still included both sections.
"Much of this legislation incorporates what we had already been working on with [Sen. John] Kyl," R-Ariz., said Cathy Levine, a spokeswoman for Schumer. "And Schumer has been looking at the privacy issue, and it is a good fit," Levine said.