Confronting cyber-crime

Americas (English Edition), Sept-Oct, 2003 by Javier Montes

GLOBAL COMPUTER viruses, the spread of child pornography, and even terrorist activities are a few examples of the many new, borderless Internet crimes that have become dangerous and difficult to police. With the advancement of digital technology in recent years, a new breed of criminals has emerged, leaving governments, businesses, and individuals exposed to these hazards.

Government experts from the OAS member states met in late June to discuss strategies and new proposals to increase hemispheric efforts in fighting the growing problem of cyber-crime.

Secretary General Cesar Gaviria, who inaugurated the two day meeting, said that given the international scope of the problem, "mutual judicial cooperation and assistance are vital to prevent, pursue, and punish Internet-based crime. He stressed that states should increase cooperation to overcome legal, technical, and other challenges.

"A computer keyboard can be a very useful tool for the progress of humanity, but it can also become a dangerous weapon capable of producing enormous economic damages to the infrastructure of a state or company, and even against the integrity and the life of human beings," Gaviria warned.

Leonard Bailey, a trial attorney with the Computer Crime mad intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, chaired the meeting, held at OAS headquarters. The experts produced a series of recommendations that will be submitted to the next meeting of the hemisphere's justice ministers, slated for the first half of 2004. They called for states that have yet not done so to adopt specific legislation to criminalize different types of cyber-crime and to establish specific traits or bodies to investigate and prosecute these offenses.

The experts reiterated the need to for the OAS to continue coordinating technical meetings to "ensure efficient, effective, and expeditious hemispheric cooperation" in this area. They also asked the OAS General Secretariat to compile and maintain updated directories of experts on cyber-crime, as well as trained law-enforcement authorities, to facilitate permanent contact among the countries on these issues.

The recommendations also call for strengthening cooperation and information exchange with other international organizations and agencies such as the United Nations, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, and the G-8.

"By its very nature, cyber-crime is not a problem countries can solve on their own," said Jorge Garcia Gonzalez, chief of the OAS Technical Secretariat of Legal Cooperation Mechanisms. "This meeting was an important step toward coordinating the actions we take in this hemisphere to confront this threat."