Like real-life viruses, computer viruses affect different people in different ways. Most Net users reacted to the Love Bug and its subsequent Love Children by pledging to avoid suspicious e-mail attachments. If their computers crashed, they rebooted and went on with their lives a little wiser for wear. But for some members of Congress, these viruses or, more specifically, the attention devoted to them by the news media apparently produced symptoms including fever and full-on dementia.
Problem is, it's already a federal crime to do what creators of the Love Bug did.
The bill would modify existing federal laws that make it illegal to intentionally send harmful computer transmissions or to recklessly damage someone else's computer. But there's nothing wrong with leaving such relatively minor offenses to local criminal statutes or the civil system particularly when you consider just how minor they can be. A worker who downloads a virus to his office PC while playing an online game could be fined. A kid who plays a trick on a friend by hacking his personal Web page could find himself behind bars for up to three years. These examples were offered by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit cyber liberties group that lobbied against the measure during a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Hatch chairs.