Over the past month you could not pick up a newspaper without finding an article about the recent Denial of Service (DOS) attacks on E-commerce sites over the Internet. This increase in Internet security problems and crimes, is paving the way for tougher legislation in regards to monitoring and tracking computer hackers. We the people should ask ourselves how far we should allow the federal government to go to catch online criminals. Legislation passed to address computer crimes should be carefully written as not to give government agencies powers that would infringe on innocent computer users rights.
             The need for computer-related laws is undeniably necessary. Computer crimes are estimated to cost businesses billions of dollars each year throughout the United States. An accurate dollar amount cannot be compiled for losses programming companies sustain due to piracy of their software. Potential income is lost when copies of their programs are found easily via the Internet. Pirated software is distributed freely among underground Internet groups via email, File Transfer Protocols (FTP's), newsgroups and various other means. Individuals post copies of software that was either stolen from its company's producers, or that was paid for originally for a one-user license. These copies of software posted in one or more of the above-mentioned ways, allow a single copy to be downloaded by nearly any number of people out of the million that have Internet access today. Hacking does not play a role in software theft until there is a need for the code (better known as programming) of the software to be reverse engineered. Software companies instill certain protections to prevent their software from being freely distributed in the above manner. Hackers remove these protections or "reverse" what has been written into the software to allow this software to be used by anyone possessing a copy. Piracy is just one of many reasons federal le...