Jerry Brown Mulls Cyber Crime Legislation in California

When I purchased my first internet law casebook, it was the lightest casebook I ever bought. The subject matter was so new, there was not nearly enough material to fill the book.  At the time, the focus of the cases were creating means to use existing “terrestrial” law and apply it to online activity.  The debate has turned to whether or not there needs to be a separate set of laws to govern activity on the internet.
Such a debate is now playing out in California, home of Silicon Valley, and Facebook.  Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill into law directing the L.A County Sheriff and the Alemeda County district attorney to monitor the internet to help determine whether or not California needs a new set of state laws to deal with Internet-related crimes.   Specifically, they are directed to compile statistics related to identity theft, stalking, child molestation, and other internet related crimes for a period of one year.  law   From the L.A. Times.

“One of the most effective weapons in the fight against cyber-crime is accurate data and information,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor.

State Sen. Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) introduced the measure a year after Facebook, Google, Twitter and other companies successfully lobbied to kill legislation she promoted that would have allowed parents to restrict their children’s personal information on social networking sites and limit disclosure of information about adults.

It seems that this bill was largely designed to create a justification for Corbett’s original bill, in order to bolster support and counter act the actions of social media and search engines who worked to kill the bill.  It is much easier to build a support base for restrictive legislation if you can show evidence that such a restriction is necessary.  In other words, this is a first step towards state governed internet restrictions.