WWW.Wildwest.Gov: The Impact of the Internet on State Power to Enforce the Law

The monumental expansion of the Internet 1 over the past ten years has revolutionized the mainstream means of communications and interpersonal relations throughout the world.Through this global network of interconnected computers, all manner of data, communications, commerce, and imagery-from the most obscure scintilla of trivia, to the darkest manifestation of evil, to the most sublime works of art, literature, and science-are suddenly and immediately accessible everywhere, to everyone, all at once.In terms of the human ability to interact globally and instantaneously, this is a whole new world.2 For those charged with enforcing state law, * Assistant Attorney General for the State of Michigan and Chief of the High Tech Crime Unit in the Michigan Department of the Attorney General.From August 1999 to May 2000, Mr. Berg served as the Computer Crime Fellow for the National Association of Attorneys General ("NAAG").In that capacity, he worked as a Trial Attorney for the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section ("CCIPS"), a component of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice.This article was written as part of the Computer Crime Fellowship sponsored by NAAG and is being published separately as the first monograph in NAAG's "Computer Crime Series," which focuses on key aspects of computer crime and other technology-related issues of law.The author wishes to thank Aaron Pruss, a law student at Wayne State University School of Law and law clerk for the Michigan Department of the Attorney General, and Brian Zwit, formerly Chief Counsel for Science and Technology of NAAG, for their research assistance and editorial comments, and also the attorneys of CCIPS for their