DOJ Pushes Administration Proposal To Crack Down on Spyware
“Widespread use" of computers and cellphones "created a market for malicious software that allows perpetrators to surreptitiously intercept their victims’ communications,” Leslie Caldwell, U.S. assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice Criminal Division, said in a blog post Friday.…
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“For a small fee, people can purchase this software and download it onto a victim's device.” The Obama administration has a proposal that would “expand the statute that already provides for the forfeiture of surreptitious interception devices themselves to include forfeiture of proceeds from the sale of spyware and property used to facilitate the crime,” Caldwell said. “Violators of the surreptitious interception device statute often engage in money laundering by transferring funds through multiple overseas accounts to conceal the profits of their criminal enterprise,” she said. “Because the spyware statute is not listed as a predicate offense in the money laundering statute, however, prosecutors are unable to charge defendants for money laundering activities related to the sale of spyware unless they can link it to some other crime, which will often be difficult or impossible," she said: The proposal "adds violations of the spyware statue to the list of money laundering predicate offenses."