Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act

The Senate has passed S.2168, the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act. This bill will accomplish several things and close some loopholes, if a companion bill is passed in the House.

• First, this bill will allow the victims of identity theft crimes to seek restitution from criminals for the time they spend fixing the problems the ID theft caused them.
  
• Second, prosecutors could pursue criminals who threaten to take, or release information from computers as a form of cyber-extortion. Currently the law only classifies cyber-extortion as explicitly threatening to shut down or damage a business or government computer.
  
  
• Third, it would be a felony to use spyware or a keylogger to damage ten or more computers even if the damage is less than $5,000. That dollar threshold is now used to define a misdemeanor.
  
  
• Fourth, federal prosecutors could pursue a criminal stealing personal information from a computer even if that computer is in the same state as the criminal's. Current laws only allow federal prosecutor's jurisdiction when the attached computer is in another state.