Hacker States by Follis Luca; Fish Adam; & Adam Fish

Author:Follis, Luca; Fish, Adam; & Adam Fish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT Press

Hacking Civil Law: Lauri Love v. National Crime Agency

Lauri Love’s case, much like that of McKinnon, illustrates the powerful offline resources that remain available to states when projecting authority through mutual assistance frameworks and claims of extraterritorial jurisdiction. On Friday, October 25, 2013, the NCA executed a search warrant at Love’s home in Suffolk, in connection with violations of sections 1(1) and 1(3) of the Computer Misuse Act. In a ruse designed to get him out of the house before he could trigger the encryption on his computer, an agent posed as a UPS courier and insisted that Love come to the door to sign for a package. Once Love’s identity was confirmed, he was handcuffed and left on the porch as fourteen officers invaded the home and spent the next five hours searching the house. The officers seized twenty-nine items of computer equipment and arrested Love. On Saturday afternoon, after a brief morning interview with police during which he was asked (and declined) to provide the encryption keys to the protected devices, he was released on bail with the condition that he surrender his passport and avoid connecting to the internet via “third parties” (e.g., encryption, VPN, etc.).

Although the District of New Jersey had issued a sealed criminal complaint against Love as early as May 16, 2013, Love’s arrest flowed directly from an ongoing investigation by the UK’s NCA and was followed two days later by a series of joint press announcements from the US Attorney’s Offices in the District of New Jersey and the Eastern District of Virginia (US Attorney’s Office 2014a, 2014b). The NCA wrote to the US Department of Justice before the press releases were issued asking that Love not be identified, as this could taint the case and complicate a UK-based prosecution. US authorities singled out the NCA for its bilateral support in apprehending Love, but the UK investigation formed part of a larger, sprawling list of parallel investigations, including those of the Computer Crime Unit of the US Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, FBI field offices in Washington and Newark, and the Offices of Inspector General for NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Commenting on the arrest, the director of the US Army’s Computer Crime Unit, Daniel Andrews, emphasized the national security and military risks posed by computer intrusions and argued that “the borderless nature of internet-based crime underscores the need for robust law enforcement alliances across the globe” (New Jersey US Attorney’s Office 2013, 2). The existence of three parallel investigations in the United States, an investigation in the UK, and one in Australia (where two alleged co-conspirators were located) illustrates the hybrid, swarmlike tactics of cross-national law enforcement cases. Significant jurisdictional ambiguity also surrounds these cases, since despite appearing to be jointly pursued investigations, local law enforcement serve as proxies for US interests and investigative priorities.

Although most of the computer equipment seized was returned to the Love family, six items of computer hardware remained in the custody of authorities.

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