Criminal Law in Cyberspace age 7 software, however, public accountabil ity may be undermined. a similar point is true about enforcement by police; because police are invisible on the Internet, the potential for entrapment may be greater. The ultimate effect of this loss of police visibility may be to poison legitimate activity on the Net because confidence in communication may be undermined. A man cannot be sure that he is talking to a friend and not a government interloper seeking to document a criminal case. Because the technology of law enforcement is not well understood among the public, citizens will fear the Net, and its advantages will be stymied. Consider the public uproar over a third prominent news item from this year: the discovery that the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBi has a system to read private emails with the poorly chosen title of "Carnivore Nevertheless, the differences between crimes that take place in cyberspace and those that occur in realspace should not obscure their similarities. For example, if crime in cyberspace is easier to commit due to technical prowess, then the law needs to begin to think about how to treat offline crimes that hamess technical ability. Similarly, if acts in cyberspace portend criminal activity in realspace, then this dangerous complementarity can- if sufficiently strong-justify punishing acts in cyberspace(an example might be electronic stalkers, who may graduate to stalking in realspace). This notion undoes the standard idea that criminal punishment should be reserved only for acts that are harmful; the point here is not that a certain act is harmful, but that its commission will lead to a harmful act. Preventing the former act is a mechanism the government may use to discourage the commission of the latter Review U, WASH. POST, Aug. 11, 2000, at 23; Ted Bridis, FBI Mon't Provide Data on Carnivore Congress 3 g 'See McVeigh v. Cohen, 983 F Supp. 215, 217 (D D.C. 1998)(officer discharged on basis of gays-in-military po fter government obtains America OnLine email where he indicated his homosexuality) SSee infra note 184(discussing exaggerated fears of Carnivore); see also David A. Vise, Carnivore Going Requested, WALL ST J, Aug 10, 2000, Neil King, FBI'S Wiretaps to Scan E-mail Spark Concern, N.Y. TIMES, JulyCriminal Law in Cyberspace Page 7 7 See McVeigh v. Cohen, 983 F.Supp. 215, 217 (D.D.C. 1998) (officer discharged on basis of gays-in-military policy after government obtains America OnLine email where he indicated his homosexuality). 8 See infra note 184 (discussing exaggerated fears of Carnivore); see also David A. Vise, Carnivore Going to Review U., WASH. POST, Aug. 11, 2000, at 23; Ted Bridis, FBI Won't Provide Data on Carnivore Congress Requested, WALL ST. J., Aug. 10, 2000; Neil King, FBI'S Wiretaps to Scan E-mail Spark Concern, N.Y. TIMES, July 11, 2000, at A3. software, however, public accountability may be undermined. A similar point is true about enforcement by police; because police are invisible on the Internet, the potential for entrapment may be greater. The ultimate effect of this loss of police visibility may be to poison legitimate activity on the Net because confidence in communication may be undermined. A man cannot be sure that he is talking to a friend, and not a government interloper seeking to document a criminal case.7 Because the technology of law enforcement is not well understood among the public, citizens will fear the Net, and its advantages will be stymied. Consider the public uproar over a third prominent news item from this year: the discovery that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a system to read private emails with the poorly chosen title of “Carnivore.”8 Nevertheless, the differences between crimes that take place in cyberspace and those that occur in realspace should not obscure their similarities. For example, if crime in cyberspace is easier to commit due to technical prowess, then the law needs to begin to think about how to treat offline crimes that harness technical ability. Similarly, if acts in cyberspace portend criminal activity in realspace, then this dangerous complementarity can– if sufficiently strong–justify punishing acts in cyberspace (an example might be electronic stalkers, who may graduate to stalking in realspace). This notion undoes the standard idea that criminal punishment should be reserved only for acts that are harmful; the point here is not that a certain act is harmful, but that its commission will lead to a harmful act. Preventing the former act is a mechanism the government may use to discourage the commission of the latter