“The bill before you is a good first step toward punishing and deterring bad actors while protecting the interests of businesses and our customers,” NRF Vice President for Loss Prevention Joseph LaRocca said. “When the federal computer crimes law was last amended, Internet access and usage was still in its infancy. As the Internet and on-line retailing have grown, smart criminals have kept on top of technology trends, and sometimes ahead of those trends. What used to be a focus on physical crime has quickly shifted and accelerated into the on-line world. Today’s culprit is more sophisticated, hard to find and next to impossible to identify or reach – the cyber criminal.”

LaRocca said both retailers and consumers are victims when hackers break into merchants’ databases to steal information about customers.

“Unauthorized access and use of retailers’ customer data is a double hit – first to our customers but also to retailers themselves,” he said. “The minute customers stop trusting a retailer with their personal information, that retailer is doomed to fail. To protect all our assets – property, goods, employees, credit card information and our brands – retail loss prevention professionals are aggressively building bridges across our discipline and to law enforcement and looking for tools like this.”

LaRocca testified this morning before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security as part of a hearing on H.R. 5318, the Cyber-Security Enhancement and Consumer Data Protection Act of 2006, sponsored by Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc. The legislation would update the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for the first time since 1996.

LaRocca said NRF supports provisions of the legislation that would extend federal security law to foreign and interstate computer frauds, noting that computer crimes can be initiated from remote locations that operate across political jurisdictions. NRF also supports provisions defining computer crimes as a “racketeering activity” under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, creation of “conspiracy to commit cyber-crimes” as a federal offense, and an increase in the maximum prison term to 30 years from the current 10 or 20. The measure also provides an additional $10 million each to the Justice Department, FBI and U.S. Secret Service for investigation and prosecution of computer crimes.

The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2005 sales of $4.4 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations.