Economic Espionage Act of 1996

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Title I: Protection of Trade Secrets

Title II: National Information Infrastructure Protection Act

of 1996

Title III: Transfer of Persons Found Not Guilty By Reason of

Insanity

Title IV: Establishment of Boys and Girls Clubs

Title V: Use of Certain Technology to Facilitate Criminal

Conduct

Title VI: Technical and Minor Amendments

Economic Espionage Act of 1996 - Title I: Protection of Trade Secrets - Amends the Federal criminal code to prescribe penalties to be imposed on any person or organization that knowingly commits one of the following offenses, either intending or knowing that it will benefit any foreign government, instrumentality, or agent, or intending to convert a trade secret to the economic benefit of anyone other than the owner with the knowledge that the offense will injure the owner: (1) stealing or otherwise fraudulently obtaining a trade secret; (2) copying or conveying a trade secret without authorization; (3) receiving, buying, or possessing a trade secret, knowing it has been obtained or converted without authorization; or (4) attempting or conspiring to commit such an offense. Sets forth provisions regarding criminal forfeiture, civil proceedings to enjoin violations, conduct outside the United States, and non-preemption of other remedies under Federal, State, commonwealth, possession, or territory law.

Directs: (1) the court to preserve the confidentiality of trade secrets; and (2) the Attorney General to report to the Congress on the amounts received and distributed from fines for offenses under this title deposited in the Crime Victims Fund.

(Sec. 102) Permits the Attorney General to authorize an application for, and a Federal judge to grant, an order authorizing interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications, in cases involving protection of trade secrets.

Title II: National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 - Revises Federal criminal code provisions regarding fraud and related activity in connection with computers. Sets penalties with respect to anyone who having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, obtains specified restricted information or data and, with reason to believe that such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, or transmits it to any person not entitled to receive it (or causes or attempts such communication) or willfully retains it and fails to deliver it to the U.S. officer or employee entitled to receive it.

Sets penalties for: (1) intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access and thereby obtaining information from any U.S. department or agency, or from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication; (2) intentionally accessing, without authorization, any computer of a U.S. department or agency that is exclusively for use by or for the U.S. Government or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, that is used by or for the U.S. Government if such conduct affects the use of the Government's operation of such computer; (3) knowingly, and with intent to defraud, accessing a protected computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access and furthering the intended fraud and obtaining anything of value, unless the object of the fraud and the thing obtained consists only of the use of the computer and the value of such use is not more than $5,000 in any one-year period; (4) knowingly causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command and, as a result, intentionally causing damage without authorization to a protected computer, intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization and recklessly causing damage, or intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization and causing damage; and (5) transmitting in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing a threat to cause damage to a protected computer with intent to extort from any person or legal entity any thing of value.

Increases penalties for fraud and related activity in connection with computers.

Title III: Transfer of Persons Found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity - Authorizes: (1) the transfer of individuals who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity and who have been committed to a hospital for the mentally ill under the District of Columbia Code and for whom the United States has a continuing financial responsibility to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment in a suitable facility, unless the court finds that the proposed transfer would violate a right of such person under the Constitution; and (2) the Attorney General to establish custody over such persons, subject to specified requirements.

Provides for the transfer of records from the District of Columbia and St. Elizabeth's Hospital to the Attorney General.

Title IV: Establishment of Boys and Girls Clubs - Requires the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the Department of Justice to provide grants to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to establish Boys and Girls Clubs in public housing projects and other distressed areas. Sets forth reporting requirements. Authorizes appropriations. Allows sums authorized to be appropriated to be made available from the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund.

Title V: Use of Certain Technology to Facilitate Criminal Conduct - Directs: (1) the Administrative Office of the United States courts to establish policies and procedures for the inclusion in all presentence reports of information that specifically identifies and describes any use of encryption or scrambling technology that would be relevant to an enhancement under provisions regarding obstructing or impeding the administration of justice of, or to offense conduct under, the Sentencing Guidelines; and (2) the United States Sentencing Commission to compile and analyze any information contained in such documentation relating to such use and to report annually to the Congress on the nature and extent of the use of such technology to facilitate or conceal criminal conduct.

Title VI: Technical and Minor Amendments - Makes technical and minor amendments (such as changing the amounts of fines) to the Federal criminal code, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, and other Federal law.

Amends mandatory victim restitution provisions of the code to authorize the court to order restitution to persons other than the victim of the offense if agreed to by the parties in a plea agreement.

(Sec. 602) Repeals specified obsolete provisions of the code.

(Sec. 606) Adjusts and makes uniform certain dollar amounts used in the code to distinguish between grades of offenses.

(Sec. 607) Applies various offenses under the code and the Controlled Substances Act to U.S. possessions and territories.