Blogging Crime

AuthorAdriana Iuliana Stancu
Pages124-127
BLOGGING CRIME
Lecturer Adriana Iuliana STANCU1
Abstract
The advantages of new technologies are successfully use d not only for progress, but also for improving
criminal activity. Cybercriminality is currently acqu iring new dimensions, such as: increased organization degree of
the groups activating in this crime field; greater degree of specialization and technical resources in view of committing
crimes by these groups; diversification of operating scope, from card fraud and illegal card operations, to spreading
pornographic material, software piracy, illegal accessing of comp uter systems, and to theft and illegal trafficking of
confidential data and blog crime.
Keywords: blog crime, cross-border character, cybercriminality.
JEL Classification: K14, K24
1. Frauds, insults, defamations, threats, abetment to terrorism activities, sexual
harassments and cyberattacks on the blog
The Blog/Weblog2 is defined as a website3 organized as a hierarchy of texts, images,
multimedia objects and/or data, arranged chronologically so that it may be viewed with a browser4
that reads the HTML language; it is maintained by a person or group, being organized in reversed
chronological order, the latest record being displayed first on the page; this hierarchy actually
designates an on-line journal5 or a web journal, but also a content management system (CMS) or an
on-line publishing platform.
From a simple curiosity, the blogging fashion has currently become a thorny issue for both
sociologists (going to pathological addiction) and law specialists as well.
There are countries where the simple blog might become the main evidence on the basis of
which a person might be criminally convicted. For instance, a court from Alexandria (Egypt)
condemned in 2007 a young Egyptian (Abdel Karim Suleiman 22 years) to four years of
imprisonment, because, through his personal blog, he allegedly offended Islam and President Hosni
Mubarak. The counts consisted in eight materials he had posted on his blog in 2004, and the main
arguments of the young man’s defence invoked the right to freedom of speech. The trial was
condemned by both Amnesty International and the “Reporters without borders”.
The charges originating in blogs may easily turn into actual “witch-hunts”. For instance, an
American professor of history from the Kent State University of Ohio was charged by his colleague
from the criminology chair for being behind an Islamic blog. Further to the scandal, even the head
of the chair of the accused professor complained to the press about the death threats his Muslim
colleague was receiving on the address of the Kent University. On the other hand, the advocates of
the freedom of speech in the USA joined in the defence of the accused professor.
Still in the USA, at least half a dozen prosecutors have blogs6, without being shy of
admitting their identity or avoiding references to their daily work. The American prosecutors are
protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees their right to freedom of speech like any other
American citizens; this right is limited neither by the law of their professional status nor by the non-
disclosure agreements (as the CIA members). For instance, an American prosecutor complains
about the “cheap journalism” of a Californian publication. The day when a prosecutor uses blog
evidence in a case in order to prove he/she and not the newspapers are right, seems very close.
1 Iuliana Stancu - Faculty of Jud icial, Social and Political Sciences, “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, Romania,
adriana.tudorache@ugal.ro.
2 Cristian Dinu, Dicționar IT, Cartea de buzunar Publishing House, Bucharest, 2006, p. 300 301.
3 Idem, p. 300.
4 Ibidem, p. 50.
5 Ibidem, p. 191.
6 www.sfgate.com, consulted on 1.10.2018.

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