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ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO MEETS WITH COMPUTER INDUSTRY

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA - Speaking to a joint group of law enforcement officials and technology industry representatives, Attorney General Janet Reno today continued to stress the need for both communities to work together to protect public safety on the Internet without infringing on civil liberties.

In a speech to a joint Law Enforcement-Technology Industry Conference at Stanford Law School, the Attorney General addressed the growing challenges of cybercrime and cybersecurity. She was joined by Peter Watkins, President and CEO of Network Associates, Inc., and other leaders of the U.S. high-tech industry.

"The Internet has been an enormous educational and technological benefit to our society,"said Attorney General Reno. "However, its power of communication across traditional boundaries makes it an ideal tool for a new breed of criminal. It is imperative that law enforcement and industry work together to address this challenge in a way that protects both public safety and individual privacy."

The Attorney General recently visited Stanford in January to address a group of state Attorneys General from around the country, and outline a 10-point plan to address the threat of cybercrime. Today's conference is a result of an invitation made by the Attorney General to high-tech executives to build trust and increase cooperation between law enforcement and industry on cybercrime and cybersecurity issues. This invitation was extended at a White House conference on cybersecurity last month, which President Clinton convened in the wake of high-profile attacks on e-commerce sites earlier this year. The Attorney General most recently focused on the issue of law enforcement-industry cooperation in her March 2000 report to the President concerning crime on the Internet.

The Law Enforcement-Industry Conference, which is sponsored by the Information Technology Association of America(ITAA), brings together senior officials from key segments of the high-tech industry -- including Internet Service Providers, e- commerce companies, software and hardware manufacturers, OSPs, Internet infrastructure companies, and long-distance service providers -- with federal, state and local law enforcement officials who investigate and prosecute these types of crimes. Today's discussion focused on the opportunities and challenges to greater cooperation between these communities in preventing, detecting and investigating cybercrime.

In today's meeting, Reno also solicited the views of industry on where gaps exist in current law that may hinder cybercrime investigations. In part, the discussion included how best to balance thorough cybercrime investigations with respect for individual privacy. "We can no longer rely solely on laws written two decades ago or more to address the challenges we face in the 21^st Century," said Reno. "With the Constitution as our bedrock, I am confident we will strike the right balance between cybersecurity and cyberprivacy."

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