HBA-BSM C.S.S.B. 917 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisC.S.S.B. 917 By: Shapiro Criminal Jurisprudence 4/22/2001 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Under current law, there are no provisions in regard to computer crime that permit aggregation of benefits obtained by the perpetrator when a victim is defrauded or harmed or a computer, program, or network is altered, damaged, or deleted. As a consequence, a person may have committed multiple violations as part of one scheme or one continuing course of conduct but may only be charged and found guilty of one separate offense for each discrete violation. C.S.S.B. 917 permits the aggregation of damages or losses incurred in a breach of computer security when those multiple violations are part of one scheme or one continuing course of conduct. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. ANALYSIS C.S.S.B. 917 amends the Penal Code to provide that when benefits are obtained, a victim is defrauded or harmed, or property is altered, damaged, or deleted in committing an offense of breach of computer security, whether or not in a single incident, the conduct may be considered as one offense and the value of the benefits obtained and of the losses incurred because of the fraud or harm or the alteration, damage, or deletion of property may be aggregated in determining the grade of the offense. EFFECTIVE DATE September 1, 2001. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE C.S.S.B. 917 differs from the original by not amending the definition of "aggregate amount" to specify that it means any direct or indirect loss and any expenditure by the victim to verify that a computer, network, or program was affected by the offense rather than one or the other.