The Mitnick Case and the Sixth Amendment

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The Kevin Mitnick case was a very interesting case from the late 1900’s. According to CNN, “Kevin David Mitnick -- the most wanted computer hacker in the world, the inspiration for two Hollywood movies and a cyberspace cult hero -- had been scheduled to stand trial April 20 in Los Angeles in one of the most celebrated computer-related cases in history” (Christensen, 1999). The big question in Mitnick’s case was does Mitnick really have a case? Or are his constitutional rights being violated?
Kevin Mitnick has led a life of crime since a very young age. At age 12, Mitnick figured out how to hack into and change the L.A. Bus System’s punch cards. While Mitnick was hacked into the L.A.’s bus system he reverse-engineered the system allowing him to cheat the bus system and ride for free (Brown). That wasn’t enough for the young Mitnick though. With the age of growing technology, computers started becoming more popular. At age 16 Mitnick started hanging out with a group of adolescences that were involved in tapping into different systems, rerouting numbers, and high tech phone pranks (Brown). One prank that Mitnick and his friends use to pull on a regular basis was hacking into the phone directory (411), and when people would call they would come up with a bogus or fake number to tell the callers. Although this was a “harmless” prank it was still illegal. “Mitnick continually worked on perfecting his hacking techniques. “Mitnick pioneered the art of "Social Engineering," a technique that involves using "...

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...NN: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/mitnick.background/
Computer Hacker Kevin Mitnick Sentenced to Prison. (1997, June 27). Retrieved from FAS: https://www.fas.org/irp/news/1997/cac70627_1.html
Kevin Mitnick. (n.d.). Retrieved from Takedown: http://www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html
Kevin Mitnick, Former Fugitive Hacker, Laments How The Game Has Changed. (2013, January 11). Retrieved from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/16/kevin-mitnick-hacker-book_n_928107.html
Sixth Amendment Court Cases. (2013). Retrieved from Revolutionary War and Beyond: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/sixth-amendment-court-cases-speedy-trial-clause.html
Supervised Release. (n.d.). Retrieved from MiMi Law: http://en.mimi.hu/law/supervised_release.html
U.S. Constitution. (n.d.). Retrieved from Cornell Law: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment

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