ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter contains brief reviews of the statutes that may assist those seeking guidance about the legal framework that applies to Internet intelligence and investigations. For the most part, federal and state laws have not contained restrictions on the use of the Internet to collect information-especially public or published information-for use by investigators until recently, beginning about 2009-2010. State laws regarding social networking and privacy, federal and state laws regarding copyrights and intellectual property, and some cybercrime provisions are changing, albeit much more slowly than the Internet and societal norms online. The summaries and views expressed here do not constitute legal opinions or advice, or an attempt to detail every law related to cybervetting, but are conveyed as commonsense interpretations of the meaning of current laws and indications of the intent of Congress, legislatures, and the judiciary, even if the laws themselves do not address Internet investigations directly. Because people have differing views and strong opinions about their privacy rights, some of the interpretations that follow may be controversial.
