By Mark Scott
Albany, NY – Governor Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer introduced a series of bills Monday that would give police new ammunition to go after suspected terrorists.
The proposed bills would, among other things would create the crime of cyber-terrorism, which would be punishable as a Class D felony, in cases where a government, utility or financial computer network is attacked.
The legislation would also strengthen the crime of impersonation to include posing as a pilot or other aviation workers.
Pataki said New York has been on "the front lines of the war on terror," by providing law enforcement with the tools to do its job.
Several of the measures have been proposed before. The governor and the Legislature, particularly the Democrat-led Assembly, have had a hard time reaching agreements on anti-terrorism initiatives.
It was only in the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks that lawmakers approved a package of anti-terrorism bills that created six new penal law offenses for people who commit terrorist acts. But there has been no such bipartisan embrace of anti-terrorism bills since.