Research On Basic Questions Of Information Criminal Law

The criminal object concerned by the Traditional Criminal Law research is the appearance of matter and energy, and the information was not attached much importance as a particular object in the past. However, there is an essential difference between information and matter and energy. Norbert Wiener, the founder of the cybernetics, says:"Information is information; it is neither matter nor energy.’ Information can be duplicated, but this conduct will not lessen its value; the effectiveness of information last a given period, and it begins at a specific time point and ends at another time point; information is invisible, so it cannot be destroyed visibly; information can be used by many people at the same time, while mutual damage, annoyance or inconvenience will not be caused. Some information need protection away from pubic for its private characteristic, which leads to an independent academic research on how to defy the delineation of the private information and how to protect the private information. The concept of information attribute to the concept of property, nevertheless, the possession and ownership of information is different with the possession and ownership of traditional property. The right of information is similar with the right of the person since personal information is very important to individuals, and yet the evaluation of the information is quite distinct with others.These characteristics of information are reflected in the constructive requirements of information criminals, which should be given prominence. First, as a criminal object, the definition and determination of the information should distinctive with other traditional substantial objects, and further research of the relationship and difference between information and substantial objects is necessary; second, the legal interests undertaken by information differ with that by other matters; third, the criminal behavior of information criminal, even if contains the same content with other criminals, also show its particular features; finally, the criminal consequence, which often measured with the amount of criminal objects, will apply new forms of computation during the information criminal. Those questions need more discussion on the feasible definition and application of information criminal, which based on specific accusation to expect a reasonable conclusion. It is of significant to the science of criminal law. Therefore, the topic of this article is focused on the challenge and influence brought by information. To analyze the challenge which information caused to the science of criminal law, the first work is to create a clear definition that what is information. The definition can give a legal realization of information, and clarify the characteristics and categories of information, which is the base of the research. Then, the article will explore the influences of information to criminal constructive requirements, and specific problems in specific criminal accusations. Afterwards, on the basis of particular traits of information, such as, privacy, property, personal, to probe the criminal law protection pattern on the private information, property information, and personal information. The methods of the research in this article concentrate the explanation of the legal provisions based on present legal text in order to protect the information right within the proper realization of legal text meanwhile to avoid much broad explanation. Legal text is the foundation of the application of law, and interpretation is rather appropriate than modification of legal text to assure the regulations suitable to the real society. Of course, when the present text is not satisfied with the protection standard of information, foreign legislation experiences should be referred to design our own related regulations, which will accelerate the progress of our criminal law research.The article contains five parts, and he structure as follows:The first chapter is "information summary". This chapter defined the general concept and the legal concept of information. Information is a physical and philosophical concept of nature, that information is an objective description of the material world, but it is regulated by law and became a concept in the legal sense. The information has the traits of invisible, duplicate, inclusive, communication, timeliness, and carrier dependence. Information on the legal significance should be of subjectivity, usefulness, legal, and other characteristics. In accordance with different standards information can be divided into different types, and different types have different characteristics in the criminal law protection.The second chapter is "information in the criminal law". This part researches the influence that information brought to the elements of the criminal constructive requirements, including crimes objects who appear as patterns of information, information interests which are born or reflected by information, criminal behaviors whose object aims to information, and information amount which are regarded as the considering factors during adjudication. Among those factors, the criminal objects which appear as information patterns is the focus of this article, and it is also the basis of the following studies. The research of information crimes objects firstly discusses those crimes objects based on the information-like state appears, and the impact of the identification of related crimes; On this basis, the article investigate the difference between the information crimes objects with legal interest carrier, and the difference between information crimes and crime to carrier object, which clarify the impact of these differences to the crimes objects identification. In criminal law, different information has a different degree of the protection, which reflects the information interests protected by criminal law; therefore, the specific content should be clear. The information crime behavior section focuses on the impact of the identify and shape of related criminals, for example, the definition of the offenses, replication behavior, and theirs impacts. Finally, the unique calculation of criminal object in information criminals is discussed, and the conclusion is that the method of count is distinctive with traditional method used in matter criminal, and the new method stresses the recognition of information unit.Chapter III is "secret information and its criminal law protection", and this part researches on the performance of information which differ from the material property-the problem of the criminal law protection brought by the secret of information. The secret of information is the main value of the information protection, and the identification of the secret of information has great significance for the protection of secret information. Secret information is generally reflected in three aspects:secret, value and manage, which need to determine clear conditions. In addition, the timeliness is also an important criteria when confirm a secret information. On the basis of definition of secret information, criminal acts and criminal responsibility of violations of secret information are analyzed. Disclosure, the illegal acquisition, use behavior are the main behavior of a violation of the secret information. The subject of crime and the definition of common crime of these behaviors are different from the traditional criminal law theory.The next chapter is "Information property and protection of Criminal Law". It researches the challenges attribute to the criminal law protection from the property trait of information. The property characteristic of the information has been recognized worldwide, but the range of property information and protection scope is not clear. There also is a lot of controversy whether it should be the subject to the adjustment of the criminal law, and the way of the property protection of the criminal law need further study. Therefore, the paper firstly analyzes the property changes and characteristics in-depth, and defines the specific scope and type of property information, and divides property information into a quasi-physical property and information property, with an argument that the criminal law protection of property information keeps appropriateness and necessity in a system sense, and does not violate the principle of legality. On this basis, the paper researches forms of possession and ownership of the property information which differs from the material property, explores the specific forms of criminal law protection of property information and specific accusation applicable, clarifies that the accusation "crime against property" can be applied to the quasi-physical information property but not to information property. While the information property only can be apply to particular provisions. Of course, the possession interests of information property should be protected. Because of the different between property information and material property, the way of evaluation of information property and material property is different.Chapter V,"personal information and its criminal law protection", is the last part of this article. This section considers the impact caused by the personal nature of information to the criminal law protection. Personal nature of information is the personality interests embodied of information. This nature should be identified through the relevant and discernible information. On the base of accurate identification of personal information, the criminal protection and negative information elimination should be clarified. In the protection and regulation of criminal law, the definition and selection of relevance behavior should be concerned.