Number: RL32074
Title: Bomb-Making Online: Explosives, Free Speech, Criminal Law and the Internet
Authors: Charles Doyle, American Law Division 
Abstract: Within hours of the tragedy in Oklahoma City, the recipe for concocting a similar homemade bomb had been posted on the Internet. There followed an outpouring of explosives cookbooks and other how-to manuals of destruction. This in turn triggered apprehension over how such potentially lethal information might be used by hate groups and other terrorists as well as by juveniles with exaggerated firecracker fascinations. In response, Congress ultimately passed 18 U.S.C. 842(p)(2) which outlaws instruction in making or use of bombs with the intent that the information be used to commit a federal crime of violence or with the knowledge that another intends to use the information to commit a federal crime. This report is an examination of the legislation, of the process that lead to its enactment, of First Amendment issues, and of other related federal criminal laws that proscribe the dissemination, particularly by means of the Internet, of destructive information.
Pages: 23
Date: Updated September 8, 2003