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The Brookings Institute this week released a policy paper postulating the use of legal action to stop the spread of cybercrime. The author, Wired Magazine's Noah Shachtman, speculates that new pressure from the US government on businesses to report data breaches combined with additional requirements for ISPs to be accountable for the things that happen on their networks would help to send a message that the US is no longer going to tolerate criminals on their own networks, perhaps forcing other countries to take similar actions.
We've seen government take action against cybercriminals before in the takedowns of the Rustock and Coreflood botnets. We've seen private action against cybercriminals as well, in the antispam lawsuits filed by ISPs like AOL, Earthlink, and Verizon. Both of these classes of action point to the ability of government and private parties to use current laws to cause pain for cybercriminals, if they have the will to do it. More laws may be an answer to cybercrime but, as seen in previous legal actions, the use and enforcement of our current laws on a consistent basis would go a long way to having the effect Shachtman's looking for.