Computerworld Calls Martha Stansell-Gamm '73, Top Federal Cybercop, A 'Trailblazer'

April 26, 2002

April 26, 2002, Greencastle, Ind. - "For eight years, [Martha] Stansell-Gamm partnered with her department chief, Scott Charney, to grow the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section of the DOJ [US Department of Justice]," Computerworld writes in its April 8, 2002 issue. Stansell-Gamm, who heads the department's intellectual property and computer crime unit and is a 1973 graduate of DePauw University, is one of three women profiled as "security pioneers" in an article entitled, "The Security Sentinels."

Stansell-Gamm, Computerworld's Deborah Radcliff reports, is "leading the DOJ's efforts in multijurisdictional computer crime investigations and coordinating DOJ representation in developing international cyberlaws. The biggest and most difficult part of her job, she says, is getting all the players - corporate victims, law enforcement, state attorneys and intelligence agencies - to 'kick the ball' to one another. 'We're like a bunch of 5-year-olds playing soccer, where we all huddle around the ball,' says Stansell-Gamm, who was a soccer mom when her three kids, now teens, were younger. 'At public speaking engagements, I tell audiences that we need to position ourselves on the field and pass the ball.'

Her former colleague Charney, who became Microsoft Corporation's chief security officer this month, says Stansell-Gamm, "sees the complexity of each issue. For example, she recognizes that enforcing new laws on the Internet could chill free speech, so she has been careful not to turn evolving social mores on the Internet into definitions of criminal activity."

The article includes a color picture of Stansell-Gamm, notes her successful battle with advanced breast cancer, and states that she is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of DePauw, with a law degree from Georgetown University and a master's in international law from Harvard University.

You can read the article in its entirety online by clicking here. A PBS interview with Martha Stansell-Gamm can be accessed here. ABCNews.com has a feature on Stansell-Gamm, who is referred to as "chief of the federal cybercops," accessible by clicking here.

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