I just found a little gem in an article by Michael Marx and Jochen Schneider written in 1976 (see below for an BibTeX-Entry):
They argue that with computer crime people see criminal law just as one of several options to make computers secure.
Criminal punishment must stay the ultima ratio. But with computer crime laws we seem not only to address the culprit but also we try to address the ones accountable for computer secutity.
I think this describes exactly what we have been doing for the last few years. We found out that out that our “critical infrastructure” is extremly fragile and we try to fix that by creating new criminal laws.
@InBook{marx76:_infor_infor,
author = {Michael Marx and Jochen Schneider},
editor = {Wilhelm Steinmüller and Hans Brinckmann},
title = {Informationsrecht und Informationspolitik},
chapter = {Sicherheit der Information und Strafrecht. Strafrechtliche Aspekte der Datensicherung und Computerkriminalität},
publisher = {Oldenbourg},
year = {1976},
totalpages = {373},
pages = {217–237},
ISBN = {3-486-49211-X},
address = {München und Wien},
}