The Appellate Section reviews all criminal appellate filings, supervises moot courts, provides legal advice to other AUSAs, acts as liaison on appellate matters with the Criminal Division and the Solicitor General in Washington, and writes briefs and argues cases in the court of appeals.

The Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Unit oversees investigations of and prosecutes computer intrusions and intellectual property offenses affecting the high technology industry in the Northern District of California. The unit concentrates on offenses involving computer intrusions, theft of trade secrets, economic espionage and criminal copyright and trademark violations.  CHIP also prosecutes property crimes, such as cargo thefts and remarking of chips.  The unit is based in San Jose.

The Forfeiture Section operates within the Criminal Division and is responsible for the prosecution of criminal and civil forfeiture cases.  In addition to litigating civil forfeiture cases, the Section provides support to Criminal Division AUSAs on all criminal forfeiture issues.  The forfeiture AUSAs work with most of the federal law enforcement agencies, assisting their criminal investigations by identifying assets subject to forfeiture and developing evidence for seizure and forfeiture.

The General Crimes Section handles a variety of matters, including firearms, theft, immigration offenses, passport fraud, postal crimes, flight to avoid prosecution, FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, Child Support Recovery Act cases, Social Security fraud, and violent crime, such as bank robbery, assault, arson and extortion.  The section is responsible for the district's firearms violence reduction initiatives, Triggerlock II and "Total Mission."  These initiatives are aimed at reducing gun violence throughout the district through the cooperative efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and community groups. The section is also responsible for prosecuting crimes committed under exclusive federal jurisdiction and prosecuted under the assimilated crimes provisions.

The Misdemeanor Section is headed by the Chief Law Clerk, with supervision from the Deputy Chief of the General Crimes Section.  The Misdemeanor Section is staffed by law students who work at the U.S. Attorney's Office for one or more semesters.  The staff in this section appears before the United States Magistrate Judges and handles the prosecution of all misdemeanor and petty offense crimes committed on exclusive federal jurisdiction in the Northern District of California.  This includes offenses committed on the Presidio Trust, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, various military installations and on any property in the district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Park Service, the General Services Administration and the Veterans Administration.  The section also handles the prosecution of selected misdemeanor offenses, such as certain bank embezzlements, false passport applications, assaults, thefts and postal offenses.

The Narcotics Section oversees all Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) cases and non-OCDETF narcotics cases throughout the district, including investigations and prosecutions in the branch offices in Oakland and San Jose.  The OCDETF cases focus on investigating and prosecuting major drug organizations and drug money laundering organizations within the district.  The San Francisco Office is also the Core City for OCDETF districts in the Pacific Region, which include the United States Attorney's Offices in the District of Hawaii, Districts of  Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, District of Alaska, Eastern District of Washington, Western District of Washington, District of Oregon, District of Idaho, District of Nevada, Eastern District of California and the Northern District of California.  As the Core City, the San Francisco OCDETF coordinators review and oversee all the OCDETF cases in the Pacific Region.

The San Francisco Organized Crime Strike Force´s principal enforcement efforts in the Northern District of California are directed against Asian and Russian organized crime, and "emerging groups" including, but not limited to, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Nuestra Familia and outlaw motorcycle gangs. The list of targeted organizations reflects the expansion of the Department of Justice's organized crime program to include "non-traditional" groups, as opposed to traditional groups such as La Cosa Nostra.

Strike Force investigations typically involve a broad spectrum of criminal statutes, including the RICO statutes, extortion, bribery, fraud, narcotics and labor racketeering.  Investigations are coordinated with federal agencies, such as the FBI, United States Customs and INS, as well as with state and local agencies, such as the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, California Department of Justice and local police departments.

The section targets all forms of securities fraud, which have increased in light of the boomtown atmosphere in and around Silicon Valley.   The principal types of cases handled by the section include

financial accounting fraud by company management, including creation of phony revenues and concealment of liabilities designed to boost or maintain the company's stock price  

insider trading at high-tech companies, mainly by employees trying to cash in on Wall Street's predictable and volatile reactions to even slightly good or bad news from the technology sector; and

stock manipulation, usually involving the stocks of purported Internet companies that often exist only on paper, manipulations that are commonly carried out via the Internet through a combination of "press releases" and chat room messages.

The Special Prosecutions Unit investigates and prosecutes cases involving corruption of public officials and employees as well as selected cases involving frauds committed against the government.  Prosecutions by this unit include cases involving bribery, extortion, kickback schemes, theft of government property, and fraud in connection with government contracts.

The White Collar Crime Section is responsible for prosecuting a wide range of complex cases, including health care fraud, financial institutions fraud, bankruptcy fraud and mail and wire fraud.  Civil Rights cases are also monitored, evaluated and prosecuted by the Section.  Environmental cases are prosecuted under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other federal environmental statutes.  The Section also prosecutes cases involving the protection of wildlife and Food and Drug Administration cases concerning the safety of the nation's food supply.  In addition, the White Collar Crimes Section prosecutes child exploitation cases.  Most of these cases involve defendants who meet children on the Internet and then travel for the purpose of having sex with them.  Other matters involve the production and distribution of child pornography.