The Age of Cyber Stalking
Stalking is a form of harassment. The legal definition of harassment is "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose" or "words, gestures, and actions which tend to annoy, alarm and abuse (verbally) another person (Black's). Stalking relates back to the time when harassment was done via the telephone. At that point in time, it was untraceable. The perpetrator believed that they were virtually untouchable. Today stalkers hide behind Internet. They do so because stalking via the Internet is untraceable. When anyone uses the Internet they are using a phone line. In essence you would think that it is quite the same thing. If you can trace a phone line why can't you trace an Internet contact? A common cyber stalking situation one might experience starts off with a message from a screen name they do not know. The message might be a simple hello, then after repeated contact the tone mig!ht change from friendly to threatening. What do you do when the tone changes from friendly to threatening? The person on the other end goes from attempting to be your friend to playing mind games. He or she tells you that he or s
18 U.S.C 875 is an anti cyber-stalking statue. It is the current legislation making cyber stalking a federal crime (usdoj.gov 14). This makes it punishable by a court of law if threats are communicated in any way electronically. It is not an all-purpose anti cyber stalking law, which causes for gaps within the system. It is however a start and a step in the right direction. If the legislation doesn't cover every aspect it won't serve its purpose (Herring 39). erious unless followed through with action. I believe that words can be just as harmful as actions. Words can cause mental distress, which I believe to be just as harmful as actions. They can cause fear just as easily as physical harm. Again the issue is the legitimacy in the words. So this to adds to the problem of proving cyber stalking. In addition to proving that someone is guilty, law enforcement officials are stumped as to how to deal with offenders of cyber stalking. the Internet is now traceable. Police departments have to be careful when trying to enforce cyber stalking laws not to say something or do something that can cause for a problem for the department. If a police department wrongfully charges someone it leaves them open to a lawsuit. Before law enforcement officials can do anything to help protect the victims there needs to be proper legislation. malicious intensions behind the stalker (Herring 17). According to Colin Gabriel Hatcher most cyber stalking cases are malicious.
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Approximate Word count = 2048
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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