|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
BehaviorsCyberstalkers target victims using online forums, bulletin boards, chat rooms, spyware, and spam. They may engage in live chat harassment or flaming or they may send electronic viruses and unsolicited e-mails. [1] They may repeatedly instant message their targets. [2] More commonly they will post defamatory or derogatory statements about their stalking target on web pages, message boards and in guest books designed to trigger a reaction or response from their victim, thereby initiating contact. [1]
Stalking does not consist of single incidents, but is a continuous process. Similar to stalking off-line (physical stalking), cyberstalking can be a terrifying experience for victims, placing them at risk of psychological trauma, and possible physical harm. As Rokkers writes, "Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim, with whom he has no relationship (or no longer has)....Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect)."[3] (For a list of effects, see Stalking) Some cyberstalking situations do evolve into physical stalking, and a victim may experience abusive and excessive phone calls, vandalism, threatening or obscene mail, trespassing, and physical assault.[1] Moreover, many physical stalkers will use cyberstalking as another method of harassing their victims.[4] [5] Cyberstalking legislationThe first U.S. cyberstalking law went into effect in 1999 in California. Other states include prohibition against cyberstalking in their harassment or stalking legislation. In Florida, HB 479 was introduced in 2003 to ban cyberstalking. This was signed into law on October 2003. [6] States in the U.S. that have begun to address the use of computer equipment for stalking purposes, include:
Cyberstalking has also been addressed in recent U.S. federal law. For example, the Violence Against Women Act, passed in 2000, made cyberstalking a part of the federal interstate stalking statute. Still, there remains a lack of legislation at the federal level to specifically address cyberstalking, leaving the majority of legislative prohibitions against cyberstalking at the state level.[1] Other countries have begun to include online abuse in their anti-stalking legislation. In Australia, the Criminal Code Stalking Amendment Act (1999) includes the use of any form of technology to harass a target as forms of "criminal stalking." In the United Kingdom, the Malicious Communications Act (1998) classified cyberstalking as a criminal offense.[7] Most stalking laws require that the perpetrator make a credible threat of violence against the victim; others include threats against the victim's immediate family; and still others require the alleged stalker's course of conduct constitute an implied threat.(1) While some conduct involving annoying or menacing behavior might fall short of illegal stalking, such behavior may be a prelude to stalking and violence and should be treated seriously.[8] Online identity stealth blurs the line on infringement of the rights of would-be victims to identify their perpetrators. There is a need to debate how internet use can be traced without infringing on protected civil liberties. Cyberstalking law enforcementLaw enforcement has often not caught up with the times, and officials are in many cases simply telling the victims to avoid the websites where they are being harassed or having their privacy violated. Some assistance can be found by contacting the web host companies (if the material is on a website) or the ISP of the abuser. Many victims note that persistence is a key. At times the seriousness of the impact of this type of violation is not comprehended and the third party facilitators of cyberstalkers tell the victim to work it out with their harasser.[citation needed] See also
Further reading
Notes
|
Sites |
Searched sites for "Cyberstalking" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
|||||||||||||
