LoneTree Creative Preserve Authorblog

I don’t know if many of you have heard about Megan Meier, but she was an Americian 13-year teenage that committed suicide due to Online Harassment.  The bully was not another teenager, but the mother of a friend of Megan’s.  This bully was identified as Lori Janine Drew who was indicted by a federal grand jury with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.  Each count of the indictment carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Because of this terrible event the following laws have been passed:

• The Board of Aldermen for the City of Dardenne Prairie, passed an ordinance on November 22,2007.  The ordinance prohibits any harassment that utilizes an electronic medium, including the Internet, text messaging services, pagers, and similar devices. Violations of the ordinance are treated as misdemeanors, with fines of up to $500 and up to 90 days imprisonment
• The city of Florissant, Missouri also passed a “Cyber Harassment” law, with other municipalities, counties, and states considering following suit;
• The state of Missouri revised its harassment laws to cover harassement through computers and mobile phone messaging, and creating a new crime to cover adults 21 and over harassing children under the age of eighteen.

1. Collect and save all email that has been sent.  I know the first instinct is to delete the piece of garbage you have receive, but don’t.  The authorities can use it to help find and stop the attacker.  Save it in eletronic format but all print off and keep a copy in a safe location.
2. If it is a web-site download the whole site or capture the screen to save it as a BMP or JPG file, and print a copy.
3. Keep a diary of the online names, the date and time you have received the harassing messages.
4. Contact the local police and FBI to fill out a report.  If you leave the internet or do nothing then it will give them the power to do this to someone else.  Report it.

Here are some examples of cyberstalking and cyberharassment:

• Post comments intended to cause distress to the victim, or make them the subject of harassment by others;
• Send a constant stream of e-mails and instant messages to their victims or a victim’s co-workers, friends, or family;
• Pose as the victim and post offensive comments or send offensive messages in their name;
• Send hateful or provocative communications to the victim’s boss, family or significant other (in their own name or posing as the victim);
• Victim’s computer is hacked or their e-mail accounts are broken-into by the cyberstalker/harasser and taken over entirely, or the password is changed and the victim locked out of their own accounts;
• Signed-up for spam, porn sites and questionable offers;
• Posts the name, address and telephone number of the victim online, often posing as them, and soliciting sexual activities on their behalf;
• Death threats;

Electornic Format Cyber-bullies and Cyber-stakers use:

Email:

Cyber-bullies and harassers think that because they can set up and delete email accounts that they are safe from prosecution, but that is not so. Email sent from accounts with local/regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can be traced and acted upon easier. As to trace emails from large email services like Yahoo, AOL Hotmail etc. it does take more time but it can be done. 

Websites/Blogs/Live journals:

Another form of cyber-bulling and harassers can occur with the use of websites, blogs, or/and live journals.Here these cyber-bullies/harassers have created websites/blogs/live journals that torment, harass and make life a living hell for someone.If this occurs then you can print off the pages for later use and prosecution then contact the ISP provider of that website.A good ISP provider will have ways to report abuses and procedures in place to fix the situation.If the ISP provider does nothing then contact CyberLawEnforcement.org which can help provide you with resources to get the website/blog/live journal taken down.

What is Cyber-stalking?

A cyber-stalker follows his/her victim online from group to group but will also perform some sort of real life attack on their victim.CyberLawEnforcement.org which assists law enforcement in cyber-stalking/harassment cases. You can also file a report at the United States Department of Justice Computer Crime & Intellecual Property Section or Internet Crime Complaint Center.

What is Cyber-bullying?

“Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.” -Bill Belsey

Cyberbullying only refers to bullying between children and teens by other children/teens.

What is Cyber-harassment?

Cyber-harassment involves adults on one or both sides (victim/predator).

 What form does Cyber-bulling and Cyber-harassment take?

Here are some examples of cyber-bulling and cyber-harassment:

• Sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images;
• Posting sensitive, private information about another person;
• Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad;
• Intentionally excluding someone from an online group (Willard, 2005).
• Rely on all forms of digital media, including instant messaging, blogs, websites, e-mails, chat rooms, and cell phones and both may use anonymity to engage in relentless, and vicious attacks.

Why do cyber-bully or harasser attack?

The sole intent of these individuals is to threaten, humiliate, and destroy their intended victims by causing as much emotional distress as they can by demanding submission, spreading lies, and compromising the economic and social wellbeing of the victim.

Don’t kid yourself that this is harmless or should be ignored for this is a deliberate, malicious act done for predator’s for self-gain and satisfaction.

These people think because the internet is unsupervised and that identities can be created and discarded like garbage that they can hide.  This will allow the Cyber-bullying and cyber-harasser an environment that could provides them with an emotional high, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

These people don’t care who they attack for they target victims without regard to nationality, gender, age, education, class, race or religion.   In some cases they will appear to befriend their target and then wait for the moment when they can strike.

Is cyber bullying and cyber harassment a crime?

I’m happy to report that in 2006 President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.  From there the federal government has expanded law to include cbyer-harassment/bullying/stalking. 

I’m happy to report that in 2006 President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.  From there the federal government has expanded law to include cbyer-harassment/bullying/stalking.  The current US Federal Anti-Cyber-Stalking law is found at 47 USC sec. 223 (Cybertelecom :: 47 USC 233“. Cybertelecom).

There are also many states that have placed have cyber-harassment/bullying/stalking into state laws that make it illegal to harass/stalk individuals on-line.

Here is a site listing the Cyberstalking laws for each state:

• http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/CIP/stalk99.htm