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Cyberstalking,
by J.A Hitchcock - July/August 2000
(Credit:
Info Today / Link-Up)
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Four
years ago, the word cyberstalking hadn’t been coined yet. No one knew what
to call it; some called it online harassment, online abuse, or cyber-harassment.
And we’re not talking two people arguing with each other or calling each
other bad names. There were incidents where it had gone beyond an annoyance and
had become frightening. As more and more incidents became known and victims reached
out to law enforcement for help, all they received were either blank stares or
were told to turn off their computer. States didn’t have laws in place to
protect victims, and their harassers kept up the harassment, which escalated sometimes
to real-life stalking situations.
What
is cyberstalking? It’s when an online incident spirals so out of control
it gets to a point where a victim fears for his or her life. Case
example 1
In 1999, “Nanci” went into a Worcester, Massachusetts,
romance chat room. Another chatter commented that he did not like her username.
She defended herself and soon the two began arguing with each other in the chat
room. But the argument didn’t end. Each time Nanci tried to log onto the
chat room, her harasser was there, waiting for her, and became more aggressive.
At one point, he told her he’d hired someone else in the chat room to beat
her up; another time he posted information he’d found out about her online—who
her father was and where she lived—then said he wouldn’t be happy until
she was “6 feet under the ground.” Justifiably
horrified, Nanci went to her local police, who basically laughed at her and told
her there was nothing to be done. Yes, even with the implied death threat. The
harasser became more aggressive and began e-mailing or Instant Messaging Nanci,
telling her what kind of car she was driving, where she’d been earlier that
day, and the name of her daughter. Nanci went to the State Police, the county
District Attorney, then the State Attorney General. Each one pointed fingers at
the other, claiming they couldn’t help her, but that the other department
should. Nanci
finally hired a lawyer, filed a civil suit, then contacted local media. When she
appeared in court with TV journalists following her, the DA backed down and began
helping her. Charges were finally filed against her cyberstalker, and a trial
date has been set for later this year. “Cyberstalking
often receives a low priority in computer crime cases,” says Greg Larson,
vice president of Internet Crimes, Inc. “Police departments usually have
limited manpower for computer crimes, so in importance, these cases seem to be
put on the back burner until a serious incident occurs.” Case
Example 2
Twenty-year-old Amy Boyer lived at home with her parents in Nashua,
New Hampshire, was employed at a local dentist’s office, and had a boyfriend.
In early October of 1999, she logged onto the Web with her mother to check out
travel rates for a trip she was planning. Neither one of them thought twice about
being online, yet neither knew how close they were to discovering danger. On
October 15, Amy, ambushed outside the dentist’s office as she got in her
car, was shot and killed. Her killer then committed suicide. For
days, the police had no idea why this young woman was killed by a young man. There
seemed to be no connection to the two of them and no motive. Then
when police confiscated the killer’s computer, they found the connection—two
Web sites devoted to Amy Boyer, created by Liam Youens, 21, who had been carrying
a torch for her ever since junior high school. But he did not know Amy and Amy
never knew Liam. He’d seen her in the hallway one day, became infatuated,
and his “love” grew from there. As
he saw Amy with a new boyfriend, his love became anger, then hate, fueled by two
Web sites he created, one on Tripod, the other on Geocities. In the pages, he
kept a diary of sorts, rambling from “loving” Amy to hating her, then
declaring that she should die and he would go with her. At one point, he planned
a Columbine-style raid on Nashua High School. He even posted photos of the guns
and rifles he’d use and explained how he purchased them, then how he purchased
information about Amy. Once he found where she worked, three days later she was
dead. A cyberstalking
victim? Yes. But like a dangerous intersection that doesn’t get a stop light
until someone dies, Amy died before anyone took cyberstalking seriously. Enforcing
the law
Law enforcement agencies now know that cyberstalking is a very real
issue that needs to be dealt with, from local police departments to state police,
the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, among others. Many are asking
their officers to learn how to use the Net and work with online victim groups
such as WHOA (Women Halting Online Abuse), SafetyEd, and CyberAngels. Others are
attending seminars on cyberstalking being held throughout the country by companies
such as Advanced Professional Seminars. And many law enforcement agencies are
turning to companies such as Internet Crimes, Inc. for one-day workshops in which
officers can learn how to track down cyberstalkers and how to handle victims. “I’ve
found there is a need and a desire on the part of law enforcement to gain skills
in the areas of combating online crime,” comments Henry Quinlan, founder
of Advanced Professional Seminars. “The future presents some interesting
problems for law enforcement, especially in the area of recruiting people with
computer skills.” Larson
finds law enforcement is willing to learn, to grow, and to do what they swore
to do—protect and serve—whether offline or online. “Law
enforcement has come a long way in the past several years in recognizing the computer
as an implement in criminal activity,” he claims. “I’m seeing a
sharp increase in the calls I receive requesting training and assistance, especially
in cyberstalking cases. As a result, our ‘Cybercrime: Stalking, Harassment,
and Violence on the Internet’ workshop is currently our most popular program,
for both law enforcement agencies and campus police.” With
almost 20 states with cyberstalking or related laws, a federal cyberstalking law
waiting for Senate approval, and several other states with laws pending, cyberstalking
is finally getting noticed, not only by law enforcement, but by the media, too.
Maybe not the attention victims want, but the word is finally getting out there.
And the police are listening. Stay
Safe Online Use
your primary e-mail account only for messages to and from people you know and
trust.
Get a free e-mail account from someplace like Hotmail, Juno, or Excite,
and use that for all of your other online activities. When
you select an e-mail username or chat nickname, create something gender-neutral
and like nothing you have elsewhere or have had before. Try not to use your name. Don’t
fill out profiles for your e-mail account, chat rooms, IM (Instant Messaging),
etc.
Do set your options in chat or IM to block all users except for those
on your buddy list.
Do learn how to use filtering to keep unwanted e-mail messages
from coming to your e-mailbox.
If you are being harassed online, try not to
fight back. This is what the harasser wants—a reaction from you. If you do
and the harassment escalates, do the following:
a) Contact the harasser and
politely ask him/her to leave you alone.
b) Contact their ISP and forward the
harassing messages.
c) If the harassment escalates, contact your local police.
d)
If they can’t help, try the State Police, DA’s office and/or State Attorney
General.
e) Do NOT contact the FBI unless you get a death threat or have been
physically harmed.
f) Contact a victims group, such as WHOA, SafetyEd or CyberAngels. Cyberstalking
Facts Cyberstalkers
feel they are anonymous and can get away with anything. When
caught, most cyberstalkers say they didn’t mean to do it, or for it to go
so far. Most incidents
are not related to romances gone sour; in fact, a majority of the cases are stranger-on-stranger. WHOA,
SafetyEd, and CyberAngels estimate receiving up to 400 requests for help each
week from cyberstalking victims—that’s over 20,000 reported cases each
year. Over 90
percent of victims are women. It’s
estimated there may be as many as 475,000 online victims each year (U.S. Department
of Justice Cyberstalking Study, released in August 1999). By
2003, NUA Internet Surveys estimates there will be 500 million people online.
If even 1 percent become victims, that’s 5 million of them. For
More Information Internet
Crimes, Inc.
http://www.internetcrimes.com Advanced
Professional Seminars
http://www.advprofseminars.com WHOA
http://www.haltabuse.org SafetyEd
http://www.safetyed.org CyberAngels
http://www.cyberangels.org States
with Cyberstalking Laws
http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/laws | 
