Byte-ing mad Feds, state strike back against Internet ‘cyberstalking’

“Go back under your rock that you slivered from. Please don’t speak anymore, you sound like a real tool. And all I did was make a statement about [a local politician’s] wife leaving him.”

The above was a post left on an internet messageboard about Secaucus politics in February of this year. The board, SecaucusNJ.net, has a policy that states: “Rudeness and insulting posts, personal attacks, or purposeless inflammatory posts will not be tolerated.”

Soon after that post, the person who left it was banned from the site.

But internet community forums throughout Hudson County have been known to often elicit wars of words and slanderous anonymous posts about neighbors and politicians – and there has not been a lot of lawmaking about the internet, until recently.

In January, President George W. Bush signed federal anti-cyberstalking legislation, which is part of the Violence against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act.

The new cyberstalking law updates the existing telephone harassment laws to include computer communications. It prohibits anonymous Internet communications “with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass.”

As outlined in the updated law, the penalties are a prison sentence of up to two years and an unspecified fine.

The National Center for Victims of Crime, based out of Washington D.C., defines cyberstalking as any threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at a person on the Internet and through other forms of computer communication.

Cyberstalking includes: threatening or obscene emails, spamming, live chat harassment, sending electronic viruses, tracing another person’s computer and Internet activity, and blogging.

On Feb. 12, 2006, a registered user of SecaucusNJ.net, under the log-in name of Polly, wrote to another registered user: “Trust me, you need the medicine more than me, and quite frankly, you should go to Marra’s [Drug Store] and get condoms so we don’t have anymore like you. Go back under your rock that you slivered from. Please don’t speak anymore, you sound like a real tool. And all I did was make a statement about [a local politician’s] wife leaving him, just like he made a statement about someone who had a vote for sale. Snake, trust me, things would have been better if your father pulled out.”

While the insults against Snake are not defamatory, talking about a politician’s wife leaving him may be, if it is not truthful.State bill stalled

In 1999, officials in various states realized the extent of the distress that cyberstalking inflicted on their constituents, and they began to pass laws that made it a crime. Since then, 45 states have laws about stalking that specifically mention cyberstalking as a punishable offense.

However, it appears that legislation in New Jersey is stalled.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Peter Biondi, of District 16, which includes Morris and Somerset, introduced cyberstalking legislation on Jan. 10, 2006 into the state Assembly. The bill, which hasn’t been debated yet, would hold operators of computer services and Internet providers liable to people injured by false or defamatory messages posted on public forum Web sites.

“An operator of an interactive computer service or an Internet service provider shall establish and maintain reasonable procedures to enable any person to request and obtain disclosure of the legal name and address of an information content provider who posts false or defamatory information about the person on a public forum Web site,” the bill states.

However, the bill was referred to the Assembly’s Telecommunications and Utilities committee and has been in a holding pattern since its introduction.

Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, District 17 representative and chair of the committee, said that there has been no pressure surrounding the bill.

“Nobody has requested it or forced the bill to debate, so there is nothing going on now that I know of,” Chivukula said. Driven to suicide

In 2005, 443 cases of cyberstalking were reported to www.haltabuse.org, a volunteer organization that works to fight online harassment by educating the general public and law enforcement personnel.

Out of the 443 cases, 67 percent, or 299 cases, involved female victims, 38 percent of the cases involved victims between ages 18 and 30, and 35 percent of the cases began with harassing e-mails.

The cable company Cablevision, based in Bethpage, N.Y., runs a program called Power to Learn, which educates teachers, parents, and students on proper Internet use, focusing on K-12 education.

Trent Anderson, vice president of education for the program, said, “Internet harassment tends to be an issue for kids in middle and high school, and some in college.”

While Anderson said the problem is not widespread, the effects of Internet harassment are grave.

“One boy [who was a victim] committed suicide, and some thought that cyber bullying was a large factor in his death,” Anderson said. “Our goal is to let kids know that there are social and legal consequences to Internet harassment.” Local harassment

Public officials are often main targets for harassment in online forums, particularly in politically heated towns like Hoboken, Union City, and Secaucus.

Bill Campbell, the public information officer for the City of Hoboken, said, “I do feel it is up to the Internet service provider to police themselves so that private citizens aren’t paraded in public forum.”

Local forums like Hobokeni and JCList allow political discussion, with various criticisms. It crosses the line, however, if a specific person is accused of corruption or a crime, or personal misdeeds, without hard evidence.

“We have some pretty horrible people up in office,” wrote a poster on Hobokeni in January of 2003. “…a [certain local politican] who likes very young same sex, an alcoholic, a hot headed councilman who only screams and over-reacts, a councilwoman who approved the monstrosity 17-tower development that can’t even support the sewer system.”

Another user responded within the law, without mentioning anyone’s name: “This town is so corrupt that there is no ‘cleaning up.’ It’s all about favoritism, nepotism & any other -isms that stink for the common man.”

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