According to the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC), cyber stalking is "threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at another using the Internet and other forms of online and computer communications." Cyber bullying is similar to cyber stalking but draws its distinction through demographics. Instead of adults targeting other adults or children, cyber bullying involves minors targeting minors.
The federal Violence Against Women Act, includes cyber stalking in its interstate stalking statute. However, because this is the only federal anti-cyber stalking legislation available, most states have had to define the crime further. The NCVC notes that most states' anti-stalking laws cover cyber stalkers' behavior. While some have revised their statutes or enacted laws specifically to include computer-based harassment, others have written their anti-stalking language broadly enough to include both online and offline offenses.
New York Stalking Law
N.Y. Penal Law § 240.30 Aggravated harassment in the second degree.
A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or she:
1. Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or
(b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or
2. Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication; or
3. Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise subjects another person to physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same because of a belief or perception regarding such person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct; or
4. Commits the crime of harassment in the first degree and has previously been convicted of the crime of harassment in the first degree as defined by section 240.25 of this article within the preceding ten years. Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
For more details check out the Anti-stalking statues:
http://www.wiredsafety.org/cyberstalking_harassment/us_states/us_stalkinglaws_list.html
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Meanwhile, WiredSafety.org is working with blog (online journal) hosting services. Custom-designed guides will help these services aid law enforcement in investigating cyber bullying. In exchange for WiredSafety.org's safety tips and other support, services like MySpace, Blogger, Facebook and Piczo agree to rewrite privacy policies, store user information (including entries) for 90 days and cooperate with law enforcement - to the extent of requiring no subpoenas in emergency situations.
The kind of threat:
• The communication uses lewd language
• The communication insults you directly - You are stupid!
• The communication threatens you vaguely - I’m going to get you!
• The communication threatens you with serious bodily harm or death - I am going to break your legs! or I am going to kill you!
Evidence should be given to the police as soon as possible. As ISPs vary in terms of how long they save information. AOL, for example, will save information of chat users, such as their IP addresses, for seven days before purging. Other ISPs save information for only 30 days. The sooner incidents of crime are reported to law enforcement, the sooner information can be preserved for an investigation.
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Sgt. John Geraty, of the San Francisco Police Internet Crimes Against Children unit, explains that while there are no laws specific to cyber bullying, there are times when a line is crossed and law enforcement can step in. "Cases that involve threats of death or injury to a person or their family, and which the recipient believes to be credible, should be reported to law enforcement immediately." In such cases, it's important to preserve the evidence. "A copy of the email with the full header information should be given to the police," says Geraty. "This will provide law enforcement with the information needed to trace the sender. The option for viewing the full header is often located in the Mail Preferences tab of your email service browser. If threats of injury or death occur via a chat session, the sender's screen name, the time and date the threats occurred, and the Internet Service Provider should be provided to the police."
E-mail headers for reporting an abusive e-mail
When emails travel from sender to recipient, they hop across multiple computers on multiple networks. Each of those computers stamps information covertly on the emails, which we can use to tell the IP (Internet Protocol) address of each and track back to see which ISP owns the IP address of the computer where the message originated. This information is found in the header of the email, and is not usually displayed by default in email programs. If you enable the viewing of header information, you can identify the sender’s ISP. Once you identify the ISP, you can forward the email — including all header information — to the ISP's abuse mailboxes. Most e-mails can be traced back to the sender’s address. To do this, you need the Headers. These are the codes that are included on the top of most e-mails and with some of the e-mail programs, hidden from view.
For Microsoft Outlook, select "Options" from the "View" menu.
For Outlook Express, select "File", "Properties", then the "Details" tab
Just copy and paste it into the text document report. Turn off the spelling checker, which will try and change the terms in the code, thinking they are typos. The following link will provide instructions for MOST of the various email clients in use today: http://vww.spamcop.com/help_with_headers/
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Play nice and surf safely. You don’t have to be a spy knowing all these, at the end of the day; it’s your own responsibility to make it right.
