The use of the internet, email, social media or other digital communication tools to repeatedly threaten, intimidate, demean or otherwise target a specific individual or group. It encompasses conduct including repeated unwanted contact, coordinated harassment campaigns, the posting of threatening or abusive messages, and the deliberate use of technology to cause emotional distress. Many jurisdictions have enacted specific cyberharassment or cyberstalking statutes since the 2000s to address conduct that traditional harassment laws, written before the internet existed, did not clearly cover.
Facts
Classification CodeIn the United States, online harassment that rises to interstate cyberstalking is prosecuted as a distinct federal offense under 18 U.S. Code section 2261A, which folds mail-based and electronic conduct into the same statute that governs physical interstate stalking and cross-references its penalty to section 2261(b) or section 2261B. 1 Elements of OffenseFederal law criminalizes cyberstalking when a person, intending to kill, injure, harass, intimidate or place another under surveillance with that intent, uses the mail, an interactive computer service, an electronic communication service, or another facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in a course of conduct that places the victim in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury, or that causes or would reasonably be expected to cause substantial emotional distress. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia: Cybercrime
Sources
1. 18 U.S. Code section 2261A (Cornell LII)
Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute18 U.S.C. 2261A(2), cyberstalking elements
with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person, uses the mail, any interactive computer service or electronic communication service or electronic communication system of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in a course of conduct
18 U.S.C. 2261A, penalty cross-reference
shall be punished as provided in section 2261(b) or section 2261B, as the case may be.
View the Source Wikipedia: Cybercrime
Associated With: Cybercrime, Lead and law-enforcement sectionsQuote, Associated With: Cybercrime, Lead and law-enforcement sections
Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or networks.
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