Online stalking earns media attention, but how serious is the problem? This question is open to debate. A report prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice, and later reports that merely respond the same content, stated that the problem is pervasive and, using “back of the envelope,” calculations theorized that online stalking could be a crime with tens or hundreds of thousands of victims. The report, however, is sparse in actual support for these claims. In fact, it even cites a study conducted at the University of Cincinnati, of which the authors have stated does not measure the statistics that the Department of Justice cites the study to support. Essentially, there are no empirical scientific studies or data as to the scope of the problem.
Although the media, legislatures, and other interested groups may provide more than a fair amount of hype for the topic, online stalking and other forms of online harassment are a legitimate concern, especially for victims. As more and more daily activities move online, a statistical analysis is not required to see that more harassing conduct likely will move online as well—an assumption supported at least by anecdotal evidence.
Examples of Online Stalking
Andrew Archambeau has the distinction of being the first person convicted of “cyber stalking,” although his actions extended into the “real world” as well. The real-world aspects of his conduct are rarely mentioned in discussions of online stalking, however; only the fact that he harassed his victim by e-mail is discussed at any length. Archambeau had met a woman through a video dating service in early 1994, and they went out on two dates. Apparently he thought more of the relationship than she did, because she sent him an e-mail message saying that she did not want to see him again. Over the next few weeks, he sent her approximately 20 e-mail messages and also left her telephone messages (including one saying, “I stalked you for the first time today”). Requests to leave her alone were ignored. Unfortunately for him, he lived across the street from the school where she worked, thus making it appear that he was waiting outside her workplace. After he ignored a police warning to leave her alone, criminal charges were fled against him for violating Michigan’s stalking law. After mounting an unsuccessful challenge to the statute’s constitutionality, he finally pleaded no contest. Archambeau’s conduct was obviously objectionable, and even absent the e-mail messages sent to his victim, he may have run afoul of the stalking law because of his real-world actions.
Another incident that had a much stronger online component, yet still included a variety of real-world contacts involved two law students at the University of Dayton who had begun dating. The woman decided to end the relationship, but the man wasn’t willing to accept this proposition. Over winter break, he began sending his former love interest notes about how he was starving himself to death, including the details of the pain he was to suffer in the process. The two reconciled—briefly. After recovering from a suicide attempt provoked when the woman broke off the relationship a second time, Mr. Davis, the former boyfriend, sent the woman numerous e-mail messages stating that he had been researching her hometown and regularly spending time in a park near her apartment. The notes did not contain explicit threats of harm, but Davis’s tone “fluctuated between despair over the break-up, anger, threats to commit suicide, a desire to see [the woman] in pain, and blaming [her] for ruining Davis life”.
Davis also included in his e-mail messages information that led to the belief that he had been watching the woman, such as knowing what she had watched on television, as well as a link to the Web site he had created. Davis Web site “portrayed, among other things, the image of [her] head transforming into a skull amidst fames, dripping blood, and charging horses ridden by robed skeletons. Interspersed with these images were quotations from the Bible and other sources in which the common theme was love, death, and destruction. On another Web page, Davis had posted pictures of [her] home town… although when questioned…Davis denied ever having been to the town” (Dayton v. Davis). Davis was charged by the authorities with violating the Ohio State law against menacing by stalking (R.C. 2903.211) and aggravated menacing R.C.G.O. 135.05(A). He defended himself by arguing that he had never actually threatened the woman. The court found that he had still succeeded in knowingly placing her in fear of serious physical harm, as evidenced in part by her moving out of her apartment and eventually transferring schools. Intentionally creating such fear, rather than making threats, is what the statutes prohibited. Davis was convicted and sentenced to 180 days in detention.
