English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

Please, no hate mail. Heres' my question.
From what I've read, to qualify as cyberstalking, you have to be harassing and/or threatening someone. The person who thinks they are being cyberstalked is first supposed to ask you to stop, then report your IP, and then file a charge - if I read right. Do they have to do all that, or can they go straight to a charge?
Some lady is charging me with cyberstalking. The communications I had with this person were never threatening, nor did I harass her. She never told me to stop talking to her. I never tried to find out personal information. All I did was take some pictures and her name. Could she really win a case against me for cyberstalking? Also, does taking her name and some of her pictures qualify as identity theft, or do you have to take more info than that? What is the penalty for breaking the copyright law (which right now, appears to be the only thing I did.)
Thank you SO much.

2007-10-11 18:25:25 · 1 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government Law & Ethics

Also, how soon are they required to tell me they are pressing a charge against me? She told me to call someone months ago, but she gave me the wrong phone number. I only contacted her again 2 days ago (no contact in the periods in between, even though she didn't ask me not too.)
She responded telling me to not bother and that prosecutors were pressing charges on me. Obviously they've been working on it for awhile. When are they legally supposed to let me know?

2007-10-11 18:27:34 · update #1

So is this a criminal or civil charge?
I'm a juvenile, how does that change things?
The lady has a boy and twin girls - I took her name and her images but said I had triplets. Would that be considered trying to pretend to be her?

2007-10-11 18:58:42 · update #2

She never told me to stop. I never had any intent against against or including her at all. All I was doing was using her images to pretend to be a mom of triplets. There was no intent beyond that.
Also, she brought prosecutors in the day after she found out.

2007-10-11 19:01:06 · update #3

And oh yeah - regarding the Cyberstalking law. What I did in no way defamed anyone. I misrepresented myself, but I did not do so in a harmful or mean way.

2007-10-11 19:02:54 · update #4

1 answers

Talk to an attorney. He can tell you what you need to do.

2007-10-11 18:35:38 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Cyberstaking depends on what the cyberstalker does.
No the prosecutor doesn’t have to tell you that are building a case against you until they formally arrest you.
Taking a person's name and picture is normally not enough to be considered identity theft, unless you photoshoped the image, or somehow used that image or her name to claim that you were her.

Your question is very vague; you didn't tell me enough of what you did to this woman. A lot of a criminal prosecution is intent. If you get into a accident and kill your passenger then you are charged with manslaughter. If it was a parent or an actual accident then usually those charges are never filed; it was never the intent to kill the passenger. However, the do have to be investigated, no matter how crushed the family feels.

In your case your victim is within her rights to file charges against you. What those charges are and the associated penalties depend on what you did or what can be proven that you intended to do. You can assume that if she was angry with you and told you that, that will be enough to be considered as a negative. If she suddenly files charges against you out of the blue then she is wrong and the case won't fly, but then she would have already been told that. If it has gotten to the point where a prosecutor's office is involved then it is a good time for you to talk with a lawyer and not pose hypothetical cases on Yahoo Answers.

I would like to help, but you have been too vague; which is a sign that you fear you are guilty of something. If you fear that she may have a case then talk with a lawyer about it, and give them details.

Sites for Free legal advice in the US:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLR,GGLR:2006-49,GGLR:en&q=Free+Legal+advice
http://www.lawhelp.org/
http://www.freeadvice.com/all_topics.htm
http://www.lawinfo.com/
http://www.lsc.gov/about/grantee_links.php
http://www.thelaw.com/
http://www.flac.ie/
http://www.legalsurvival.com/

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstalking#Cyberstalking_law_enforcement
"Current US Anti-Cyber-Stalking law is found at 47 USC sec. 223."

It is called the Communications Decency Act of 1995 and you can find the text here: http://www.legi-internet.ro/cda.htm
"initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass an other person."

This is vague enough to cover a whole lot of activity.

2007-10-11 18:48:28 · answer #2 · answered by Dan S 7 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers