Cybercrime Legislation And The Piece Of Legislation

Cybercrime Legislation
Name
Institution
Cybercrime Legislation
Cyber Stalking
Cyber stalking is the act of harassing, threatening and intimidating an individual or group of people using the internet (Pittaro, 2007). Cyber stalking is as a result of an individual having control issues that result in aggressive behaviours. According to Elder (2014), stalking can be inform of stranger, acquitance,date or spousal stalking. Stranger stalking happens when the victim has never interacted with the perpetratorin any way while acquitance , date and spousal stalking, happens when the victim has interacted with the perpetartor in one way or another. There are also a few cases of cyberstalking among family members.
One of the major federal laws that relates to cyber stalking is the Interstate Stalking and Prevention Act passed by congress in 1996 as part of Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the U.S. This law makes it a crime to travel across states with the intent of stalking a person either through the mail or any other computer enabled services, if this particular activity causes substantial fear of bodily harm or death to the individual or his/her immediate family members (United States Department of Justice, 2015).
In Connecticut, section 53a-182b provides that it is a crime (harassment in the first degree) when a person communicates threats to kill or physically injure another person by telephone, telegraph, mail or computer network with intent to harass, annoy or terrorise that person. Under this section, harassment is said to have been committed either at the place where the message disseminated from or where it was received(Working to Halt Online Abuse, 2012). The section was last updated in 2012 in reference to provisions of sec. 53a-54b. However, the law is only applicable to threats.
The difference between these two legislations is that the one in Connecticut is only applicable in Connecticut State since it is a state law whereas interstate stalking is a federal law that applies across states. In addition, the Interstate Stalking legislation does not give specific of where the offense is said to have been committed, whether it is at the place it was sen...