Georgia is proposing to change a spousal privileges law that requires a married victim to obtain the permission of their abuser before they can testify against them. I’m not sure who ever thought that was a good idea.
San Francisco sheriff Ross Mirkarimi stated that domestic violence “is a private matter, a family matter” when asked whether or not he abused his wife. Even if he didn’t, no one benefits from silence about intimate partner violence except the perpetrators. Domestic violence advocates erected the billboard above to address his claims.
Check out this great stalking awareness campaign called Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It. Not only do they have promotional materials to raise awareness about stalking, there are also numerous resources related to safety planning, outreach materials, and information specific to responders like law enforcement and prosecutors.
Last year, the Men’s Anti-Violence Council developed a workshop about commonly exploited technology used to stalk and harass individuals. It has been extremely popular and we have presented it at numerous conferences and workshops. We’ll be presenting it next month at The Big Ten Counseling Center conference regarding how this topic relates to counseling centers and college students. Stay tuned for when we upload the Power Point from that presentation.
From 2008 to 2010, William Cassidy harassed Alyce Zeoli through Twitter sending her over 8,000 tweets. He criticized her looks, made fun of her religion, described graphic ways in which she could die, and repeatedly told her to commit suicide. Zeoli blocked his accounts but Cassidy just created another one. In 2010, Zeoli reported the harassment and the FBI pressed charges against Cassidy for stalking Zeoli and causing her “substantial emotional distress.”
However, this week federal judge Roger W. Titus, dismissed the case stating, “while Mr. Cassidy’s speech may have inflicted substantial emotional distress, the government’s indictment here is directed squarely at protected speech: anonymous, uncomfortable Internet speech addressing religious matters.” Apparently Judge Titus doesn’t really understand what Twitter is. He compared it to a colonial bulletin board where if you didn’t like something, you don’t read it. News flash Judge Titus, Twitter is no different from a text message, email, or phone call. It is direct contact through electronic means with another individual. Just telling someone to “ignore it, turn it off, or don’t look it” is about as good as telling a stalking victim to just block the phone number, quit their job, or simply ignore the animal head left in a box on the front porch. The message this sends to victims is ridiculously callous, “If you don’t like it, too bad, just ignore it.”
However, there was some protection from harassment and stalking enforced this week. A judge in Minnesota ordered a man to take down his “revenge” blog about his ex-girlfriend because individuals have a “right to be free from harassment”and instated a 50 year restraining order! But wait, isn’t a blog is like a colonial bulletin board? No, no it’s not.
Anyone in a position of enforcing or creating rules/laws/policies about harassment, stalking, bullying, or any other inappropriate conduct through electronic/Internet/technological means should have a basic understanding of what the Internet is and how social media services on it function. People should be protected from those who intimidate, threaten, harass, monitor, record, impersonate, and stalk them regardless of the method.
George Bronk just received a four year prison sentence for stalking and harassing women through Facebook and email. George would search Facebook profiles for information to assist him in hijacking email accounts to search for nude or provocative pictures. George would then distribute the pictures to everyone on their contact list and in some cases, blackmail the women to gain additional pictures. When contacted by a victim about why he was doing this, George responded, “Because it’s funny.”
George plead guilty in January to computer intrusion, false impersonation and possession of child pornography. He received four years in state prison for the Facebook and email charges and an additional eight months for the child pornography charges, which requires him to register as a sex offender. 46 women across 17 states came forward in this case as recipients of his illegal behaviors.
This case highlights the importance of taking online precautions but also being aware of security measures. You can create a formidable password, but pay attention to password recovery options. If the information needed to answer generic password recovery questions is available online throughout your social networks, it creates vulnerabilities. A lot of people may know where you went to grade school or your mother’s maiden name. This case also highlights the significance of electronic and Internet-based stalking and harassment. Numerous victims I have worked with dismiss the behaviors because they are afraid no one will take them seriously. “It’s just emails and text messages or comments on Facebook,” is something I hear frequently. 47 states have electronic and Internet-based language in their stalking and harassment laws. It doesn’t matter the means. These behaviors are illegal whether they happen in person or online. Cases like this set a precedent for future prosecution.
I know, I know, “Who cares, it’s just a commercial? Lighten up.” Skip it. Virgin Mobile created some creepy, unhealthy and illegal depictions about how their cell phone technology can be utilized to stalk and harass someone. Over 1 in 4 victims of stalking are harassed or monitored with technology. For those of you interested in learning more, MAC offers a Technology and Stalking workshop focused on awareness raising, prevention, and safety planning.
Joshua Ashby made New Zealand history this week. He became the first New Zealander to be convicted of a crime committed on the Internet under the country’s morality and decency laws. After a five month relationship ended, Ashby became violent and threatened the life of his former partner. He sent her text messages like “I’m going to kill you” and “Dead bitch.” He stole and destroyed some of her clothes. He also gained access to her Facebook account, replaced her profile picture with a nude picture of her, changed her password so that she could not remove it and removed all privacy settings so that it was visible by anyone.
Although the morality and decency laws were in regards to print media, the judge stated that the outdated laws needed updated to account for newer technology. Ashby plead guilty to all counts and received 4 months in prison. When he tried to cover up his face to prevent his picture from being taken the judge allowed it by humorously responding, “There was a certain symmetry to it.” I agree.
The Telegraph recently ran a story about television presenter, Alexis Bowater, who was “cyberstalked” for over two years. Alexander Reeve sent Alexis over 50 violent and sexual emails, many of which threatened her life and included threats that were graphic and sexual. He claimed that she would be found hanged and phoned in bomb threats to the studio where Alexis worked. Reeve was found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison. The article highlights a statistics that I had never seen before. As quoted in the article, Alexis states that 77% of stalking victims wait until 100 incidents have occurred before they contact the police.
The article does a good job of highlighting the constant stress, worry, terror and helplessness that many victims of stalking experience, which can often be exacerbated when technology and anonymity are involved.
“There are things that I was made to think that are kept in some quiet place in my soul because when somebody is telling you they’re going to do all these things you do believe them and live with it every day and night.”
“You don’t know what they (stalkers) look like, how old they are, what gender, whether they are doing it from nearby or abroad, if they are your next door neighbour, or someone in your office. You have no idea and that is terrifying.”
Click on the image below to see a video of Alexis describing her stalking and recent changes in British harassment laws.
MAC wanted to create a packet of material for our RAs to display on bulletin boards in the dorms. Our Rape Victim Advocacy Program has had a lot of success with this approach so we decided to create some materials about bystander interventions and violence prevention.
The problem was that I couldn’t find any existing product to use as a model or template. There wasn’t a single available pdf or powerpoint to modify into a bulletin board. I even visited online repositories of RA bulletin boards. There were hundreds of bulletin board examples, ideas, and templates. There was everything from Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse to Ramen Noodle Recipes but nothing about violence prevention.
So we created one. We took an example on a trifold foam board to the RA fair and had over half of our RAs on campus sign up. We color coded the categories (Things to know, How to help, and Who to call) for easy assembly and mailed each RA a packet. All they had to do was hang it up. RAs are responsible for changing their bulletin board twice a year so this material could be displayed on bulletin boards across campus for an entire semester.
Feel free to use and modify the pdf below to meet the needs of your group. If your group has created any materials that you would be willing to share with others, send them to us and we’ll post them on the site with your information attached.
U be dead is the title of a made for TV movie for ITV1 in Britain that chronicles the real life stalking case of Debbie Pemberton and Jan Falkowski by Maria Marchese. You can find a first hand account of the incidenthere. I’m going to post some quotes and details about the intensity, relentlessness and terrifying nature of the stalking below. Debbie and Jan suffered through this torture for 5 years and went to extreme lengths to escape their stalker.
As I scanned the words of my latest text, my hands trembled. “You will burn in your wedding dress,” it read. I was terrified. If I’d known then that would be the first of thousands, I don’t think I could have gone on.
I was receiving up to 10 threats a day. One said: “A bullet waiting for U. Gunman paid”, and another simply said: “U B Dead.” I became increasingly suspicious and paranoid, questioning the motives of everyone I met, from the stranger sitting next to me on the train to the person who pushed past me in the street.
We returned to the boat after a night out in the pub. Jan stepped in ahead of me, then shouted: “Get back!” The gas taps had been turned on. If we’d been out for much longer, the boat would have exploded the moment we turned on a light.
I didn’t even feel safe in my own home. Police traced calls and texts to phone boxes nearby, even to the station where I caught the train every morning – some had phones with keyboards where you could send texts to mobiles – this person knew our daily routines, where we lived and how I got to work for my job as a financial analyst.
A woman constantly bombarded my work department with calls, abusing my colleagues if they didn’t put her through. She even called the chief executive, saying I’d leaked sensitive information to the press.
I jumped if my phone beeped, terrified what was coming next. I could only doze for a couple of hours a night. My skin broke out in eczema and I lost a stone in weight.
We decided to move to a ‘safe house.’ We told no one our new address – not even our friends or family. I’d switch my phone off at night, trying to escape. But every morning, a flurry of hate messages would flood my inbox.
Our wedding was being destroyed by our stalker. I had to use a password when I spoke to the wedding venue, because our stalker had tried to cancel the booking four times. When that failed, she’d sent a text saying that she’d poison our guests.
I even considered killing myself, ending it all just so I’d be free.
Training to be a member of the Men’s Anti-Violence Council beings on September 9th. We have created a space for men from the University of Iowa campus and surrounding communities to create programming aimed at reducing violence, especially domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
We are not just focused on raising awareness and providing information about violence. MAC is interested in primary prevention, meaning that we want to keep violence from occurring in the first place. By engaging and training members of the community, MAC members work to make our community a safer place for everyone.
Our discussion includes issues related to masculinity, mentoring and leadership as well as bystander intervention skills. We want to end silence about violence. Instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining about the problem, MAC members are interested in being an active part of the solution.
Volunteer training dates, times and location
Orientation Training: September 9, 6-9 p.m. at WRAC
MAC Training: September 16, 6-9 p.m. at the IMU
Cultural Competency Training: Sept 23, 6-9 p.m. Jones Commons, Lindquist Center
MAC training: Sept. 30, 5-7 p.m at WRAC
Download a volunteer application here.MAC members also attend a weekly meeting during the semester to plan our programs. As of right now, that meeting is scheduled for Thursdays from 5-6 p.m. Our first meeting is on September 30.
Take a look at our brochure and newsletter for more information about what we do. If you have any questions, email me at jerrodkoon@gmail.com.
