Fake A Name Online? 3rd Degree Felony Charge
As of the last quarter in 2009 it is illegal in Austin, Texas to post messages on social networking sites using a name additional than your own (impersonating) with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten. In fact, it is now considered to be a third-degree felony. This law is seeing quite a bit of favor from the Austin police as the specialty has been on the receiving end of a number of impersonations and attacks. On the surface, this seems to be a law that is simple to know and apply. Though, digging a bit deeper will show how this may not be as simple as we reckon.
Defining
Part of the problem with proving the intent is on the definitions of harm and intimidate. Harm is defined at physical injury or mental hurt. Physical injuries are simple enough to verify. It’s not so simple when it comes to proving mental hurt – mental hurt to one person may simply be an annoyance to another. Intimidation is another hard concept to pinpoint. The truest definition is to make timid or to fill with dread. Again, we’re left with wide interpretations of what causes dread for one person and not another. Some very clear definitions should be place into house in order to keep frivolous lawsuits from experience. With very broad definitions, one could easily disorder that grievous mental harm was caused when in reality all that occurred was some minor annoyance and since intimidation is very personal, just in this area anyone could claim they were to the top with dread as a result of a faked posting.
Tracking
The next issue with this new law is the cost that could be involved in tracking the imposter. There are hundreds upon thousands of programs available to the average internet user allowing him or her to fake his or her IP address, route through one of many proxies and generally make their digital path a lot more hidden and harder to footstep than one might expect. And it’s even simpler to just use a public connection at one of the local hot spots to do no matter what anonymous and possibly nefarious things you wish to do. With all the anonymity tools at the user’s disposal, how much money would be spent purely in the act of attempting to footstep the supposed criminal? Will this sort of tracing be left to the title-holder of the web site or will a third party become involved? And if a web site title-holder is considered responsible for this sort of activity, how will they need to protect themselves from possible legal action?
Broader implications
And where will it stop? This sort of law inevitably leads to broader issues. What is to stop the creation of a law where it simply is illegal to post out in rank with the intent of harming, defrauding, intimidating or threatening another individual all the while not being anonymous or posing as another? Case in point, Perez Hilton. Notorious for his scathing “exposure” of many celebrities in their not so fantastic moments, postings by this man could be considered by many to be mentally harmful and threatening on many levels. It’s all left up to the individual’s personal definition of harm and how it applies specifically to them.
Final Thoughts
Simply place, the more effective law would have been to make it illegal to impersonate another online, period. Just as it is illegal to impersonate any official in “real life”, so should it be on the internet. The way the law stands now, the monetary costs may be prohibitive and the frivolous suits to come may verify more than what the law originally intended.
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