Online Players, Internet Predators, Cyberpaths, Dating Site Frauds, Cyberstalkers... whatever you call them - they need to be EXPOSED! Did they take your heart? your trust? Harass you? Tell your story... Share ideas for dealing with them... ('FAIR USE LAW' APPLIES TO ALL ARTICLES)
UPDATE
AS OF JANUARY 1, 2013 - POSTING ON THIS BLOG WILL NO LONGER BE 'DAILY'. SWITCHING TO 'OCCASIONAL' POSTING.
Showing posts with label cyberharassment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cyberharassment. Show all posts
by Alexis Shaw
A Virginia woman is suing her ex-boyfriend after he tormented her and her teenage daughter by posting their photos on prostitution sites, sending dozens of men to their home, and distributing nude photos of the woman to her co-workers, her daughter and her daughter's friends. The year long harassment caused the woman to lose her job in a bank and forced her to change her name, the woman's complaint states. ABC News is withholding the woman's new name. Soraida Hicks' ex-boyfriend, Bruce Stimon, pleaded guilty in December 2012 to stalking, felony identity theft, and extortion. He was sentenced on Jan. 25 to three years in prison.
Now Hicks and her daughter Pam, 16, have filed a $20 million civil suit against Stimon. She is claiming slander, libel, and infliction of emotional distress, according to court documents.
"I didn't think that he was going to be crazy," Hicks told ABC Washington D.C. affiliate WJLA. Hicks could not be reached for comment by ABCNews.com.
Hicks and Stimon, who is 46, met on a plane traveling from Boston to Washington in the fall of 2011, and the two started a long-distance relationship. Hicks lives in Arlington, Va., and Stimon lived in Kensington, N.H.
According to Hicks' attorney, David Shurtz, Stimon showered Hicks with gifts, even buying Hicks an iPhone and paying for her service on his family plan.
But Shurtz said Stimon used the iPhone as a way to make himself the only man in her life, and he gained access to Hicks' contacts and emails in order to control her.
According to the complaint, "the gift was a deliberate plot to surreptitiously keep track of all the contacts and comings and goings of [Hicks]."
Hicks was unaware of her boyfriend's monitoring until January 2012 when she learned that Stimon "had created a web site advertising her services as a prostitute," according to the complaint. At the time Hicks was in Paraguay visiting her parents, a trip Stimon had financed.
Stimon posted Hicks' name and address, as well as her photos, on web sites advertising prostitution, and listed Hicks' supervisor at her workplace as her point of contact, the complaint states.
"He was creating an artificial theory so that he would be the only man she would contact," Shurtz said. "And the theory was that she was under a cyber attack. And he came to her and said, 'Ah ha! I will be your white knight and I will stop the cyber attack.'"
Instead, Hicks broke up with Stimon and reported the harassment to the Arlington County Police Department.
"From January to probably about March, we were just trying to compile information and figure out what was going on," said Det. Angela Comer of the Arlington County Police Department.
Stimon's cyber attacks escalated. He sent explicit photographs of Hicks to her friends and co-workers, causing Hicks to lose her job as a financial sales consultant at a bank, according to the complaint.
He created a fake Twitter account and sent videos of Hicks and himself having sex to Hicks' daughter and her daughters' friends. The videos were taken without Hicks' consent, the complaint said. It also stated that Stimon also advertised both mother and daughter for sex, sending men to her apartment nearly 60 times.
The investigation involved several sections of the Arlington County Police Department.
"The commonwealth attorneys, the tactical unit, just about every unit in our department had a hand on this case," Comer said.
Comer said Hicks filed a protective order against Stimon in June 2012. When he came to court to dispute the order, he was arrested for "stalking, unlawful filming, and use of a person's identity to harass," but was released on bond a few months later, Comer said.
Woman Sues Ex-Boyfriend for Cyber Harassment
Police tried to keep Hicks' phone number a secret from Stimon, but it frequently needed to be changed as Stimon would figure it out and harass Hicks, Comer said.
In November police caught Stimon slashing Hicks' car tires near her home. He was arrested and charged with destruction of property, stalking, and violating the protective order Hicks had filed against him.
"What was so devastating to Mr. Stimon was that when he was caught, his computer and cell phone were in his car, and they became evidence," said Shurtz.
(Tennessee, U.S.A.) NEWPORT-A Newport woman said a man she was initially friends with on Facebook has managed to find out where she lives and followed her around, the Cocke County Sheriff’s Office reported.
Penny Valentine, 42, of Branch Drive, in Newport, said in June or July, she started out as friends with the offender on Facebook, Deputy Sheriff Michael Whitmer reported. She said he began “getting too personal”, so she cut her ties with him, the report stated. Somehow the man got her phone number and began texting and calling her, Whitmer stated in his report. Valentine said she deleted her Facebook account and changed her phone number. She said the offender then began following her around town and following her home, according to the report.
EOPC are not doctors, mental health professionals, police or lawyers. This is posted merely as informational. Perhaps this is why serial stalkers and harassers do it. Many cyberpaths and internet trolls have a desperate need to control others and control what is on the net. One only need ask - Why? It is up to you to make up your own mind.
Personality Disorders in the Paranoid-Narcissistic Spectrum
by Dr. T. O'Connor, Dept of Justice Studies, NC Wesleyan College
There are ten different personality disorders, and in this lecture, the spectrum approach is followed which allows for mixed types, and it should be noted the spectrum approach is controversial and not the way most clinical psychologists are trained. The spectrum approach to classification transcends the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) method, and is essentially a heuristic approach designed for theory development, not validation.
No single set of symptoms are required for inclusion in a spectrum. Rather, the sameness or similarity of comorbidity characteristics and the underlying causal processes are looked at. Spectra can be constructed that link Axis I and Axis II disorders, psychotic disorders and personality disorders, affective disorders and sexual disorders, and so on. In most cases, the subject's personality has not disintegrated to the point where there is any one identifiable clinical syndrome. A spectrum disorder may exist in muted form or as a mirror-image of a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness. We are concerned in this lecture with personality types that primarily exhibit the common characteristic of aggression.
Paranoia occurs in two forms: (1) the "bad me" paranoid; and (2) the "poor me" paranoid. Paranoia affects .5 to 2.5% of the population.
The "bad me" type tends to be more rageful and sadistic than the other type. Paranoia in all its forms tends to be organized around aggression, from sadomasochistic violence to lingering hostile mood. Paranoia is an insidious disease which develops slowly as a secondary personality characteristic, fuses into a more or less dysfunctional coping style, and may or may not become the dominant pattern. Psychologists suspect that the cause of paranoia is found in the mothering experience, in particular, the breast-feeding experience. Successfully breast-fed infants develop the capacity to feel supported and a tolerance for frustration. Unsuccessfully breast-fed infants (those who viewed the experience as "bad" in some way) develop a distinct inability to experience self-satisfaction, tolerance, and positive relationships. Internalization of the bad experience leads to the initiation of provocative and confirmatory interactions with others, mostly through splitting (seeing things as black-white, good-bad, weak-strong) and projection (accusing others of having the disowned aspects of your self).
A full-blown "bad me" paranoid perceives threats in everything other people do, often exploding in manic, counterphobic episodes. A full-blown "poor me" type views the world as basically unfair and persecutory, countering their anticipation of discomfort with either antisocial behavior or grandiosity.
Delusions: One the cardinal symptoms of paranoia and other disorders, most notably schizophrenia. Delusions are faulty interpretation of reality that cannot be shaken despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Delusions can be classified as:
Bizarre -- belief that others can hear your thoughts, others are inserting thoughts, or your thoughts, feelings, and impulses are controlled by an external force
Referential -- belief that certain gestures, comments, song lyrics, or passages in printed material are specifically intended for you or reference you in some way
Grandiose -- belief that you are an extremely important person, an invaluable member of society, and possess or make some special unrecognized talent or contribution
Persecution -- belief that others are out to get you, are plotting against you, foiling your every move, or making you feel guilty or ashamed
Bodily -- belief in some kind of undiagnosed deteriorative medical condition such as dissolving of spinal cord, rotting or deterioration of skin, organs, or brain
Religious -- belief that you are an important religious figure, in contact with deities, or serving some special theological purpose in the world.
Narcissism is a somewhat less severe form of psychopathy.
It manifests aggressive, paranoid, and borderline characteristics, but more commonly appears in the form of envy, greed, power lust, an extensively rationalized sense of entitlement, and a pathological grandiose self. Unlike psychopaths, narcissists can experience loyalty and guilt; but like psychopaths, narcissists lack empathy or caring for others, viewing people as "playthings" to be used.
Female narcissists tend to be the kind that "sleep" their way to the top; male narcissists tend to get ahead by becoming involved in massive power struggles. Psychologists suspect that the cause of narcissism is severe mental or physical pain in childhood at the hands of a powerful, idealized mother-father figure. Inconsistent parental attitudes on aggression and self-assertion as well as childhood experiences of being valued for specific, precocious talents seem to be the prime determinants. They never learned who to identify with -- the aggressor or victim, and they developed a pragmatic philosophy of siding with winners, regardless of who was in the right or wrong. In fact, they believe that the "good" is usually changeable and fickle while "bad" is stable and predictable. They live life by idealizing those who satisfy their narcissistic needs and systematically devaluing and denigrating those who do not. Underneath their superficial charm, they feel they have a right to control, manipulate, exploit, and be cruel to others.
There's not much research proving narcissists are more prone to violence than any other group, and no one has a clue as to how widespread this particular personality disorder is - estimates range between 3 and 15% of the population, with 5-7% being a fair estimate. Being a narcissist is close to being an alcoholic but MUCH more so. Alcoholism is impulsive behavior. Narcissists have this plus hundreds of other problems. Narcissists frequently have uncontrollable behaviors, like rage which is an outcome of their grandiosity. Narcissists can rarely be cured, but side effects, associated disorders (such as OCD), pathological lying, and the paranoiac dimensions CAN be modified.
ANGER, WORRY, RAGE
Most Personality Disordered people are prone to anger. Their bottled-up anger is always sudden, raging, frightening and without apparent provocation by an outside agent. It would seem that people suffering from personality disorders are in a CONSTANT state of anger, which is effectively suppressed most of the time. It manifests itself only when the person's defenses are down, incapacitated, or adversely affected by circumstances, inner or external. In a nutshell, such people were usually unable to express anger at "forbidden" targets in their early, formative years (parents, in most cases). The anger, however, was a justified reaction to very real abuse or mistreatment. The patient was, therefore, left to nurture a sense of profound injustice and frustrated rage. Healthy people experience anger, but as a transitory state.
Personality disordered anger is always acute and permanently present.
Healthy anger has an external inducing agent (a reason), and is directed at another (coherence).
Pathological anger is neither coherent, nor externally induced. It emanates from the inside and is diffuse, directed at the "world" or "injustice" in general.
The Personality Disordered are afraid to show that they are angry to meaningful others because they are afraid to lose them. The Borderline Personality Disordered is terrified of being abandoned, the Narcissist needs his Narcissistic supply sources, the Paranoid - his persecutors and so on. These people prefer to direct their anger at people who are meaningless to them, people whose withdrawal will not constitute a threat to their precariously balanced personality. They will yell at a waitress, shout at a taxi driver, or explode at an underling. Alternatively, they will sulk, feel bored, drink or do drugs ? all forms of self-directed aggression. From time to time, no longer able to pretend and to suppress, they will have it out with the real source of their anger. They will rage and, generally, behave like lunatics. They will shout incoherently, make absurd accusations, distort facts, pronounceallegations and suspicions. These episodes will be followed by periods of sentimental sweetness and excessive flattering and submissiveness towards the victim of the latest rage attack. Motivated by the mortal fear of being abandoned or ignored, the Personality Disordered will debase and demean himself to the point of provoking repulsion in the beholder. These pendulum-like emotional swings are common. Anger is the reaction to injustice (perceived injustice, it does not have to be real), to disagreements, to inconvenience.
Hostile expressions by the Personality Disordered are not constructive - they are destructive because they are diffuse, excessive, and unclear. They do not lash out at people in order to restore self-esteem, prestige, or a sense of power and control, but because they cannot help it and are in a self destructive and self-loathing mode. Their angry episodes contain few signals or warning signs. Their anger is primitive, maladaptive, and pent up.
The Personality Disordered also suffer from a cognitive deficit. They are unable to conceptualize, to design effective strategies and to execute them. They dedicate all their attention to the immediate and ignore the future consequences of their actions. In other words, their attention and information processing faculties are distorted, skewed in favor of the here and now, biased on both the intake and the output. Time is dilated for them - the present feels more protracted, "longer" than any future. Immediate facts and actions are judged more relevant and weighted more heavily than any remote aversive conditions. Anger impairs cognition. The angry person is a worried person.
The Personality Disordered is also excessively preoccupied with himself (solipsism). Worry and anger are the cornerstones of anxiety. The striking similarity between anger and personality disorders is the deterioration of the faculty of empathy. Angry people cannot empathize. Actually, "counter-empathy" develops. Recent provocative acts by others are judged to be more serious ? just by "virtue" of their chronological position. This is what distinguishes rage from anger.
Rage attacks in personality disorders are always incommensurate with the magnitude of the source. Anger is usually a reaction to an ACCUMULATION of aversive experiences, all enhancing each other in vicious feedback loops, many of them not directly related to the cause of the specific anger. The angry person may be reacting to stress, agitation, disturbance, drugs, violence or aggression witnessed by him, to social or to national conflict, to elation and even to sexual excitation.
EVIL, DESTRUCTIVENESS, ADDICTION
The psychopathic argument with reality that is present in all personality disorders is a narcissistic pleasure of lying and deception. They don't lie to everybody, only those people (good-bad, strong-weak, females, strangers, authority figures) that they have differentiated as worthwhile or not. Each dichotomous split and pattern of lying is indicative of a different personality disorder, but the most common pattern is a desire to dupe or deceive those perceived as "good" people, to rob them of their "goodness", as it were, and to further deprive them of any moral right to feel victimized. Identification is always with the aggressor or with evil -- as powerful, bad, and ideal. In many cases, there are fantasies or interests about animal predators or archetypal evil demigods.
An inverted conscience means that the superego idealizes evil. Things that would normally produce guilt, insecurity, and anticipation of punishment in ordinary people produce feelings of self-esteem, security, and self-cohesion in the personality disordered. They only experience a sense of being true to their real self when they are persecuting others, inducing pain and suffering, and further experiencing feedback about how much malicious destruction they have done. Full-blown psychopaths have the highest degree of inverted conscience, and sadists have the highest degree of need for feedback.
However, it's extremely rare to find a perfectly intact inverted conscience. Most of the personality disordered live with fragments of a normal superego. These guilt fragments are expressed in occasional self-defeating behaviors. Their self-destructiveness will probably never take the form of suicide or any devaluing of the importance of winning through aggression, but they may change their split between strong-weak attributions, present themselves for therapy, or seek out religious mysticism. More frequently, however, when confronted with a self-crisis, they will adopt new names (aliases) for themselves, thus making themselves their own parents.
Drugs and alcohol are used to repair their personalities especially when there is a problematic representation of self to others. The personality disordered are commonly addicted persons because the "cycle of addiction" perpetuates the extreme self-state needed to shore up their self-cohesion while at the same time undermining any adaptive integration of self with experience. All addicted persons experience cycles of self-state extremes. One of the extreme self-states will be the dominant organizer of experience. An alcohol-induced self-state, for example, will assist in lowering inhibitions and facilitating aggressive tendencies. A psychoactive drug-induced self-state may assist in fostering paranoid delusions. The most serious and sadistic crimes committed by such individuals will be when they are at the peak of their dominant extreme self-state. This means that they commit crime while intoxicated or shortly thereafter. Since they only "need" to drink or drug when there is a need for personality repair, it's unclear if they have a substance addition, a violence addiction, or a state of mind addiction.
SADISTIC: Sadism Superego: Defective and Perverse Conscience: Inverted Superego Development: Defective and Perverse Destructiveness: Proloinged Anguish and Suffering
THE LEARNING THEORY OF SERIAL MURDER
As an alternative to the idea that serial killers are driven by "fantasy", at least one criminologist (Hale) has proposed that they are driven by humiliation or embarrassment. They perceive the world as full of "attacks" or "challenges" that cannot go unanswered. This acute need to reassert power is drawn from early childhood experiences where the offender felt powerless to control events. This need, combined with an arrested social development which includes problems at demonstrating mastery and at social comparison, results in the use of a victim as an audience to "set things right." In this view, serial killers are seeking approval from their victims.
Like all people, even the personality disordered are motivated to seek the approval of others. For various reasons, however, they experience feelings of frustration at finding ways to conceptualize how they would go about obtaining this approval from others. They actually anticipate failure without even trying. This is because they perceive the original person who humiliated them as superior or more "powerful" than they are. They then seek out vulnerable and less threatening persons as victims, who become scapegoats for the person who initially thwarted their needs for approval.
The diagnosis of "malignant narcissism" may be more apt for serial killers than "antisocial personality disorder" because it better exemplifies the connotation of evil that hangs over this domain of personality. A malignant narcissist is someone who exhibits antisocial personality traits combined with unrestrained aggression, a more pathological than deviant conscience, a strong need for power and recognition, distrust of others, and certain elements of sadism. Kernberg says that malignant narcissism develops as a defense against feeling of inferiority and rejection.
All criminals tend to have problems understanding social norms. They are more self pre-occupied than concerned with obeying the law. Serial killers, like many criminals, are driven more by the expression of their internal needs than a rejection of external forces. To maintain this schedule of "conditioning one's conscience", two things are necessary: alienation and isolation. Fromm said that alienation can be handled by ritualized behavior. Isolation simply limits exposure to societal sources of social control.
PRINTED RESOURCES: Aronson, T. (1989) "Paranoia and Narcissism" Psychiatric Review 76(3):329-51. Brown, N. (1998) The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern. Westport, Ct: Praeger. Ferreira, C. (2000) "Serial Killers - Victims of Compulsion or Masters of Control?" Ch. 15 in D. Fishbein (Ed.) The Science, Treatment, and Prevention of Antisocial Behaviors. Kingston: Civic Res. Inst. Fromm, E. (1973) The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Hale, R. (1993) "The Application of Learning Theory to Serial Murder: Or You Too Can Become a Serial Killer" American J. of Criminal Justice 17:37-45. Hale, R. (1994) "The Role of Humiliation and Embarrassment in Serial Murder" Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior 31:17-23. Horowitz, M. (1994) "Cyclical Patterns of States of Mind" Amer. J. Psychiatry 151(12):1767-70. Kernberg, O. (1992) Severe Personality Disorders. New Haven: Yale U. Pres. Kernberg, O. (1993) Aggression in Personality Disorders and Perversions. New Haven: Yale U. Press. Kirmayer, L. (1983) "Paranoia and Pronoia" Social Problems 32(2):170-79. Lowen, A. (1997) Narcissism: Denial of the True Self. NY: Touchstone Books. Millon, T. & R. Davis (1995) Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond. NY: Wiley & Sons. Richards, H. (1998) "Evil Intent: Violence and Disorders of the Will" Pp. 69-94 in T. Millon et al. (Eds.) Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior. NY: Guilford Press. Ronningstam, E. (1998) Disorders of Narcissism. Washington DC: Amer. Psychiatric Press.
Recently, Judge Roger Titus of Maryland declared unconstitutional a federal law that made it a crime to use the internet "with the intent to harass [or] cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state." In the wake of that decision, legislatures and courts across the country will need to rethink existing statutes on cyberharassment.
In the Maryland case, William Cassidy had been charged with cyberstalking Alyce Zeoli, a former colleague and a Buddhist religious leader, based on his tweets, such as, "Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day." Zeoli asserted that the tweets made her so fear for her safety that she had not left her house for a year and a half, except to see her psychiatrist. But the judge dismissed the case. His reasoning will animate discussions in legislatures about how to amend state and federal laws.
Judge Titus indicated that "threats of harm" are punishable, but not communications "intending" emotional distress. He also considered it relevant that the medium used (a tweet) was communicated to the public at large rather than just the victim. The target of the harassment could just choose not to follow the tweets. "This," said the judge, "is in sharp contrast to a telephone call, letter or e-mail specifically addressed to and directed at another person, and that difference ... is fundamental to the First Amendment analysis in this case." Judge Titus also seemed to think that it was unreasonable for Zeoli to have such a dramatic reaction; he said that Cassidy's tweets were not a "true threat."
Words are powerful. They can move listeners or readers to action, sometimes even to harm themselves or someone else. But generally, our society doesn't punish the speaker or writer. Think about Ozzy Osbourne. Thirty years ago, he recorded the song Suicide Solution. The song states that "Suicide is the only way out," and contains the barely-recognizable lyrics, sung at a faster speed, "Get the gun and try it; Shoot, shoot, shoot."
When a 19 year old shot himself in the head with a .22 caliber handgun after spending five hours listening to Ozzy's music, his grieving parents sued Ozzy and the record distributor. The California Appellate Court rejected their claims (pdf), noting that speech does not lose its First Amendment protection merely because it "may evoke a mood of depression." The court said the lyrics failed to "order or command anyone to concrete action at any specific time."
But courts have held differently when the speech is directly addressed to a particular person. In a case currently on appeal in Minnesota, William Melchert-Dinkel was charged with pressuring two people over the internet to commit suicide. He posed as a young female nurse who pretended to enter into a suicide pact with his victims. The judge in the Minnesota case pointed out that Melchert-Dinkel's "encouragement and advice imminently incited the suicide of Nadia Kajouji and was likely to have that effect." The judge in the case labeled the instant messages as "lethal advocacy" and held that Melchert-Dinkel's words were "analogous to the category of unprotected speech known as 'fighting words' and 'imminent incitement of lawlessness.'" The judge distinguished messages sent to the public at the large, saying that Melchert-Dinkel had the right to take his pro-suicide message to the public--over the internet, on television, and so forth--but did not have the right to address that message to a single, vulnerable individual. Melchert-Dinkel's attorney is appealing the case, based on the First Amendment.
But how direct does a threat have to be? What if Melchert-Dinkel had just sent Nadia an mp3 file with Ozzy’s Suicide Solution? Courts are already weighing whether people's "likes" on a social network can be used as evidence against them. In a Wisconsin case, a judge admitted into evidence a litigant's MySpace reference to a short story in which a judge was harmed. In contrast, a Mississippi court refused to use a dad's MySpace post of Ronald McDonald being shot in the face to prove that the mom should get custody of the kids.
The "intent" standard is also problematic. As Judge Titus suggested, the standard is too broad, covering speech that is constitutionally protected. But the "intent" standard is also, in some cases, too narrow. It might allow someone to evade legitimate prosecution by claiming they didn't intend harm, they just intended to be funny.
That strategy worked for 40-year-old Elizabeth Thrasher, whose victim was her ex-husband’s new girlfriend’s daughter. Thrasher posted photos, the phone number, and the email address of the 17-year-old girl in the "Casual Encounters" section of Craigslist, in which people expressed their interest in casual sex. As a result of the "Casual Encounters" posting, the 17-year-old girl was swamped with sexually explicit cell phone calls, emails, and text messages that included nude pictures and solicitations for sex. One man even came to the Sonic Restaurant where she worked after failing to reach her on her phone, leading her to eventually quit her job out of fear. She testified that the publication of the information made her feel like she "was set up to get killed and raped by somebody." Thrasher’s attorney argued that photos of the girl and her work location were already available on the girl's MySpace profile. He said the postings were "tantamount to a practical joke"--and Thrasher was acquitted.
The issue of targeting a victim versus the public at large is also a question to be considered. Judge Titus suggests that, to be criminally actionable, tweets and posts need to be sent directly to the victim. But because of the nature of digital communications, Judge Titus' distinction between public tweets and direct communications with the victim may not hold up in future cases. Much of the cyberharassment of women does not involve a direct threat from one person to another. In a Connecticut case, a man posted a YouTube rap video of himself waving a gun while threatening to shoot his baby's mom and "put her face on the dirt until she can't breathe no more." Even though the man was in North Carolina at the time and the woman resided in Connecticut, the court issued a restraining order against him.
Under Judge Titus' standard, such a video might not have been a cause for concern because the woman could just have turned it off. This issue of targeting a private person versus the public at large will be key in cases where the person posts information (such as a Google map to a woman's house with a claim she wants men to act out rape fantasies) and the poster himself does not intend to do violence.
As courts and legislators deal with cyberharassment, they'll be determining what the limits are to punishing people for tweets and posts that threaten violence or cause emotional harm. They'll also have to determine whether the rule that the communication must be sent directly to the victim makes any sense in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where public posts--especially those that urge someone else to harm the victim--might be even more deadly than private ones.
Lori Andrews is the author of the upcoming I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy
The affair that brought an end to David Petraeus' tenure as CIA director came to light during an FBI investigation into a complaint that his biographer Paula Broadwell was sending harassing e-mails to another woman close to him, a U.S. official said Saturday.
During the investigation, other communications surfaced between Petraeus and Broadwell, a married mother of two, according to the official.
The official did not identify the woman who made the initial complaint and did not know the nature of her relationship with Petraeus.
The FBI interviewed Petraeus in the course of its inquiry, said the official, who stressed that the CIA director was never the target of the investigation and his communications were never compromised. The official did not know whether Broadwell was interviewed. The official did not have an exact timeframe for the investigation and could not say if it is still ongoing.
CNN has not been able to reach Broadwell for comment.
The Obama administration first learned of the affair in a phone call from the FBI to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at 5 p.m. on election night, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official.
On Saturday, questions arose about why congressional leaders were not informed of the investigation immediately.
According to a congressional aide familiar with the matter, the House and Senate intelligence committees weren't informed that there was an FBI investigation into the situation until Friday.
"The committees are required to be kept informed of significant intelligence activities," the aide said Saturday. "If there was an official investigation that was looking, at least in part, at information that was compromising the CIA director, then I think there's a solid argument to say that the committee leadership should have been notified to at least some level of detail."
The resignation also comes days before Petraeus was slated to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attack, in which four Americans were killed, became a point of contention during the presidential campaign.
Some have even suggested that the timing of Petraeus' stepping down is suspect, given the expected grilling in Congress. Acting CIA Director Michael Morell will testify instead. "Director Petraeus' frank and forthright letter of resignation stands on its own," said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Any suggestion that his departure has anything to do with criticism about Benghazi is completely baseless."
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King, R-New York, who is also a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, insisted that Petraeus should not back out of plans to testify.
King, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi attack, said on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" that Petraeus is "an absolutely essential witness, maybe more than anybody else."
"David Petraeus' testifying has nothing to do with whether or not he's still the CIA director, and I don't see how the CIA can say he's not going to testify," King said.
"I think his testimony is certainly valuable, it's certainly necessary," King continued. "He was at the center of this, and he has answers that only he has."
If Petraeus does not testify as originally scheduled on Thursday, King said, "It should be very soon after that."
Broadwell spent a year with Petraeus in Afghanistan interviewing him for the book she co-wrote, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."
Petraeus' departure Friday appeared to be an abrupt end to a spectacularly successful career in public service.
"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours," Petraeus said in a letter to colleagues, explaining his decision to step down.
"Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life's greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end," he said.
Petraeus, 60, had a distinguished 37-year career in the military before joining the CIA, helping turn the tide against insurgents while commanding forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earning praise from both sides of the political aisle, the retired four-star general took the helm of the CIA in September 2011.
Petraeus met with Obama on Thursday to offer his resignation and explain the circumstances behind it, according to a senior administration official. The president accepted Petraeus' resignation during a phone call Friday, the official said.
"By any measure, he was one of the outstanding general officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end," Obama said in a statement.
"As director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication and patriotism."
Petraeus assumed command of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan in July 2010, after serving for more than 20 months as commander of U.S. Central Command. He previously commanded multinational forces in Iraq, leading the so-called surge.
The general literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency techniques by overseeing development of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual.
Before his nomination as CIA director, Petraeus was considered the nation's most well-known and popular military leader since Colin Powell.
Petraeus and his wife, Holly, live in Virginia. They have two grown children.
Takedown of Man’s Blog Harassing Ex-Girlfriend Upheld
by David L. Hudson, Jr. -- First Amendment Scholar
A Minnesota trial court did not violate the First Amendment rights
of man by entering a harassment-restraining order that forced him to
remove a blog about his relationship with his former girlfriend.
Andrew John Arlotta and Ann Johnson had a romantic relationship from
late 2008 to September 2009. After the relationship ended, Arlotta
continued to contact Johnson against her wishes. Johnson successfully
obtained an HRO for six months that prevented Arlotta from violating her
security or privacy or contacting her by any means.
Two days after the HRO went into effect, Arlotta created a blog
called “Help Anna Johnson” that documented his relationship problems
with Johnson. It questioned her mental health and stability. Arlotta
sent messages about the blog to her relatives, friends and high school
classmates. He also sent a message to her employer. As a result of the blog, Johnson obtained another order from the
court imposing an additional restraining order that was to last until
March 2062 — for 51 years. The new HRO ordered Arlotta to remove his
blog about Johnson from the Internet.
Arlotta appealed the trial court’s order. He contended that the new
HRO was an unconstitutional prior restraint on “pure speech” in
violation of the First Amendment. Prior restraints are laws, regulations
or orders that place significant pre-publication hurdles on speech or
prevent speech from occurring altogether.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals determined in its Dec. 12 opinion in Arlotta v. Johnson
that the order was legitimate because Arlotta had engaged in a pattern
of conduct that substantially violated Johnson’s privacy. The appeals
court also rejected the idea that the HRO order was an unconstitutional
prior restraint on speech. The state has a compelling interest in
protecting Johnson from harassment, the appeals court said, further
concluding that Arlotta did not engage in protected speech, but
unprotected harassment.
“Because the HRO prohibits unprotected speech, we conclude that it is not an impermissible prior restraint,” the court wrote.
Minnesota law allows harassment orders to remain in place for up to
50 years. The appeals court reduced the effective period of the order
against Arlotta by only one year.
(MUMBAI, India) Cybercrime is usually perceived as the province of depraved men. But a disturbing trend has come to light of late. Increasingly, women are resorting to online tactics to achieve some nefarious end.
Recently, the woman CEO of a multinational corporation's India operations was detained by the police for cyber-harassment of a co-worker in HR - also a woman.
The CEO, aged 43, posted derogatory remarks about the HR executive, aged 39, on a consumer website to malign her. She described the victim as a sex pest who eyed newly recruited young men and was also "having a good time with a former employee", said an officer with the police's cyber crime investigation cell. The CEO was traced through the IP address from where the posts were made.
"In her police complaint, the victim, who is unmarried, told us that someone was posting comments about her character, or lack thereof, and that she was described as someone who frequently slept with her colleagues and 'spoiled' them," said a police officer.
"She said it all started when she found a change in the way her colleagues perceived her, so much so that she found it difficult to work with them. It was only when her friends and well-wishers asked her about the online posts that she realized what the matter was. She told us she was taken aback and did not know how to react." The police sought from the website the IP address from where the posts were submitted. "It was found to originate from an apartment in a residential complex in Goregaon. When we reached there, we were shocked to find that the house belonged to the CEO of the firm where the victim worked," the officer said. "Initially, the CEO was not cooperating. She accused us of harassing her. But we had technical proof. When we confronted her with it and emphasized that the IP address belonged to her own PC, she surrendered."
The CEO broke down at the police station. "She found herself in front of the victim, who she could not look in the eye. She even had tears," the officer said. "In a written apology, she said she was jealous as the victim was getting quick promotions. So, she started writing online posts, the website being one that is visited by private companies, to do background checks on potential recruits. She wanted the management to take note of the posts and initiate action against the victim." She was later let off.
If you think using a false identity will allow you to slander or harass people online, think again. Anonymity will not save you.
By Dan Tynan
You gotta love the InterWebs. You can get away with saying practically anything about anybody-- and if you hide behind a fake identity, nobody will ever be able to tell it’s you. Right?
Well, no. You can’t just say slander or harass someone without repercussions. If what you say or do would break a law in physical space, it will also break laws in cyber space. And I don’t care how anonymous you think you are, your identity is only a subpoena away.
(REMINDER: Every victim who's predator/ harasser has been exposed on EOPC has to sign a legally binding document that holds EOPC harmless. The post(s) is the FULL responsibility of the victim who sends the information to be posted.)
William Lawrence Cassidy found this out the hard way after he posted some 8,000 nasty, threatening, and disturbing tweets directed at one woman: Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist leader in Maryland.
Cassidy, who also went by a variety of aliases including Tulku Urgyan Tenpa Rinpoche and Marshal Jim Duncan, probably thought he was being clever by posting the tweets via fake names. He wasn’t. He's now cooling his heels in a Maryland jail cell, awaiting trial for cyber harassment.
Per the New York Times:
… in response to a subpoena, [Twitter] revealed the Internet protocol address of the computer used to post the messages. The authorities found Mr. Cassidy at home in a small Southern California town called Lucerne Valley. Similar rants were posted on blogs that law enforcement authorities say they traced to him.
I had a tiny taste of something similar myself recently, after I made a joke about the Tea Party in a blog post. I said that before I friended anyone on Facebook I always make sure they’re not ax murderers or Tea Party members. After this lone comment prompted a handful of “news” stories on right-wing sites, I tweeted out a formal apology – to ax murderers.
You’d think I’d bitch slapped Sarah Palin while strangling a puppy. I cannot repeat here most of the nasty NSFW things these people said about me in blog comments and on Twitter.
But the worst one was the pseudonymous a**clown who made a “joke” by tweeting about my alleged fondness for kiddie porn. I informed him that he was flirting with a defamation suit, but he didn’t care – he seemed to think he was immune.
I’m not sure what these people thought they’d achieve by this campaign, but I think they proved my point about why I wouldn’t want to friend them.
Some free speech advocates argue that Twitter is a public forum where all voices should be heard. In Cassidy’s case, his alleged harassment of Zeoli seems to go well beyond free speech and into threats against her physical safety.
In my case, well, I’m a big fan of the First Amendment – I use it every day -- but I don’t think it gives you a license to slander or knowingly spread falsehoods. And I’m not alone.
“There is a whole litany of things that are not protected by the First Amendment, including illegal activity and copyright violations,” notes Bennet Kelly, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in cyber law who’s also an award-winning blogger for the Huffington Post.
Kelley often represents people who’ve been harassed or stalked online, typically by people posting anonymously or via a fake identity.
“These people think they’re immune, that they can hide their identity and get away with anything,” says Kelley. “But the victims usually have a pretty good idea of who these people are, and if not, we can investigate and find out.”
The simplest route: Take the account information and/or IP addresses used by the harasser, and demand their real identity and contact info from their service providers.
Once Kelley approaches the harassers, they usually take the offending material down to avoid further legal consequences.
Unfortunately, cyber harassment doesn’t get the attention it deserves, says Kelley. “People get all upset about cookies invading the privacy,” he says. “When’s the last time someone committed suicide over a cookie?”
TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan hasn’t sued anybody yet, but there’s still time. Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynan_on_tech.
The incessant ad hominem attacks on my character by Darren Mitchell Meade
would probably need a small book to adequately address each of the many
allegations. However, in the interests of brevity I will attempt to
reduce my response so as to retain the reader’s attention.
It is my humble request that parties interested in perceiving
the truth or falsity of either Darren Meade's assertions, or for that
matter my response, do consider the source of the allegations before
placing any value on the substance.
The following 30-second video clip was recorded by an unknown
person and distributed anonymously some time ago. Therein, Darren Meade
in his own words demonstrates the gleeful satisfaction he derives from
tormenting the targets of his Internet smear campaigns. In this case, it
was the renowned Stanford educated physician Dr. Scott Connelly:
VIDEO (30 Secs Long) (Explicit):
Meade Describes His Smear Campaign
Extortion, Distortion & Revenge
Darren M Meade Smears Rexxfield Founder Michael Roberts
3rd Party Verification. Any person may verify this for them selves for free with this form and fax: Central Abuse Registry IA DHS P.O. Box 4826 Des Moines, IA 50305
Fax to: 515-242-6884
"Michael had an arrest and conviction for domestic battery in 2000."
NOTE: The irony of these allegations will
not escape most readers. Darren is referring to an event on December 20,
2000 when I was wrongfully jailed overnight, and subsequently cleared.
Whereas, on that very same day, Darren Meade became subject to a
domestic restraining order filed by Laura J. Kelley who reported Darren
Meade's stalking and violent outbursts.
RESPONSE:True in part, lies in part. I was
arrested, not convicted. On December 20, 2000 my ex-wife Tracey
physically assaulted me after a customer went bankrupt owing my company
$26,000. She began kicking holes in the wall of the office with her
boots, I restrained her and she began stomping on my feet.
Photographs of holes kicked in wall by Tracey
After things cooled down I announced my intention to divorce. 45
minutes later I was in handcuffs and I spent the night in jail. However,
what Tracey meant for evil God meant for good, and I had the privilege
of sharing the Gospel with an elderly man who had intended to kill
himself when he was released the next day. At that time, the other 10
inmates in the shared cell stayed awake with myself and "Jim" listening
to this good news until about 5 am. Tracey begged me not to plead
innocence because she said her ex-husband would use my testimony against
her false allegations to gain an advantage in the custody battle of
their son Bert, my stepson. I agreed to plead no contest to disturbing
the peace. That way, I would not need to testify that Tracey filed a
false police report. Hindsight has 20/20, if only I had done things
differently, Bert & my kids would not have to have witnessed a
murder; Bert would not have been forced to participate in the crime
after the fact. More importantly, Dustin would probably be alive, and
who knows, maybe I would be back in Australia with my children?
"Michael is a bigamist"
Darren wrote:"Tracey's husband even married another woman while still married to Tracey" and "Michael and Tracey went on with their fragile marriage that finally ended in 2008."
Response: The marriage ended in March 2004 when I
survived Tracey's attempt to murder me. The judge issued an
interlocutory dissolution of marriage on December 3rd 2007. I married my
current wife in early 2008.
"Michael has been diagnosed with a mental illness"
These excerpts for the final decree for the marriage dissolution sums this up well:
"Tracey would, at times, give information to medical care
providers, in an attempt to have physicians find that Michael has a
mental condition. She would be involved when Michael was seeing his
family physician… At one point Dr. Brinck, a psychologist, diagnosed
Michael as being bipolar….Michael was examined by Dr. Charles E. Murphy.
In Dr. Murphy's opinion, Michael is not bipolar. Dr. Murphy's diagnosis
is post-traumatic stress syndrome and ADHD. The weight of the evidence
establishes that Michael is not bipolar."
"Michael is a criminal hacker"
RESPONSE: Darren Meade attempted to extort
from me the meager sum of $5000 in October 2011. After my refusal, he
set a deadline of October 31. He followed through with his promise. In a
coup d'état he was able to persuade a Fox News Journalist that I was a
criminal hacker, and these allegations graced the front page of
FoxNews.com on January 20, 2012.
Whereas, in the following e-mail message sent by Darren Meade to
a department of justice attorney just three months before the extortion
demands, Meade describes me as a victim of the crime syndicate of which
he now tries to persuade readers I am a connected:
RESPONSE: Below is a hyper link to the
polygraph in question and as can be seen there is no reference to
"failure"; in fact the polygraph operator determines the results to be
"inconclusive" -- this does not indicate deception but rather confusion
or anxiety. There were three questions in the polygraph, one of which
was something to the effect of "do you know the identity of the second
intruder". Whereas, although I initially strenuously defended my
ex-wife's actions in the 2001 homicide, the evidence I saw with my own
eyes planted seeds of doubt as to the veracity of her account of that
fateful night. In fact, I never really believed there was a second
intruder. The investigators told me later that that was most likely the
reason the results were ambiguous. After this revelation I volunteered
for a third polygraph which is also linked below.
(1) First Inconclusive polygraph by DCI (Coming soon, copy requested from police)
(3) Subsequent polygraph results with clarified question: "If we assume there was a second man, do you know his identity?"
"Use of hacking code via the Internet to tamper with the jury convened for ex-wife's murder trial."
RESPONSE: This allegation is simply absurd.
However, if we were to entertain the suggestion for a moment, an
objective reader should be able to just as quickly dismiss it because
Darren Meade did not raise this allegation until long after my ex-wife's
murder trial; more to the point, he did not raise this allegation until
he realized that his other character attacks were not gaining the
traction he had hoped. In fact, this gradual escalation and elevation of
flaming aspersions is his modus operandi in any distortion campaign he
runs, no matter who the target.
"Witness Protection Program."
Darren M Meade alleges that: Iowa prosecutors allowed me to stay in a witness protection program so that my ex-wife's defense attorney could not serve me with a subpoena.
RESPONSE: The fallacious nature of this
allegation is evidenced by the following facts (a) the program that was
protecting my children and me was under the California Secretary of
State,
(b) the murder was being prosecuted through the state of Iowa and
(c) Iowa officials have no say in what the California secretary of state does for its residents.
"Michael Was Founded for Child Abuse and is on Central Abuse Register."
RESPONSE: This is true; however, the findings were reversed soon thereafter. Darren Meade in keeping with his distortion tactics (watch, he will start using this term to describe me soon) is
taking a snapshot in time, but not giving the reader the benefit of
subsequent events. His propensity to do this should give readers cause
to dismiss everything he writes as deceptive.
Nevertheless, the findings were based on the testimony of
Tracey Richter and Bert Pitman. Tracey is a three times convicted felon
for and Bert is being considered for criminal prosecution for perjury
during the murder trial of his mother. This is a matter of public
record.
Tracey was also found to have forged the final the force
divorce decree between the two of us, wherein she added a clause giving
her permission to get passports for our children without my permission.
Moreover, Judge Duffy, in his (genuine) final divorce decree found as follows:
"Tracey is very deviceful; She usually has a plan or
scheme to effect a purpose. The following incidents establish crafty
schemes by Tracey:….One week after Michael filed the petition for
dissolution of marriage, Tracey filed a petition for relief from
domestic abuse….Tracey used this process in an attempt to gain advantage
over Michael on the custodial…..Tracey has made attempts to establish
that Michael has committed child abuse…In fact,. she conceded that it
was not child abuse. Later, Tracey made vigorous attempts to obtain a
founded report.
There is no founded child abuse report to support
Tracey's theory of child abuse by Michael. The court finds that Tracey
has failed to establish that Michael committed child abuse…. The Court
also finds that Tracey has failed to establish a history of domestic
abuse."
"Firearm offences"
Darren wrote: "Michael Roberts is photographed with one of many handguns
he purchased in violation of Court Orders after his conviction of
Spousal and Child Abuse. The photograph is with a sniper rifle. Police
reports allege he threatened to kill a Chicago detective with a sniper
rifle and that he (Roberts) is a very good shot. Roberts is on an audio
recording with another young man he mentors discussing having this young
man kill someone to ‘protect the inner sanctum’ or Roberts new business
enterprise with a .50 caliber hollow-point bullet which just explodes
his brain, the same as used by the rifle in the photo with Roberts
above." Response:
I have never been convicted of spousal OR child abuse. [Link: Proof]
I have never owned, held, touched or fired a 50 caliber weapon.
The photograph of the rifle to which Meade refers was
taken in the late 90s, five or six years before my ex-wife temporarily
obtained a restraining order prohibiting me from buying firearms. This
order was dismissed after it was determined the allegations were
unfounded in order to gain an advantage in the child custody issues.
The police report in question was filed by Tracey's
younger brother, Detective John B. Richter of the Chicago Police
Department. He made this report on October 29, 2011 this was the
Saturday immediately following the first week of his sister's murder
trial and by this time it had become apparent that things were not going
well.
Detective Richter, to the best of my knowledge is
currently being investigated by the Chicago Police Department internal
affairs, and the civilian oversight organization to which Internal
Affairs answers called "City of Chicago Independent Police Review Authority". [Complaint ID : OPS-9432]
Coincidentally, both Darren Meade and Detective John
Richter apparently reported that unknown persons had thrown rocks or
bricks through their windows at about the same time (I do not have
dates). Darren was in California, Richter was in Illinois.
I am not in an audio recording discussing killing someone
with a 50 caliber bullet. I was present with an individual who made the
statements, and I was the person recording the conversation and who
subsequently provided them to Darren Meade and law-enforcement because
Darren Meade was the "someone" the person was fantasizing about killing.
Coming Soon: Copy of police report containing the
allegations of Tracey Richter's brother Detective John Richter dated
October 29, 2011.
"Michael bought a house for another woman in Florida in 2004."
RESPONSE:Whereas, Tracey went to Florida
first to look at houses, she sent Michael and his stepson and son to
Florida a week or two later to look at her short list. He signed a
contract on the house they both agreed was best. While Michael was in
Florida, Tracey flew to London to be with her lover Tom Buehlmann. I had
previously discovered this relationship, I confronted Tom by telephone.
He apologized and said he had no idea she was still married and
promised that it would not continue. Tracey's relationship with Tom
began late December 2003 or very early January 2004. I did not meet the
"other woman" referred to by Darren until April 1st, 2004 after I
realized that Tracey's affair with Tom was ongoing.
"Michael stole Tracey’s identity"
RESPONSE: Tracey's team is getting good
mileage out of this allegation. In 2005 or 2006, I leased a large Dell
computer/server through "DFS" which is Dell Financial Services.
Unbeknownst to me, the lease had both my name and Tracey's name attached
to it from previous purchases while we were still together. Tracey
filed a police report for identity theft, she also filed allegations in
the civil divorce process. I contacted Dell, they removed her name, end
of story.
"Michael found shell casings at murder scene."
Darren wrote:"Michael Robert claimed to
have then cleaned the home and located shell casings within an hour of
taking possession of the home that were missed by CSI investigators."
RESPONSE: This is just one of many examples
of the incompetence of the investigators and earlier prosecutor who let
the murder go unpunished for almost 10 years.
"Michael's relationship with Dustin Wehde, Tracey's murder victim."
Darren wrote:"In his mentorship of Dustin, Michael Roberts had Dustin work on creative writing exercises that often were violent in nature."
Response: Says who Darren? Please provide
original source documentation, or a witness who has not been convicted
of either murder or perjury.
"Crime Scene Photos"
Darren wrote:"The crime scene photos were shown to me personally in 2010 by Michael Roberts." (referring to a document referencing the 'pink notebook' evidence).
Response: I challenge Darren to testify to this under the penalty of perjury.
"Life Insurance on Tracey & Michael's kids"
Darren wrote: "Tracey had a considerable life insurance policy as did the children."
Response: Tracey had taken out $100,000
insurance policies on each of the three children before the murder. She
had asked me to co-sign this one night when insurance agent was in our
home, I refused because I thought the idea was repulsive. However, I
finally consented to a $10,000 funeral policy for each of the kids under
protest because she just wouldn't leave me alone. Evidently, the
documents subsequently placed before me to sign were in the full amount
of $100K as later attested by insurance agent later.
Furthermore, in the year before the murder Tracey had stacked
my life insurance policies with at least three, possibly four policies
totaling somewhere in the range of 3 to 5 million dollars. I did not
know about this until I filed for divorce in 2004 and her first husband,
Dr. John Pitman, told me I need to go looking for them. I did, and what
I found blew me away. While Tracey was visiting her lover Tom, I
received documents in the mail from lifequote.com where she had applied
for an additional $1 million in coverage of my life only a few days
before she attempted to murder me in March 2004 by drugging and
suffocation. This was followed up by an e-mail message after I diverted
Tracey's business e-mail address to mine.
"The Real Darren Meade"by journalist Anthony Roberts (NOTE: he is NO relation & this site has apparently been hijacked from him): Visit Anthony's article
