Maine Cyberstalking Amendment Accepted for Testimony
March 5, 2001
Maine's legislature will hear testimony on Thursday, March 8 regarding a bill amending the crime of stalking to include communicating by electronic means with a person with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm that person. The hearing is set for 1 p.m. in Augusta.
The amendment was authored by Jayne A. Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA). A former victim of cyberstalking, Hitchcock has been instrumental in lobbying for cyberstalking legislation in the past. She said this bill is an important step in protecting victims from cyberstalking.
"I'm excited to see Maine taking steps to protect online victims and hope this bill will pass," Hitchcock said. "Maybe the other states who don't have appropriate laws will now decide to update their current stalking and harassment laws and follow in Maine's
footsteps."
Hitchcock has been involved with WHOA since 1997. WHOA is an organization dedicated to stopping cyberstalking. To accomplish its mission, WHOA educates the Internet community about online harassment, empowers victims of harassment and formulates voluntary policies that systems' administrators can adopt in order to create harassment-free environments. WHOA's web site is http://www.haltabuse.org.
