This list consists of current and pending cyberstalking-related United States federal and state laws, as well as those states that do not have laws yet and related laws from other countries. Currently, there are 45 cyberstalking (and related) laws on the books. New Mexico has a pending bill. There are still four states (Idaho, Nebraska, New Jersey) and D.C. with absolutely no statutes regarding these crimes. We do not include laws that only address online harassment of children or that focus on child predators; we have listed laws that protect adult cyberstalking victims (or all victims of any age). We found in our research that many states which claim to have cyberstalking laws actually have only laws that protect victims ages 18 and under. If you need information on child-related laws, we suggest you visit Safetyed.
States that do not have laws are listed in yellow. States whose laws are pending are listed in green. If your state or country is not represented, or does not currently have a cyberstalking law, please contact your state legislators to lobby for a law. If the law in your state is pending, please contact the bill's sponsors and your legislators in support of it. If you don't know who your state legislators are, you can probably find them at Project Vote Smart.
If you know of a cyberstalking-related law that is not listed here, please send the URL and/or statute citation so that we can verify it before adding it to our list, or if you have any questions, send them to us.
Some of the terminology used on the various legislature's web pages will probably be unfamiliar to most laypersons. Nolo has a great article, Learn About Legal Research, that can help clear up most of the confusion.
