§ 9.03 Threats

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2020

§ 9.03 Threats

The Internet permits users to send anonymous communications. On the one hand this can be a good thing since it allows, for example, whistleblowers, individuals who wish to report misconduct by others, to send messages without fear of retribution. Similarly, those users concerned about privacy may use the Internet to obtain information on a product without concern that they will end up on a mailing list. On the other hand, the anonymity of the Internet also permits criminals to hide their tracks and to make it more difficult for law enforcement to catch them.²⁶ This is particularly true in the case of "stalkers" who can use the Internet to find out detailed personal information about a person and then send the victim threatening messages.

While there is no federal law criminalizing "stalking," Title 18, Section 875 of the United States Code makes it a federal crime to transmit any of the following in interstate or foreign commerce:

(1) a communication containing a demand for a ransom for the release of any kidnapped person;
(2) a communication with the intent to extort any money;
(3) a communication threatening to injure a person; and
(4) a communication that threatens damage to property.²⁷

This section has successfully been used to prosecute individuals who send threatening communications via the Internet. For example, the Tenth Circuit has held that the transmission by the defendant of a threatening message could be prosecuted under Section 875 even though the defendant and the recipient were located in the same state.²⁸ The court found that the jurisdictional element of the statute was satisfied because the message was transmitted over interstate telephone lines and traveled through a server located outside the state.²⁹

The statute, however, is limited to the transmission of true threats and does not cover stalkers who use the Internet to collect personal information about an individual but do not do anything more. For example, the Sixth Circuit upheld the district court's dismissal of charges that the defendant violated Section 875(c) because it found that the defendant did not transmit a "credible threat" to his alleged victim.³⁰ The defendant, a student at the University of Michigan, used e-mail to send stories to another person who was never identified, that included vivid descriptions of fantasized sexual violence against a women whose name was the same as that of one of the defendant's classmates.³¹ He was prosecuted under Section...