If it were a one-off incident I would agree with you. But a consistent pattern like this over years is stalking, and either is or should be a crime. In my opinion this clearly summarizes why:

> For Franks, a big theme is that the “fundamental feeling of security that most people take for granted is taken away.” She has spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands, of victims in her research, who describe constant feelings “having to look over one’s shoulder” that keep them from engaging fully in their lives, online or off.

I feel that's true even if you don't believe that the stalker will try to physically harm you. There is a huge emotional toll to dealing with that kind of thing, and it's not something that should just be tolerated.

(That said, I recognize that police have limited resources, so putting more toward this would mean less for something else, or an increase in funding.)

So sue! That and restraining orders are designed for exactly this.

So why have crimes at all? If someone steals from you, or assaults you, you can always sue. The thing is, that shouldn't be the victim's responsibility.

You're acting like libel just became a problem in the last 5 years. There are good reasons why we don't really have criminal defamation prosecutions anymore. They always involve tons of disputed facts, and they require tons of resources to investigate. Choice of cases is always political.

Let me tell you who is a good candidate for a "cyberstalking" charge. You maintain a database of police involved in questionable shootings. When one of them gets canned from their present department, you track the new PD they're foisted onto, and make sure to let the local BLM chapter know about the bad apple they're about to get, and a lurid description of what you think their crimes are. Why, that sounds worthy of some prosecutorial resources (election year, after all). Aren't you glad you made being mean on the internet a crime?

Get a fucking restraining order. It's ridiculously easy; too easy, in fact, to the point where they're routinely used as leverage in other civil disputes. Violation of restraining orders is a crime. This is a solved problem.

Would you be so calm if someone hired a PI to spy on you, then mailed photoshopped pictures and faked evidence to every potential employer claiming you were a child molester?

There is definitely the potential to chill free speech and we need to be careful; however there is also such thing as harassment.

We need to figure out where the line is, then task a department in the FBI with enforcing it. If even 1% of the people trolling, harassing, and doxxing people were put in prison it would immediately evicerate most of those movements as the scaredy cats abandoned ship. It's one thing to harass someone across the country for free with no consequences. It's quite another to face jail time (even if it's 2 weeks served on weekends).

I would probably sue them. I wouldn't expect the police to try to figure out where the truth of a private spat lies, even if it's rally nasty and one of the parties actually is actually acting like an asshole. Cops aren't actually that good at resolving complicated factual claims & counterclaims. They especially don't like it.

Open the door to police investigation of such disputes and you will have cause to regret it. You think the "trolls" you are so concerned about are above faking such a harassment case and filing the same charges against you? Are you really confident the cops are going to use their inestimable judgment and come to the right conclusion?

The problem is that this kind of behaviour is a sign of an underlying mental illness.

The victim's feeling that the situation was unlikely to escalate into violence may have no basis in reality.

Kind of like people who get all surprised when (not-quite-tamed) animals attack people.

I'd feel very uncomfortable with a loose end like this.

Agree. I run a forum which inevitably attracts a few mentally unstable types. It is just not worth the risk of antagonising those people; best to carefully ignore and avoid having yourself becoming a significant identity in their lives. Never know when someone goes off the rails and you're someone they think of.

14 years of it though, trying to gain access to people's email accounts, spoofing her own email, following her to college, this isn't sending a few mean tweets out there.

I was also thinking "isn't libel a crime/illegal"? So I guess I (and maybe the author) just don't really know how the legal system works, meaning that in the case of libel you don't go through the police, you go directly to your lawyer?

Exactly. Lawyer up. Police can't ignore a lawyers request for a restraining order. That would be forwarded to a judge who would no doubt see the pattern of abuse which would also take into account if the perp has done this before.