{"id":68259,"date":"2018-12-12T10:45:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T17:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=68259"},"modified":"2018-12-12T10:47:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T17:47:08","slug":"thanks-to-those-who-have-been-offering-technical-and-legal-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/12\/thanks-to-those-who-have-been-offering-technical-and-legal-advice.html","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to those who have been offering technical and legal advice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Scales<\/a>
It may come to this. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I would like to thank all of those who, in response to my request yesterday<\/a>, have offered advice regarding the fellow who\u2019s been obsessively sending me crude, insulting emails since at least 2012. \u00a0(I\u2019ve received three more from him today, thus far.) \u00a0I\u2019ll be sifting through the responses today, as time allows.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One person suggests that I should do as Jesus counsels, and turn the other cheek. \u00a0That\u2019s always great advice, of course. \u00a0I think that I can honestly say, though, that I feel no anger whatever toward this person. \u00a0That may seem difficult to believe, but it\u2019s true. \u00a0Partly it\u2019s because I\u2019m very much my father\u2019s son in this regard: \u00a0I just don\u2019t get angry very often and, on the rare occasions when I do, the anger quickly passes. \u00a0I\u2019m a distinctly placid, \u201cType B\u201d personality. \u00a0And, try as I might, I don\u2019t hold grudges very well. \u00a0(That\u2019s partly why I find the image of me that Gaston and Lefou have carefully cultivated over the years \u2014 portraying me as perpetually resentful and enraged \u2014 so remarkably strange. \u00a0I\u2019m many things, including many things for which I can be legitimately criticized, but I\u2019m very definitely not that.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several have suggested that I ought not to pay this fellow any attention, and that, by alluding to him here over the past couple of days, I\u2019ve inflamed him. \u00a0Now, it\u2019s plainly obvious that he\u2019s received a shot of adrenalin from the public notice that he\u2019s received from me; he\u2019s increased his production rather dramatically of late. \u00a0I can\u2019t deny that. \u00a0They also say that, if I would simply ignore him, he would go away. \u00a0But the fact is that I have<\/em> ignored him for somewhat over six years, and yet he\u2019s kept at it without any encouragement from me at all. \u00a0(I have never responded to him directly, not even once. \u00a0I suspect, given the circuitous route by which he sends his messages, that I can\u2019t<\/em>. \u00a0But I haven\u2019t tried.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others have suggested that I not read his messages, that I either block him or have them go directly into a spam folder. \u00a0Both of those are options, and I suppose that I\u2019ll now do one or the other. \u00a0I haven\u2019t done it in the past for a couple of reasons: \u00a0First, implausible as this may seem to some, his posts genuinely don\u2019t bother me much. \u00a0I receive them, read them, sometimes share them with my wife (who doesn\u2019t really appreciate it), put them in a folder called \u201cAnonymous Hate Mail\u201d that I created for him, and never read them again. \u00a0I just think they\u2019re weird. \u00a0Second, I\u2019ve actually thought, given the intensity of his obsession, that permitting him this outlet might lessen the probability of his undertaking something much worse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two factors have recently altered my attitude just a bit: \u00a0(1) \u00a0His mention of my granddaughter. \u00a0Knowing the seething personal hostility of some of my critics, I have very deliberately kept references to my wife vague and have largely avoided references to my children and to any family that they might have. \u00a0He didn\u2019t threaten<\/em> my granddaughter, but I was extremely displeased to see his reference to her \u2014 I don\u2019t like seeing her dragged into this even slightly<\/em> \u2014 and I worry that his attention to her might escalate. \u00a0(2) \u00a0Having grown curious about exactly how long his posts have been coming to me, I opened up the \u201cAnonymous Hate Mail\u201d folder and looked at the earliest ones that I\u2019ve filed there. \u00a0When I saw that this has been going on for over six years, it dawned on me that such behavior is unhinged, pathological, and potentially dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to my blogged request, I\u2019ve heard from IT professionals, who have offered to help. \u00a0Blocking this fellow probably won\u2019t be difficult, and I\u2019ll likely go that way. \u00a0(I have enough material from him that, if this escalates into violence or some other form of legally actionable offense, law enforcement personnel shouldn\u2019t have much difficulty in tracking him down.) \u00a0Identifying him might be a bit harder, but perhaps somebody might be able to do that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are there legal remedies? \u00a0Perhaps.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An attorney in California, while saying that he doesn\u2019t know applicable Utah law, points out that \u201cthis would be a crime in California. \u00a0California\u2019s criminal laws addressing online harassment state that it is illegal to use an electronic communication device to make repeated contact with another person with the intent to harass or annoy, or to make a single intentionally harassing contact if it includes any obscene or threatening language. (California Penal Code 653m.)\u201d \u00a0My anonymous correspondent is guilty (in spades) of all of those things, and the California attorney suggests that I contact a lawyer or a law enforcement agency in Utah to find out whether there is a comparable rule here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I may well do that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another California friend calls my attention to an online discussion of \u201cElectronic Communication Harrassment\u201d<\/a> under Utah law:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUtah\u2019s statute prohibiting harassment using electronic communications is incredibly broad. Not every dispute between two people which involves an electronic communication should constitute a criminal act, however, the wording of the statute gives law enforcement officers and prosecutors great discretion in selecting people to prosecute for this offense. . . . \u00a0The statute itself addresses this issue by requiring under Utah Code \u00a776-9-201, that the person charged with electronic communication harassment must act with an intention to do one or more of the following: threaten, harass, frighten, intimidate, annoy, offend, abuse, alarm or disrupt the electronic communications of another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, by that standard my anonymous pal would seem abundantly qualified for the attention of legal authorities here in Utah.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here is the relevant state law:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/le.utah.gov\/xcode\/Title76\/Chapter9\/76-9-S201.html?fbclid=IwAR2kxF8Bcbp4g4w200XurJRwKjw_kIrvMEaAyNEuSMQznB40T3oRHgfw-lw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I would like to thank all of those who, in response to my request yesterday, have offered advice regarding the fellow who\u2019s been obsessively sending me crude, insulting emails since at least 2012. \u00a0(I\u2019ve received three more from him today, thus far.) \u00a0I\u2019ll be sifting through the responses today, as time allows. \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThanks to those who have been offering technical and legal advice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I would like to thank all of those who, in response to my request yesterday, have offered advice regarding the fellow who's been obsessively\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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