Laws On Harassment

Q: perhaps you can also enlighten me on this point. I am curious about the burden of rejection placed on the recipient of harassment. As you know these are murky waters, and just what is the responsibility of the recipient to indicate rejection, etc.? After all, there are actions which should be known to be harassing whether or not the recipient indicates it to be so. Just curious

A: Look the laws on Harassment (like the laws on almost everything )vary TREMENDOUSLY from state to state. As much as I (and most conservatives who aren't statists) hate the relatively recent trend where the federal gov gets involved in law enforcement, there are probably some fed statutes as related to email harassment, or there will be soon. My point is that I personally (I am not saying this is the law, I am saying this is reasonable.) I think that certain email could be considered harassment (in the layman's term, not the legal sense) right from the get-go. If somebody sends you an insulting email that insults you personally e.g. You filthy scum-sucking, etc. etc. etc then ok, fine. That's harassment, but I don't think it should be LEGALLY considered harassment, until the recipient simply returns an email saying DON'T EMAIL ME ANYMORE, OR I WILL CONSIDER IT HARASSMENT. This is kind

of similar to trespassing statutes (where somebody has to be "trespassed" ie notified that they are no longer welcome at a place open to the public (library, laundromat) by an authorized representative, before they can be cited for trespassing). I think the burden of pressing delete, and/or using a killfile is a better tradeoff, than stifling people's speech (in most cases). However, I think personal attacks via one's PRIVATE email address can constitute (legal) harassment, but that the burden should be relatively high. I think notification is an excellent solution, because it takes away a subjective aspect of the law, and places it into a factual easy-to-verify light.