The FBI has instituted an investigation into an Internet assault where the offender and victim never touched each other, never spoke except by email and never occupied the same zip code.
FBI Arrests Man for Sending Allegedly Seizure-Inducing GIF to Reporter Kurt Eichenwald
The FBI has confirmed to both Gizmodo and The Verge that they have arrested a man in connection with sending journalist Kurt Eichenwald a tweet meant to induce a seizure. Eichenwald, who has written about being epileptic in the past, alleges he was the victim of a Twitter user seeking to induce a seizure in him through a GIF.
Eugene Volokh of Volokh Conspiracy started this hare. Is it a crime to assault somebody via the Internet; is it a crime to flash somebody via the Internet? Volokh explores this in two articles, below:
crime-on-the-virtual-street-strobe-lighting-virtual-groping-and-startling/?
crime-on-the-virtual-street-indecent-exposure/?
As a classroom exercise, this debate would be a fun way to kill an hour. As a real world scenario for prosecution, this is pretty scary. The offenses that Volokh discusses, assault-bodily injury, indecent exposure, threats, are all low-level misdemeanors. Couple that with the fact that victim and offender could be separated by miles or continents does not make a prosecution a viable alternative.
For the FBI to be involved there has to be an Interstate nexus. I’m betting they are working under the computer crime statute. This means that a nominal misdemeanor is now a felony; goodbye county jail, hello Federal Pen.
There is only one way to put this into context, Arlo Guthrie couldn’t have said it better: alicesrestaurant_draftboard_640x360.mp4
Sorry, I don’t see it.