King signs legislation to ban ‘cyberstalking’

AUGUSTA – Gov. Angus King has signed another bill to bring Maine’s criminal code into the computer age.

Making oral or written threats by mechanical or electronic means – or “cyberstalking” – will be a crime under the state’s anti-stalking law. The law will cover threats made by telephones and cellular phones as well as computers, video recorders, fax machines and pagers.

Cyberstalking can involve using the Internet to send threatening e-mails and to identify and track victims. Similar bills have been proposed in a number of other states.

Another new law will make it a crime to possess sexually explicit materials on computer data files for dissemination. Possession of 10 or more copies of the same pornographic data file creates a presumption of intent to disseminate.