By CAROLINE BECK, Alabama Daily News
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A recently filed bill would create a new criminal penalty for doxing, when someone posts private identifying information online with the intent to harass or harm someone.
House Bill 403 from Rep. Shane Stringer, R-Citronelle, would make the crime of doxing a class A misdemeanor.
“We’re starting too see more and more cases across the country where people are taking what would normally be private information and putting it on social media or out in the public against people they don’t agree with or that they have vendettas against,” Stringer told ADN.
The bill is on the House Judiciary Committee’s agenda today.
Stringer said most of the cases he’s heard about are from outside of Alabama but has heard of instances in Baldwin County where information about certain law enforcement officers has been posted.
The bill has 11 co-sponsors.
“This is being done to Republicans, Democrats, law enforcement, fire fighter, district attorneys, judges and public officials,” Stringer said.
According to the bill, someone commits doxing if he or she “intentionally electronically publishes, posts, or provides personal identifying information of another person, with the intent that others will use that information to harass or harm that other person, and the other person is actually harassed or harmed” or “intentionally electronically publishes, posts or provides personal identifying information of a law enforcement officer, firefighter, or public servant, with the intent that others will use that information to harass, harm or impede the duties of that law enforcement officer, firefighter, or public servant, and the law enforcement officer, firefighter, or public servant is actually harassed, harmed, or impeded from performing his or her governmental function.”