In the world of the wild wild Web, Jayne Hitchcock is the sheriff bent on chasing Internet outlaws out of town. This is her story.
Writer and professor Jayne Hitchcock logged on to a Usenet group one evening to bond with her fellow authors. There she stumbled upon a conversation about a literary agency with questionable business tactics; in particular, it was requesting reading fees for all submitted manuscripts.
Hitchcock submitted her work, and the agency did in fact request a $75 fee. She attempted to question it but did not receive a response. She later sent the agency another manuscript, and this time she received a form letter asking for a $150 reading fee. After reporting her findings on the same online bulletin board, she soon found herself under attack.
Hitchcock discovered that her phone number and address were being posted all over the Web, along with claims that she enjoyed sadomasochistic sex. Then her Internet accounts were "bombed," meaning a huge number of e-mails (about 200 messages at a time) were sent to her accounts with the intention of rendering them useless. Her husband and the university where she worked were also "bombed." False statements supposedly made by Hitchcock were posted online. All this activity was traced back to the literary agency's Internet service provider. Hitchcock pleaded again and again for the abuse to stop — with no success.
Rather than allow herself to be victimized further, Hitchcock decided to fight back. "I got past the panic and fear and got mad," she says. "I realized that, unfortunately, there is no help to protect adults [from these types of online attacks]."
Hitchcock decided to devote herself to changing the law. She soon found herself testifying before her local government in order to get a bill passed that would punish e-mail harassers with a $500 fine or up to three years in prison. On May 21, 1998, Hitchcock proudly stood by as the governor of Maryland, her home state, signed House Bill 140 into law. "I've helped other states pass similar laws and have co-written several of them, including the ones for Maine, New Hampshire and Florida," Hitchcock says. "I'm currently working on getting the last six states [without a law against online abuse] to do the same, and then I will go on to work for a federal cyberstalking law."
This Internet superheroine serves as president of the organization Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), a position she has held since 1997. She dedicates much of her time to speaking out about cyber crimes and Internet security at schools, libraries and businesses. "I consult for the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime, the National Center for Victims of Crime and other law enforcement agencies," she reports. Hitchcock also penned “Net Crimes and Misdemeanors" and has two more books on the subject coming out in 2005. "I want to help online victims all over the world," she says.
Lifetime applauds Jayne Hitchcock, a true Champion for Change.
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