What is the name of your state? GA
This is long. Sorry.
My fiance is in a custody battle with the ex. He Googled her back in January, and we found a trail that led to some chat rooms she posts in. She practically lives in one of them, even going so far in her posts to call these people her "family". We opened an account (providing a userid, password, and email address), in order to view her profile and search all her posts. Otherwise, we would only have been able to read through forums, with no specific searches.
The site admin told her she had a "peeper" - someone who was searching her posts. We usually update ourselves on it twice a week. To date we have **never** communicated with her through this site - we only gather info (mainly to record the dates and times of her posts, to show the court that while their son is in her care she is posting incessantly - e.g., every 12-20 minutes during his waking, at-home hours). The site admin then gave her the IP address of the "peeper". ????
We presented the incessant chat-room evidence to his atty last week for discovery for opposing counsel. So now the ex knows we are her "peepers". We are now receiving accusations of "cyberstalking" from her. Our attorneys don't appear to be all that familiar with cyberstalking - I suppose because their concentration is family law.
Based on my understanding of forum chat rooms, there are different types of chat rooms. The first two are open to the public, and are not “broken into” in order to read/post chats. Some can be read immediately, some require that you first create a member account and log-in. Either way, these are both public. And this is what we're accessing. A private room is one where the creator restricts access to the room via a list of members allowed. The properties are set by the creator. A user such as ourselves, who is not on the list, cannot access a private room. And we have not.
From Wikipedia: Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk someone. It has been defined as the use of information and communications technology, particularly the Internet, by an individual or group of individuals, to harass another individual, group of individuals, or organization. The behavior includes false accusations, monitoring, the transmission of threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sexual purposes, and gathering information for harassment purposes. The harassment must be such that a reasonable person, in possession of the same information, would regard it as sufficient to cause another reasonable person distress.
The only thing I see we're doing in the above definition is monitoring. ***But not for the purpose of harrassment*** Again, we have NEVER contacted her through these chat rooms, nor have we posted on the chat rooms. Our monitoring is the equivalent of hiring a PI, in my opinion, which is standard in many court cases.
QUESTIONS:
1) Even though I certainly don't think we're "stalking", is there an attorney here who thinks her threat holds water?
2) Can we subpoena the contents of her activity in the private rooms?
3) Is there another forum I should be posting this in, per my own comment above that maybe family law isn't the arena in whic to discuss this? LOL Just hoping someone in here is a jack of all trades.
Thanks in advance!!!
This is long. Sorry.
My fiance is in a custody battle with the ex. He Googled her back in January, and we found a trail that led to some chat rooms she posts in. She practically lives in one of them, even going so far in her posts to call these people her "family". We opened an account (providing a userid, password, and email address), in order to view her profile and search all her posts. Otherwise, we would only have been able to read through forums, with no specific searches.
The site admin told her she had a "peeper" - someone who was searching her posts. We usually update ourselves on it twice a week. To date we have **never** communicated with her through this site - we only gather info (mainly to record the dates and times of her posts, to show the court that while their son is in her care she is posting incessantly - e.g., every 12-20 minutes during his waking, at-home hours). The site admin then gave her the IP address of the "peeper". ????
We presented the incessant chat-room evidence to his atty last week for discovery for opposing counsel. So now the ex knows we are her "peepers". We are now receiving accusations of "cyberstalking" from her. Our attorneys don't appear to be all that familiar with cyberstalking - I suppose because their concentration is family law.
Based on my understanding of forum chat rooms, there are different types of chat rooms. The first two are open to the public, and are not “broken into” in order to read/post chats. Some can be read immediately, some require that you first create a member account and log-in. Either way, these are both public. And this is what we're accessing. A private room is one where the creator restricts access to the room via a list of members allowed. The properties are set by the creator. A user such as ourselves, who is not on the list, cannot access a private room. And we have not.
From Wikipedia: Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk someone. It has been defined as the use of information and communications technology, particularly the Internet, by an individual or group of individuals, to harass another individual, group of individuals, or organization. The behavior includes false accusations, monitoring, the transmission of threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sexual purposes, and gathering information for harassment purposes. The harassment must be such that a reasonable person, in possession of the same information, would regard it as sufficient to cause another reasonable person distress.
The only thing I see we're doing in the above definition is monitoring. ***But not for the purpose of harrassment*** Again, we have NEVER contacted her through these chat rooms, nor have we posted on the chat rooms. Our monitoring is the equivalent of hiring a PI, in my opinion, which is standard in many court cases.
QUESTIONS:
1) Even though I certainly don't think we're "stalking", is there an attorney here who thinks her threat holds water?
2) Can we subpoena the contents of her activity in the private rooms?
3) Is there another forum I should be posting this in, per my own comment above that maybe family law isn't the arena in whic to discuss this? LOL Just hoping someone in here is a jack of all trades.
Thanks in advance!!!