Linn County Attorney pushing lawmakers to make ‘doxxing’ easier to prosecute in Iowa

DES MOINES — Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks said his office has seen the emotional trauma and distress of Iowans who have had their personal information exposed online over personal and political vendettas.

The offenders are ex-partners, former employees or strangers seeking punishment or revenge on both private citizens and public officials, Maybanks said.

In some cases, the personal information posted online has been used to commit fraud or identity theft. In others, it has led to victims being followed and harassed at their home, workplace and elsewhere, he said.

Victims also have incurred large legal costs seeking court injunctions and restraining orders as well as costs associated with trying to remove their information and repair their reputation online, or taking steps to protect their identity.

“Folks online, a lot of them, can be very impressionable, and they don't need the whole story before they turn and can really inundate people online with harassment for things that are entirely baseless,” said Maybanks, who is working with state lawmakers to pass legislation that would make such “doxxing” a crime in Iowa.

A form of cyberbullying, doxxing involves posting private or personal identifiable information online about another person — such as a home address, phone number, Social Security number or other identifiers — for the purposes of harassing, intimidating, embarrassing or otherwise harming the person.

“These are targeted attacks that are done for illicit purposes that have had real-world effects on people who have been traumatized by this,” Maybanks said.

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Subcommittees in both the House and Senate in recent weeks have advanced bills that would add doxxing to Iowa’s definition of harassment, making it easier to prosecute.

Maybanks said his office has received complaints involving harassment by doxxing that have been challenging to investigate and charge because of limitations in Iowa law. Existing state harassment laws primarily address direct communication or personal contact, making it difficult to prosecute indirect harassment, he told The Gazette.

As a result, he said prosecutors have difficulty proving harassment when the information is posted more broadly online without direct contact with the victim.

Senate File 35 and House File 201 aim to provide a clearer legal framework to address what Maybanks and other Linn County officials say is a growing problem.

The legislation defines “doxxing” as posting photos or videos and personal information about people or their family members without their consent and “without legitimate purpose” with the intent to either directly “threaten, intimidate, annoy or alarm” them or to encourage or entice others to do the same.

Individuals who do could be charged with an aggravated misdemeanor, punishable by up two years in prison and a fine of up to $8,540 if found guilty.

The bill defines“ personal information” as a person’s or family’s address, phone number, email address, social media profile, place of employment or “any other information designed to allow other persons to threaten, intimidate, annoy, or alarm the person.”

The Iowa County Attorneys Association, city of Marion, Iowa Newspaper Association and American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa are registered in support of the legislation.

During a subcommittee meeting last week on the bill, Rep. Samantha Fett, R-Carlisle, read aloud a statement submitted by Jenn Turner, Polk County chapter chair of Moms for Liberty, a conservative political organization that advocates against school curricula that reference LGBTQ+ rights and racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States.

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“I remember the first time a post was shared about me that my address was posted publicly” by a “former member of this very House of Representatives,” Turner said in her statement. “This resulted in hate mail and harassment for the following months. In two other instances, my business card was shared and (an) email campaign was put together to contact my job and tell them that I was a Nazi, racist and other slanderous words in attempts to cancel me in my place of work.

“ … I cannot believe we live in a day where we have to legislate being a decent human, but here we are. For anyone to attempt to put others livelihoods in jeopardy because of their differences and their families in danger is unacceptable.”

Fett, who introduced the House bill, read a similar letter from the parent of a Dallas-Center Grimes high school student who experienced harassment after questioning curriculum in an English class, saying it violated a state law prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory, which led to a meeting to reconsider the curriculum. Within 24 hours of the meeting, the parent's information was leaked by a teacher librarian, leading to online harassment, personal attacks and social media digs, Fett said.

A Democrat and Republican on the subcommittee, however, raised concerns the bill as written is overly broad.

Rep. Elinor Levin, D-Iowa City, noted the bill does not define what is considered a “legitimate purpose” when sharing personal information about another person.

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Maybanks said the bill incorporates existing language in Iowa’s harassment statute, and that any factual dispute about whether personal information shared online about another person serves a legitimate purpose would be decided by a jury.

“There are cases where it's clear that there's not a legitimate purpose to doxxing, and those would be the ones that we would seek to prosecute,” he said.

Levin also raised concerns that the inclusion of the “intent to annoy or alarm” would conflict with the First Amendment's protection of free speech and criminalize the publication of truthful and publicly available information.

Maybanks and the Iowa County Attorneys Association note doxxing can be seen as a form of harassment or a threat, which are not protected forms of speech.

Rep. Mark Cisneros, R-Muscatine, said he shared Levin’s concerns about the bill's language, but emphasizes the need to prevent online harassment through sharing personal information.

The bills are eligible for consideration by the Senate Judiciary and House Public Safety committees.

“We’ll perfect the language the way that we think that hold up in courts,” Fett told The Gazette. “But I think this is an important issue for people” to maintain their right to privacy and voice opinions “and not be harassed because of that.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com