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Internet impersonation now a crime in CNMI
“Electronic impersonation” is now a crime in the Commonwealth.
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has signed Senate bill 19-64, now Public Law 19-33, last Feb. 11 to establish the crime of electronic impersonation and set penalties and fines ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 and a year to five years in jail.
The new law states that “e-personation” activities exist in the Commonwealth and that many have complained about people hacking into their social network profiles or creating a fake profile to impersonate other people.
“The people must be on notice that the internet cannot be used as a forum to harm, intimidate, threaten, or defraud other people,” the bill states.
The law throws concern to the thieves, scam artists, or vengeful people who pretend to be someone they are not to engage in cyber-bullying, to defraud, and or to gain confidential information.
The law cites an example from 2011, in New Jersey, where a woman charged with identify theft allegedly used her ex-husband’s personal information to create a Facebook page to impersonate him, a narcotics detective, and spread false admissions to drug use, hiring of prostitutes, and contracting sexual diseases.
The law also cites another landmark case of cyber-bullying where a Missouri parent created a MySpace account to taunt a 13-year-old neighbor who was a friend of her daughter with the professed love of an imaginary boy. The 13-year old committed suicide, after the mother, through the account, told the teenager that the, “The world would be a better place without you.”
“This type of conduct is unacceptable and must be criminalized,” the new law states.
