From what I've heard, most people when committing a crime don't evaluate the expected value of the harshness of punishment, merely whether there will be a substantial punishment at all. So long as you're attempting to use prison to deter crime, it argues for relatively light sentences. If you're trying to simply remove offenders from circulation, that's a different question. It won't really help them improve their character much though if the sentence is too harsh.

EDIT: A well publicised message of "if you do this we will catch you" and a well publicised conviction would help though mostly regardless of the length of sentence. Very few people find going to jail at all an acceptable outcome.

It's very unusual and ironic to find an argument _for_ punitive incarceration here on HN, which is more typically a bastion of anti-incarceration advocacy. I guess it depends on where societies' and governments' fears lie (the more representative the gov't is the more these fears overlap).

The ususal stance is against punitive incarceration for crimes like drug posession and maybe even sex trade activities. Crimes where someone is actually harmed? I don't think you see a lot of arguments againts punishment for those.

> Crimes where someone is actually harmed?

Is doxxing actual harm, or merely the threat of actual harm?

(Not that it's not bad; not that it shouldn't be illegal; but it's not the same as assault)

Actually, assault is defined as "the threat of physical harm". (no physical contact is required)

Battery is the actual physical harm.

This is very common misunderstanding.

http://www.northvanpac.org/p/bccpac.html

There's no significant link between prison sentences and crime rates.

If there was, Norway would have a high crime rate and the US would have a low crime rate.

Your first point may be true, but the US/Norway example is not good evidence for it. There are significant other confounding factors -- relative homogeneity of the population, economic differences, population size, cultural history are just a handful that spring to mind.

Those oft-repeated "factors" can only be factors if you show that they are.

Simply mentioning that there are differences between those two countries does not make any difference you care to list a "factor".

A bit of a broadly brushed analysis. This assumes all other variables/characteristics are equal: economic, social, political, etc.

In that case, maybe there is a link, it's just the other way round...

Because the drug war proved that that method was ineffective and worse actually further criminalised individuals.

Yes, indeed, that's what we need--5 year prison sentences for exercising 1st amendment rights. Preventing the creation of these databases? No, far too difficult to enforce...instead, let's go after the uppity little guys.

You've suggested a remarkably short-sighted solution to a very thorny problem.

The first amendment doesn't protect criminal activity.

If repeating publicly known personal information is a crime, the printers of telephone directories must have really good lawyers.

As you well know the topic at hand is people using that data to "stalk/harass/intimidate" as the OP said verbatim. Which is not protected by the 1st amendment.

I read it differently; "this stunt" is ambiguous in context.

In any case, I think you're misunderstanding the nature of the problem. The danger of "doxxing" is that people get overwhelmed by a flood of negative attention from many different people. In most cases, none of the "harassing" individuals actually do enough individual harassment to make the action illegal. You can't go after the doxxer because releasing the information was completely legal, and you can't go after the mob because none of the individuals have done enough to constitute a crime.

You could certainly go after a guy who sends a knife; pretty sure just mailing a knife is illegal in most places.

I think you're misreading this. Doxxing is the online equivalent of incitement to riot; as in a real riot, the chances of any individual participant doing anything blatantly illegal are low, it's the cover that the crowd provides for lawless activity and the intimidatory factor that's problematic. So if you're unpopular with some group in your town, and someone says 'Let's go to Byerley's house at 123 Quiet Street and make some noise' that could count as incitement to riot even if your name and address are widely available.

The problem is not the mere repetition of publicly available information, but its strategic use to focus the anger of a crowd upon a relatively defenseless individual. That creates a dangerous power asymmetry with the explicit or implicit function of intimidation. It's not a big deal if people peacefully protest in front of the White House - the President and his family live there but there's a bunch of secret service people to keep him safe due to the nature of the office, same way there are police permanently stationed outside the official residence of the UK prime minister. If you're Joe or Jill Ordinary and a large crowd shows up on your physical doorstep, you have a serious problem.

Virtual harassment is not immediately threatening in the same way but it depends on how far it goes. If I write something controversial and make it public and get a storm of hate email in my inbox, that's annoying but not really worrying. But if I start also getting telephone calls or snail mail (or seeing such things quoted in emails) then it's quite a bit more worrying.

There's a limit to which people can control the amount of their personal data that becomes public. For example, I own a house which means I have to pay property taxes, and where I live property ownership is a matter of public record. So I was surprised after buying the home to suddenly receive a huge amount of junk mail from companies who obviously subscribe to lists of property tax payers. I can't take back that information. Should everyone be expected to set up a shell company in order to purchase real property and still maintain some privacy?

The best hack to get around this is to create a holding company, so then that holding company name appears instead. This might be a costly measure, but well worth it if you value your privacy. However, in most property records also include an address to where the yearly property tax bill is sent, so you might also want to set up a PO box.

As I said, 'Should everyone be expected to set up a shell company in order to purchase real property and still maintain some privacy?'

Personally, I prefer the European approach of the Data Protection Act that gives consumers a fair bit of legal leverage over how their personal information can be used commercially, as opposed to requiring people to engage in expensive obfuscatory security measures.

As if a death threat is not 'enough harassment'.

What does constitute enough harassment in your opinion?

You make it sound as though there's nothing to be done against this. But that is not the case, things change. Perhaps releasing personal information about another relating to doxing should be made illegal. It's not as if it's hard to distinguish between someone who's trying to dox another and legitimate sharing of information.

You're telling me it's my first amendment right to mail a knife to your home address and suggest you kill yourself?

The protection prevents the government from denying you the ability to make the threat. It does nothing to prevent them from pursuing a criminal prosecution after you have made it, or to prevent your victim from litigating a tort claim against you for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I suppose the 2nd amendment prevents the government from denying me the ability to use a gun to shoot someone too... but saying that isn't constructive to the discussion of how to do we stop people shooting each other with guns.

Yes, I have the right to threaten someone because it's free speech, but I should still be punished for doing it.

(i.e. I have the right to have a gun and use it to shoot someone, but I should still be punished for doing it)

Basically, if an action could be considered a check upon government power, the government is not allowed to prevent people from doing it in the name of fighting crime.

You are allowed to have the gun that you might use for murder, because you might also use it to rebel against a corrupt government or in self-defense. You are allowed to use common channels of communication to make unlawful threats, because you could also use them to spread ideas unpopular to the ruling class. Only in the case where there is no possible constructive use or government-limiting use would the government be justified in engaging prior restraint.

As you might imagine, such a situation is exceedingly rare. A device designed to spread anthrax spores in an aerosol, for instance, has no peaceful purpose, and I would not consider it a legitimate check upon government power, as it would indiscriminately kill civilians as well as government agents. So you could be prosecuted just for having it, because it is presumed that it could not be used for any purpose that is not inherently criminal.

If there is any possibility that you might do something with innocent intent, the state has to wait until you do that thing with ill intent before punishing you for it. Now, there are a lot of laws and precedents that defy that principle, on a continuous spectrum from things I consider barely reasonable to things I consider to be completely unjust BS, so don't mistake any of this for real legal advice. What should be and what actually happens are often very different things.

> the state has to wait until you do that thing with ill intent before punishing you for it.

OK Great. Originally I said the state should wait until you've stalked/harassed/intimidated someone, then punish you for it.

Why are you having a conversation about rights?

From what you just said, it has nothing to do with it.

Sure is. What type of knife?

Can it be a kitchen knife? I need a new chef's knife...mine is a little bent.

>why don't we get tough with laws and sentencing?

The utter inevitability of misuse and overuse of it. England has set a great example for why I never want that kind of speech enforcement here.

Because it interferes with what the government deems legitimate business practice -- collecting and selling your info. Maybe some day, the NSA will also open some data taps for those with deep enough pockets. For now though, they're not competing, so let them live.

> A 5 year jail stint for the next 10 idiots to pull this stunt will reduce the incident rate of this happening a lot faster.

Copyright infringement comes with the potential for multi-million dollar fines, but that hasn't put much of a dent in it. Why would it be different here?