The New Crime of “Online Impersonation” in Mississippi Not too many industries can claim double-digit growth over the past few years.  The use of computers to commit unlawful acts, including cybercrimes, cyberbullying, fraud, harassment, and other crimes continues to increase exponentially year after year.  In Mississippi’s latest attempt to curb the tide of online criminal activity, on July 1, 2011 it became illegal to impersonate another “actual person” on the internet in Mississippi. The New Law The law, located at Miss. Code Ann. § 97-45-33, makes it a misdemeanor to “knowingly and without consent impersonate another actual person through or on an

As technology advances, so does the opportunity to violate the rights of others by committing crimes in cyberspace.  This week we discuss a seldom-used law on Mississippi’s books that makes it advisable to reread every email, text message, blog post, or Facebook update you intend to publish before you hit the send button. It is against the law in Mississippi to “post a message for the purpose of causing injury to any person through the use of any medium of communication, including the Internet or a computer, computer program, computer system or computer network, or other electronic medium of communication without