Vigilante Web Justice Backfires

About once a week you read a story about a guy who had something stolen, then manages to track down the thief when he tries to sell the item online somewhere. These stories always warm my heart: A combination of basic intelligence, clever leveraging of high-tech services, and some old-fashioned gumshoe work, proving that private citizens can get done what law enforcement cannot.

Well, one of those tales took a turn for the unexpected today, as one poor sap, who was trying to get back his stolen camcorder, is now facing a felony charge for stalking the purported thief.

Rudy Greene's tale is a typical one: His $2000 camcorder was stolen from a condo in Texas during a vacation, and he later tracked it down for sale on an online "swap" site. Rudy took extensive steps to try to recover the camera, including creating a website where he listed the name, phone number, and email address of the suspect. He then submitted the story to Digg, where it quickly hit the home page after receiving 1500 diggs. 12,000 people watched his video testimony. The suspect, Amanda Brunzell, was inundated with phone calls and email, her MySpace page was hacked, and basically her life became a mess.

To make a long story short, Rudy didn't get his camcorder back, but he did get charged with stalking under Michigan law, which says (in an nutshell) that you can't post someone's private information online if you expect they could receive 2 or more unwanted calls over it. Rudy now faces a $5000 fine and up to 2 years in prison.

What's the lesson, here? Someone clever enough to make off with your gear might just be clever enough to turn the tables on you should you take your case against them to the streets. Rudy seems pretty screwed based on the letter of the law, and while I can't blame him for what he did (and had no idea this would be illegal), it's clear he's going to face a hard road ahead. At the very least, he won't be able to visit Michigan ever again.

For what its worth, the Digg story about the update has 5000 diggs (and counting). But let it be a lesson to you: Next time you think about "getting back" at someone by posting their personal information on the web, you could be facing a heap of trouble for your efforts.