Online abuse is a real problem. This congresswoman wants the FBI to treat it like one.

There are a lot of problems with the way we deal with the thorny issue of online harassment. As a recent Supreme Court ruling on harassment shows, the country's best legal minds are still grappling with how to deal with threats made on the Web. Few deny that online abuse occurs; when it comes to addressing it, however, there seem to be a lot of roadblocks in the way. One, says Rep Katherine Clark (D-MA) is that law enforcement officials just don't seem to take digital threats that seriously, prompting her to craft a bill that would dedicate more resources to the issue. Rep Clark says she was inspired after reaching out to the FBI on behalf of a constituent -- Brianna Wu, a video game developer who left her home after facing violent online threats in 2014 -- and was disheartened by the response. "Frankly, it was very disappointing; these cases were not a priority," she said.

Rep Clark, a former prosecutor, said that the attitude toward online harassment reminded her very much of 1990s-era attitudes toward domestic violence. Victims, often women, were often told that changing their own behavior was the best way to deal with the problem. As she spoke to more victims online harassment, she found that they were being advised to stay off the Internet, to leave their homes and to wait until the problems blew over -- though, in some cases, the harassment went on for years. Rep Clark's bill would work to solve both the resource and education problems she saw as impediments to dealing with these problems, by giving the FBI ten new agents devoted solely to fighting cybercrime, specifically online harassment. This would include violent, specific threats of crimes such as rape, murder, dismemberment as well as releasing information about people's homes, family members, or indications that online stalkers are monitoring a person's movements.