David Calvert / Nevada Independent via AP
Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, during the fifth day of the 32nd special session of the Legislature in Carson City. Nguyen is a sponsor of an anti-doxxing bill.
Monday, April 26, 2021 | 8:10 p.m.
Heather Korbulic, executive director of Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, speaks during a news conference on health insurance at the Sawyer State Building Friday, Dec. 14, 2018.
CARSON CITY — Heather Korbulic couldn’t dial out from her cellphone. Her contact information had been posted to social media without her consent, and the sheer volume of constant calls meant her phone was unusable.
Often through tears, and sometimes taking pauses to maintain her composure, Korbulic detailed to Nevada lawmakers on Monday the stress she felt as the target of a doxxing campaign. Doxxing is a term for a coordinated effort of online harassment and intimidation in which personal information is circulated online without the victim’s permission.
Lawmakers have been steadily moving forward Assembly Bill 296, a bill that would allow doxxing victims to seek civil penalties against the perpetrator. The bill passed unanimously through the Assembly on April 20, and is now working through the process on the other side of the Statehouse — it received its first Senate committee hearing Monday.
“When it comes to online harassment, it is a fine line to walk (on applicable situations), so it’s important that when we’re enacting anti-doxxing legislation that we keep that in mind,” said bill sponsor Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas.
Korbulic’s testimony, the first time she’s spoken publicly about her experience, was a central part of the bill’s hearing Monday. Korbulic was driven out of her job as the head of the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation during the pandemic’s meteoric rise in unemployment and subsequent delays in jobless benefits.
“They targeted me on every social media platform and every other online mechanism available to them. Some of them questioned whether I should be alive any longer,” Korbulic said. “I don’t remember all of the threats, thankfully, but I remember exactly how they made me feel and it was terrifying.”
Korbulic recalled a night in which a law enforcement officer was parked in front of her house for protection. Her husband and children were away on a trip, and her neighbors, she said, were supportive but afraid.
“I went inside and I called my husband and I sobbed. I told him I was done and that I couldn’t live like this,” she said, adding her husband cut the trip short to come install a security system. She would not allow her children to play outside without supervision.
Nguyen said there are “baby steps” to make sure the legislation is crafted properly and protects free speech. The bill as originally written would have made doxxing a criminal charge, though Nguyen amended that language out of the bill.
“There’s obviously a very, very fine line between protecting free speech on both sides, both online and offline and rightfully raising serious and legitimate questions about how it comes to codifying these laws, and who it applies to and who it doesn’t,” Nguyen said.
Chuck Callaway, a Metro Police lobbyist, testified in opposition in the Senate due to the removal of criminal penalties. He had previously spoken in neutral while the bill was in the Assembly.
Callaway also took umbrage with some provisions of the bill under which the measures do not apply to law enforcement officers or public officers while acting in an official capacity.
He argued that there are already measures by which whistleblowers can make unlawful conduct from officials known, and that people should not “report unlawful activity by doxxing someone.”
Sen. Dallas Harris, D-Las Vegas, raised questions about the need of the law, asking why it was necessary to create a new statute.
Beth Holtzman, the Anti-Defamation League’s Western States counsel, said it was possible to bring a case for doxxing under some laws, but that it has been difficult in other states to bring forward a doxxing case because laws are generally not written to “contemplate the realities of online spaces.”
“Doxxing, the online elements of it, are not always reflected in other sorts of torts, and so we find it is most helpful to enact statutes to have the proper language that really takes into consideration and focuses on this particular action that occurs online and are able to reflect that and provide a civil cause of action,” Holtzman said.
The bill was not passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday and has not been scheduled for another vote. It must pass through Senate committee by the next legislative deadline, May 14.
