Department of Homeland Security - Immigration enforcement Case Study

Department of Homeland Security - Immigration enforcement - Case Study Example However, the involvement of the state and local agencies might imply the difference achievement and malfunction in the enforcement of immigration laws. Nonetheless, the assistance provided by state and local police in enforcing immigration laws is deemed totally voluntary. This is so because there is neither a provision in the United States code nor the code of federal regulations that require the local law enforcing agencies to assign any resources towards enforcing federal immigration laws. Local enforcement of immigration laws has proved to be important as it has helped in capturing suspected terrorists during arresting of alien people. Thus, the role played by state and local authorities in enforcing immigration can never be overstated as they are the eyes and ears of law enforcement which keep the country secure. This can be attributed to the fact that there is a considerable number of officers who first come into contact with aliens in traffic stops, as well as in other law enforcement conditions. The state and local authorities assist in migration law enforcement mostly within the following scenarios: Arrests of Absconders: in the US there are now over 400,000 absconders who are aliens who have gone through court and disobeyed the last order of removal. The absconder issues have gone against the rule of law in as far as immigration is concerned. Several absconders have engaged in criminal activities apart from their initial immigration violation. Hence, it is the work of the state and local authorities to arrest these absconders. Enforcement in remote as well as underserved areas: due to bureau of immigration customs enforcement agents, who are usually thinly spread all over the country, some states experience substantial unlawful immigration without adequate enforcement attention from the particular BICE officials. Such areas may be not

Market Structures in Sony Corporation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Market Structures in Sony Corporation - Essay Example The organization has gained recognition throughout the world following its high awareness of products to the customers. Electronics devices manufacturers such as Sony corporation offer unique quality of various television sets, music systems, and laptops and computers that appeal the customers; hence, with the effective update in technology, management style, the market plan strategies towards existing competition and the corporate goals ensures that the organization is successful and distinguish the company from other similar competitive companies. The process of determining a market structure comprises the research on the rival companies by efficiently exploring their differences and relationships. The features of the market structure affect the routine of the business in the specific market, which has to be appealing to the customer’s needs. There are different market structures used by various organizations, which are based on the number of business participants in the ind ustry and the extent of market control of the involved participants. The market structures include monopolistic competition, perfect competition, and oligopoly and monopoly market structures (O'Connor, 2004). The choice of the market structures in an organization depends on the different characteristics of each type as explained below. The products produced by each of the business are similar to each other; hence, this gives the sellers and buyers the full liberty of joining or leaving the organization options.... The products produced by each of the business are similar to each other; hence, this gives the sellers and buyers the full liberty of joining or leaving the organization. In addition, the buyers and sellers are aware of the prices and technology in use despite the product being produced by a number of companies. Practically, perfect competition does not exist but only forms a benchmark used in the analysis of the real world market structures. The equalization of price and marginal cost through the exchange of quantity goods contributes to efficient allocation of resources (O'Connor, 2004). Monopoly Market Structure Monopoly market structure has a single seller and competitor, who control the supply side of the market. The product sold is unique with no similar substitutes. The demand of the monopoly product translates directly to the market demand hence the need of government regulation because of the insufficiency on market selling side. Monopolistic Competition The feature that dis tinguishes monopolistic market structure from others is the fact that it has a large number of relatively small competitors with each having a modest degree to control the market on the supply side. The products in the market are close for each firm but are not identical in terms of the production technology involved. Consequently, this structure diversifies the needs of the consumer. Oligopoly Market Structure A small number of comparatively large competitors with each having a considerable market control characterize the oligopoly market structure. Sellers under oligopoly have interdependent decision-making leading to high competition, which necessities the cooperation through collusion and mergers. The

Experimental rig Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Experimental rig - Article Example The water flow duct is rectangular in shape and has the size 3500mm long by 1000mm wide and a depth of 1500 mm with a tank that has a capacity of 70 liters. The closed loop system is designed to hold water and the rectangular supply tank is connected to a centrifugal pump. Water is pumped by the centrifugal pump, from the supply tank, into the PVC pipes with 2 inches size, then through the transparent channel and into the supply tank again. The centrifugal pump is a two stage self-priming type and it has the capability to drive the water from the tank. The rectangular channel of the experimental rig has been designed and fabricated in such a manner that there are four transparent polycarbonate plates with dimensions ( which have been used to fabricate the channel. Acrylic was selected for fabrication of all sections of the channel, due to strength and transparency in addition to acrylic welding are soften the plate surfaces so they merge, and the molecules between the two pieces become one which gave much more strength to the channel and prevent leakages. Four pressure tabs are placed at the bottom surface of the channel used for the measurement of pressure drop. These tabs made the test sections where placed after two sections of in order to get full turbulence flow. The pressure drop of the rig has been taken for section. The experimental rig has a flow duct made from 2’’ PVC piping across the system. It has a plate cover that is 120 mm wide by 120mm height by 2000 mm long. This cover plate is made from polycarbonate material. The flow duct also has six 2’’ ball valves that are strategically located at the points of entry and exit of the water and are primarily to regulate the flow of water. The rig system is supplied with 240 volts of alternating current and in this regard, the experimental rig has 2’’ female sockets.

Compare and contrast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Compare and contrast - Essay Example Programming is a diverse world of symbols and logic where emotions and people stand aside. The addiction of virtual world and the attachment and detachment from the real world, has resonance in it. On the other hand Bill in his book, â€Å"Why the future doesn’t need us†, shares his apprehensions regarding the advancements in nanotechnology, genetics and robotics technology. He significantly talks about the upper hand technology has on human’s capability and the rapid success and progression in nanotechnology which could be used more destructively than constructively. Bill shared his opinion about the ethical issues stirred up due to genetic technology and hence public has condemned about it as well. His apprehensions further lead to NBC era when literacy of GPR technology would be enough to produce mass destructive weapons even with low resources. Thus, it would increase incurable diseases, with lack of work and exercise for humans which in turn would empower technology over human

Information security legislation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4750 words

Information security legislation - Essay Example Never the less, times have changed and the recent past has seen a lot of regulations and legislation which impacts information security. Some of these legislations are the European Data Protection Directive, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Capital Adequacy Directive, just to mention but a few. In the event of these new compliance rules organization are being forced to resort a range of codes and standards to control their information systems. (Purtell, 2007) Information security is an organization problem, and not a technologically one. With increasing spotlight on information security in legislation and the media all over the world, companies are being faced with a complex need to conform to privacy and security regulations and standards. This is making information security issues to be discussed in the boardrooms and many executives and directors becoming aware of their responsibility in ensuring information security in an organization. Information security is driven by; The knowledge of issues and challenges being faced in information security currently has increased. Through, the government, the media, crimes, cyber attacks and proliferation of products that are vulnerable, information security has continued to receive more attention (Purtell, 2007) Through successful attacks for example code red and Nimrod, companies are realizing that security technology product is not the overall solution to information security. Information security is an organization problem and technology is only but a small element in the organization. (Purtell, 2007) Companies are facing complex needs and requirements to conform to numerous regulation/standards. Even those vertical organizations such as financial services organizations, complication to adhere to security measures brought about by different regulations, for example the US Gramm-Leach Biley Act, 1999 (GLBA),

Human Elements In Administration Essay Example for Free

Human Elements In Administration Essay People are the most important element in an organization whether it’s a business enterprise, a school, an army or hospital. School administrator and supervisors must be prepared to deal effectively with the people involved because they have the most difficulty in understanding and dealing with the human elements of administration. The administrator must understand certain fundamental concepts of motivation. He must have an insight into the nature of authority and influence. And most of all, he must have the ability to analyze specific problems and to carry out his intentions successfully. Technical skills, administrative skills and human skills are the three kinds of skills a successful administrator must possess. * Technical Skills – pertains to methods, techniques and processes. * Administrative Skills – ability to see the organization as an entity and the interrelationship of its various parts * Human Skills – refers to the ways of dealing effectively with people. 3 Distinct elements: *Skill in understanding the basic human forces active in the organization. *Skill in analyzing complex human situations. *Skill in implementing a plan of action. It is said that man is a wanting animal. As soon as one of his needs is satisfied, another appears in its place. Man’s needs are organized in a series of levels or a hierarchy of importance according to the theory of Maslow. Psychological needs to be alive and to stay alive. Safety needs to feel safe from accidents or pain, from competition or threat. of his behaviour. Ego needs relate to one’s self – esteem and one’s reputation. Self – fulfilment needs for continued self – development, for realizing one’s own potentialities. Understanding basic needs of an individual is important for the administrators and supervisors because deprivation of those needs has behavioural consequences on the part of one’s individual. It is also important to understand because of the fact that an individual whose lower level needs are satisfied, he is not any longer motivated to satisfy his psychological and safety needs. Rather, he shifts towards the satisfaction of the other needs in the hierarchy. Unless there are opportunities at work to satisfy these needs, the individual is deprived and his consent behaviour will reflect the deprivation. A New Theory of Management Proposition on the theory of new management’s task by McGregor harnessing human energy to organizational requirements are stated as follows: 1. Management is responsible for organizing the elements of productive enterprise – money, materials, equipment and people – in the interest of economic needs 2 A process of directing peoples efforts, motivating, controlling their actions and modifying their behaviour to fit the needs of the organization 3. It is the responsibility of the management to recognize and develop the individual’s potential for development, his capacity for assuming responsibility, his readiness to direct behaviour toward organizational goals. 4. The essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of operation in order to achieved desired goals and objectives. New theory of management relies on self – control and self – direction; it treats people as a matured adults and it is management by objectives, Advantages 1. it does not involve the relinquishing of leadership, the abdication of management or the lowering of standards 2 it is a process of creating opportunities, encouraging growth, releasing potential, removing obstacles and providing guidance Some applications of the new theory: 1. Decentralization and Delegation – freeing people from too close control of conventional organization. 2. Job Enlargement – encourages the acceptance of responsibility at the bottom of the organization. 3. Participation and Consultative Management – people are encouraged to direct their own creative energies towards organizational objectives and giving them some voice in decisions. 4. Performance Appraisal – individuals are involved in in setting targets and objectives for himself and in a self evaluation of performance semi – annually or annually. Close supervision tends to be associated with high productivity, general supervision with high productivity. The importance of supervising subordinates as a group are as follows: a.) discuss work problems with the group, b.) group performs well even when the supervisor is absent, c.) foster teamwork and group loyalty and d.) involves group participation in making decisions. THE ADMINISTRATOR OF SCHOOL FINANCING The welfare of the state depends largely upon the education of its citizens. Filipino people recognized the importance of sending children to school whenever and wherever possible. Our leaders and framers of Constitution see to it that the Magna Carta contains a provison that the state should establish and maintain a complete and adequate system of education and provide at least free primary for all education of school age. Since school population keeps on growing and the salaries of the teachers are keep on increasing, more and more funds are needed. However, present financial capability becomes inadequate and need to augment financial resources to keep up with increasing educational needs. In general, the sources for government income for education are the following: 1. Taxes imposed by law for the support of the government such as the real – property tax, specific tax, and import and export taxes. 2. Tuition fees imposed on students in public high schools, vocational schools, regional normal schools, and chartered colleges and universities. 3. Matriculation fees collected from public secondary school students, vocational schools, and chartered colleges and universities. There were also a matriculation fee charged in the intermediate grades but the fee was abolished by R. A. 4092 effective the school year 1964 – 1965. 4. Rental for lease of school sites and sales of schools products. 5. Land grants and donations. 6. Voluntary contributions. 7. Special fees such as miscellaneous fees charged from college students for entrance, registration, library, athletics, and laboratory, medical and dental clinics, school paper, diplomas, graduations and R.O.T.C. Support for Elementary Education The Educational Act of 1940 which nationalized the support of all elementary schools in municipalities and municipal districts saved the situation for the poor communities. The Educational Act of 1940 forbids the collection of tuition fees in the intermediate grades although it permits the matriculation fees in an amount to be determined by the President not exceeding two pesos for each pupil enrolled in the intermediate grades in municipalities and municipal district. The proceeds from this matriculation fee accrue to the fund of the National Government to purchase of library books and equipment and 40% for financing athletic activities in the intermediate grades. While the acquisition of school sites and construction of temporary school buildings remain the responsibility of the local governments. The law abolished the share of municipalities and municipal districts in the internal revenue collections, percentage taxes on the agricultural products and income tax. Support for Public Secondary Schools The financial support for the maintenance and operation of public secondary schools provided for by the provincial and city governments. Generally, the majority of provinces do not have adequate funds to support the schools properly. This deficiency in finances gives occasional difficulty in the payment of secondary teacher’s salary. The sources of provincial income are the following: 1. Internal revenue allotments from the national government. 2. Share from local taxes. 3. Fees from services rendered. 4. Income from miscellaneous receipts. Support for secondary schools 1. Tuition and matriculation fee levied by the Provincial Board on all high school students 2. Board uses parts of its general fund in case of shortage or the Board passes a resolution increasing the rate of tuition 3. Through the enactment of R. A. No. 3478, the National Government has been granting annual national aid to general provincial and municipal high schools beginning with the school year 1963 – 1964, primarily intended for salary adjustments of teachers and other secondary school personnel 4. Voluntary contributions and donations by private individuals and civic organizations Support of barrio experimental high school, the Bureau of Public Schools in its Memorandum No. 86, issued on August 1, 1966, states as follows: 1. The tuition fee to be charged should not be less than â‚ ±80.00 a year. 2. 50% of the 10% real estate tax proceeds allotted to barrios in accordance with the revised Barrio Charter should be set aside and used solely for the improvement of instruction in the barrio high schools. No amount accruing from this fund should be spent for salaries of teachers and other school personnel. 3. All feeder barrios should share the expenses for the improvement of instruction, the share of each to be proportionate to the number of students from the feeder barrios attending barrio high school. 4. All resolutions of the barrio councils regarding the funding of barrio high schools should be approved by the Municipal Council concerned. Support of Public Schools in Chartered Cities 1. Tuition fees and city funds   2. National Government allots lump sums as aid to cities for their educational needs. 3. National aid for salary adjustments of teachers and other secondary school personnel. The law was amended by R.A. No. 4128so as to include all city high schools except Manila and Quezon City. Support of Vocational Schools Vocational schools usually come under two categories – the provincial trade school and the provincial agricultural school. The source of income comes from the national contribution, tuition and other fees and income from school products. The so – called rural high schools which are agricultural in nature are jointly supported by the provinces and municipalities and the National Government. Support of Normal Schools Regional normal schools are also national like the vocational schools. There are still seven regional normal schools located in strategic places in the country serving the needs of the students in the surrounding places. Sources of income of these schools are national contribution and tuition fees. The city or municipality where they are located may also appropriate funds for the normal training department. Support of Special Schools The Philippine Nautical School located in Pasay is supported entirely by the National Government which offers courses for employment as merchant marine officers. The School for the Deaf and Blind under the Bureau of Public Schools is supported by the government with occasionally aid from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes. Support of Chartered Government Colleges and Universities The support of chartered government institutions like University of the Philippines comes from the tuition and matriculation fees of students and comes from national funds appropriately annually by Congress. Special aids for the construction, repair and improvement of the buildings are given in special legislation or taken from the pork barrel fund. The tendency of the request by these institutions is to increase every year. Thus, the burden of the National Treasury for the support of these schools keeps on increasing. Other Agencies in helping the Financing of Public Schools A number of foreign agencies give some material aid to the schools aside from the National Government. Among these agencies are the following: * AID – NEC – provided in 1966 appropriations for buildings including the constructions of dormitories and also for typewriters, mimeographing machines and professional books for the Bureau of Public Schools. * UNICEF – gave aid in kind such as educational kits, globes, tape recorders, laboratory equipments and vehicles. * The American Foundation for Overseas Blind – donated Braille type writers, paper headsets, etc. * The Pilot Applied Nutrition Project (Bayaribang) – is a joint venture of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). These entities gave help in the form of technical services, training stipends, vehicles for supervision and various types of supplies and equipments for kitchen, laboratory and agricultural uses. * The Agency for International Development (AID), National Economic Council (NEC), and the Bureau of Public Schools (BPS) – jointly undertook a textbook production project which started on July 1, 1960 and terminated on June 30, 1965 to help solve the problem of lack of textbooks. The project was expected to print and distribute around 25 million of copies of textbooks within a 5-year period at an estimated cost about â‚ ±59.5 million. Support for Private Schools All private schools, colleges and universities derive their income mostly from tuition fees and miscellaneous fees from students. There is no law prescribing the maximum rate of tuition fees so there is no uniformity and limit in the tuition fees being charged by private schools. Quality schools with good standards among the religious institutions charge relatively higher rates than the ordinary schools. Some of the religious schools are partly supported from their properties. Some non-sectarian schools operating specially for profit charged comparatively lower tuition fees and even permit their students to pay on easy instalments to attract as many students as possible.

Stakeholders Involved And Related Ethical Issues Information Technology Essay

Stakeholders Involved And Related Ethical Issues Information Technology Essay We also had on a local well known blog attacks and insults of a ferocity which would never have been gratuitously made in a face to face situation. We tend to feel more unconstrained on the net and often seem to revel in the support which fellow bloggers of the same thoughts tend to give us in an immediate thread response. Examine this situation in the context of the assignment specification especially from the defamation and virtual privacy invasion point of view. Introduction Unethical behavior over the internet is becoming more common. Ranging from private discrete stalking termed cyber-stalking to public defamation, it is becoming increasingly imperative to analyze the ethical issues at stake in these situations. For a personal gain, the stalker makes use of the internet to harass and defame his victim by publicly posting private sensitive information about his victim or spreading false rumors. Facts about Online Stalking Due to the spreading of the Internet across all institutions worldwide, it has become much easier for stalking to take place. Every person probably has personal data available on the Internet, either being on a personal web page or profile; or else being available to search for in government, institutes and organizations databases. Online stalking is much easier than traditional physical stalking due to various reasons: The person being stalked would probably not be aware of such a fact until the stalker initiates contact with the victim Cyber stalking can be done from the comfort of the stalkers home, or from anonymous locations such as a public internet cafà © or an office environment (1). The most crucial fact is that it is done remotely and not by confronting the actual victim. The ferocity and malicious intent would probably be greater as the aggressor feels more unconstrained on the net than in a face to face confrontation. Several online technologies can be used to stalk online (cyber-stalking). For a stalker to research about the victim, traditional search engine as well as profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can be used. To make direct contact with the victim, the stalker may make use of Instant Messaging (IM) services, online forums, and chat rooms. Alternatively the stalker may try to elicit a response from the victim by using techniques such as publishing defamatory statements about the victim in public places such as a web site, message boards, or a fake blog run in the victims name (2). Cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying is much more aggressive than if done face to face. The term cyber-bullying is more commonly associated when teenagers are involved in stalking and bullying online, while cyber-stalking is used for stalking involving adults. Dr. Bamford in (3) explains that the anonymity of the stalker greatly reduces traditional social and contextual attitudes such as tone of voice used and relevant body language. Anonymity can be achieved either by submitting comments in public places such as forums without an ID to trace back to the poster, or else using an alias with the aim of masking the aggressors identity. Without these attitudes, social norms and constraints are neglected, and further like-minded people might participate with the stalker in harassing the victim. Anonymity can also be easily achieved by using an anonymous remailer service (4). This would be specialized software aiming to achieve anonymity in the sending of emails. It strips the originating address from an email message and forwards it to its intended destination. All header information that might be used to track the sender is removed. According to U.S. statistics in 2007 (5), the majority of stalking victims are female at 78%. On the other hand, the majority of stalkers are male at 87%. Victims of stalking can range from a single person to whole organizations. A previous failed relationship can be a motivator for harassing a single person for emotional gain, while possible financial gain is a motivator for harassing groups or an organization. It is to the stalkers advantage however if the victim is singled out, making stalking on a single person more common than harassing a group of people. The main motives of stalking, as identified in (1), are: Stalking an ex-partner of a sexual relationship even after the relationship comes to an end. This can be due to a certain party not willing to accept that the relationship is over. Stalking however also takes place during a relationship. In a research by Tjaden and Thoennes in (6), it was concluded that nearly 60% of females are stalked by their male partner, while 30% of males are stalked by their female partner. Stalking with the aim of vengeance on the victim. This type is the most dangerous as the stalker is probably premeditating a violent attack on the victim due to a previous grudge. It is to be noted that the majority of this type of stalker are male. Stalking due to mental illnesses, ranging from delusional stalkers suffering from depressions to harasser stalkers suffering from a certain attention-seeking personality disorder. After obtaining the necessary vital information, in most cases the stalker exposes it publicly to defame his victim. Such public places include chat rooms and more commonly community areas such as online profiles and forums. The stalker may assume the identity of the victim by posting inflammatory and probably fictitious information in the name of the victim to elicit a response from the community (5). This type of action, termed Masquerading, is discussed later on. There are several defamatory actions that are viewed as illegal and prosecuted, some of which, as mentioned in (4), include the sending of malicious and threatening private messages over the Internet to the intended victim, libel at the intended victim, as well as the publication of messages in public places such as on a web site that show malicious intent to commit acts of hate-motivated violence. Cyber bullying is common in adolescent teens. In a survey carried out in (7), it was reported that 43% of U.S. teens have experienced some form of cyber-bullying in the previous year. This may be due to a lack of knowledge about the reason and the ways to protect private information. The internet and virtual communication environments in general, provide a perfect medium for a cyber bully to defame the victim constantly, even after school hours. In June 2003, a twelve-year old Japanese girl ended up killing her classmate after the latter defamed her on the Internet by the posting of certain messages (3). An example of group bullying is what happened to Canadian boy David Knight (3), who was a victim of a hate campaign when school mates built an online web site entitled Hate David Knight. The website contained defamatory pictures and abuse towards the victim. The group also encouraged the global online community to join their hate campaign. Another form of cyber attacks that is common amongst teens is Masquerading (3). This term refers to either when the stalker/attacker poses as somebody else who is close to the victim, or as the victim itself. In the first case, one can make use of the victims closest friend mobile phone to send harassing messages in the name of the friend, for example. In this way, the harasser remains anonymous while at the same time confusing the victim. In the second form of Masquerading, the stalker may obtain the victims login details for personal places such as personal blog, webpage or Facebook profile. This exchange of passwords amongst teens is very common, as it is considered a sign of true friendship and trust (3). The stalker would then proceed to defame the victim by posing as the victim himself/herself, producing a creditable and real scenario for fellow online friends to witness. Suicides due to Cyber-Stalking and Cyber-Bullying The effects of cyber-stalking on the victim can be quite damaging. We analyze two such cases where victims ended up committing suicide after being stalked or harassed over the Internet. The first case is the suicide of Megan Meier, a thirteen-year-old teenager that committed suicide on 17th October 2006 after being cyber-bullied on MySpace, a popular social networking website (8). A fake profile was set up on MySpace in the name of a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans who wanted to befriend Megan. On the day of the suicide, Megan and Josh had an argument online. Some other participants also joined in and in no time, there were messages and bulletins being sent to friends and schoolmates containing false accusations about Megan about her physique and sexual tendencies. This led to Megans suicide. From this case we can see how dangerous such a situation can be over the Internet, where like-minded people join with the stalker and behave unethically and inappropriately to the detriment of the victim. The second suicide case took place in Abu Dhabi when Emma Jones, a British teacher killed herself (9) after being defamed on the social networking site Facebook. The responsible harasser was her ex-boyfriend, who posted naked photos of Emma on Facebook. Allegedly he had obtained the photos illegally from Emmas computer. This public defamation coupled with the fact that she was working in an Islamic country that is very restrictive on such issues contributed to Emmas suicide. Stakeholders Involved and Related Ethical Issues At first glance, the stakeholders in cyber-stalking are mainly the stalker and the victim. However, it may not always be that clear to identify all stakeholders. The victims near family can become a stakeholder due to the victims possible actions, such as suicide, after being the victim of a privacy invasion or of public defamation. The controlling authorities of mediums that aided the stalker in retrieving sensitive information about the victim are also stakeholders. This however cannot be stated conclusively as legislations vary across various jurisdictions. In a certain jurisdiction, an action may be considered legal while in others it may not. In a case study of internet stalking (10), a twenty-year old girl named Amy Boyer from New Hampshire was murdered in October 1999. The murderer, Liam Youens, used to stalk her on the internet by searching for her personal information. Using search engine tools that are readily available to everyone, he was able to go through online databases and learn where his victim lived, worked and other personal details. He then set up two web sites, one of which publicly exposed all of Amys private details he managed to get hold of. On the other site he explicitly described his plan of murdering Amy. In this case, Amys immediate family members are stakeholders as they have to suffer her loss. The involvement of organizational entities as potential stakeholders is subject to ethical dilemmas. For example, the ISPs hosting the web sites might have a responsibility of monitoring the contents it hosts to avoid such cases. Also, the users reading the web sites might have an ethical obligation of informing the relevant authorities and assist the victims. We can therefore conclude that it is not always a clear-cut answer when identifying the involved stakeholders. They vary according to the case as well as what we judge as ethically right or wrong. In the case where the stalker is still an adolescent, the parents and teachers are also stakeholders as they are responsible for the development and education of the person in question. When they however see the deficiencies of laws and technology to deal with such issues, they realize they are quite powerless to avoid such a situation. As regards laws related to cyber-bullying, they are ambiguous and poorly put into practice (3). One reason for this is the lack of technical expertise and resources on the parts of the authorities such as the police, which would make it difficult to actually enforce the laws. The authorities would not have a clear understanding of a certain situation if necessary education and training has not been provided beforehand to deal with such situations. If we are to ethically analyze the shareholders in various situations concerning the internet, we first have to know who supposedly is in control of a situation and who has to take responsibility (11). Internet infrastructure companies such as Cisco and Oracle are considered as shareholders by some as they provide the internet network. However although these companies may provide the backbone structure, they would have limited interest in the content on their infrastructure. One can direct the blame on the ISPs, however these host limited content. Most newsgroups and chat rooms are nowadays hosted independently not by ISPs, and are not always easy to trace. It can be argued that a paradigm shift of Internet content has occurred from locally to globally (11). Whereas previously we had specialist ISPs hosting and providing all the content, we moved on to an era where the content is provided by the general end users. Examples of this are personal blogs and Twitter feeds. ISPs cannot be relieved of all the blame though. Even though one cannot expect them to pre-check content posted by their users, they should be willingly able to help should they receive a complaint or notification about particular content they are hosting or malicious users making use of their ISP services. Roger Darlington in (11) suggests that we first should understand what the word ethics means and represents in the context of the Internet before we can conclude who is a stakeholder or not. To have a better understanding of who is responsible for what on the Internet, he suggests that: We should accept that the Internet is not a value-free zone. We should act in a civilized manner as in the end it is us (the end users) who shape the Internet when providing content and services. Our actions on the Internet should be consistent with what we do in the real life. We should comply with laws when making use of the Internet in the same way as we do practically. The author suggests that we do not invent a new set of laws and values for the Internet; instead we apply the laws we are used to in the physical world for issues including discrimination, pornography and copyrights to name a few. We should be aware that the Internet is used by people from different cultures, religions and ethnicity. Where possible we should thus try to accommodate as much of the Internet society as possible. We should be responsive and accept feedback from the Internet user community. Ethical Issues One should make a discrepancy between what is legal and what is ethical. An action might be considered legal yet unethical. There is no law stopping a divorced man from setting up an online profile pretending to be a middle-aged woman who wants to befriend his ex-wife. Most people however would consider this behavior unethical. Although ethics are only moral guidelines and are not imposed on us like law is, they are more worldwide in judging if an action is right or wrong. As we already mentioned, various jurisdictions have inconsistent laws about similar issues concerning private information. In some countries, it may be legal to accumulate personal data on its citizens and store them in a public repository, while this practice might be illegal in other countries wishing to protect the citizens privacy. Ethical dilemmas arise in such a case. A stalker citizen living in a country that protects privacy can use a paid service that operates in a country where there is no privacy protection to obtain information about his victim that lives in the stalkers country. The service is not illegal as it operates from a different country, however such action borders on whether it is ethical or not. It is difficult to deal with such ethical issues due to a lack of technological understanding from certain authority parties. Political parties demanding that there should be more control on hosted content such as newsgroups and chat rooms would most of the time have limited knowledge about how these are hosted. Also they ignore the fact that it is a near impossible scenario to monitor and control all the information exchange that takes place. Even when laws are not in place, a responsible party such as a web hosting company should have a moral responsibility to control the content it hosts. For example, if a company hosts a web site about how to make or detonate a bomb, it should not walk away claiming to not be responsible if such information is made use of by members of the public for malicious purposes. Roger Darlington in (11) proposes some useful solutions to prevent ethical problems on the internet such as cyber stalking and cyber bullying. Laws should be modernized to reflect changing times and to make them in context with the use of the Internet. They should take into account new crimes that are not possible in the physical world such as grooming of under-age girls in chat rooms as well as cyber stalking to name a few. Such actions should be punished by crime fighters who are specifically technically trained for such high tech situations. These fighters should possess all necessary resources to tackle such cyber criminals. As already mentioned, most of cyber stalking and bullying takes place in open online communities, where the harasser can defame and expose his victim in front of a large audience. Due to this fact, these spectators witnessing such unethical behavior should be morally obliged to take action and help the victim. In the United Kingdom, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) runs a hotline where Internet users can confidentially report such criminal behavior or contents. These foundations would be equipped with knowledge and techniques how to deal with such situations by judging the legality of the cases and identifying the culprits. If the content is deemed illegal and is hosted within the foundations jurisdiction area, they can issue a notice to the relevant ISP hosting the material to take action by removing the content (11). Maltese Law In 2002, the Data Protection Act (12) was amended in Malta to protect private data from getting into the hands of cyber-stalkers, cyber-bullies, harassers, and all those with a malicious intent to defame or invade the privacy of a victim. The document contains a number of clause articles that help protect private data. The seventh Article ensures that when data is processed, it is processed fairly and lawfully. The data collected should be specific and used for explicitly stated legitimate purposes. This clause protects the subject from revealing more data than is necessary or required. Article nine of the document clearly states that the subject must give consent before such data provided can be processed. The subject also has the right to revoke his/her consent to sensitive data processing providing legitimate grounds for the revocation. This is specified in Article 11. Cyber-stalkers wishing to learn personal information about a subject can illegitimately pose as a third-party company that makes use of this sensitive data for marketing purposes. Article 10 of the Data Protection Act specifically protects the subject from such third-parties by having the choice not to disclose his information with such parties. Article twelve focuses specifically on Sensitive Personal Data, and states that the processing of sensitive data can only take place if the subject gives consent or else has made this sensitive data public. This latter case is one which stalkers profit from, as they make use of already publicized data to defame an individual without any needed consent from the subject in question. They would not have obtained the information illegally as it would be publicly available, for example on the victims Facebook profile. One can easily view pictures of the victim and read personal information such as locality and workplace if the victim has not adjusted his/her privacy settings accordingly. Only in extreme cases, such as if a subject is being investigated or is an issue for national security, public security or the defense should secrecy restrictions be temporarily lifted. This is stated in Article 23. The Data Protection Act also prevents third parties with possible malicious intentions from processing and accessing personal data. In fact, Article 25 specifies which persons are authorized to process data. In the previous section, we discussed whether it is ethical if a stalker citizen living in a country that protects privacy can use a paid service that operates in a country where there is no privacy protection to obtain information about his victim that lives in the stalkers country. Article 27 deals specifically with such a case, whereby the transfer of sensitive data to a third country is subject to it having adequate levels of protection for this data. So if this third country does not protect the data as resiliently as the citizens country, then the third country would have no right in requesting for such information. Ethical Analysis: Consequentialist Theory A consequentialist ethical theory is a theory that focuses on the overall general consequences arising from an action. This type of ethical theory judges the rightness or wrongness of an action by analyzing the consequences of such an action. In fact it can be defined as a general normative theory that bases the moral evaluation of acts, rules, institutions, etc. solely on the goodness of their consequences, where the standard of goodness employed is a standard of non-moral goodness. (13) Utilitarianism is an example of a consequentialist ethical theory. In Utilitarianism, an action is considered ethically right if it results in the best consequences. Jeremy Bentham, an ancient philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism, defines a right action as that action is best that produces the greatest good for the greatest number (14).   However it is not always clear how a quantitative measurement of right or wrong due to an action can be defined. Also it is difficult to compare utilities as they are subject to individual interpretations. One can argue that harm done to a man and a tree should be treated equally as bad, while others argue that harm done to a human is more wrong than harming a tree. The utilitarian theory does not state that no wrong consequences can result from an action. It is only concerned with the greater good, so if a small minority of people suffers great harm while the vast majority enjoys a small benefit, the overall action is considered as ethically right. Apart from being concerned with the consequences from an action, Utilitarianism can also be applied to laws and rules. This type, called Rule Utilitarianism is concerned with the consequences from a rule. A rule is considered good if it satisfies the majority of the people. Applying this ethical theory to the concept of cyber-stalking and harassment over the Internet, we must decide if an action is morally right or wrong by analyzing the consequences it has on the respective shareholders. The amendment and enforcement of legislation against cyber-stalking is ethically right in a consequentialist view. It harms the minority that go against it, however the majority of the Internet society benefit from having a safer environment. The same argument can be applied to the already-mentioned ethical issue about whether ISPs should monitor the contents they host and act if a complaint is received. By controlling the content they host, ISPs would be punishing those who post malicious messages or information by banning them from posting for example. The greater good is ensured though, as the Internet society as well as the potential victims of such harassers would have a safer future experience on the Internet. Ethical Analysis: Duty Theory A duty ethical theory, or Deontology, is rather different from Consequentialism. In Deontology, an action is right if it satisfies a principle or moral rule, without any concern for the overall consequences. It is the acts that determine if something is ethically right or wrong, not the consequences as in Consequentialism. Morality is determined according to rationally recognizing ones duties towards others (15). Same as in Consequentialism, Deontology can also be branched into two types: a set of ethical theories concerning actions and another set concerning the rules (15). Both sets of ethical theories however state that the good comes from our own ability to carry out our moral obligations. Kantianism, or Kantian Ethics, is an example of a deontological ethical theory which falls under the deontological set of theories concerning rules. Kant states that for one to act morally right, he needs to act according to his duty, which must be good in itself. The motives of the action ultimately determine if an action is ethically right or wrong. In cyber-stalking, the stakeholders must act according to what their duty is. Taking the ISP ethical issue, the ISP must always seek to satisfy and protect his clients, providing that what they are posting on the Internet is morally correct. We discussed many cases where the stalker or harasser hides behind anonymity to attack the victim. It is the duty of the stalker to respect the victim over the Internet and act in a consistent way as he would when face-to-face with the victim. Failing to do so will result in unethical behavior according to Kantianism. All stakeholders must perform their duty to behave ethically correct. We shall take into example the already discussed case where a citizen makes use of a detective service operating in a third country to discover information about another person living in his country. Law makers and law enforcers in both countries should act ethically and perform their duty in protecting their citizens, by amending specific laws which protect a persons privacy even online. In this scenario, it would become illegal to obtain such information using this service, thus it will be the citizen requesting information who is behaving unethically. In the Amy Boyer case, the general public who read the websites set up by Liam Youens had the duty to inform the relevant authorities such as the ISP hosting the websites. According to the Kantianism view, the complaint by these users to the relevant authorities is the correct ethical action to perform. Conclusion Cyber-stalking and online harassment is a major issue that is ever increasing as more people make use of online facilities to disclose private information. Whether disclosing the data involuntary, by filling forms with sensitive data that ends up being shared with third-parties, or voluntary by posting it on personal profiles such as Facebook and MySpace, it is becoming increasingly likely and easier to stalk a person by obtaining all necessary personal information. Such stalking often has devastating effects on the victim. We discussed several cases where acts of stalking or defamation over the Internet ended up with the victim committing suicide. In most cases, this would be because of the public humiliation suffered by the victim when the harasser and similarly-minded people behave unethically over the Internet. We showed that such people feel more unconstrained when attacking from a safe and anonymous environment than when facing the victim in the physical world. Legislations need to be devised to minimize such cases as much as possible. Locally, the Data Protection Act is one such legal document that protects sensitive data of the citizens. The problem however lies with inconsistencies between various jurisdictions in accepting and implementing such legislations. Only when a set of unambiguous and consistent rules is devised can all the relevant stakeholders in such cyber-stalking issues know what the right course of action to behave ethically is. To help us in our moral and ethical judgment and how we should act in cyber-stalking issues, we discussed and contrasted the two major theories of ethics of conduct: Consequentialism and Deontology. While Consequentialism states that the right action is the one that produces the most intrinsic good for the majority of the stakeholders, Deontology states that the right action is to perform ones duty in the circumstances. For both ethical theories, we focused on Utilitarianism and Kantianism respectively as a practical example. For each, we evaluated how the stakeholders should act when faced with the ethical issues and cases that were discussed.