Exploring Federalism: State vs. Federal Power

The division of power between state and federal government is called federalism. Since the beginning of early America the conflict between a strong central government and state sovereignty is a current issue today. In addition, the conflict between states laws versus federal laws and which should be followed is one of many current issues as well.

The fears of a strong government lead to the idea of federalism to allow some state power according to the constitution under article IV, section three states are guaranteed a republic form of government and protection in exchange for some power (Barbour and Wright A-19) However, according to the constitution article VI, federal government law is the supreme law of the land known as the supremacy

However, one of the many negative effects of this growing technology is cyberstalking. Cyberstalking is a form of harassment that happens over email and other social networks. Naomi Harlin Goodno acritical, “Cyberstalking, a New Crime: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Current State and Federal Laws,” touches on cyberstalking and briefly on offline stalking. While a new crime cyberstalking and offline stalking has become a massive problem as stated by Goodno, “Legislatures recognized the need to stop stalkers before the stalking developed "into a more serious threat to a victim 's personal safety." Cyberstalking might even be worse than regular stalking because the harassment never stopes and in most cases it might even provoke a third party harassment. An example of this, is the case of a twenty-eight-year-old women being harassed by a fifty-year old man, whom used various internet chat rooms to impersonate her and giving out her personal information stating that she allegedly fantasized of being raped; thus leading to different occasions where different men knocked on her door saying they wanted to rape her (Goodno). According to Goodno, “…the Internet makes many of the frightening characteristics of offline stalking even more intense. It provides cyberstalkers with twenty-four-hour access, instantaneous connection, efficient and repetitious action, and anonymity.” Due to differences on cyberstalking and offline stalking it makes current laws somewhat inadequate to deal with the different aspects of cyberstalking