White House Official had Cyberstalker

The other day I put out a report looking for people to share their story about cyber-stalking. I received quite a bit of emails (so many it was clear that was a terrible epidemic online) and this one was so intriguing I asked her if I could share it and she agreed. I guess no ones safe when its even in the White House!

Hi Trisha,

In the 1990s I was a Special Assistant to the President in the Clinton White House.  Outside of work my passion was dancing tango.  For no reason I ever figured out, I suddenly began to receive odd emails at home.  Someone was subscribing me to job search sites, weird music sites, sites for men who like obese women, and others I no longer remember.  It was creepy and soon became evident that whoever was doing this knew where I lived.  I started to worry that I’d come home alone late some night and find a dangerous man on my front step, thinking I’d invited him there.

I worked closely with the US Secret Service, but it took me a while to tell them, since it wasn’t work related.  When I finally got sufficiently concerned, I did tell them.  They responded (thank God) that we couldn’t know if this was work related and they were very interested.  They brought in a cyber expert, who tracked down the source of the messages: a computer right down the hall from the Secretary of State!  A dozen people had access to that computer, and they brought me a list of names.  I immediately recognized one as a man I had barely met at some tango event.  We had never danced together, or even had a conversation.  I had no idea why he did this.  And just imagine – all this done on a computer at the highest level of the State Dept.!

Since we couldn’t prove he was the one, the Secret Service simply paid him a visit one evening, and, I’m pretty sure, scared the daylights out of him.  All the stalking stopped.  I know how very lucky I was to be working with people who could help me this way. If I hadn’t, I don’t think anyone would have done a thing.  Was it even a real crime?

Melinda Bates, former Special Assistant to the President in the Clinton White House and author, White House Story, a Democratic Memoir, www.WhiteHouseBook.com

When I emailed her back she said:

I don’t know the lesson from my story even now.  Apparently I’d met this person at least once, and I guess he got my email from the tango list in Washington DC that I belonged to.  I don’t know what I could have done to protect myself from this, and I’m quite sure it was only resolved because the Secret Service viewed it as a threat to a senior White House person.  If not for that, I’d have been on my own.

best,
Melinda