A 5 year jail stint for the next 10 idiots to pull this stunt will reduce the incident rate of this happening a lot faster.
EDIT: A well publicised message of "if you do this we will catch you" and a well publicised conviction would help though mostly regardless of the length of sentence. Very few people find going to jail at all an acceptable outcome.
Is doxxing actual harm, or merely the threat of actual harm?
(Not that it's not bad; not that it shouldn't be illegal; but it's not the same as assault)
Battery is the actual physical harm.
This is very common misunderstanding.
If there was, Norway would have a high crime rate and the US would have a low crime rate.
Simply mentioning that there are differences between those two countries does not make any difference you care to list a "factor".
You've suggested a remarkably short-sighted solution to a very thorny problem.
In any case, I think you're misunderstanding the nature of the problem. The danger of "doxxing" is that people get overwhelmed by a flood of negative attention from many different people. In most cases, none of the "harassing" individuals actually do enough individual harassment to make the action illegal. You can't go after the doxxer because releasing the information was completely legal, and you can't go after the mob because none of the individuals have done enough to constitute a crime.
You could certainly go after a guy who sends a knife; pretty sure just mailing a knife is illegal in most places.
The problem is not the mere repetition of publicly available information, but its strategic use to focus the anger of a crowd upon a relatively defenseless individual. That creates a dangerous power asymmetry with the explicit or implicit function of intimidation. It's not a big deal if people peacefully protest in front of the White House - the President and his family live there but there's a bunch of secret service people to keep him safe due to the nature of the office, same way there are police permanently stationed outside the official residence of the UK prime minister. If you're Joe or Jill Ordinary and a large crowd shows up on your physical doorstep, you have a serious problem.
Virtual harassment is not immediately threatening in the same way but it depends on how far it goes. If I write something controversial and make it public and get a storm of hate email in my inbox, that's annoying but not really worrying. But if I start also getting telephone calls or snail mail (or seeing such things quoted in emails) then it's quite a bit more worrying.
There's a limit to which people can control the amount of their personal data that becomes public. For example, I own a house which means I have to pay property taxes, and where I live property ownership is a matter of public record. So I was surprised after buying the home to suddenly receive a huge amount of junk mail from companies who obviously subscribe to lists of property tax payers. I can't take back that information. Should everyone be expected to set up a shell company in order to purchase real property and still maintain some privacy?
Personally, I prefer the European approach of the Data Protection Act that gives consumers a fair bit of legal leverage over how their personal information can be used commercially, as opposed to requiring people to engage in expensive obfuscatory security measures.
What does constitute enough harassment in your opinion?
You make it sound as though there's nothing to be done against this. But that is not the case, things change. Perhaps releasing personal information about another relating to doxing should be made illegal. It's not as if it's hard to distinguish between someone who's trying to dox another and legitimate sharing of information.
Yes, I have the right to threaten someone because it's free speech, but I should still be punished for doing it.
(i.e. I have the right to have a gun and use it to shoot someone, but I should still be punished for doing it)
You are allowed to have the gun that you might use for murder, because you might also use it to rebel against a corrupt government or in self-defense. You are allowed to use common channels of communication to make unlawful threats, because you could also use them to spread ideas unpopular to the ruling class. Only in the case where there is no possible constructive use or government-limiting use would the government be justified in engaging prior restraint.
As you might imagine, such a situation is exceedingly rare. A device designed to spread anthrax spores in an aerosol, for instance, has no peaceful purpose, and I would not consider it a legitimate check upon government power, as it would indiscriminately kill civilians as well as government agents. So you could be prosecuted just for having it, because it is presumed that it could not be used for any purpose that is not inherently criminal.
If there is any possibility that you might do something with innocent intent, the state has to wait until you do that thing with ill intent before punishing you for it. Now, there are a lot of laws and precedents that defy that principle, on a continuous spectrum from things I consider barely reasonable to things I consider to be completely unjust BS, so don't mistake any of this for real legal advice. What should be and what actually happens are often very different things.
OK Great. Originally I said the state should wait until you've stalked/harassed/intimidated someone, then punish you for it.
Why are you having a conversation about rights?
From what you just said, it has nothing to do with it.
Can it be a kitchen knife? I need a new chef's knife...mine is a little bent.
The utter inevitability of misuse and overuse of it. England has set a great example for why I never want that kind of speech enforcement here.
Copyright infringement comes with the potential for multi-million dollar fines, but that hasn't put much of a dent in it. Why would it be different here?