LINCOLN — Sahra Niazi said she started getting threatening text messages shortly after breaking off a relationship in 2021.

They were terrifying, she told a state legislative committee Thursday, and the sender appeared to know her location.

“The fear is what’s next and that there’s no end in sight,” Niazi said, adding that she reached out to her lawyer for help.

“Do not let this person kill me,” she pleaded.

Niazi was among those testifying Thursday in support of a bill to make it illegal to use a tracking device or internet app on another person without their consent.

State Sen. Jen Day of Gretna, who introduced Legislative Bill 1224, said that Nebraska’s laws outlawing stalking haven’t kept up with technologies like Apple AirTag that can — as in Niazi’s case — be hidden on a vehicle and used to track someone’s movements without their knowledge.

Day called this form of stalking “invasive and grotesque.” But Douglas County prosecutors, she said, dropped charges against Niazi’s stalker because current state laws don’t specifically make such “digital stalking” illegal.

Day, who said she’s been a victim of sexual violence, urged the Judiciary Committee to advance her bill, which was patterned after a law passed in Ohio.

“We’re already behind the curve,” the senator said.

The Nebraska County Attorneys Association, Voices of Hope and the Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence all testified in support of LB 1224, saying it was necessary to protect victims of such harassment and possible violence.

“Tracking makes it harder to get away, and stay away,” from an abusive relationship, said Natalie Roberts-Day of Voices for Hope, which provides help for victims of domestic violence in Lincoln.

But a representative of the ACLU of Nebraska raised concerns.

Spike Eickholt, the ACLU’s lobbyist, said it was “problematic” to add another crime to Nebraska law with prisons and jails already full.

He questioned why current stalking laws don’t cover such tracking and, if they don’t, asked whether amending them would be the better solution.

Day responded that “opening up” state stalking laws would be a much larger undertaking. Such digital stalking, she added, can too easily be done by someone dropping an AirTag into someone’s purse at a bar.

The Judiciary Committee took no action on the proposal after the public hearing.

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