Tech-Enabled Abuse: When Those Meant to Protect Become Predators

Last Tuesday, I traveled to Washington, DC to join RAINN on Capitol Hill. A significant part of our mission was to increase legislative awareness of the effects of tech-enabled abuse. I am honored to have participated in this 2025 Congressional Day of Action, meeting with six senators’ staff to discuss this critical issue and its lasting effects.

What I didn’t anticipate was how this advocacy work would lead to disturbing new revelations about my own case.

The Federal Agent Who Used Government Tools for Abuse

My abuser, whom I refer to as “Fed,” was a special agent for the US Department of State. Due to the classified nature of his employment, many truths about my case have remained hidden from me for years.

During my Washington, DC visit, I learned something chilling: Fed used State Department-issued surveillance equipment to monitor his victims, including me, through our digital devices.

“Every device in the United States used for communications must possess an access point for CALEA activities.”

This led me to research the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which requires all US communication devices to contain access points for official surveillance. The same technology designed to protect citizens became a weapon in my abuser’s hands.

CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) Explained

CALEA is a United States federal law passed in 1994 that requires telecommunications carriers and manufacturers to ensure their equipment, facilities, and services have built-in capabilities to allow law enforcement to conduct electronic surveillance pursuant to court orders or other legal authorization.

Key aspects of CALEA:

1. Mandatory Access Points: Requires communication providers to build surveillance capabilities directly into their networks and devices.
2. Digital Wiretapping: Updated traditional wiretapping laws for the digital age, ensuring law enforcement could maintain surveillance capabilities as technology evolved.
3. Scope: Originally applied to telephone companies but has been expanded to cover broadband internet providers and VoIP services.
4. Implementation: Requires providers to be able to:
   
   • Isolate and intercept communications
   • Deliver intercepted communications to law enforcement
   • Carry out interceptions unobtrusively so targets aren’t aware
5. Limitations: Does not authorize surveillance itself—law enforcement must still obtain proper legal authorization through warrants or court orders.

CALEA remains controversial because while it aims to assist legitimate law enforcement activities, it creates built-in vulnerabilities in communication systems that could potentially be exploited by unauthorized parties, as illustrated in cases like the one you described where a federal agent allegedly misused these capabilities.

12 Years of Ongoing Abuse Despite a Conviction

For 12 years, I have endured tech-enabled abuse. Despite my offender’s conviction, I continue to experience harassment matching his methods—most recently just last month.

Now I’m confronting an uncomfortable reality: my government’s own tools, tactics and training have facilitated this abuse. This explains why investigators never seized or searched my offender’s technological arsenal.

The Corruption Runs Deep

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the recent confirmation that co-perpetrators in these crimes against me and dozens of other women were fellow law enforcement professionals.

I’ve long known that Fed uses the dark web to hire hackers, and even one-off stalking participants like the officer who conducted a 2-vehicle car chase on me in 2016, but I now understand that officers at multiple levels of authority:

• Engaged with my offender
• Accepted his trade-offs
• Willingly exploited databases and other official tools
• Helped him commit his crimes — including stalking and terrorizing of innocent women

It is one thing to suspect other officers engage with your offender in causing you harm. It is entirely different when this suspicion is confirmed as fact, along with new information about law enforcement assisting Fed in his broader illegal activities against civilians.

Not All, But Enough to Cause Harm

Let me be clear: I don’t speak out against law enforcement as a whole. I’m not so naïve as to believe all are corrupt. However, the corruption runs deeply enough to cause significant harm.

Fed’s negligence began with something seemingly small but telling: He had access to State Department vendor-printed business cards and ordered his own, falsely identifying him as a “Supervisory Special Agent,” though he was never promoted to that level. Fed remained at the non-supervisory “Special Agent” level throughout his 17-year career.

This misrepresentation is emblematic of a larger problem—he exploited every possible means to empower himself to commit crimes, made more dangerous by law enforcement personnel willing to bend to his wallet.

Beyond Individual Cases: A Systemic Problem

Tech-enabled abuse is an insidious danger to all of us—far beyond the sharing of non-consensual images online. It involves sophisticated surveillance, identity manipulation, and the weaponization of technology meant to keep us safe.

Even after experiencing tech-enabled abuse in every aspect of my life, including at the hands of multiple officers, I still don’t have all the answers. But I know this: we urgently need to establish laws that protect future tech users from becoming tech victims.

Where Do We Go From Here?

My advocacy work continues, fueled by both my personal experience and the disturbing systemic issues I’ve uncovered. I believe that by sharing these truths, we can begin the difficult work of creating meaningful change.

I invite you to join this conversation. Consider contacting your representatives about strengthening laws against tech-enabled abuse.

If you or someone you know is experiencing tech-enabled sexual abuse, also called image-based sexual assault, resources are available through RAINN.