Woman Indicted In MySpace Suicide Case

longacre writes "The Associated Press is reporting an indictment has been handed down in the sad case of Megan Meier, the girl who committed suicide after receiving upsetting MySpace messages from someone she perceived to be her boyfriend. It was later determined the boy, Josh Evans, was a fictitious identity created by a neighbor of Meier's family. Lori Drew, of a St. Louis suburb, has been charged with 'one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.' Interestingly, despite the alleged crime having occurred strictly in Missouri, the case was investigated by the FBI's St. Louis and Los Angeles field offices, and the trial will be held in Los Angeles, home of MySpace's servers. Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set."

Comments

"Emotional Distress"

[Reasonable Radical]

If you can get punished for inflicting emotional distress, I guess Vista really was illegal...

Back To Reality

[pipingguy]

I hate to come across as a "heartless" bastard, but jumping off a bridge (or the equivalent) due to some perceived online relationship failure just doesn't seem right.

Then again, maybe kids today are far too sensitive.

Re:Back To Reality

[TFer_Atvar]

You're not giving the whole picture.

This was an emotionally abused kid who, because of various problems, was unable to make friends at school. Haven't most Slashdotters been there? Then, she turns to someone online in search of companionship. That person, for months, is her best -- and only -- friend in all the world, commiserating with her, sharing her deepest, darkest fears, and generally being with her in a way that her parents (for all their good intentions) can't be.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it's all taken away. The friend is revealed to be someone malicious, someone manipulative enough to string out this child for months at a time before pulling the rug out from under her. She's now left alone, with no one to turn to. I've never (thank God) been that alone in my life, but reading her story makes me understand school shooters all the more. Eventually, she reached a point where the only thing left to do was escape -- permanently.

This isn't a suicide issue. It's an abuse issue. There would be no suicide in this case without the willful, malicious intent to construct a false friendship created by a knowing adult. There was no reason for it. This was murder, plain and simple. Who knows what Ms. Meier might have done with her life. She could've become a doctor, a pilot, or even a Slashdotter. But we'll never know.

Re:Back To Reality

[LordVader717]

Maybe, but a 49-year old woman should know better than to go for such an effort to harass, humiliate and insult a young girl who she knew had psychological problems. The fact that she tried to destroy the evidence is proof that she knew she was doing something very wrong.

Re:Back To Reality

[JosKarith]

I think that prosecuting this case in this way is shady at best, and liable to be used as a precedent for something that people here will be up in arms about.

Then again the woman in question _CANNOT_ be allowed to get away with what she's done. I'm sure that there is mental health legislation that can be used to put her out of circulation for a very long time. The fact that the prosecutors in the state where this happened decided that they couldn't chase this speaks more about their competance than anything else.
This woman deliberately waged a premeditated campaign of psychological violence against a vulnerable child that ended in her suicide and they think that there is no reasonable chance of successful prosecution? What rock did they find these incompetant idiots under...?

Re:Back To Reality

[Wavebreak]

Damn right it's murder. She might not have physically killed the kid, but she damn well helped. Just because the violence wasn't physical doesn't mean it wasn't violence.

Re:Back To Reality

[Ihlosi]

If an online friend screws you over, you move on. You don't kill yourself, simple as that.

Yes, because everyone has to behave like a robot, especially teenagers and people with psychological problems.

You might as well say "If you fall down, you stand up again.". Which works for everone who is healthy enough to get up on their own.

Re:Back To Reality

[Ihlosi]

Sorry if this offends your delicate sensibilities, but at the end of the day, Megan chose to end her own life.

You're again assuming that everyone makes choices like a robot and has a completely unclouded judgement and complete freedom of will all the time. Have you ever been experienced people slipping into clinical depression (and I don't mean feeling somewhat "blue" or "depressive", but the real thing) ? They're not acting like the person you've known anymore. Same goes for many other psychological disorders. Scrap the notion that the human brain is a perfect, computer-like decision-making machine all the time. It's not.

Re:Back To Reality

[PakProtector]

Maybe you should go look up the legal definition of murder. Last time I checked murder was "any willful act, knowingly undertaken, which causes the death of another person." You don't have to mean to kill someone with your actions. If you do something when you can reasonably infer that doing so would cause grievous bodily harm or death, and you do so anyway because you don't care, it's called depraved indifference. This woman deserves to go to jail for her actions. IN our society is is generally considered unacceptable to prey upon those weaker than us, be it mentally or physically. This woman may not have beaten the girl to death with a hammer, but her actions are just as criminally culpable as if she had. She killed this girl, and her weapon was MySpace.

You may not like it, but you can be charged with murder for driving someone to commit suicide if it's determined you did what you did on purpose. You need not have meant to kill them. Just as you can be charged with murder if you shoot someone and they die, even if you didn't mean to kill them. You intended to cause grievous bodily harm which then lead to death. This woman intended to cause grievous psychological harm which led to suicide.

Re:Back To Reality

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

When you have no friends offline, your online friends are all you have. And to find out that the one person who accepted you and never judged you now wants nothing to do with you? That's just too much for a 13 year old who was already shunned by everyone at school to deal with.

Re:Back To Reality

[ultranova]

If an online friend screws you over, you move on. You don't kill yourself, simple as that.

I don't kill myself. But the girl in question did. And, since the villain here was her next-door neighbour who apparently knew her quite well, it is reasonable to expect her to know that the reaction in this case might be quite extreme. In fact she propably knew it, for why else would she had spent months setting the whole thing up ? You don't spend that kind of time if you think that the subject of your malice is going to shrug her shoulders and move on.

Yes, we can all loathe the evil Lori Drew, and she very much deserves the shunning of her community. But to say she "murdered" Megan? get serious.

Yes, I think it's reasonable to say that she did indeed murder Megan. She deliberately set up as nasty and vicious blow as she could, and Megan died as a result of that.

We always have choices. Killing ourselves - or not - Always counts as a choice, one which Megan chose over "dealing".

Yes, a very logical and rational response. Now guess what depression and other mental problems do to your ability to be reasonable ? Especially since we are talking about a teenager; they are under their parent's guardianship precisely because they can't be trusted to act rationally at all times.

p>>Simply because an uninvolved outside observer can see things in context doesn't mean that a person caught in the middle of it can.

Re:Back To Reality

[stdarg]

Whoo finally someone who gets it. I also want to see her parents prosecuted since they no doubt contributed to the girl's sad life. And all of the jerks at her school who wouldn't be friends with her. And her teachers. And all neighbors within a 1/2 mile radius.

It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted.

Re:Back To Reality

[aurispector]

Sorry kid, but you have a lot to learn about life. The older you get, especially if you have kids of your own, the more you will understand how wrong you are about this. A child - and trust me, a 13 year old is still a child - doesn't have the emotional stability, strength of character or experience to rationally make the kind of "choice" you're talking about. The human brain continues to physically develop sometimes as late as age 25. I stroggly suspect that you are still developing, too.

A brain can do all sorts of bizarre things; thinking that suicide is a good idea is only one of them. Thinking that there is no value to human life is another. If you really do believe that the sanctity of human life is baseless, I can only feel sorry for you since it's the cornerstone of the family, society, civilization and the species.

Megan was deliberately manipulated by an adult. She was set up like a bowling pin. The person who CHOSE to do so knew what buttons to push so Megan would fall all the harder. I could do the same to a 13 year old by the same methods, but I CHOOSE not to do so, since not only do I value human life, but because I thoroughly understand and *respect* exactly how emotionally fragile a 13 year old can be. The basis of morality is understanding the difference between when you *can* do something and when you *should* do something.

What happened wasn't murder but there was deliberate intent to harm. It's an abuse case that deserves to be prosecuted because it ended in the child's death. All this is cut and dried. The really scary thing is the way it's being prosecuted.

Re:Back To Reality

[CastrTroy]

I was thinking more likely manslaughter. I think it would be hard to argue for murder when the two people in question had no physical connection. Did they even meet in meatspace? The again, either way it would set an interesting precident. Could bullies at a school be tried for murder if the subject ends up killing themselves. Certainly they are more at fault of a suicide than some person on the internet could ever be. If you don't like a relationship with someone on the internet, you could just not talk to them. If it's someone at school, it's hard to go a day without seeing that person.

Re:Back To Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again the woman in question _CANNOT_ be allowed to get away with what she's done.

Genuine question. Why not?

I was on the receiving end of a somewhat similar attempt to drive me to suicide when I was in my teens. It's far too long to explain on slashdot, but I had a middle-aged guy threatening and abusing me, while convincing others that my mental illness was making me delusional. (It wasn't, I'm a neurotic, not a psychotic.) I did much later find out that it was deliberate. After he died, one of his friends admitted to being a bit disturbed about "the time they made that freak off himself". (I aten't dead. But I did basically just walk out of the city and become homeless for a while.)

One thing I have carried with me ever since then is the utter certainty on the part of everyone who knew about it that he had no responsibility for what he did whatsoever. As long as the violence was mental, and not physical, all the responsibility was mine.

What I have carried away from that, is that the human race is a cold and savage race. I can count the number of friends I have on one hand without using binary. Only when I am alone am I safe.

Nonetheless, I have never been able to find any convincing argument why someone is responsible for the way another person reacts to their behaviour. Every argument I've ever presented as to why what was done to me might be wrong has been shot down.

So, on a personal level, I'd like to see one of these self-centered bitches face some consequences for what they've done. I just think that the only reason it's happening is because there was a media frenzy manipulating people into it, not because people believe there was anything inherently wrong with what she did.

Re:Back To Reality

[Sique]

You know, there is something called "emotional distress", which exactly describes the fact that someone is not able to look for help. And especially teenagers often have problems to go to their parents for help, because puberty is exactly the phase in life where you have to learn to get independent from your parents.

And a 13 year old girl is no adult. She is not fully able to make a concious decision between life and dead. That's something she has to learn first. You can even show with frontal lobe scans that people younger than ~20 years are not able to make those decisions conciously. (This is why trying teenager as adults for murder is quite questionable from a medical point of view. Teenagers are no adults, even when they get delinquent. Period.)

Re:Back To Reality

[JosKarith]

The worst thing is that you can't see what he's done to you. Mental abuse is abuse just as bad as physical - the scars may not be so obvious but they are there, and harm to the body fades a lot quicker than harm to the mind. His abuse of you has caused you to cut yourself off from an essential part of being human - our community.
Trust me, I know what I'm talking about - after suffering horrific bullying at high school I went through a phase for about 4 years where I withdrew to the point that the only people I talked to were my family and only them if they badgered me into actually interacting with them.

Re:Back To Reality

[SatanicPuppy]

I hate it when people pull that shit. "My childhood was so rough, no one else has any room to complain." My childhood was hilariously rough, I mean like a joke. You name, it I had it. Seen a parent killed in front of you? Check. Have an alcoholic parent? I had three counting various step parents. Broken home? See above. Physical abuse? I got shot by stepfather #2 when I was 13, and it didn't even seem that bad in comparison to some of the other stuff.

I didn't come out of that thinking everyone who didn't have it rough was a pussy. I've seen people completely ripped up by stuff that I saw so commonly it wouldn't have even registered.

Everyone takes things differently. Some people will fold under a hit that other people won't even notice. That's just a fact, and there's no special virtue in being the sort of asshole who can just shrug it off. In my own case it makes me extremely angry when someone goes out of their way to smash up someone who can't take it.

In this case there is no question that this girl was intentionally persecuted, and that that persecution lead to her death. Obviously she wasn't mentally tough, but that doesn't mean those who persecuted her deserve to get off.

Re:Back To Reality

[j_166]

"It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted."

And preferably burned to the ground, as an example to all the other villages.

Re:Back To Reality

[Laxitive]

I'm thinking a charge of manslaughter would be tenable as well. The persona she created was a weapon (whether it was physical or not, it was the instrument used to do the damage) she used against the girl. The question of intent, whether she consciously attempted to get the girl to commit suicide or not, is more muddled. The motive may have been just pure sociopathic glee she was deriving from torturing the girl.

It's clear enough to any reasonable person that there was a high risk of injury or death as the result of the woman's actions, and she should have known that. At the very least, her intentional recklessness led to the forseeable death of another person. That sounds like solid basis for a charge of manslaughter.

DISCLAIMER:
I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what I'm talking about)

Re:Back To Reality

[sabt-pestnu]

But if you committed suicide, would the bullies be guilty of murder? Is that the standard we want to set, legally?

If so, where do you draw that line? If Joe is caught two timing on Susan and Susan ODs on sleeping pills and alcohol? How about if Handsome Hal simply won't go out with Plain Jane?

On the other end of the scale, how about if your Pointy Haired Boss keeps telling you "this has to be done by Friday, you worthless sack of pus", and you work yourself to death (Karoshi)?

Similarly, non-physical spousal abuse?

At what point do you assign personal responsibility for one's actions ... on both sides of the abuse?

Re:Back To Reality

[Alpha830RulZ]

That is an interesting question. High school bullies engage in behavior that, if they were adults, would be chargeable as assault and battery, harrassment, and stalking. Yet in high school they get a free pass. In my own experience, it contributed to years of fear and depression, and I certainly feel it -should- be criminal. It was chosen behavior, intended to cause harm, that did cause harm, as it's primary aim. I think that's a useful contrast to the example you offer of someone two-timing their boyfriend.

I don't know what the answer is, but it's an important question.

Scary

[Overkill Nbuta]

Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set."

Really I do not think theres anything scary about what will happen in this case. An adult should be semi responsible for there actions.

How can an adult feel like toying with a young girl with an over self conscious image of herself when they live near them?

I can understand that there could be other circumestances when this could be scary but in this case i thought it was just HORRID what the person did.

Mod me a troll if you want. But i think most people when they read this case realize that what that person did was wrong. And i believe that in most circumstances driving someone to suicide is a crime. I don't care if you say that the person was to emotional, thats a reason that you should be semi understanding and not go out of your way to mess with them.

Re:Scary

[Phyrexicaid]

Wired is running a related story about the potentially 'scary' precedent this case could set." Really I do not think theres anything scary about what will happen in this case. An adult should be semi responsible for there actions. Exactly, we don't tell people who have stalkers to "get over it". We institute means to protect the person who is being harassed (i.e. don't come within 50 feet).

Perhaps the way they are going about the lawsuit *does* set a scary precedent, and there is a *better* way to approach it, but IANAL. I do think that having protective measures in place is a good thing though. We have them for the real world, why not the virtual world?

Re:Scary

[Guido del Confuso]

There's no question that what this woman did was wrong and morally repugnant. But was it a crime?

It's hard to see what she actually did that was illegal. This could have just as easily happened had the boyfriend been real. Lying to someone about your identity isn't a crime (generally speaking).

On the other hand, if she had a reasonable expectation that the girl would commit suicide because of her actions, she could possibly be charged with reckless homicide or a similar crime for what she did. The obvious defense is that she had no way of knowing what the girl would do. I am guessing from the fact that such charges weren't filed that there was no history of suicide attempts, and that the woman likely didn't know (or can reasonably claim she didn't know) about the girl's clinical depression. Without those critical elements, there's no hope of securing a conviction, so it'd be pointless to file charges.

Personally, I suspect she just was trying to get back at the girl out of sheer nastiness, and didn't think too hard about what her actions might lead to. I wonder if she even feels badly about it. I certainly hope so.

That all being said, I think these charges are pretty tenuous at best. I can understand wanting to see justice done, but essentially making up crimes until you find something that will stick is not the way the American justice system is supposed to work, and it is an abuse of power on the part of the prosecutor. Sometimes you simply have to accept the fact that some wrongs will go unpunished because we are simply not equipped to deal with them at the time, and that is the trade-off for living in a free society.

Re:Scary

[snkline]

What is scary in this case isn't that the bitch would be punished. That is why she has been charged, a huge public desire to see this woman punished when there is no clear law that would allow it.

What is scary is that instead of finding some actual law she broke, they are railroading her with an incredibly loose reading of anti-hacking laws. The problem is if she is convicted of this, and it is upheld on appeal, it sets incredibly bad binding legal precedent that violation of terms of service isn't just a civil contract violation anymore, it is criminal computer hacking.

Re:Scary

[mazarin5]

I would expect that she knew about the girl's problems. Her daughter and Megan had been close friends until they got in a fight; the reason Lori Drew alleges she started the hoax was to find out what, if anything, Megan was saying about her daughter. Megan confided in the persona for a long time, until she discovered a sudden onslaught of bulletins revealing all the secrets she shared, personal attacks, and comments about her body and mental health.

When Megan questioned "Josh" about his intentions, "he" responded "You should just kill yourself."

She did. She hung herself with a belt in her closet; it wasn't enough of a height to break her neck, but she crushed her throat and slowly suffocated over the next hour. Her mom found her upstairs, dead, a few days before her fifteenth birthday. She never lived long enough to find out that the cruelty was perpetuated by a grown woman living a few houses down, her daughter, and another neighbor girl.

I've been following this one for a while.

Re:Scary

[Wavebreak]

She might not be guilty of murder, but causing the death of another human being is a crime regardless of whether it was her intention to do so. There are circumstances that might exculpate someone, such as self-defense (in some cases), but none of them apply here.

Re:Scary

[mazarin5]

Contrasting between the two mothers, I would say that their contribution to her death, in Drew's case is a matter of provocation, and in Meier's case a matter of failure at prevention. I think it raises the question of whether either woman had a reason to suspect that she would commit suicide, and I believe that in both cases the answer is no; nor do I believe that it was Drew's intention to drive Megan to suicide.

I think it is clear, however, that Drew's intention, at least towards the end of this scenario, was to use her positions of trust as a family friend, a close friend's mother, and an imaginary boyfriend, to torment the child and cause her anguish. This is the charge levied against her.

Re:It's as simple as this

[Vectronic]

She was 13... what 13 year old girl (or boy for that matter) doesn't have emotional issues?

Thats a very unstable and impressionable stage, where shit like the pencil you use in school seems important.

If the case was another 13 year old, I would be rather dissapointed that the charges stuck... however she was/is 49 years old, preying on a 13 year old... thats, just flatout fucking bullshit.

Re:It's as simple as this

[lusiphur69]

If the perp had have been a man, he would have been arrested. More importantly, we're not talking about a 13 year old harassing another 13 year old, we're talking about a 40-odd year old woman who knew the victim deliberately crafting a fake persona and instigating it into her life. Knowing that the target - a child - had mental issues, this deranged pathetic excuse for a human being nevertheless persisted in her campaign to deceive the child, involving as many of her own daughter's friends as possible.

This is one of the most twisted things I have heard, and your logic echoes that of the sociopathic, fat, middle aged woman who felt the need to do this "I don't feel bad about this because she had issues with depression".

The woman deserves what is coming, and I will laugh happily every time I hear her family has suffered misfortune - losing their business, pulling their daughter from school and hopefully soon being forced from the community. She acted without remorse and deserves to suffer consequences.

Re:Accessing without authorization?

[Derekloffin]

I think this is automatic when you violate the Terms of Service, which she did by providing false identification when she signed up as this alter ego. Basically, you accessed a system, in this case myspace, which is protect (although minimally) and did so without proper authorization (in the form of your proper identity).

Re:What's the big deal?

[Serious Lemur]

You just need legislators with a brain - finding them might be the real issue. Congratulations. I've never seen the main problem with our government summed up so succinctly.

More to the point...I saw your earlier post and recognize the situation here, and I don't disagree that this woman has violated the law. Just trying to point out that "infliction of emotional distress" sure as hell shouldn't be the crime here. Find something that should actually be illegal to prosecute her under. But as a minor, I don't want it to be illegal to offend me on the Internet - otherwise, I could sue you (and lose, hopefully) based on your disagreement with me there. I'm an emotionally vulnerable child, and he damaged my psyche! I have no self-respect!

Some people in my generation just need to get the fuck over themselves. I'm not trying to dismiss the pain she felt or say that this woman has done nothing wrong - just please, everyone-who-actually-has-a-voice-in-this-government, prosecute her for something that teenagers can't take advantage of. The law gets abused badly enough without things like "infliction of emotional distress" being illegal.

Re:It's as simple as this

[Free the Cowards]

Of course it's all "alleged". Until such time as the person is convicted, any reasonable news outlet will use the word "alleged" as a CYA measure against libel charges.

Re:It's as simple as this

[dwater]

OK. Fair enough. I apologise.

I read 'into' your post stuff you didn't write - ie that the *only reason* for putting 'alleged' is for the paper to avoid libel charges.

Of course this isn't the case. The term 'alleged' actually means something, and that is that she hasn't been found guilty yet. It seems that the majority (all? apart from mine) of posts here have assumed she's guilty already.

She does actually deny the charges, if I read it correctly. People don't seem to consider that she's telling the truth.

A few thoughts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would the situation be any different if it weren't a hoax?

What if Josh Evans really existed, and was true to what was spoken? Because then it would be a freedom of speech issue.

Re:It's as simple as this

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Except half of slashdot didn't create the profiles to terrorize a little girl and cause her to kill herself. In this specific case, a life was lost because of the actions of this woman.

Re:It's as simple as this

[IntlHarvester]

I think people here might be missing the logic behind this.

The "victim" for the computer trespass crime is MySpace, not the girl or her family.

MySpace suffered no financial losses because of this, so this is a highly dubious criminal charge. The family, on the other hand, has a legitimate case which they should take to the civil courts.

(Obviously the base instinct is "get 'em!", but Slashdot should be more perspective about computer crimes.)

Another aspect to the logic behind this is...

[keirre23hu]

"Get her (woman) any way you can" There is no legal means for prosecuting someone for what she did to the girl, so they found another way to bring charges, i.e. being arrested for resisting arrest or the way Gotti caused the deaths of dozens, but he went away for tax evasion. What she did was not acceptable socially, so the criminal justice system is trying to find a way to squeeze her in. I don't like it, but right now I think its better than having US Code specifying the legality of things like this on the Internet more than it already does. Considering the 80% of congress is technically inept (optimistic) and a different 80% could care less about passing ambigous legislation that can be misused.

Re:Another aspect to the logic behind this is...

[Dog-Cow]

That's not true. A law which states "do not murder" protects exactly no one and nothing. The purpose of a specifc law is to deter people from taking a specific action.

A law which states "commit murder and face jail time" presumes to deter people from committing murder. Such laws have not prevented any murder committed in the past, nor will it prevent all murder from this day forward.

The punishment is an integral part of the law. It is the deterrence. If the punishment is not seen as a consequence worse than the perceived benefits of the action, the action is not prevented.

By necessity, the punishment must be worse than the crime in order to be a deterrence. Why do you think corporations flout laws all the time? Because the fines imposed are dwarfed by the profits made.

Re:What's the big deal?

[hyades1]

I'm not sure I'm saying it properly, but it seems to me that this is going beyond calling somebody nasty names into an entirely new game. The case apparently centers on the manipulation of a minor through cold-blooded deceit and willful misrepresentation. It's the difference between beating somebody up during a fight and torturing a helpless prisoner.

I'm not sure a law covering something like this wouldn't wind up being a cure worse than the disease. However, if this woman actually did what she's alleged to have done, she's a sadist at least and probably a sociopath. People like her wind up getting caught with dead people chained in their basement.

What does technology have to do with this?

[Dan East]

The issue here is that prosecutors are using the typical shotgun approach, and firing a bunch of charges at her to see what will stick.

Technology has nothing to do with this crime, and there could be negative ramifications if she is indeed found guilty of federal communication charges for a local crime.

Let's pretend this occurred 30 years ago, and instead of using the internet as the backdrop, the woman and girl simply exchanged letters as local pen-pals. The woman would photocopy the girl's letters, and circulate them around the community, demeaning and belittling the girl. The girl finally finds out, and commits suicide over the humiliation and emotional distress.

So what's the difference here? Society at large demands punishment for this woman, as she acted intentionally to harm the girl emotionally and humiliate her publicly. Whether she did so using sign language, morse code, hand written letters or the internet is irrelevant.

Re:Accessing without authorization?

[tinkerghost]

I think I understand your TOS vs EULA comparison, but I'm not sure how it applies...the way I see it (which may be incorrect, IANAL) is that where she broke the letter of the law was using a false name when she created her account, i.e., if she had used her own name no crime would have been committed.
If that's true, something's seriously fucked up.

It's not as fucked up as you seem to think. I can call myself George Bush & even get credit cards under that name - so long as I am not engaging in fraud. If I try to get a credit card using the name George Bush & the Shrub's SSN, I get hammered with extra crimes listed. Using a pseudonym isn't a crime, using one to commit another crime is.

In this case, a service was provided - the account - in exchange for demographic information used to drive marketing. By screwing with the demographic info, she defrauded the company - reducing the effectiveness of the marketing & increasing their expenses while reducing their return. It's basic fraud, obtaining services under false pretenses - I'm not sure why they are using hacking laws instead of fraud/wirefraud ones.

Here's what technology has to do with it...

[argent]

So what's the difference here?

The difference is that the post office doesn't make you press a button on the mailbox to show you agree with a "terms of use" form lacquered to the side of the box, and there are no laws that pressing a physical button obligates you to abide by any terms. There are laws about what constitutes postal fraud, but random postal services companies don't get to set them up and have them be treated as legally binding on people who just push a button.

There's a whole bunch of bad laws that have built up around computers and online services, and this is an example of why they're bad... because this case has the potential for establishing a whole new world of opportunities for lawyers and prosecutors to hurt people who are far less culpable than Lori Drew, while providing no real handle to deal with serious abuse.

I have run into cases online where people who have deliberately engaged in long-term wide-scale bullying on the Internet. Some of them are well known and well respected members of the research community, people at major institutions who have written standard textbooks. Others are merely online personalities who restrict themselves to attacking people on political or religious grounds. Their victims have in some cases lost their jobs, and there have been rumors of suicides.

These are not naive people playing a cruel joke on someone they know, there's no connection between them and their victims, they may not even be in the same country as their targets, and they feel no remorse for their actions... they've played the same game over and over again, and even boasted about it where they feel safe to do so.

And no amount of playing games with EULAs will stop them. All it will do is create more opportunities for abusive prosecutions and lawsuits.

Had similar things happen myself

[phorm]

I had an ad online looking for a roomate. My ex, who knew the site I posted on, crafted up a fake persona on the roommate site, and answered my ad. As the room was taken, she then proceeded to chat me up using the fake identity and the knowledge of my personal interests etc.

After stringing it along for awhile, she indicated that she "wouldn't be moving so soon after all", but invited me to a fairly cool party in a city several hours away (Victoria).

I was suspicious, though I didn't suspect my ex , but rather thought that perhaps some friends that I knew to be in Victoria were planning a joke. I was bored, so I decided to check it out. I half-expected to arrive and find all my buddies waiting for a big "surprise", and half expected that perhaps there was a real party. Turned out the address itself was bogus (darn you mapquest, you said it existed) and a waste of time.

So then I traced the IP's on the email back to the wireless of the local college, which gave me some suspicions of the sender. I managed to determine that the password on the sender's hotmail account was my ex's birthday.

So my point? Well, it's pretty freaky to know that somebody will go to *that* much trouble to mess with you, even when you're an adult. As a techie type of guy, I've regularly met friends from both online and off, but it's put a pretty big damper on my trust of those online. It's one thing to know that when you meet a person they might be a little exaggerated in personal details, and another to realize you've befriended somebody who's just a troll created to get into your head.

My story ended (I hope), when I talked to the police. They weren't actually able to do much about the whole internet thing (though it seems like stalking to me), but they were able to deal with the fact that she was calling me about 15-20x in an hour, and often masking her phone # from my call display. The threat of criminal harassment charges and deportation (she was a student from overseas) tuned her down a bit, and I moved from that city not that long after.

This girl's story ended when she got too attached to her stalker, and was given a directive to end her own life. Was she too impressionable? Perhaps. It seems like it's fairly easily a case of stalking/harassment to me. Throw in the age and I'm sure that other things crop up.

As mentioned elsewhere, if this were an adult male and a young woman, they'd most likely have gone after this even more heavily.

I don't agree with trumped-up charges, but what happens when there are many things that are a half-fit, but don't quite match the modern world? The problem is that laws don't always keep up with technology, and unfortunately the technology is not well understood (which leads to vague and easily abused laws). Perhaps there needs to be a meter that distinguishes minor online "harassment" such a posting insults on usenet from creating a fake identity to target and damage a specific person.

Nowadays I think that the best meter for that is still the same as before. A judge, and/or a jury. Unfortunately, they're both (especially a jury) still influenced strongly by emotion and doublespeak, but the justice system is still one of our best ways of making a strong impression about what is not acceptable in today's society.

I'm an adult, I can deal with this shit. A 13-year-old girl, already an outcast, could use a little help or protection.

Re:It's as simple as this

[Arccot]

The woman deserves what is coming, and I will laugh happily every time I hear her family has suffered misfortune - losing their business, pulling their daughter from school and hopefully soon being forced from the community. She acted without remorse and deserves to suffer consequences. I'm not a big fan of mob justice. Not patronizing a business because you disagree with the owner is fine. Death threats, assault, and other violent and criminal activities have no place here. Causing more unhappiness certainly doesn't improve their community.

Why not put all that hate-filled energy into positive steps, like helping out a suicide hotline or pushing for legislation they feel would prevent this in the future?

The people who attack her family are doing evil, plain and simple. I hope they get sent to jail for it.

Re:It's as simple as this

[bsDaemon]

an indictment means that a Grand Jury has weighed all the evidence and decided that there is enough of it to cause any reasonable person to believe that a crime has in fact been committed. Rules of evidence are much more lax and guilt or non-guilt is not the issue -- only whether a crime has been committed.

The Grand Jury then issues an indictment, which are the formal charges which will be presented to the criminal court, in which arguments will be weighed by a Petite Jury who decides if the individual in question did the shit that the Grand Jury said happened.

My knowledge of the British legal system comes from watching Poirot and a few episodes of Murphy's Law, but I think its roughly analogous to a Coroner's Inquest in the UK, where they decided if in fact a it was a murder before they decide who actually gets charged with the crime.

Re:It's as simple as this

[Arthur B.]

Causality does not imply responsibility. Maybe hundred thousands died in Burma because I yawned a month ago. That doesn't make me responsible.

Alternatively I could ask the cab tomorrow : "make a right after all". And bam, he'll hit someone. My opening my mouth to give direction belongs in a causal chain leading to this death. It doesn't make me responsible.

Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences).

Re:It's as simple as this

[R2.0]

"The woman deserves what is coming, and I will laugh happily every time I hear her family has suffered misfortune - losing their business, pulling their daughter from school and hopefully soon being forced from the community. She acted without remorse and deserves to suffer consequences."

Her family will be lucky if she isn't found dead in an alley.

One of the reasons this crime is so shocking is that, not too long ago, the consequences would have involved death at the hands of the dead girl's family. I don't know whether to be sad or glad at the fact that this hasn't happened yet.

I'm reminded of a story a coworker tells of an uncle of his who was a preacher. He was the consummate Southern gentleman (as is my coworker), but tells the story of a parishioner of his. It was well known that her husband was a drunkard and beat her regularly, and after a long time she came to the pastor for advise (note - NOT the law). These were the instructions he gave her:
1) When he goes out Saturday night, get a bedsheet and wet it until soaking. Wait.
2) When he comes home, wait until he passes out and then wrap him as tightly as she can in the sheet. This will immobilize him.
3) Beat him. He will wake up and threaten you - beat him until unconscious. He will plead with you - keep beating him. If he tries to get out of the sheet, beat him until he stops. Beat him until he swears never to touch alcohol again or raise his hand in anger, and you believe it - if he sounds insincere, keep beating.
4) If you get scared or are unsure of what you are doing, call me and I'll come over and pray with you for the guidance to do what you need to do.

Apparently, it worked - next Sunday they showed up in church, her looking tired and him meek and covered in bruises, but by all reports he never drank or hit her again. Which raises the question - if we can take care of ourselves and our families with some help from our community, why does the State wish to stop that?

Re:James Vance vs Judas Priest

[NotBornYesterday]

A big difference here is that the efforts of the women (Drew and Grills) were targeted at one person, and were designed to hurt and deceive. Whether that's criminal or not may be debatable. Girls in the 11-to-15 age range go through hell emotionally, hormonally, socially, etc, and each of these factors magnifies the others. What may appear to be drama and hyperbole to adults is often very real in the mind of a young teenager. I never really realized that until I had a teenage daughter, and I can say that when she was at that age, I did notice that the online world (AIM, mostly)seemed to be a trigger that brought out the worst in her. The argument that Megan and her mother had is very similar to ones my wife and I had with our daughter. I am convinced that the same issues crop up with most teenage girls and their parents.

Drew and Grills should have known better. They were once adolescent girls, (at 19, Grills might arguably still be one) who now as adults are morally required to take the high road. Solution? Dunno.

[Starting rant; invoking wishful_thinking() ... ]

Revoke their adulthood. Driver's license? Gone. Checking account? Get a legal guardian to approve your expenditures. Car loan? Get a cosigner. Set a curfew. Make them ride a schoolbus every day. At work, make them raise their hand and get a hall pass before they go to the bathroom. Voting? Drinking? Smoking? Forget it. Not mature enough. Make them write 10,000-word essays about being nice to others. Make them fill a blackboard with "I will not torment vulnerable teens online" hundreds of times. Daily. After they spend sufficient time slogging through 'childhood', maybe they'll someday be worthy of adult status.

[End rant; invoking return_to_reality() ... ]

Re:It's as simple as this

[unlametheweak]

So, you fully support putting people in jail for violating "terms of service" agreements (essentially, an EULA)?

Dangerous DANGEROUS precedent to make yourself feel better about a depressed kid doing the inevitable Maybe. If it was a bank account or an eBay account and not a MySpace account I'm sure people may feel differently. In the former cases it is not so much the violation of the "terms of service" that causes the harm, but what exactly the violation is and how it effects people.

Perhaps this woman should be charged with 'child abuse', as "Child abuse is the physical, psychological or sexual maltreatment of children." (Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse). If this woman (or more likely if it was a man) was sexually enticing this girl then 'child abuse' charges would likely be filed. It is sad when people put such little emphasis on psychological abuse (of other people, and especially children) though I've always found much hypocrisy when it happens to themselves.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It's as simple as this

[Hyppy]

Perhaps this woman should be charged with 'child abuse', as "Child abuse is the physical, psychological or sexual maltreatment of children." (Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse [wikipedia.org]). If this woman (or more likely if it was a man) was sexually enticing this girl then 'child abuse' charges would likely be filed. EXACTLY! Charge her with child abuse, or any of the stalking laws, or any of the other "protect the children" laws, but do not criminalize contract law. There are a multitude of laws which can be bent or twisted or re-read to apply to this case.

Re:It's as simple as this

[bkr1_2k]

Which raises the question - if we can take care of ourselves and our families with some help from our community, why does the State wish to stop that?

Because, like it or not, the woman in your example was no better beating her husband than he was beating her. It may have worked, but more often than not, it doesn't. I know people who've been hospitalized for shit like that. I know of (second hand) multiple people who've been killed for shit like that. Either the husband died or the wife died because she tried to "fight" back.

Giving bad advice that works out okay isn't acceptable. What the pastor should have told her was "get out of the house--take the children (if applicable) and call the cops." Anything else was negligence on his part.

Re:It's as simple as this

[ArcherB]

Causality does not imply responsibility. Maybe hundred thousands died in Burma because I yawned a month ago. That doesn't make me responsible.

Alternatively I could ask the cab tomorrow : "make a right after all". And bam, he'll hit someone. My opening my mouth to give direction belongs in a causal chain leading to this death. It doesn't make me responsible.

Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences). This woman, under a fake screen persona, "allegedly" told this little girl that the world would be a better place without her. In other words, "Kill yourself", which is exactly what the girl did. I think that makes her at least somewhat responsible.

As for the rest of, unfortunately, there no law against being a C**T! However, there may be something they can do about her being a C**T to a 13-yr-old girl.

The larger truth

[tjstork]

Because, like it or not, the woman in your example was no better beating her husband than he was beating her. It may have worked, but more often than not, it doesn't.

The larger truth is that, if the husband is coming drunk all the time and beating his wife, he is a no-account man and he probably does deserve to be killed.

Re:The larger truth

[tjstork]

How do you defend yourself against a woman who's beating you with pots and pans, brooms and the like?

Take the pots and pans ands brooms away from her, and tell her to quit breaking all the stuff because she's got a lot of cooking and cleaning to do.

Stunner: Wired is overreacting.

[KutuluWare]

I'm not sure how I personally feel about what this lady has been charged with. Frankly, "violating terms of service" seems to be letting her off easy given that (based on the information I have heard or read, at least) she maliciously harassed the victim with the conscious intent of inflicting mental distress -- on an already depressed girl. I'm sure the Feds could be more creative with anti-stalking or anti-harassment or hell, even assault charges if they wanted to.

But Wired's main complaint seems to be this:

That sets a potentially troubling precedent, given that terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, and are rarely read by users. I agree with them that equating a TOS violation with "hacking" might be a stretch, but it is already well established case law that unreasonable, illegal, or outrageous terms in a contract cannot be enforced. And a TOS agreement is, essentially, a contract between you and the service provider. So we aren't all suddenly going to be charged as felons because the /. TOS says we need to name all our pets Cowboy Neal -- basically the doomsday scenario Wired is trying to paint.

Re:It's as simple as this

[aka-ed]

As the indictment is handed down, the issue being legally resolved is the question of whether or not a crime has been committed. Most of us think a rather heinous crime was committed and, as Lori Drew is the only accused, she's getting the benefit of people's wrath. We all know that she is innocent in the eyes of the law, but we also know that "Josh Evans" did not invent himself.

Re:It's as simple as this

[egomaniac]

This hits close to home, as my sister-in-law is mentally ill and unable to properly care for herself, so she is currently living with my wife and me. And her parents absolutely do not understand that this is a real illness -- they have repeatedly told her that she just needs to "snap out of it" and pull herself together, and that she just needs to exercise some willpower and stop feeling the way she does.

And of course every time they have a conversation like this she is left in tears and feeling completely worthless, which is great for somebody that's going through some serious problems to begin with. She has repeatedly said that she wishes she had some kind of gaping wound instead, because at least then people would take it seriously.

Mental illness can be frustrating -- I'm frustrated with her myself sometimes. But I have never doubted for a second that she is truly ill, and she is taking her meds and going to therapy and everything else she needs to do in order to get better. And it's working; just not quickly enough for her parents, evidently.

Trolling a Federal Crime?!??!?

[borcharc]

This women is basically a online troll, as much as we may not like her or think she is evil she is no different then any other online troll.

This case is scary because next people will be arrested for trolling /. or others due to there violation of a civil agreement between the site operator and the user, that is clearly a civil matter between the two.

Also it is important to note that the girl who killed herself approached her parents in a state of emotional breakdown after the "breakup" and her mother couldn't care less, thats why she went up stairs and hung herself in her bedroom. To get back at her MOTHER for not caring about her horrible life as hanging yourself in the home in a place readily to be found (such as bedroom or garage) by a family member is about punishing them, its a calculated decision to show them what they have done.

If anyone should be charged it should be the MOTHER because she actually had a DUTY to care for the girl unlike the troll....

Re:It's as simple as this

[canajin56]

You don't understand the story. This girl was depressed and suicidal, and had attempted suicide before. She told her best friend this. Her best fiend felt slighted over something that happened, and told her mom all about it. Mom created an account belonging to a "13 year old boy" who "went to another highschool" and started e-dating her. Telling her how smart and pretty she was, how he can't wait to meet her. She got her daughter and her daughter's friends to play along, mentioning having met this fake boy over the summer and other such stories, to make sure she believed he was real, to cement what a heart-throb and a sweet caring guy he was. Then one day "he" told her he was lying for a joke, she's stupid and ugly and world would be better off if she was dead. And she killed herself.

A post above said that the mother denies it. This may be true now, but initially she confessed and boasted that she did nothing illegal. She said it doesn't matter what I said, she was crazy and would have killed herself no matter what. She has said such things as "It's done, she killed herself, let it go" and so on. She admits telling her to kill herself, she admits making this account to spy on her and "see if she was talking about my daughter behind her back". Only now that she is in trouble does she backpeddle and say she was lying about all of that, she didn't actually do it!

Re:Treating this with too much black and white

[Ihlosi]

This girl needed to grow some skin,

Sorry, unless you're Jeebus himself, someone with clinical depression won't "grow some skin" just like a paraplegic won't "get up and walk" or a blind person will "open his eyes and see".

this is not trolling what she did

[circletimessquare]

trolling is like taking a paper bag of crap and throwing it into a crowd and revelling in the screams if disgust

1. its anonymous, not personal
2. its temporary and short
3. its done amongst a group of equally aged and emotionally mature people
4. the target is a crowd of people, a community, not a single person

what this evil woman did is more like stalking: purposefully targetting and manipulating one person over an extended period of time

furthermore, most disgusting, this was the actions of an adult against a child. there is no understanding of trolling that assumes that an adult is picking on children

and to go even further into disgust, the adult KNEW the child had emotional and suicidal issues when she set about this plan of decpetion and emotional manipulation

so this case cannot set a precedent against trolling

it can only set a precedent for:

1. prolonged one-on-one stalking
2. manipulating the emotions of a minor
3. manipulating the emotions of someone you know to be suicidal or otherwise emotionally fragile

all of which, in fact, deserve to made criminal

this is not just trolling, what this evil woman did

Re:It's as simple as this

[644bd346996]

At issue is not whether she's guilty, it's whether there's a law that makes her actions criminal. It's already abundantly clear that she's a bitch and society has condemned her actions. There just doesn't seem to be any good method of legal recourse against her.

(Although I suppose MySpace could sue her for breaching the terms of service and the resulting bad press for MySpace, that would be civil charges, not criminal.)

Excellent Legal Post

[resistant]

Apologies to Slashdot readers if someone else already posted the following link(s) or material, but I looked for it and related keywords over the entire thread, finding nothing. Orin S. Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy (a legal blog with a cool name) has posted a useful quick analysis of the matter, which I believe is more important than might appear at first glimpse. It's well worth reading in its entirety, but I'll quote a short stretch of it:

[...]

This case involves a terrible tragedy; I think what Lori Drew did is truly despicable. But the government's legal theory, based entirely on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030, is very weak. Legally speaking, the prosecution is a real stretch. In my view, the courts should dismiss the indictment. In this post, I'll explain why.

To understand this case, you need to understand the government's theory. The indictment is not charging Drew with harassment. Nor are they charging her with homicide. Rather, the government's theory in this case is that Drew criminally trespassed onto MySpace's server by using MySpace in a way that violated MySpace's Terms of Service (TOS).

Here's the idea. The TOS required Drew to provide accurate registration information, not to harass or harm other people, and not to promote conduct that was abusive. She didn't comply with these terms, the theory goes, so she was criminally trespassing onto MySpace's computer when she was logging into her account. The indictment turns this into a federal felony conspiracy charge by arguing that she did this in concert with others to obtain information and to further tortious conduct -- intentional infliction of emotional distress -- violating the felony provisions of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2).

But these arguments are a real stretch for three reasons.

Problem One: The first major hurdle is a legal question that I wrote an article on in 2003: Is it a federal crime to violate contractual limitations on use of a computer? The federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 1030, generally prohibits accessing a computer "without authorization" or "exceeding authorized access." But what makes an access "without authorization"? If the computer owner says that you can only access the computer if you are left-handed, or if you agree to be nice, are you committing a crime if you use the computer and are nasty or you are right-handed? If you violate the Terms of Service, are you committing a crime?

In my article, Cybercrime's Scope: Interpreting "Access" and "Authorization" in Computer Misuse Statutes, 78 NYU L. Rev. 1596 (2003), I argue that the answer should be "no." I won't recite the legal arguments here, as you can just read the article itself. (You can imagine the basic idea, though: Since everyone who uses computers violates dozens of different TOS every day, the theory would make everyone who uses computers a felon.) However, I will point out that the MySpace case is to my knowledge the very first federal indictment that has tried to claim that violations of Terms of Service for an Internet account amounts to a crime under Section 1030. In fact, I wrote my NYU article in part because I figured it was only a matter of time before a sympathetic case came along and some aggressive prosecutor would try the argument and see if it flew. It looks like this is the test case.

[...]

(The original post has embedded links to relevant citations).

Re:It's as simple as this

[morari]

In this specific case, a life was lost because of the actions of this woman. No, in this specific case a life was lost because of the actions of a thirteen year old girl. That's kind of how suicide works, someone else doesn't do it for you.

I'm not defending the woman's actions, because the entire thing does sound messed up. However, she didn't kill that girl. Even if she had come right out and said "You should go kill yourself!", it still wouldn't be her fault that the girl did it. I have a hard time believing the conspiracy charge as well, but whatever.

Re:It's as simple as this

[KarmaOverDogma]

"I can sue you because it's Friday. All I have to do is show why it being Friday hurts me, and why I think it's your fault, and it becomes an actionable 'offense'."

You could certainly try.

Such a case would lack "standing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law) (since I didn't "make" the day: "Friday") and other tort requirements. The case would be thrown out or summarily dismissed and you'd be left vulnerable to a counter suit for frivolous litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation. By me.

You'd probably lose, too.

Yes, Yes, I understand your point about there being too many lawsuits. Do you think Ms. Meier's family would be frivolous to sue here?

Re:It's as simple as this

[multimed]

Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences).

Context does matter and this idea of something being intrinsically a crime is well...imaginary. Lying under most circumstances is not criminal. Lying while under oath is. Shooting a gun in the woods is OK. Shooting at group of innocent people - very different. There are very few things that are absolutely bad/criminal intrinsically/in all cases.

The final outcome makes a difference as well. Driving drunk & crossing the center line is one thing. If there just happens to be another car on the road at the same time &place and you hit it & kill someone, it's a very different deal even though in truth, it could very well be the only difference was blind luck.

In this case, doing what she did to a grown up would most likely be seen as a practical joke. Doing it to a young girl who was emotionally vulnerable and suicidal to begin with is a very different situation. And we know that she knew the girl had problems because she said so in her own words, early on using the age old blame-the-victim strategy. In terms of the case of her defense, probably more than anything else, making public statements that the teen was suicidal may be what results in her conviction.

Without getting into the in's & out's of the particular charges and approach used against this woman (which is a separate issue) as far as justice goes, there's definitely a smell-test issue. It's quite clear that what this woman did was creepy, vicious and just plain wrong morally. Here actions resulted in something terrible - and any reasonable person would see that it tormenting the girl in this manner would very likely lead to this outcome.

Re:That is all largely irrelevant...

[zippthorne]

This is an ADULT manipulating a CHILD (a child whom the adult knew was depressed and suicidal) to commit SUICIDE. This is not a case of peers trading insults, or homophobes telling people "don't be gay."

She may or may not have intended the suicide itself, but she clearly intended to inflict great psychological harm on an already mentally unstable child.

Re:It's as simple as this

[spazdor]

If some MySpace data from a stranger was enough to cause a Denial-Of-Service against this girl's life, then there were some serious deficiencies in her mental firewall.

Has anyone asked what her network administrators' role was in all this? They really ought to have been keeping their daughter running more stably to begin with.

Re:It's as simple as this

[Scrameustache]

People don't seem to consider that she's telling the truth. Well, an entirely fictitious person was created for the purpose of messing with someone real, we seem to think the people involved might be liars.

Re:That is all largely irrelevant...

[geekoid]

Actually, it can be.

Charles Manson didn't kill anyone, only told other people to do it.

She didn't say something cruel, she manipulated someone into killing herself.

That's a lot different then angerly shouting at someone to drop dead.

"It's a far greater concern to me, anyway, that parents dump their kids, unattended, on the internet. "
you don't know that. she could ahve easily be allowed a set amount of time. At 13 you should be getting a little less controlling over your children.

They may have been happy she was communicating with a peer that made her happy. She was depressed and then she starts talking to someone that makes her happy, they where probably thrilled.
I don't think there was much time between the end and her killing herself.

The issue is more complex then you want to believe.

Your amazing anecdote aside, not all kids online are just 'dumped' there.