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MySpace Suicide Charges Threaten Free Speech
Naturalist recommends a piece up at Ars about a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the EFF, CDT, Public Citizen, and a group of 14 law professors in the case of Lori Drew, who posed as a teenage boy to harass another teen online, eventually driving her to suicide. (We've discussed the case a few times.) "[The amicus brief argues] that violating MySpace's Terms of Service agreement shouldn't be considered criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The groups believe that if the mother, Lori Drew, is prosecuted using CFAA charges, the case could have significant ramifications for the free speech rights of US citizens using the Internet."
The accused should be getting a medal not a trial.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The facts in this particular case point to a truly twisted individual, but this individual is unable to be prosecuted for major jail time under current, non "novel" interpretations of law. The proper thing to do is to note this case, and realize the perpetrator is not guilty of a felony, and create a new law to handle this case, rather than trying to find some way to twist the law to put this person in jail "for something", which will open the floodgates of abuses.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Does not mean she has to be charged with 'cyber' crimes that can fuck the rest of us.
Get her for some form of child abuse or something, DON'T try to take MY rights away just because of some twat got bored with her soap operas.
Would it be as big a deal if someone did this through the mail? I don't see why new technology also needs new laws, so I would hope there would be no legal precedent set for computer specific harassment.
in my opinion. You do not have the right to torment an individual like this anymore than you have a right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater or "I have a bomb" in an airport. AT some point, the safety of others does override your right to "free" speech.
This is so eff'd in the A I don't even know where to start. If someone harasses you IRL, who do you blame? The... air that carried their words to your ears? Far be it from me to seem like a d-bag in the face of a teenage suicide, but blaming someone else for it is completely and utterly retarded.
It's high-damn-time we look parents straight in their pie-stuffed me-first faces and say "Take some goddamn responsibility." If your child -- YOUR CHILD -- was depressed enough to commit suicide, how could you not know?
Oh, that's right, you were too busy watching Dancing With the Stars and reruns of Monk to pay attention. GG, parents, the blood is on your hands.
Sony ha
Bad events make bad laws. Just read the story below this one. Though this may be more in the way of bad case law. That said, I think this woman's behavior is so beyond the pale that she deserves to be featured in a Lifetime movie at the least. And her head stuck on a pike to remind the next 5 generations that some behaviors are so reprehensible that you shouldn't do them.
There should be nothing that compels this case to be brought up under ANY modern legislation pertaining computers. Computers and social networking were the means of the harassment... this does not mean there are any new concepts here.
Harassment and emotional abuse can be performed in person or over the Internet, and I've got to imagine that charges for wanton malicious actions against a minor will have much stiffer penalties than a simple ToS violation.
I don't mean to be too jaded here, but it doesn't much sense to me to be bringing an uncertain case against someone with a new law, unless the prosecuting attorney is seeking a landmark decision to put on a resume.
Certainly there must be a better choice than a new law when the actions of one lead another (esp. a minor) to suicide?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
That idiot will win her trial, and get away almost scot-free. Which sucks.
I'm sure she'll never get a real job ever again, though. In a job interview, question 2 will be "Wait... you're THE Lori Drew? That psycho-bitch?"
You clearly don't have kids - most teenagers these days won't let their parents into their life. Not because the parents are bad, but because society (advertising?) encourages teenagers to be self-sufficient and live their own life.
Sometimes, all the parents can do is be supportive and listen when their kid doesn't want to talk. If the kid won't talk to his/her parents... what did you want the parents to do? Tie them up and force them to speak?
Anyways, my point is that Good Parents don't always have good kids. And parents (unfortunately) can't always get their kids to open up and talk to them.
I guess your mom would kick you out of her basement if you were rebellious, so I can't expect you to understand.
IANAL, but there are precedents already for having limits on free speech. For example, yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire is not considered free speech. The same principle should apply here.
It's a very dark ride.
> You do not have the right to torment an individual like this anymore than you have a right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater or "I have a bomb" in an airport. AT some point, the safety of others does override your right to "free" speech.
Sure, but the problem is that there's no law for it yet, so they're making one up that WILL threaten free speech.
That's the problem. I have no problem with sending her to jail for making someone's life hell. I do have a problem with abusing the law to do that.
A private individual or company (they) does not have to let one exercise one's free speach right. They do not have to let someone else use my system or website to expound ideas They do not agree with. And, They have the right to condition access to same on not expounding those ideas.
That is part of freedom of speach and freedom of association.
They also have the right to condition access on being truthful. By lying to obtain access, one exceeds one's access. It is obtaining access by fraud. It just happens that obtaining access by fraud is illegal.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The girl's family should sue this woman in Civil Court for the wrongful death of their daughter. The burden of proof is much lower in civil court than in criminal, and they could ruin this woman for the rest of her life -- which is a hell of a lot more than she deserves, because she still gets to draw breath, but their daughter doesn't. And there daughter would still be alive today if not for this woman's depraved actions.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
The thing about any censorship laws, especially on obscenity, is that it is up to individuals to decide what gets censored. Tub girl is obscene and "shouldn't" be shown on kids shows, but when you make laws saying you "can't" it gets into a tricky spot.
There are individuals who would say it is obscene to see white women kissing black men, and at one point in time they may have had a large enough majority to make it law if they had the legal means to invalidate the right of free speech. If you have any infringement on the right to free speech based on what is right or wrong, or inflammatory, you risk completly destroying that right and making it just a privilege.
This case has a girl that was harmed in a new way that no law exists to properly prosecute. It shows the need for new laws, not the destruction of old rights. We have protection to these rights because of these kinds of actions, If it is OK to throw out rights based on criminal offenses then it's possible to throw them out on others.
Teenage suicide is down lower than it has been for years. We have given teenagers the tools to reach out to other peers and express their feelings. Suicide is a real problem that has been arround long before social networks and will remain long after.
In the case of an adult posing as a young teenager to manipulate and violate the poor teenage girl, tipping her over the edge of an already uneasy situation and pushing her to suicide is murder!
Kids are mean to other kids, thats the nature of the game, if you want to stop bullying you would have to stop teenage social interaction at the playground!
My point to this rambling, Society is at fault, not the internet and not freedom of speech.
Totally reminds me of this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atZCGEwfIks
The point isn't that the lady said bad things that drove a kid to suicide, or that the lady used the internet to do it. The lady should be subject to ordinary liability for that--just like any person who did the same thing on the street, or in the mail, or whatever. That's not the issue.
The issue is the terms of service agreement! That thing you click on and ignore so many times. That thing you send phony information so that the corporation doesn't get too personal on you!
If you type in phony information, (FRAUD, daddy), and then hurt somebody's feelings while on the account procured by fraud, the Federales can prosecute you for a crime. Think about the slippery slope this affords . . .
You gotta love the ingenuity of those federal prosecutors!
You have the right to say anything, and be heard, however, what you say can get you into trouble.
If you don't like the war, and you protest, and make speeches that the war is bad, and that you think the president is mistaken, that's protected under the freedom of speech.
If you don't like the war, and you protest, and make threats against the president, then you will be held accountable and the threats will be taken seriously.
If you are a psychiatrist whose job it is to help people through emotional problems, and you tell your client - you're fucked up, chances are that not only will the patient not get better, but you will be sued, and if something happens to the patient, like suicide, then chances are you will be prosecuted in some form or other.
If you are a normal person, who, by using a false identity, abuses someone or their character in such a way that it erodes their self-esteem, sense of self-worth, sense of self, to such a degree that they commit suicide, then you are most definitely guilty of abuse, both mental and emotional abuse, and should be held accountable as contributing to the death of said person.
This would be the case regardless of the technology used. The only thing this technology granted was a sense of anonymity that was properly given up due to the bizarre circumstances of the case.
If you were to stand at your fence in your backyard and belittle the child-next-door, calling them names, worthless, pieces of garbage, day in and day out, chances are you'd be faced with at least a law-suit if not a visit by the police. Why would doing this over the internet be any different? Should someone who intentionally abuses another person be protected just because they used the internet to do it? Should they expect a right to privacy or anonymity just because they tried to hide their identity before making those actions? I don't think so, and would hope that you wouldn't as well.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
And a lot states already have laws against this...
From the Texas law:
"Any activity that intimidates or threatens the student with ostracism, that subjects the student to extreme mental stress, shame or humiliation"
I know this was intended for fraternities/sororities, but I don't see anything in the writing that limits the law to colleges.
This case amounts to good old fashioned harrasment. Just because it was done with ... OMG ... A COMPUTER ... doesn't mean that you need to drag out irrelevant laws that shouldn't apply in this situation.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I don't see how this is really relevant.. everyone participating on MySpace (hopefully) has some sense of the relative lack of certainty about who they are talking to. Its part of the service! What next, will Second Life require all personas to display their real world appearance prominently on their avatar at all times?
criminal charges
Child Endangerment- The suicide of the girl was a reasonably forseeable consequence...at the very least its an issue for a jury.
Then use a charge of felony child endangerment as the basis for "felony murder" charges
on the basis of
State of Minnesota vs.Tasha Daphne Mitchell(2005)
Civil charges
intentional inflictional of emotional distress
wrongful death
Maybe you've heard of it?
If not, that's ok, the Constitution has a nice primer.
In short: They are terrible, and they shall not, under any circumstances, be allowed.
Except this occurred in Missouri, not Minnesota, so it might not be applicable.
That is still around? I thought the government took that away a while ago.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The internet does not grant magical anti-emotion powers.
Of course it does. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.
You just got troll'd!
Harassment and emotional abuse can be performed in person or over the Internet, and I've got to imagine that charges for wanton malicious actions against a minor will have much stiffer penalties than a simple ToS violation.
From what I understand, the whole reason the government is charging the woman for violating the TOS is because they can't get her on other charges. The amicus brief appears to agree:
There are state and federal statutes that regulate harassing and otherwise harmful speech, carefully identifying speech that falls outside of First Amendment protection. See, e.g., 47 U.S.C. Â 223(a)(1)(C); R.S.Mo. 565.090 (former). Neither of those statutes appears to criminalize the communications from "Josh Evans" to Miss Meier here.
That's not to say that the prosecutor is taking the right approach, but apparently it's not as simple as just charging her with harassment or verbal abuse or something.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
If Megan Meier had killed herself based on a series of phone calls she received, would we even be debating this? And regardless, if you off yourself because someone on the internet turns out to be a liar, you're an idiot. Slashdot would be considered a mass murderer if that were the case.
Its not binding precedent, but it is certainly persuasive precedent
Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the Constitution, i.e., you may not make something illegal after the fact and then prosecute for it. Of course, you can craft a law making any future act illegal and, if the individual commits the act AGAIN, can be prosecuted for the new act.
The problem in this case is that this shitty woman did something that was not illegal, just morally reprehensible. The "public" wants retribution, but has no legitimate legal recourse, so prosecutors must make a wild-ass no-common-sense-used interpretation of an existing law that no sane, mature, reasonable person could make an argument to support so they may prosecute her. If she is financially poor, she will be unable to appeal and will be "punished", but could she appeal, she would likely eventually be exonerated because of the savage and unreasonable torture the prosecution must apply to existing law to make this a criminal case.
It's simply not worth sacrificing our constitutional rights and civility to grind out revenge on this piece of shit woman. Only civil court can provide all the revenge that can be squeezed out of this woman, but for the public, that's not enough.
So public lust for revenge and the prosecutions insatiability for pandering to it is now threatening your safety and mine. You want to provide the DHS yet another weapon to use against regular law-abiding citizens? Shame on you.
Did anyone else read this as:
"a group of 14 law professors posed as a teenage boy to harass another teen online, eventually driving her to suicide"
No, but I did throw granola at a deaf person once
Sadly, this case is pretty much about the whole concept of safe harbor. Is there going to be any actual medium for free speech if the carriers of that speech will have to worry about liability? The way the media companies (in the abstract, the ones that provide the medium) can feasible provide the medium for free speech w/o constantly worrying about getting their asses sued off is to provide them some sort of safe harbor.
In this case, the safe harbor is that someone is violating their terms so it's not their fault. So whose fault is it? In the ideal world it's nobodys fault, but in our current litigous society, fault is going to pass to the user if they violate the terms of service (which keeps the media company out of the fault loop).
Suppose MySpace's terms of service was that you can lie about who you are and they don't care. Then everyone communicating in that medium should have the expectation that nobody is who they say they are. W/o that, I'd agree that it's nobodys fault. But without some implicit expectation, myspace isn't nearly as valuable a medium. However, that's all speculation because it's another parallel universe which we don't live in. For the record, the MySpace terms are as follows...
By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (b) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; (c) you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation.
Of course many may argue that it is irrational to expect all people to follow the terms of service, but it's also irrational that all retails will follow all rules that visa/mastercard has that keep them from defrauding people. Or that all companies will follow terms and conditions on aggregating websites.
So, imagine a situation where some company misrepresents themselves to some larger aggregating website (say like bizrate or amazon prime) as a small mom&pop company in New Hampshire, but is really an overseas front company for organized crime. On this aggregating website, they advertize products and when people order the products it leads them on for a while collecting all sorts of personal information and then when customers least expect it, they sell credit card info and all the personal information to the organized crime syndicate and the customer find a credit card bill of $30K and discovers multiple credit cards opened up in their name due to identity theft, it ruins their credit, causing a loan to fall through on a dream house they were trying to buy. And perhaps this person (being a bit fragile) kills themselves over it.
You could argue that anyone doing business with this go-for-nothing company should have been more careful, checked them out better before giving them your credit card and the other personal information, just get over it since there will be other houses and eventually their credit will be repaired and life will go on. But say it happened and the person killed themselves. Is the company that misrepresented itself liable? Damn strait!
So because this was Myspace and love and not bizrate and money, is it different? Are there any rights involved here on freedom of speech or privacy that I'm missing?
So tell me, exactly which one of them applies to this case? Yeah, I *could* Google it, but I'm not making the claim. Also, it has to be applicable to that venue. And I want a proper legal reference, like ARS 13-2921, which won't help you any because this case is in California, NOT Arizona.
Because I don't think the police department was able to find one. Nor was the prosecutor. And I'm pretty sure they know what "assault" and "harassment" are.
But they instead decided to rely on some BS about making breaking a website's Terms of Service into a felony, because even here, harassment is a misdemeanor, not a federal crime (unless you "with intent to harass, files a nonconsensual lien against any public officer or employee that is not accompanied by an order or a judgment from a court"--but that's the only way you can get a felony out of it here).
I hate to be soo blunt for such a sad situation:
I don't believe that she should be tried in court under any law, existing, twisted, or in the making.
You cannot charge a person with killing another person when they didn't do anything physically, there are too many psychological variables involved with depression and suicide to blame one person.
We cannot say that "emotionaly abusing" this child ultimately was THE only reason causing their suicide. IMO the parents should have been more involved with their child and caught on to their depressed state then proceded to seek immediate medical/psychological attention.
I really feel for the family of the deceased, I know they want justice, but in the end they are just blaming someone else for something they could have prevented had they been more involved.
In short: If we start creating laws about internet ethics there are larger ramifications, as we are essentially limiting our freedom of expression, ideas and speech.
The FBI press release says that "the indictment charges one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization". Conspiracy with whom? The indictment alleges that there were "co-conspirators", but who are they?
Mental health is like physical health. Imagine instead that this girl had a peanut allergy, one strong enough that it could be fatal. Say that the girl told the women, "I don't like peanuts" but did not tell the women that she could die from peanuts. Then say that the women gives the girl a sandwich and slips some peanuts in it, just to be mean. When the girl dies from an allergic reaction to the peanuts, is the women liable?
According to the eggshell skull rule, she is, and most likely involuntary manslaughter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull I'm assuming the women did not know the girl was depressed, but if she did then that makes the women even more liable. That would be akin to secretly giving peanuts to someone whom you know has a peanut allergy.
Surely this woman's actions come under the same heading as yelling "Fire" in a theatre. Free speech is one thing. Using speech as part of a cold-blooded attempt to psychologically destroy a child is something else entirely. If what I've read is true, the woman used knowledge she gained dishonestly to manipulate an underage girl...a girl who should have been protected from verbal assault by an adult. We do not expose children to some speech that is protected by the First Amendment with the NC-17 rating, "Adults Only" areas of the Public Library and in many other ways.
Calling what Lori Drew did "free speech" is like saying a child molester's threat to murder his victim's parents in order to hide the crime "free speech".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The way I look at this is to ask: "who's the victim here?" If the victim were MySpace, charging the offender under the CFAA might make some sense (provided, of course, that the offense actually meets the letter of the law -- which in this case it probably doesn't). If, however, the victim is the teen who was harassed, charging the offender under the CFAA doesn't make any sense.
The Chewbacca defense applies perfectly here: If it doesn't make any sense, you must acquit.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Think of it in terms of an severe peanut allergy. Peanuts don't hurt me or many other people. If I open a bag of peanuts, not knowing the person sitting next to me on a train will die, I should not be prosecuted of a crime. If, I know someone is allergic to peanuts, and sneak peanuts into their food, I should be prosecuted of a crime. So If the adult knew the child was mentally ill and chose to provoke her, I think there should be consequences, but any such law should require preexisting knowledge of mental illness.
Am I missing something, or is it that simple?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Lori Drew was last seen walking away from the Pearly Gates wearing a T-shirt with the catch-phrase "I got dizzed by a cyber-tranny, killed myself, and all I got was this stinkin' T-shirt"
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
At the end of the day a person who commits suicide is the one with the responsibility. Although it is surely true that some people are more vulnerable than others it is also true that they should have done some self hardening and been far less vulnerable.
I think this is a relevant principal of common law:
Thin Skull Rule: 2. In criminal law, if a person commits an unlawful act against another with a preexisting condition ("thin skull") that results in that person's death, he or she will be held to have caused the death even though it could not be foreseen. R. v. Smithers (1977), 32 C.C.C. (2d) 427 (S.C.C.)
From Barron's Canadian Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Hauppauge, New York. 2003.
This is from a Canadian source, but it is a principal that applies in most or all common law jurisdictions, including those in the United States.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
She's getting slapped with federal charges because she violated the TOS. So this isn't about child abuse, or anything like yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. Potentially, anyone who violates TOS could become a felon. That's why this is a freedom of speech issue.
And you think barely teenaged girls with emotional problems, have the same sort of cynicism as 20-30 year old male geeks? And even then I doubt many /.ers are expecting some enemy to go out of their way simply to fuck with them.
Jesus Christ. It is like expecting a toddler to know about the dangers of electrocution or drowning. Kids are naive and gullible.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
It's interesting how we have all these "think of the children" laws getting people in trouble for having drawings of children, and having child avatars on Second Life, and even getting children in trouble for what they do together... yet we have this case in which an actual adult goes online and hurts an actual child and none of those laws help.
that would teach her... hands should be used for good...not being a lieing bitch on myspace. if she's still talking shit, cut her tongue out too.
Sure, so we should devise ways to protect them online. But we shouldn't start criminalizing the wrong things in a futile attempt to make people think they are safer.
If you want to talk about being dicks on the Internet, have a look at this New York Times article -> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html
The writer known as Silence Dogood has been arrested for falsifying his identity. Due to laws protecting the identity of minors, we can only tell you that he's a 16 year old printer's apprentice from Philadelphia.
The crime isn't using false information, it's what you do with it.
Can't this fall under the law that says you can't do things like yell "FIRE!" in a crowded room? Freedom of speech is already not absolute. What this woman did is a crime, or it should be.
Technically, bullying is a form of harassment. I'm not talking about the kind that happens a recess, I'm talking about in public life.
This is the the same thing as if someone was to emotionally torment a handicapped child, or any child for that matter.
Let me see if I get this straight:
It's ILLEGAL to:
1) Make a pass at a coworker of the opposite sex,
2) Say, "You've got some nice tits!" to a female coworker,
3) Make suggestive actions to a female,
4) For the military to verbally degrade or insult known terrorists,
5) Create a public disturbance (e.g. screaming through a bullhorn at 4am)
5) Say negative things about muslims (Brigitte Bardot is on trial in France for that),
and a hate crime to say negative things about any minority or "Protected Class" (the fact that some people are protected while others aren't is bullshit to begin with).
But it is LEGAL FREE SPEECH to:
1) Harass an individual, with full conscious and knowledgable intent of causing emotional distress to them, to the point that they become mentally infirm and commit suicide.
This is the type of "Double Speak" that liberal extremists practice. If "MySpace Suicide Charges Threaten Free Speech", then so do laws prohibiting:
1) Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater,
2) Making bogus 911 calls,
3) Telling people to kill the President/Senator/Mayor/Governemnt official,
4) Telling people to kill any member of the public,
5) Giving false information to police,
6) Lying in court,
7) Anything negative degrading to a child, spouse, or individual ("Verbal Assault", "Verbal Harrasement", "Sexual Harassment")
8) Lying on legal documents,
9) Lying on tax returns,
10) Lying to a bank,
ll) Commiting slander,
12) Committing libel,
13) Committing consipracy
14) Document forgery
15) or any other kind of deception with the intent to cause physical, financial, mental, or emotional harm.
This is the kind of "Double Speak" that liberal extremists (*NOT liberals in general!*) absolutely LOVE to practice. They believe that their causes are the only true and just causes, regardless of what the law, logic, comon sense, and rationality say.
Free Speech doesn't mean that you can willfully target and harass an individual, with the conscious intent of causing emotional harm, to the point that they become legally insane and commit suicide.
MySpace Suicide Charges don't threaten free speech in any way; They threaten *criminal* actions. Free speech is "I don't like you." or "You suck!". A criminal action is constructing an elaborate scheme to cause emotional harm or distress to an individual.
This *clearly* crossed the line from Free Speech to Criminal Action. Too bad the title's author doesn't understand the concept of Free Speech.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Why would doing this over the internet be any different?
First, there are numerous ways to ignore obnoxious or malicious people on the internet. Second, government is limited in how it can hold someone accountable. Here claim is that the culprit violated the terms of service for MySpace and is guilty of criminal charges on that basis alone. Just because they deceptively used a fake identity to drive a young adult to suicide doesn't mean that the federal government should be able to charge them on this context.
Harassment is not free speech. Communications on a private network are not free speech. Exhibiting misconceptions about free speech in a court of law is free speech. I am not a lawyer and even I know this.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Free speech protects many things, but it does not provide a defense against harassment, and it does not provide a defense against a criminal act where there is shown to be malicious intent.
While they can argue that what was said between Lori Drew and Megan Meier may have been covered by free speech, the fact that Lori Drew created a false identity (an identity crafted to appeal to Megan) shows that she knew her actions were morally wrong, if not legally wrong.
Free speech may allow people to create online an alter ego or speak under a pseudonym, but I think that it can easily be proven that "Josh Evans" created by Lori Drew was neither an alter ego nor a pseudonym: 'he' was created to appeal as much as possible to Megan Meier.
Free speech also does not change the fact that Lori Drew acted in breach of MySpace's conditions of use, and therefore was in breach of contract.
While I respect the EFF and others for protecting free speech (even though I am not a US citizen), I do not believe that free speech laws should cover actions like this. Sure, this is not an isolated case and harassment like this is widespread in the Internet, but that does not mean that it is right.
Well, then what exactly IS the context, then? The Federal law was initially put into place to help prosecute severe identity theft. So in that case, someone is assuming an identity that is not theirs (but someone else's), acting on their behalf, etc.
But let's say I'm driving my car, minding my own business. Someone flicks a booger on my windshield as they pass me, and I take offense to it. So I start driving like a prick, too. We go back and forth, back and forth, both driving like complete asshats. Well, let's say the other driver doesn't negotiate a turn well, ends up off the road and in an accident. Am I liable?
Uh...yeah (shouldn't be too hard for any law students to dig out relevant cases in any state). At that point, it doesn't matter who "started it", etc., so that's not a defense.
It seems like most of the replies here aren't fully informed about the issues of the case and are looking at the "free speech" in the subject the wrong way, so here's a brief overview.
Originally the prosecution looked to charge her for harassment and/or threatening behavior. However, under the law at the time, her speech was considered protected speech, and the prosecution decided that they didn't have a case for harassment. (The law has since been amended so if she did that now, she could very easily charged).
The prosecution ultimately decided to indict her using an anti-hacking law that prevents "unauthorized access to a computer." The argument is that by misrepresenting herself on myspace, she violated the Terms of Service. Therefore, her access to Myspace's Servers was unauthorized, and she committed a felony by using myspace while violating their ToS. The indictment is not for harassment/threatening behavior. It's for breaking the ToS of a website, which the hacking law has never been used for before.
As the EFF amicus brief points out, if violating the ToS of a site is criminal behavior, this has far reaching implications. Google has something in their Terms of Service that says you have to be 18 to use google. According to the prosecution in this case, anyone under 18 who does a google search is a felon. Facebook's ToS has a provision that says you must keep all information in your profile up to date. If i change my favorite movie and don't update my facebook account promptly, i'm a felon.
This is not an issue of harassment vs. free speech. I think we all agree that Lori Drew is an ass and ideally, she should be punished. However, don't try and get her on an obscure law that will have far reaching implications. Violating the terms of service on a website (which a large majority of people don't even read fully) should not be a criminal offense. That's what this case is seeking to do
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
You said...
"If you don't like the war, and you protest, and make speeches that the war is bad, and that you think the president is mistaken, that's protected under the freedom of speech."
No... it's not during an actual war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
"Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a United States Supreme Court decision concerning the question of whether the defendant possessed a First Amendment right to free speech against the draft during World War I. Charles Schenck was the Secretary of the Socialist party and was responsible for printing, distributing, and mailing 15,000 leaflets to men eligible for the draft that advocated opposition to the draft. These leaflets contained statements such as; "Do not submit to intimidation", "Assert your rights", "If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain." Ultimately, the case served as the founding of the "clear and present danger" rule. ... ...
The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional.
This case is also the source of the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater," a misquotation of Holmes' view that "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."
"
He served 6 months.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
> Free speech has never been completely without limits
Your post indicates that you totally miss the point of the whole thing. The EFF is only opposed to considering violations of the terms of service of websites as being "malicious computer hacking" which is, what, a felony, no? The EFF is not defending the behavior of the woman in any way (i.e., trying to justify it as "free speech"), it is just trying to prevent her being prosecuted for the wrong crime, a precedent which would make anyone who opens a webmail account with false information into a case for the FBI.
BULLSHIT! THE MYSPACE SUICIDE STORY IS BULLSHIT COMING OUT THE ARSE OF RETARDED TECHNOPHOBIC CONSERVATIVES! THE GIRL KILLED HERSELF BECAUSE HER FAMILY TREATED HER POORLY! LET HER FAMILY AND NEIGHBOURS ROT IN HELL - NOT MYSPACE
werwe werwer werfh dsfh fhsdfh erqwerddgf dfg adfgawew asdg asdgwet asdfadsfca awe4 adf sdf a4t tg aw43 sdfa ee efadfqef qesd dfaer qq32asdfaw3ratasdfasf34 asefaw3radfasdf awafweafq34 asdfwae sdafaw3 asdfaswaw4 asdfaw asdffasef asfeaw3rasf aw3r sfaw3r dsfaw3 asef aw3 asdfaf3a3r
I agree totally with you, but want to add that if they would prosecute her on something less than a felony, which would make it easier to win, I would think, then a subsequent civil suit for enormous monetary damages would probably be a "shoe-in", and it itself might be fitting punishment.
If the teenager had died as the result of mere negligence on the part of the neighbor, people wouldn't be up in arms about this; the reason for the overreaction is because there was a degree of "malice aforethought" involved, which revs up everyone's "revenge" circuitry. Unfortunately, it seems it wasn't enough (provable) malice to enable the DOJ to prosecute the woman for anything spectacular, so they're grasping at straws without regard to the consequences.
Well, then what exactly IS the context, then? The Federal law was initially put into place to help prosecute severe identity theft. So in that case, someone is assuming an identity that is not theirs (but someone else's), acting on their behalf, etc.
This isn't "severe identity theft". It's not clear to me why genuine identity theft isn't already illegal either. After all, you have theft, fraud, etc. As I see it, the identity that was assumed wasn't owned by anyone. Plus, I think there are clear First Amendment grounds for ignoring this application of the law.
But let's say I'm driving my car, minding my own business. Someone flicks a booger on my windshield as they pass me, and I take offense to it. So I start driving like a prick, too. We go back and forth, back and forth, both driving like complete asshats. Well, let's say the other driver doesn't negotiate a turn well, ends up off the road and in an accident. Am I liable?
Irrelevant question. An appropriate analogy would be the federal government attempting to prosecute you because you violated the terms of service for your rented automobile.
Yep, we all know we need more laws to keep us "safe" from the terminally stupid.
Lets see... if you had kids... how would you raise them? To be offended by losing at kickball and have the "authorities" pass new rules outlawing kickball in school, because, like, gosh, someone's feelings got hurt by losing? To be offended by bullies and whine to "authority figures" to save them? I know this is the wrong forum to ask reasonable attitude and problem questions like these. Seems almost obvious, if you're defending the terminally stupid, and their idiot parents who were too busy to raise their kid to be strong enough to make it, you'll probably end up defending such idiocy as "the government should make it illegal to harass the terminally stupid until they do what they'd do eventually ayways."
Because we all know we need MORE laws and punishment for harmless hazing crap that ALL of us put up with. And it was painful until we either learned, or had it taught to us (if our minds were capable of learning and thus surviving) that what other people think is usually pretty worthless. Most people are willing victims and have been raised by the current societies to be WAITING victims and victim worshipers. You'll have to pardon me from abstaining from the rampant victim worship. Willing victims are to be detested not worshiped. Its like the jews who willingly got on those trains, or the japanese who willingly got interned in the USA, or the fools in germany who surrendered their arms to the authorities or the fools who didn't put up a sign "trespassers will be shot" in New Orleans during Katrina. You don't let the bullies know to stop early, or STOP them... and you end up a victim.
Most people today aspire to be good little dogs, to obey, and to hopefully never get kicked. But guess what... shit happens. The only way shit will NOT happen, is to be locked up in a padded cell... and even then your jailers will mistreat you.
Just like reading an article about some idiot who hurt himself by not wearing eye protection while using power tools. What is the headline?? "New regulations may be necessary for construction sites."
Gee, you mean the huge OSHA bureaucracy couldn't stop one retard who wasn't wearing his recommended gear, namely eye protection? What the hell more can be done to keep the stupid safe from their stupidity? hell we shouldn't even be paying to keep stupids in good health. Their fully deserved darwinian deserts would be to be permitted to fully enjoy the fruits of their stupidity... and I should fully enjoy the fruits of my labors, as should you and everyone else. Instead we have to pay taxes to keep "lawmakers" in their non productive labors of telling us how to walk and talk around stupids. Yep, more political correctness. As if there wasn't enough.
Some day, all this shit will blow back. I just hope its before I have kids. I really don't want any child of mine growing up amongst this pathetic generation of weaklings. Hell if I raise them right they'll be punished for being "insensitive"... "let the other kids win a turn"... "oh now we have to make that game illegal too, because winning damages self esteem for the losers."
I mean damn... I'm not that old, but when I grew up, losing was something to learn from (I agree that few do, the proper victim mindset is to get depressed when losing, and its a mindset that is inculcated by movies, literature and school)... in school it was always frowned upon to make mistakes... outside of school mistakes were crucial and very useful. I believe that old greek fellow who shouted Eureka had spilled something, hadn't he?
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
If Lori Drew had used a voice changer and a prepay cellphone I honestly believe all of America would be out to lynch her by now. What makes the internet so different?
Lori mounted a systematic and cruel attack to inflict emotional harm on a minor over a period of months. This goes far beyond name calling or a prank. It was deliberate and it was designed to harm. The tools used to harass have little to do with the case in my opinion.
Is Lori is responsible for the child's death? Perhaps, but how do you determine the weight of her contribution? I for one have no idea and personally believe no one can say that with any certainty.
What seems rather clear to me is an act of child abuse, harassment, and fraud.
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
err voice changer argument...sorry
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
...when your first experience of the Internet do not involve Lemonparty.org and Goatse.cx. The pussification of the Internet started with the first LOLcat, limecat.
Newcomers to the Internet should realize its filled with scammers promising millions and a giant penis, and trolls promising useful information but providing a picture of a man with a GAPING ANUS.
The paranoia our parents instill in us of not taking candy from strangers should be spread to the Internet.
LOL, bet you weren't expecting that Vlad!
Out of curiosity, what if it wasn't a woman making it up? What if it was an actual boy who the girl never met. Should he have been sued for dumping her? There are many suicides a year due to natural occuring romantic breakups, does that mean parties are liable for it?
Want registering for a webmail account with fraudulent info to be a felony? Want using words forbidden by a website's terms of service legalese to be a felony?
The EFF doesn't want that either, even if they probably DO want that woman to be punished.
This law does not make violating the terms of service a felony. The fraud perpetrated to gain access is only one element of the crime. You only end up falling under this law, in this case, if you use said access to commit a further crime(in this case harassment).
If you drink and drive and kill someone, it doesn't matter that the person you hit and killed already in an ambulance dying of a heart attack, and thus you contributed very little to his death.
My observation: if you take a reckless action that increases the risk of grave harm to others, you might or might not actually cause that harm, and the extent may vary. If you don't directly cause the harm, you can often get away with it. But if you do directly cause harm, you should and do get hit with the full consequence of the risk that you failed to calculate. She took the risk - why wouldn't she take the blame?
It strikes as weird - and sad - that online fraud is considered important enough that we have loads of legislation in place to handle it, but the life of a teenager is not?
I know what people say - that it is "not likely" or even "impossible" that cyberbullying is as bad as that, and that those that commit suicide must have had other issues - well, so what? Of course you have "other issues" if you kill yourself for any reason. It is only in movies that people kill themselves for only one thing - shall we simply dismiss them as "weak" and therefore no better than rubbish? That is a very shortsighted way of looking at things - we can all end up in this situation, where we have lost somebody "because they were weak".
In my view it should always be investigated as homicide when a person causes the death of another; and it should be prosecuted on that basis too, if a person is considered the cause of another person's death.
My surname very strongly reminds of a curse word. As a result I spend most of the school time hearing what a *** I am.
You know something? I did ok. I didn't kill myself, I grew stronger, I learned to ignore or when appropriate to (verbally) attack my attackers, I gained respect and didn't have a problem.
The story of the girl that committed suicide is sad, but I would blame the parents, herself, her friends, and the pop culture. Because someone is empty inside, shouldn't be set as a normal situation and make draconian laws to safeguard it.
It's a bit of a jump to go from that to: disobeying the TOS in any websites means you are a hacker.
Remember that "hackers" can be extradited to hicksville USA without any proof required, to face 60 years jail...
1. At a quick googlin, 16.3% of the deaths in males aged between 15-24 is suicide. Way ahead of, say, cancer at 6.8% or heart disease at 3.9%. That was a statistic for 1998, but I don't expect things to have changed too dramatically. Apparently in Australia in 2005, two thirds of the deaths between 12 and 24 years old were suicides. Two thirds. That's immense.
So it's not an entirely unnatural response to stress and depression, either. It happens.
2. Well, yes. And the perpetrator deliberately used that.
Yes, some people are more fragile than others. That doesn't excuse preying on them.
To give some analogies, just because some old lady barely walks to a walking stick, it may make it easier to snatch her purse and run away, but it doesn't make it more morally justifiable. Just because someone is in a wheelchair, it may make it easier to mug him (I mean, it's not like he's gonna dodge or run away too fast), but again it's not more morally justifiable. Etc.
If anything, from where I stand, it just makes the perpetrator more heartless and worthy of contempt.
In this case the lady _knew_ that the neighbour's girl is depressed and suicidal. She had already talked about suicide in third grade, and was seeing a therapist about it ever since. And she just took it as an invitation to try to actually drive her to suicide. I'm sorry, I can't really see her as anything else than a monster.
3. We're not talking just a random forum flame war, or one mean message or two. Lori Drew spent a whole fucking year first gaining the girl's trust, and then mounting a _massive_ online campaign against her. She not only posted all the girl's secrets, but also produced a storm of messages about how Megan is fat and a _slut_.
More importantly, this is the final message that pushed the girl to suicide: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."
I'm sorry, but telling someone who's already massively depressed and suicidal that the world would be better without her...
It's not just callous or insensitive. The whole thing reeks of deliberately creating the setup and then as much stress as possible, to make sure she breaks down. And spending a year for that. A whole year dedicated to killing the neigbour's daughter.
I don't know about you, but in my book that's premeditated murder. The whole sequence of events served only one purpose and achieved it.
4. You _could_ say that the girl could/should have been tough and ignored it, but that still doesn't excuse the perpetrator.
I mean, seriously, if I were to knife you and take your wallet, equally it could be argued that you could/should have been spry and dodged the knife. You could/should have taken some martial arts lessons and disarmed the attacker. It still doesn't excuse the criminal, either way.
Plus, again, she chose a victim who was already known as an easy target for that.
Pretty much. Regardless of the medium involved, it's still a convoluted case of premeditated murder.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Because you appear to suffer from Aspergers and have no empathy, and because you have absolutely no understanding of depression, or indeed society, you really should not comment. Instead, you need to be referred to a psychiatrist, diagnosed and treated, because your attitude to the vulnerable makes you a risk to society and yourself.
In what way was the teenager compelled to visit Myspace ? Did the adult abuser have some kind of external way of forcing the child to read the insults ? What kind of life would anybody have if all it takes is one anonymous person to cause you to kill yourself.
I don't agree with bullying, but I don't agree with legislation to prevent it either. Bullying is a completely natural process whereby individuals find their place in the natural hierarchy of society. If you are ever to become a well rounded individual, you must at some stage learn to overcome the actions of others, and ignore hurtful words.
I was bullied at school, and I mean bullied, not spoken about in a nasty way. Kicked in the head, punched until I needed stitches. This went on for 4 years, and I didn't kill myself. I went to the teachers to complain, and the response was something like "this is a boys school, you have to learn to look after yourself". Which was true. Just like real life, you can't rely on anyone else to do something you don't want to do yourself.
My bullying stopped when I started karate training. Suddenly I had both a way of defending myself, AND the confidence to use it. The very next time somebody tried taking advantage of the boy who wouldn't fight back, they got a painful shock. And word spread quite rapidly, and strangely enough I actually got respect, both from the ones who had been bullies, and the ones who were yet to discover themselves.
It seems to me that interference by the state, or other authorities, removes the incentive to look after yourself, and makes you more reliant on outside aid. Hence the current climate of fear and "protection". If you condition people to be weak by supporting them at all stages of development, then don't be surprised if they fall over when you turn your back for a second.
IFAIK, the girl concerned never knew that the harassment was being done by an adult, so her reaction was solely due to words on a page , that she alone had the power not to read. Trying to make the adult responsible for the actions of a geographically remote person, by the use of non-compulsory text, seems to me to be an exercise in futility. All you will end up with is weaker people and a greater reliance on outside authorities to control your life.
Unless this adult actively encouraged the girl to end her own life and gave her instructions on how to do so, then there really is no case to answer other than being an obnoxious asshole. And I don't think that's illegal yet. Would there be the same outcry if the bully had in fact been a teenage boy - fake name or not ? If not, then how can you justify this action. All that matters is what the girl believed.
Hey Mister antirelic with a much higher id than me,
randomly switching out people (try to find the most pathetic persion you can, elderly, children, invalids, etc.. )
Who do you call "Most pathetic person"? You insensitive clod!
Who are you? So I can sue(2) you in name of the VEP(*) ?
(*) VEP = Very Excluded People, a society to protect the elder, children, invalids and the etc.. out there; ready to bust your *ss!
(2) Children or batteries not included. Sharks with lasers included in basic package.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Bullying is a very known term in court; why must this all be so difficult through TOS agreements and changing laws while there is already a law in order?
If this lady killed another person by bullying, over the Internet, phone, sms, e-mail, msn, fax, telex or smokesignals; there is already a law in place!
Why create more "control" while there are enough laws in place to stop such behavior in the first place? Drive someone to suicide and you'll for sure be looked upon if it comes out.
It came out; police has requested all information at Myspace of this person; this person is busted.
What more can be so complicated?
What more is the Internet next to another medium like a phone, fax or mail? When a bank gets robbed by using GSM's with anonymous paycards through SMS; does that medium has to suffer too?
ps: I'm not sure about the smoke signals thou, I'm not a freaking lawyer ..
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The EFF is exactly right, and this case is being latched onto by those who want to remove privacy and anonymity online.
Because people tend to have such an emotional reaction to what happened to the girl; because it is very sad, and no doubt what Lori Drew did was disgusting and reprehensible, but I don't see anything illegal - to put it in the most simple terms- she IS NOT responsible for Megan Meier's suicide, period.
People who have been treated poorly or cruelly online generally don't kill themselves; this girl was depressed and had other issues - it's extremely sad. You cannot hold somebody responsible for poor choices somebody else makes.
The precedent this would set is unjust, illogical, and an extremely slippery slope. If this happens anything you say to somebody else could make you responsible for actions which they undertake at a later date.
Good precedent. Let people know that if you do something like this,
that your life will be destroyed as well. Prison is a bonus for
bullies.
If this is the definition of free speech in America, then how are we different from China? I've always wondered that.
The story is an extremely tragic one, that has been in the new for quite sometime now and I have read about multiple times. However it would be extremely hard to prosecute not only for free speech, but for how many other people they would have to prosecute. Now I used myspace when it was first started when it was more about music social networking and before everything else came into play, but now I would say around 30% of the people on there aren't who they say, there are fake celebrities as well as fake everyday people. So in reality to be just you would have to follow with suits against these people. Now I know someone who had the same thing happen to them, granted they were not as young, and the two were the same age, but the person didn't kill themself. Now by no means am I trying to defend the people, but I think this girl may have had some mental issue for her to kill herself over a person on the internet whom she had never met. However she was young and it may have just been she was easily manipulated. But if that is the case isn't it the parents fault also for not monitoring their daughters internet use. In this case I don't think just one person to blame, but everyone involved. From the three who made the fake account to the parents to society itself. But if this case does go through and win it will open a whole can of worms with a million fake myspace accounts, to free speech conflicts to internet policies. But if this case does become some landmark case this poor girl will be remembered as some girl who killed herself over a fake myspace account instead of being remembered as Megan Meier, a young girl who was taken from the world prematurely. Maybe the real "right thing to do" is for everyone to take responsibility and let this young soul rest in peace.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Started my title one way and forgot to go back WHOOPS!
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Look at the effect of ANY "hate crime law" anywhere in the U.S. or abroad, and you will see a stark "chilling effect" on free speech.
But that's okay, of course, because the Left thought of it, and they love everyone (except producers who have anything left over after paying taxes, of course).
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
IANAL (but I play one on my DS), but I think the charge you want is manslaughter.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
While not murder, as she didn't pull the trigger, she is certainly culpable for doing more than her fair share for making this girl commit suicide.
Sorry, but even though I've been bullied myself, I have zero sympathy for the dead girl. She took the internet too fucking seriously.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
If you see someone on a ledge or a bridge who appears suicidal and start yelling "Jump! Jump!", is there a law against that? (Not saying I'm like that, but you know there are people who are.) Just wondering?
Anyhow, why not ban mentally unstable people from using the internet for their own protection? After all, if someone is weak enough to be influenced by some troll or mind-fuck such that they actually off themselves by suggestion, then they don't really belong on the internet. Either that or let Darwin's law prevail.
Also if they make another stuipid law, what's going to be the precident when somebody outside the jurisdiction of the law gets somebody who is mentally weak to kill themselves? Since the character that incited the suicide was made up to begin with, it's not really necessary for an attacker to be in the same country even. Do you think another country would even bother to extradite someone for such a case?
Also, what possible implications would something like this have on satire or sarcasm? How hard would this impinge on the liberties of someone who's occasionally ill tempered or is just plain mean. Say you're having a bad day and there's someone who's annoying as fuck, and you tell them to go shoot themself - and then they actually do. Now what? Does their family now have legal precident to sue you? Because this is exactly where this is leading.
Sure the case being presented is pretty bad in an elaborate and nasty Eric Cartman-esque way, but I think there should be some lessons learned in how to handle internet communications with people you don't have actual personal contact with and everyone should go from there.
Theft of service is being committed.
What? Lori Drew raped this girl, too? I'll be in my bunk.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Before posting I had a look at some of GGPs past posts. They are worrying to say the least. I suggest you have a look. They are full of hatred and anti-social expressions, and some of the opinions expressed are very divorced from reality.
You kidding right? Nearly everything you listed could be attributed to Conservative Extremists as well.
Next time try not to let your bias show. Fact is pick a view and a radical will pick the most extreme part of it.
MySpace is private property. Violating the rules of that property should be considered to revoke one's permission to be on it, and use it; hence, it is trespassing and destruction of private property.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
An issue of poor prosecuting. They can nail this woman with plenty of other crimes without attempting to bring the medium she used into the issue. If this had been a series of letters she wouldn't have been charged with Postal Fraud and Abuse.
Well, in this case, there was no foreknowledge that the person in question was fictitious, and it all came to light after the death of the girl.
I'd agree that pinning the charges on abuse of computer systems is lame though. Let's forget about the computer angle and try and figure how this would apply in the non-IT world... perhaps as an adult in a person-of-power position over a minor, or something similar?
What sort of procedures do they use against cult-leaders that abuse or push their followers into dangerous behavior? Maybe some of those are applicable?
Is there a civil trial? Damages? OJ won in criminal court, but he paid through the nose in civil, and to me this seems in many cases more a civil matter than a criminal one.
It's one of those cases where I would think that extremely hefty financial penalties might be a good thing, as there's not much worse you can do to a family than drive one of their children to self-destruction.
It's just a different way of saying "The right to free speech also comes with the responsibility for the consequences of what you say.".
Unfortunately, the current regime seems to think that any rights not expressly granted in the bill of rights doesn't exist, and since they are all worded as such that they aren't expressly granted, but written to say that Congress cannot pass a law to remove them, that they never existed. /sigh
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Now, she had no way of knowing that Megan Meier was going to commit suicide
Actually, I think this is a big part of the question (not the EULA-related charges crap, but general liability). From what I've been able to tell, Lori did know that the girl in question was unstable, talked to her about deeply emotional issue, and then used that same knowledge to attack her. Maybe she didn't draw a direct correlation to possible suicide, but she definitely knew that her behavior was going to be severely damaging to this particular girl. It's like giving somebody a beating and saying "I didn't know it would kill her, I thought I just really wanted to hurt her."
I think what has got the online community up in arms about this is that any laws that might be enacted to prosecute crimes similar to this one in the future would likely have many unintended consequences. That seems to be the EFF's position here.
My question is this - what laws are on the books, if any, to prosecute a person "in the real world" (i.e. not online) that did this sort of thing. Is it legal to taunt someone so severely and engage in a "psychological warfare" style campaign against a person to goad them into suicide? If you use lies and deception to convince a person to kill themselves, which is what happened here, is there a law against that? If there is, it would seem to me that law would apply and that no new laws are needed.
If you take the internet that seriously you probably shouldn't be on the internet at all.
The problem with your argument is that you just stated an opinion contrary to what most of /. believes.
An aggressive prosecutor could now charge you with a felony for violating /.'s ToS:
No user shall transmit Content or otherwise conduct or participate in any activities on SourceForge Sites that, in the judgment of SourceForge, is likely to be prohibited by law in any applicable jurisdiction, including laws governing the encryption of software, the export of technology, the transmission of obscenity, or the permissible uses of intellectual property
So if one of those libertarian types at SourceForge considers your comment obscene, or merely likely to be considered so, you can be charged with a federal felony for violating /.'s terms of service...
This case isn't about Lori Drew's bullying - though it should be. Rather, the prosecutor is trying to make the argument that violating a website's ToS is a crime, and a felony at that.
Almost every website has in their ToS a clause that prohibits, "Otherwise objectionable content..." Therefore, if you post or email something that anyone would consider objectionable, you can be charged with a felony. Make no mistake, this case is about eroding free speech freedoms, not the consequences that may come from something someone says. It makes the following discussions illegal and subject to potential prosecution:
Almost any opinion that someone could hold is objectionable or offensive to someone else. If this prosecution is successful, the first ammendment will have been killed by fiat.
Attempted murder charges against Lori Drew would be more appropriate.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
we wont spare you. It's not that a girl was insulted, it's that someone pretended to be a pen-pal boyfriend only to to trash her. It's like deliberately putting drinks in front of a recovering alcoholic for six months and then acting shocked, schocked! when they finally go on a bender and die in a car accident. You might not have put them behind the wheel, but you're still a slimeball with a great deal of responsibility for the result.
"You have the right to say anything, and be heard..."
You do not have a right to be heard. You cannot force people to be your audience. The right not to listen trumps free speech.
"You clearly don't have kids - most teenagers these days won't let their parents into their life."
Excuse my vitriol, but why the fuck do the kids think they get to LET parents do anything? If you are a parent, and you're allowing your kids to "not let you into their lives" then you're a shitty parent.
YOU make the rules, that's what PARENTS do. GOOD parents don't get "let into" their children's lives, they're already there and there's no way to get them out. That's why good parents are good parents.
BAD parents make stupid excuses like "society (advertising?) encourages teenagers to be self-sufficient and live their own life."
"Sometimes, all the parents can do is be supportive and listen when their kid doesn't want to talk. "
Bullshit. Double bullshit. If YOU as a parent decide talking is in order, then you fucking talk. This idea that kids can override your decision as a parent comes from lazy parents who need to rationalize their laziness as compassion and understanding.
"If the kid won't talk to his/her parents... what did you want the parents to do? Tie them up and force them to speak?"
Nope, it's far easier than that, and your disingenuous rush to "tie them up" shows that you want to frame the argument and pretend you have no control over a situation. GOOD parents would find the motivator they needed and get it done, bad parents make stupid excuses and use hyperbolic nonsense like "what do you want the parents to do tie them up?"
"Also, the best I could do was to rebut your argument and throw on a lame joke."
You didn't rebut anything, you just asserted that certain things are impossible, but your evidence for that was non-existent, and your argument is rebutted by reality and years of research in behavioral psychology.
All you did was make unsubstantiated claims and presume your own inability to accomplish something translates into that thing being impossible to accomplish.
The last message Lori sent to Megan, was, literally, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."
Even skipping past the rest of the campaign, which seems ridiculously calculated cause the maximum possible stress in a short time, read that statement again. It's almost... perfection, in an evil way. It's like a depleted uranium penetrator: calculated to do the maximum possible damage in the most compact shape. Every single sentence in there is the most evil thing you can say to someone who's depressed anyway and had been through that stress. In fact, whom Lori Drew herself put through all that stress. It's playing on the very fears and discomfort that that very online campaign had created. And the final "The world would be a better place without you"... I don't know, it almost spells out "go kill yourself now". It's as if she wanted to be _sure_ that the girl gets the idea to remove herself from the world. Especially after coming after something as callous as, "Have a shitty rest of your life."
I mean the whole thing is pretty damn equivalent to "You have nothing more to live for anyway. You should kill yourself now. It'll be even worse if you don't." Only packed in a more cruel form.
So I really wouldn't say "Maybe she didn't draw a direct correlation to possible suicide". That last message very much incites to suicide, in case the rest of the stress didn't do the job of pushing her over the edge.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Survival of the emotionally strong.
Many states say that any death that results from the committing of a felony can lead to charges for (some variant of) murder. Assuming there are felony convictions for fraud or somesort, they most certainly could have pursued those charges.
IANAL.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I have gotten a lot of static about my views on this case. I'll repeat myself later in this post, but let me state my case first.
A friend of mine, let's call him Chris, became involved with a lady who had an ex-boyfriend. That ex-boyfriend thought that there was a change of them getting back together. The girl thought otherwise and she started a relationship with my friend. The ex-boyfriend committed a suicide. Holy. Shit.
My buddy felt really bad about what happened. He knew about the ex, but he did not know anything about the mental state of the guy who killed himself over a girl. Chris was in a questionable state for some time because he did not know what to make out of the situation. Did he affect somebody's life by that much? Did his relationship cost a life?
Of course, charging Chris with anything will be pretty dumb. He was not a keeper or a legal guardian of the person who decided to check out early. He was just a guy dating just a girl with just an ex. How many people have had relationships that went sour? How many people had dated while their former partners were still lingering around? How many people were dumped for somebody else? Who should we blame? Parents? Life? Match.com? Bush?
Okay, let's blame Bush for some things, but the real deal is simple: We are our own keepers. If people jump off the bridge, you don't follow them (at least not right away until you figure out what is going on). If people tell you to go fuck yourself, do you do it? The same thing applies to this case as well. Somebody on the Internet told you to kill yourself. Honestly, what do you think you should do? Do you go and slit your wrists because some MySpace freak wants to see your dead body? Is your brain not a result of millions of years of evolution?
Yeah, I know that kid was depressed. I know that the person who pretended to be a cute boy next door is a fucking retard and we should have some sort of punishment for that. However, the girl killed herself and if we can blame anybody for that, let's look at the parents. WTF did they do to prevent that? They let a depressed kid with odd tendencies to sit on the Internet without supervision. No soccer. No family trips or evening talks. No fucking counseling. What do you expect? While the focus has been largely projected on the woman who is now being charged with all sorts of problems, we have heard very little about the girl who is no longer with us. The information that came out about the girl suggests that she needed a friend, a counselor and some Prozac far more than unrestricted access to the Internet.
Who cares about some girl who killed herself over the internet? Grow up, you fags. Before you say it, I'm not trolling; you're all just a bunch of pussies.
Could I have all the haters who mark me a troll (simply because I have an opposing opinion) arrested?
While people pock fun at other people, it is best done in a relatively nice way. However, its hard to tell how much is too much picking, being rude, harassment, or other because different people can handle different levels of pain. While, yes there should be a level that people can handle, there must also be a level that is too far. Breaking the will of someone else to give them information is know in the military, secrete service, other, and I would think that it is not hard to adapt it to getting someone to commit suicide. I personally think this person should to be charged with all laws that were broken and any terms of use agreement that were violated because these thing were in place to have people play nicely with each other and to prevent this bad things from happening.
A lot of teenage girls are vulnerable, much more so than people like to believe. They are infinitely more "social" beings than male geeks would ever think possible. As an example, I had to "straighten-out" my 2 teenage daughters who were getting het up over some personality test results from a site going around their friends. I looked into it, and found that even when I bent the test, the most positive result I could wring out of it could be paraphrased as "you're not *that* screwed up, but you should still send us money for a full test". I pointed this out to them, and they are now happier and, hopefully, wiser about attempts like this to manipulate them. However, the fact remains that they were beginning to worry that they were weird because they were vulnerable to negative feedback. The link with this case? If "normal teenage girls" can be vulnerable to generic put-downs, how much worse when someone is tailoring the put-downs and the timings for maximum impact on someone they knew.
He was a man who didn't know the meaning of the word "fear"; or the meaning of many other words longer than 3 letters
In bygone days, someone that acted with that kind of premeditated malice would have quickly found their throat slit. How can anyone condone that kind of behaviour against a fellow human being? It's obviously wrong, there's no point arguing free speech or whatnot. Allowing this kind of behaviour keeps the human race behind. It seems like society is fine with realizing and punishing physical behaviours, but it's going to take recognition of mental aspects if we are going to continue to grow.
Should it be legal for adults to psychologically bully children?
I think we should make it illegal, just so we can use the new law to bludgeon organized religion to death.
Agreed, 100%. Warping a child's mind to the point that they unquestioningly accept an obvious (to a non-believer) falsehood should be considered child abuse. "Culture" only goes so far in protecting other grievous offenses such as this. We get up in arms about genital mutilation in Africa, why shouldn't we be up in arms about mental abuse inflicted on children?
Honestly, do you really think that worshipping a zombie (Jeebus!) who tells you to partake of ritualised cannibalism (and what do you think the sacrament is?) in order to not be tortured forever (go to Hell) is any sort of sane belief...? How do you justify teaching that to your kids? Why isn't this illegal?
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Right. Straight up, suicide is a choice. Yes, emotional bullying is bad, can lead to depression which can lead to suicidal feelings. Yes, a teen, with all the hormonal and development angst they feel, can be prone to suggestion and self-loathing, and are clearly less experienced than somebody much older. It doesn't change the fact that suicide is killing one's self, and saying that the actions of person A "caused" person B to kill themself in some sort of legally causal way is a slope away from freedom and justice that's way more slippery than even Camp X-Ray.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
A lawsuit for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress is probably already a simple case for this. The tort exists in practically every jurisdiction in substantially the same form.
Maybe some jurisdiction requires that the victim still be alive to recover, but I doubt that for most jurisdictions, as that's not a requirement for winning most lawsuits.
Having to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that this woman was the proximate cause of emotional distress should be easy. The rest should be even easier (harm occurred, intent, etc.).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=640275&cid=24528355
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"PS, I told you I don't care, and you posted a reply anyway, in all seriousness, that is a very strong indicator of mental illness."
You clearly have difficulty with reading comprehension.
"Exactly. Or, as those of us from civilised parts of the world refer to the condition, losers."
Seeing as there is no "normal", this comment just illustrates how stupid you are, so I fixed it to make it reflect reality.
"Seriously, though, see a shrink. You obviously have anger issues, or you wouldn't feel the need to verbally abuse strangers in response to mild criticism of your belief system."
I don't. See one yourself, that way you won't feel the need to in psychological counseling when you don't even know what the fuck you're running your dicksucker about.
In case you're wondering, this has nothing to do with my beleif system. I'm right, your opinion on that means fuck all. YOU think this is about beliefs, when in reality, you're too fucking stupid to realize what it is about.
YOU said something stupid and demonstrably wrong. Then you attempted to support your stupidity.
I despise stupidity (hence, my distaste for you and your "ideas") and squash it at every turn. If you were stupid, yet somehow managed to be right about SOMETHING (don't fret, it WILL eventually happen) I would STILL hammer you, because I HATE stupidity, especially your kind of stupidity.
"Whatever. Pot, kettle, black."
HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU? I told YOU I don't give a fuck about your opinion, and you posted. WHERE DID YOU TELL ME ANYTHING THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR COMMENT RELEVANT AND NOT RETARDED?
Oh, right, you didn't. So I guess the answer is VERY FUCKING STUPID. See, you say "Pot, kettle, black." when I do something I say YOU shouldn't do.
"That's certain"
Fixed that for you to, once again, make it reflect reality.
"If I'm distressing you, I suggest you don't bother replying, or at least refrain from saying anything I'm going to feel compelled to refute. :-)"
I'd be interested in finally seeing you "refute" something, you've completely failed this far.
And as to "distressing" me, no guy, you're light entertainment. Every time you reply and demonstrate you're a moron (which is every time thus far) I smile a little inside that I won you so totally that you have to reply even though you're too stupid to make a valid argument.
I win.