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Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict
Bootsy Collins writes "Last Wednesday, the Lori Drew 'cyberbullying' case ended in three misdemeanor convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 US Federal law intended to address illegally accessing computer systems. The interpretation of the act by the Court to cover violations of website terms of service, a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage, may have profound effects on the intersection of the Internet and US law. Referring to an amicus curiae brief filed by online rights organizations and law professors, PJ at Groklaw breaks down the implications of the decision to support her assertion that 'unless this case is overturned, it is time to get off the Internet completely, because it will have become too risky to use a computer.'"
I agree. Get off the Internet. It's too dangerous. Everyone from AOL on - get the hell off.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
This has been the case for years for anyone using any software created by Micro$oft...
The woman needs to pay. Unquestionably.
She's an asshole, but this is a bullshit conviction and as the article describes....it hurts everybody.
America is a country of Laws, until butthurt turds scream for revenge. Then fuck the law and rational application of said law...we's gonna get some revenge!
Bye bye free speech...
Blar.
I'm all for the rule of law making it so the weak and the strong have equal standing in society.. but crying to the courts because someone called your daughter a name and she killed herself is just bullshit. It's just like all this sensitivity shit in the workplace and the restrictions on speech at colleges now. Grow a spine.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A 49yo woman subjects a 13yo neighbor to humiliation and emotional torment. Why wasn't this prosecuted as a case of felony child abuse?
I value PJs contributions to the open source movement, in terms of her legal coverage, but she does have a tendency to go off the deep end sometimes, and I think this is one of those occasions.
The internet has no privacy whatsoever, everything you do can be tracked. This has been true since day one when they turned on ArpaNet, and it will continue to be true. Even if you encrypt your traffic, it can't hide heavy usage, and you cannot hide from your ISP when you are online any more then you can hide making a phonecall from your telecom provider.
People need to realise this and move on. I realise it, and I can cope, but then I never was inclined to tinhattery.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
First off; you know damned well and good that this will be overturned on appeal. It can't be allowed to stand because the interpretation is skewed to begin with. Secondly; This article reads as a scare tactic to shut down the Internet. Come on; get real.
This lady is bad. But there are way to many others of like kind out there and to tie this all together like that is just crappy thinking and reasoning. The kid did have emotional issues that were an underlying complicit part of this formula. Now lets all come back to earth.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
I don't know what to say. She's a teacher, thus she is SUPPOSED to know more than the kids she's teaching. It would be nice to see some evidence of class preparation but NO, when she turned on the computer all the porn pop-ups happened and she just dug herself deaper into the problem. She should have unplugged the computer (the ultimate way to fix computer problems) when the porn started appearing, but she let it continue until some kids with queasy parents saw the stuff on the screen and OMG they are scarred for life. So now this poor teacher has a criminal conviction on her record and probably cannot teach anywhere now all because she wasn't prepared for port popups.
I really have to wonder how Lori's defense attorney completely botched this case. It should have been an absolute walk in the park for him to sink the case. If this doesn't get overturned I can already see the next big lawsuit after this: "The Church of Scientology VS 4chan."
Orin Kerr, one of Lori Drew's attorneys, is a regular blogger at the libertarian legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.
http://volokh.com/
He has a summary here:
"What does the Lori Drew Verdict Mean?"
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_23-2008_11_29.shtml#1227728513
and has updated the blog's terms of use:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_23-2008_11_29.shtml#1227896387
As for serverco retroactively ruling conduct "unauthorized", there's a panoply of affirmative defenses such as invitation, habitual tolerence, failure to notify, discriminatory enforcement. Cyberbullying wouldn't have those available.
Make a new law, call it the Lori Drew law, and have that law make what she did specifically illegal.
The prosecution twisted the existing laws, which I cannot abide. This conviction should be over-turned.
That's how our system of law works.
Blar.
That has been true for Windows users for as long as I can recall, albeit for different reasons :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
and dangerous to all, I closed with "Lovely, whats next. If crap like this succeeds it opens everyone up to any fishing expedition law enforcement cares to make"
That is exactly what we have. A new way for GOVERNMENT to punish someone who a GOVERNMENT employee doesn't like or thinks something was wrong even if nothing is legally wrong.
Basically it lets them write the laws to prosecute on demand. The problem is that with every organization there are a lot of spiteful people around and this gives them too much power to correct the world as they see fit or take a back door approach to nailing someone they don't like.
Guess I better be careful who I cut in front of while driving now.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
without question.
Unfortunately, the thing she's guilty of wasn't actually illegal when she did it. It was immoral, indefensible, and even if she gets off on these charges(which she probably will) she's going to be punished for the rest of her life and she deserves it.
She, as an adult who should have known better, created a false identity to harrass a minor, and that minor commited suicide, at least partially as a result. She set out to hurt that little girl, and the fact that this kid was mentally ill does not excuse that.
As in all cases like this, the government had to show both the victim's family and society at large that they'd go after this sort of thing. The case will probably be overturned because the case they could put together was pretty tenuous(because there wasn't a crime for what she did), but they've shown people that they're serious about this shit.
The crime they've charged her with may not be the one she's guilty of, but she's still guilty, and she deserves everything that's coming to her and more. She's an adult, she should have known better.
where corporations can buy laws and court decisions and even opinion through use of money.
same doesnt fly in europe. french try it sometimes, but Eu bitch slaps them on the face and they sit pretty.
you people gotta wake up, and take over your country.
Read radical news here
Dementia?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
She should not have had criminal charges. However, she should have been sued into oblivion from the civil suit.
Our rights saved. Asshattery punished.
Simple.
The only thing LD is guilty of is of being a jerk. The fact that you believe it just proves that you are a gullible moron.
ignorance of law leads to the interpretation that the lori drew case has far reaching implications. hysteria leads to the rest
and frankly, slashhordes, if this case is your waterloo, then you don't deserve any online rights, because this case, in its proper context that anyone with the faintest understanding of law understands, has absolutely nothing to do with your online rights
you defend your rights from genuine threats to it. only ignorance, stupidity, and hysteria considers the lori drew case a threat to their rights
slashhordes are constantly tut tutting society overreacing with hysteria. now you are doing it
calm the fuck down and grow some fucking brains
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
PJ and groklaw have done a lot of good, but somethimes she just doesn't "get it", and goes off the deep end. This is one of those times
FTFA:
Since when doe web sites have the authority to jail anyone?
They can, like anyone else, decide whether you've violated their TOS. If they decide you have, then they either cancel your account or, if you've been doing something blatantly illegal, they can bring it to the attention of the fuzz. Same as YOU are the final authority to decide whether someone has violated YOUR rights - if you believe so, you can't send them to jail - but you CAN make a complaint to the police.
Like the whole "we must move to GPLv3 or we are doomed!" and "Novell is bad today because they made a deal with Microsoft over linux patents" when they didn't. (And don't bring up mono - nobody gives a f*ck about mono).
Well, there is one side to this law that works out well.
Since it basically lets websites define their own criminal law, it will now be illegal for police/riaa/etc to go on a website that says "you agree you are not etc etc etc" meaning basically online piracy was just deemed legal.
So on one hand, this is completely fucked up. On the other though.
Can't those guys being setup by "to catch a predator" get criminal convictions against the network if they are doing the exact same thing. Pretending to be someone they are not over the internet... but no the worst that ever happened to that show was being sued because someone commited suicide over it.
Seriously though... when I was younger I did the same thing, stood some guy up on a blind date because when I was younger I thought it was ridiculus to try to meet people over the internet. You must be desparate if you do so.
The biggest problem is you cannot be charged with an ex post facto law. If you do something that is legal, and that then becomes legal later, you cannot be charged under the new law unless you do that thing again. The Constitution says "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
You can't make a new law and apply it to an old case, nor can you declare that "What this person did in this case is illegal and we'll punish them for it," (that's a bill of attainder). Both are prohibited by the Constitution. If you cannot charge and convict someone under laws that existed at the time of their crime, you cannot do so at all.
That's the thing. This ruling says that violating the ToS on a website is in itself a federal crime.
The idea is that there is a law saying that "unauthorized access to a computer" is considered hacking and is federal crime. Because Lori Drew violated the Terms of Service, her access to myspace's servers were unauthorized, therefore, she gets convicted of computer hacking.
That's the only thing she was actually convicted of: Violating Myspace's Terms of Service. As various articles have pointed out, treating a terms of service violation as a federal offense is absurd. If someone under 18 does a google search (google's ToS says you need to be 18), do they deserve to spend a year in jail? According to this ruling, they violated the Terms of Service, and that alone is computer abuse, and they're guilty.
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
Reluctantly only because it means that bitch gets to walk. I simply am not willing to sacrifice the integrity of the legal system over one fat subhuman bitch. She's not worth it.
That girl who was toyed with by that c**t and killed herself certainly deserves justice, but, I do not think she would want society to pay such a high price for it.
First, I think the girl was emotionally/mentally unstable to begin with. Most teenagers have emotional problems they have to work out, some more so than others.
Second, I think the people who's actions resulted in the suicide of the girl need to be punished..which is happening.
Depression is a REAL disease, and it isn't just being sad. Its where your entire worldview is skewed towards the negative. Like if your friend had to cancel some plans you had made, you might think that it was your fault or maybe they just didn't want to be around you. People think that its just being sad, but being sad is more like a number on a -10 to +10 chart of emotion, whereas depression would be like a chart of -20 to +5.
You can bet that if some people asked a retarded person to do something dangerous that resulted in the retarded person being injured or killed, people would be all over that one. They weren't in the mental capacity to see the consequences, just like the girl in this story wasn't in the emotional capacity to deal with the assholes that did this to her.
Had it been a boy really breaking up with her, no charges would have been pressed. But since the motive (revenge/humiliation) was established and intent to harm was also established, its time for them to pay the piper.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Per your link, Josh Evans was the alias of Lori Drew and her daughter. So "Josh" couldn't send anything, one of the Drews did that final message.
Web sites and their owners can't jail anyone directly. But this ruling provides a way to turn TOS violations into criminal offenses, given nothing else but a police department willing to charge you and a jury willing to convict. Do something unpopular but otherwise legal and you could be targeted.
I'm sure Lori Drew could be charged and convicted with something related to what she actually did wrong. Maybe not -- and if not, then she ought to go free...
There are plenty of loopholes that authorities could use to arrest anyone they want. They all stink. This is one of them.
are you a chick or a fag?
I think there's some merit behind the convictions.
Fraudulently entering a computer system for the express purpose of harassing someone is IMHO no better than breaking into a computer to steal IP or crash the system.
It's pretty much cyber-burglary. "Entering a domain with the intent to commit a crime therein", except in this case the domain is a computer system.
I hope the courts get the precedent right though.
If breaking TOS is a federal offense, then boo for elevating a civil tort to a criminal offense.
...if you lack the imagination to see.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
At first I liked the verdict, because I really think that the conduct involved should be a crime, at least on some level.
But yeah, this has much wider and scarier implications than i first realized. Really obvious too, I normally pick up on things like this. Don't know why I didn't this time.
If this stands as is, it really is a troubling precedent.
That said, I do think what Lori Drew did should be a crime(assuming that the suicide can be tied to her conduct). But it will require a new law with enough specificity to avoid the pitfalls this verdict creates. Maybe extend manslaughter to include harassment that unintentionally leads to suicide of the target?
I'm changing the TOS for my sites to include "You must donaite $5 to view this site." If they don't, BAM, federal crime!
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
straight, so this shouldn't surprise me.
But again:
*Drew did not access myspace, she did not create the account, she did not send nasty messages
*Drew did not direct anyone to do these things
These facts are not in dispute.
Drew was aware of her minor child and (adult) employee creating the account to snoop on the other girl.
Drop your hysteria for a moment and take the time to learn the fact of the case. I know this is asking for a lot from a slashdotter, but I suspect that if you try you'll be able to do it.
It's been several months since I researched things on this, but in the official reports, the girl killed herself after an argument with her mother over her excessive internet use. The media and people crying for Lori Drew's blood ignore this (well, many of the people online probably never knew about it) when it shows that if anyone besides the girl is to blame, it was her PARENTS. Lori Drew may have hurt someone's feelings (not a crime yet), but to claim that she had anything to do with the girl killing herself is bullshit. Lori Drew is a scapegoat that the parents pushed the blame onto.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Oh wait .. now you see the danger of activist judges who like to interpret the the law and try to measure it's "intent" but since it encroaches on your freedom only now are you upset ... hmm ... stupid is as stupid does ... what a predicament ......
Lori Drew's case is about cyberbullying, which is behavior for which society has little tolerance. Cyberbullying is poison for anyone it touches. An institution like Myspace -- or a library or a school, which provides patrons, students or guests access to the Internet -- has plentiful incentive to stamp out cyberbullying within its system and its PCs. --Ben
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
In another example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that terms of service for the popular dating site Match.com require users of either the website or the dating service to be single or separated from their spouses. See, e.g., Match.com Terms of Use Agreement, http://www.match.com/registration/membagr.aspx (âoeYou must be at least eighteen (18) years of age and single or separated from your spouse to register as a member of Match.com or use the Website.â) (last visited July 30, 2008). The brief's author has not been able to visit the site to confirm the report; because she remains happily married, doing so would be a violation of the siteâ(TM)s terms, potentially a criminal act under the interpretation of the CFAA advanced by the Government here.
I'll listen to an UNBIASED analysis on this matter, not a partisan Groklaw writer who doesn't really "grok" what the case was about. Worried about your myspace being hacked? Here's an idea for you: don't use it! Try getting out and socializing in the flesh! If that 13 year old didn't live on myspace so much(where was her mother?), the mother wouldn't have had such an upper hand. Yay to the dumbest generation.
Actually, you're wrong. For a criminal conviction, you need two separate things - the "actus reus" and the "mens rea". - the "guilty act" and the "guilty mind."
The "guilty act" is unathorized acces. However, intent also comes into it. If it can't be shown that you had criminal intent, not wrt the act, but wrt the results as well, you are not guilty of a criminal act.
This is all pretty straightforward to me.
A prosecutor brought charges against a citizen for crimes described. A jury of the citizens peers agreed that the prosecution was valid and the citizen guilty. A judge oversaw the proceedings and determined that they were just. The defense attorney was unable to establish innocence.
The fine mechanics and specific small injustices are certainly arguable, as are the future implications.
But justice was served.
"all the judges aren't sane, all the presidents aren't sane, noboody in government knows how a computer runs!"
oooo noooes!
all you need is the pantyhose twisted around your ankles and your lipstick smudged
you have ZERO faith in the institutions of your government
and people get the governments they deserve
therefore, if the government sucks, it is because of hysterical overreactive twits with such little faith as yourself as the government's base
meanwhile, i have a little more faith than you in our government, and through me and people like me, it will be held accountable to higher standards
you, meanwhile, go run around outside and yell histrionic and fear-addled slogans
you're such a benefit to us all, really
fucking faithless twit
contribute something more positive than "everything sucks! waaah!" or shut the fuck up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That is far, far, too naive and heartless a response.
Impersonation and malice - the desire and intent to injure a child - as severely as it in your reach to do so - would seem to me to more than sufficient grounds to anchor a felony charge.
It is scarcely a defense in other circumstances to argue that you intended to wound and not to kill.
That it wasn't my fault the girl went into a seizure.
But if we find her body duct taped in your closet, that is all we have to know.
I doubt that anyone's defenses against suicide are so secure that they could not be broken through such a systematic campaign of psychological manipulation and abuse.
The geek seems to cherish the illusion that the Internet can remain the Wild West. But the law always comes to Deadwood and Dodge City.
The cowboys retire or lie fallow on Boot Hill.
However, instead of a time-tested system with checks and balances most /.ers prefer the philosopher king system (i.e. their own personal preferences) where any law that could concievably be used to punish their aberrant behavior is void.
The one who needed to grow a spine was Lori Drew.
Since when did it tske courage to sit at your keyboard playing malacious little psychological games with an emotionally fragile thirteen year old girl?
Perhaps this story hit the geek in you just a little bit too close to home.
Shit, they should have just tried here as a witch! It seems so obvious now and it would be easy to prove or disprove. The real question is: "Is Lori Drew heavier than a duck?"
...people today...
-- there, corrected it for you! :)
The worst part is that there is really some quite deep-rooted mentality in the "ruling classes" that "people" would not know what is better for them; thus, they need to be ruled. Next time you go to the polls, please choose between Big Brother and Big Mother, and no, you do not have any other choices on your ballot. It is by design, silly you, and me... :(
Paul B.
Look, the fact is, if The Man wants to get you, The Man will get you. It doesn't matter what the laws are, exactly - they'll find something to hit you with.
That was true before the Lori Drew trial, and it's true now. The precedents set by this case in no way make being on the internet one bit more "risky". If you don't do anything to bring down the wrath of The Man, you'll be fine. And if you do, you're screwed, online or off.
"Do you actually want a world like that? In some ways, it's worse than lawlessness, worse than the old Wild West. Why worse? Because in the West in the old days, might made "right". That's clear enough, and you knew where you stood. Practice shooting, or move East where there were laws."
The reality was far different than the popular fiction. Studies have shown that a person was more likely to be killed in a criminal encounter in the large Eastern Cites than it the territories of the 'old west.' I understand that the analogy he was trying to make was based on the 'old west' of fiction and lore. However, the facts do not support the fiction.
See topic, my angry little friend.
And can you please learn to write correctly? Valuable reference material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization. You might be amazed at just how wrongly you've been doing it.
People are willing to give new immigrants a bit of leeway when they're just learning English, but since you seem to have advanced to the "inane rants on Slashdot" phase of literary accomplishment, your free pass has expired.
she was an adult
who was a telling a minor child
that she KNEW was depressed that the world
would be better off without her after having deliberately tormented the child . Suicide was a reasonably forseeable consequence.
"Reckless endangerment"
An adult has a higher duty of care when dealing with a child than if he or she were talking to another adult.
We live with all kinds of risks. You leave the house, you risk dying in all kinds of ways. Is someone seriously suggesting that the risks associated with merely using a computer on the internet are so grave compared to everyday risks that no one should do it? I'm not a lawyer, so I can't really debate the finer points, and the article didn't quantify risks (are we expecting 1% of MySpace users to be thrown in jail over the next year?). But this really sounds like the kind of needless hysteria that threatens to overshadow legitimate concerns with a bad ruling. I will predict that despite the spectre of arbitrary MySpace rules leading to criminal convictions, no one is going to get thrown in jail for doing anything innocuous on MySpace. The ruling is disturbing for many reasons, but not because it makes using the internet too risky.
Wait a minute. If I post "Man the harpoons" type comments on videos of fat people with a made up name, does that mean I'm guilty of a crime. Shit, what am I gonna do on Saturday night.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Please raise your hand if you have ever set up a computer with free account registrations and someone created an account using a false identity in order to torment a child who later killed herself. Anyone? If you haven't, let me clue you in -- when you found out, you'd be pissed off, and fucking scared.
/. echo chamber.
Next time, it could be your ass on the line with the Feds. You should be glad they convicted her. Not to mention the fact that if they hadn't, every social networking site, not to mention every other Web 2.0 site, should close their doors right now, because there's no way they can protect themselves from exactly this kind of tragedy.
P.S. Of course, they should have hit Drew with more serious charges. But Christ, people can be quick to judge in the
I hope this lady gets off scott-free, then I hope a kid like the one she screwed with shoots up the school her kids go to, killing all of them.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I don't think there was any good reason for this to be tagged 'cunt,' and unless the current iteration of the tag system is just showing me what I said, people seem to agree. However, now we've got this nonsensical !cunt tag on the article, all because of some tag troll. And the !cunt moderation is almost as bad as the cunt moderation, being completely pointless and not belonging on the front page. I think maybe we need some karma weighting and maybe meta-moderation on tags or something to stop this tag trolling crap from showing up.
Strictly speaking, it may be true to say that a website TOS violation was "a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage" because web sites weren't around when CFAA became law. But don't read anything more into that; plenty of online services (including BBSes and similar dial up hosts accessible without charge) had terms of use or terms of service at the time the CFAA went into effect.
I didn't have to think too hard when I first heard about the CFAA to realize that "unauthorized use" was a huge, poorly defined can of worms. And it was clear to me that there was going to be some PR fall out eventually, even if the modem never made it past being a niche product for IT departments and geeky hobbyists.
Bruce Sterling's retelling of the E-911 document saga in his book "The Hacker Crackdown" (http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html) will give you a taste of the Catch-22 climate that the CFAA fits perfectly into.
Now, I don't mean to dismiss the possibility that using a web site against terms might not, in some cases, be "unauthorized use". People are suggesting potential arguments for that here that I haven't heard of before (e.g. "habitual tolerance", "failure to notify") that if effective could cut a wide swath out of existing web site TOSes. But despite all of that, there are still going to be some fraction of web site terms that were properly executed and are properly being enforced, and so are still binding. And a pretty plain reading of the CFAA tells me that breaking any of those ones is at least a misdemeanor even when there is no "collateral damage".
Anyway, what really irks me about this whole situation is this: The CNNs of the world love the 'hacker bust' and have reported over the years about literally hundreds of convictions under the CFAA, even before the Internet became an everyday tool for the average person. Likewise, they've reported about big lawsuits by web site operators against companies that get data from their web sites for purposes they don't approve of (like competitive shopping and news aggregation) and most of these complaints hinge on a TOS violation of some kind. But they haven't had the ability or the inclination to put 1 and 1 together until now. What?
I mean, I'm used to the quality of mainstream media reporting about computing in general and network security in particular being poor. They take the "Hitchhiker's Guide" approach: their coverage may be "apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate", but despite this (or maybe because of it) it is designed to harness as much public PANIC as possible. (Apologies to the late Douglas Adams.) I've largely accepted this awful journalism as an unalterable fact of life, and I don't worry about it too much anymore.
But is it asking too much for them to fulfil even that limited mandate?
Maybe the true-crime sensationalism of this case is what was needed for them to take notice. If so, that's kind of sad.
How is this any different than the copyright witch trials that have been happening in the US? Yes, the RIAA has been asking for civil penalties so far, but they could just as easily add criminal infingement to their list of charges. It is in the copyright act, and there is real jail time attached to these things -- especially considering the volume and scale of Internet based distribution (which the law could never have anticipated).
In Digital Copyright (2001), Jessica Litman made the point that a room full of copyright lawyers often had trouble with determining what was legal and what was illegal on many copyright issues. By extension, she argued that ordinary people, who had not read the Title 17 or spent years in law school studying copyright would be unable to reasonably determine which activites were legal and which were not. She said the assumption that copyright is fair and makes sense meant that most people would unknowingly violate copyright law.
This sort of overlegislation has been a part of US law for quite some time now. It seems that everyone is a criminal according to these laws.
So, cynically speaking, what has changed? You mean we have one more law -- of many -- that makes us all criminals? So? It is already too late, is it not? We are all already criminals anyway, right?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
On closer inspection, it appears that (despite the requirement to provide accurate information upon request) Slashdot doesn't ask for your name to register.
I love you Slashdot!
Karma, as I understand it, is the universal spirit redirecting the effects of your actions back to you. Karma does not automatically take the form of the action you performed. E.G. Karma for murder would most likely not be a reciprocal murder. What you are describing is more like revenge amplified to the level of massacre.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
I like to mix it up a little. A little "Equal but oppisite reaction" mixed in with some Karma, and in the end I'll just blame it all on God.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
But what, pray tell, is the function of skiing? Unless you live in the Alps and are using it as some sort of commute method, it's purely entertainment that carries with it a risk of bodily harm---much like drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, I know, the title is not fair to most Americans - it is meant as a provocation, of course.
But sadly it isn't far off the mark when it comes to the kind of responses I see on /. that are modded +5 "Insightful" or "Interesting". They seem to range from the dowright disgusting "Who fscking cares about some 13year old brat killing herself" to the rather lame "Lori Drew did something wrong, but 'free speech' is much more important" - and that is at the kind and warm-hearted end of the spectrum.
Freedom is important, oh yes. It is also mostly fictitious, at least in the absolute, quasi-religious sense people on /. seem to think. Everything, from quantum-mechanics up, should tell you that there is no such thing as complete, perfect indepedence; the only real freedom is sufficient freedom to live a worthy and fulfilling life at peace with your neighbors. With freedom comes responsibility, because with action comes consequences.
One can but wonder how it came to that in America, it is certainly not the prevailing viewpoint in the parts of Europe I know of. This is where people usually start pointing to History and Founding Fathers, but I just can't see what that has to do with anything; the freedom of speech should be seen in light of that time, as a reaction to specific oppression of political and religious dissent, and it is clear that it is about the right to practise your faith and express your political views; both of which make a lot of sense. But this idea about "freedom to do and say anything at all with no restrictions or consequences" is simply nonsense - to me it seems to have arisen in the 60es, a time when we also saw some talk about psychopathy as an ideal for mankind, exactly because psychopaths are so void of the moral inhibitions of normal society. Go and look it up if you don't believe me.
Far be it from me to dictate what Americans should think or believe, but before people start idolising what can in many ways be regarded as "the essence of evil", they would be well adviced to at least have thought it through.
In my country (Croatia), incitement to commit suicide is a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison. If the victim is a minor or a person with diminished capacity, it's 5 years in prison. If the victim is a child (i.e. person younger than 16), and the incitement actually leads to suicide, one gets tried for *murder*.
So, for such an offense, it would be really hard for Lori Drew to escape serious jail time, especially given high degree of mens rea displayed in this particular case. No new laws required, no terms-of-service mumbo-jumbo.
To put this in perspective: Croatia probably has one of the _worst_ justice systems in Europe, but here US criminal code comes out deficient by comparison, and - speaking from my Slashdot-lurking experience - it's far from the first such case.
All the people here commenting on the morality of Lori Drew's actions are falling for the big bait and switch trick:
Its patently obvious that Lori Drew was only in court because the prosecutors wanted her punished for her role in a suicide - and they made damn sure that the Jury knew of this. Yet all of the charges actually blaming her for the suicide either failed to stand up in court or were never brought in the first place.
The only 'crime' of which she has actually been found guilty of is a fairly trivial breach of MySpace's terms of service - something which thousands of MySpace users do routinely and which has not previously been treated as a criminal offence.
In a previous discussion, someone mentioned how they got Al Capone for tax evasion when they couldn't get him for being a rank bad hat, and everybody shouted "hurrah!". However, when they did that, AFAIK, it was already well established that tax evasion could land you in jail - they didn't 'create' a new criminal offense of 'tax evasion' by twisting the laws on robbery.
In this case, the "bait" of a tragic suicide has - possibly unintentionally - been used to set a dangerous precedent.
This doesn't mean that websites are suddenly going to start getting random users locked up for breaking their TOS - but it does mean that if you are even indirectly involved with some scandal (be it, fraud, bullying, murder, genocide or, God help you, copyright infringement) and the prosecuting authorities are under pressure to get a scalp, then they can get you convicted without having to prove anything other than that you broke some part of someones TOS.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Let's everyone stop posting TOS on our collective webbage.
Noone reads it. Noone follows it (if there's reason not to).
Same goes for EULA and similar.
Stop it. Stop it!
I don't think this case sets a precedent at all. I do think other laws will be crafted though that will more clearly define this type of behavior. The Prosecutor used what he could to punish a woman that deserved punishing.
She is entitled to her opinion.
In many cases, "reckless" behavior is considered to satisfy the mens rea requirement.
Indeed. Having one's ass kicked tends to only hurt for as long as the bruises are around. It can also lead to you becoming a bit more resilient to pain. Obviously if you're suffering broken bones or major injuries, it's a whole lot easier to make a court/criminal argument against the aggressor too.
Being a social outcast tends to have a lot more long-term results. For one thing, it's a self-perpetuating cycle (no friends = no social skills development = no friends), and the callouses you grow from that tend to make one rather bitter toward one's fellow humans (again, self-perpetuating).
And yes, this is something I would know about. I was pretty much also a dork through to near the end of high-school as well. If I'd not been cut out-of-the-loop earlier on, I wonder if my HS social skills would have developed a little better. Luckily for me at the time, one of my outlets was long-distance biking. A good tan and a decent physique helped me meet a girl outside of my area who didn't know about my geekish reputation, and from there on things got better (IMHO, once you hit college it's a whole lot nicer than HS as well, especially if you're in a course with like-minded people).
Unfortunately - due to what is likely a lot of contributing factors, Lori Drew being one - this young lady will never get the chance to change her life for the better.
What she did seems to be illegal under existing laws, but ones that apply a whole lot more than this cyber-crime BS. There *are* rules for criminal harassment (I believe specific ones for minors), and other such things. As many have mentioned, if this were the case of a grown man and young woman, a number of anti-predator laws would also likely have been applied.
Now I have nothing against drafting a law to better address issues of this nature (personation in order to delude and cause damage to an unstable individual), but why were the crappiest laws possible used in this case?
Doesn't the US have an equivalent to Criminal harassment?
But in general, I agree. Look at our recent history: everything has been about shifting responsibility (and blame) for our own actions onto other people or organizations.
Dude, it's not just recent history. I don't consider myself Christian and I certainly don't consider the Bible to be an authority of any kind over me but I do think that if Christians studied the Bible with an open mind, they would learn a lot about human behavior. Take this episode, please:
God is walking through the Garden of Eden and doesn't see Adam. "Adam, where are you?" Adam replies, "God, I am hiding." God asks, "Why are you hiding?" "Because I'm naked." "Who told you you are naked?" "It was the woman, she made me take of the apple." God turns to Eve, "Eve..." Eve answers, "It was the snake..."
So, yeah, I don't think blaming others for our own behavior is a new thing.
Her defense attorney did not do his job. It's the job of the defense attorney to *make* the prosecution prove it's case. If the prosecution is twisting the law in an absurd way, as seems to be the case here, then the defense has the burden to make that obvious to the judge and/or jury.
It is also a *good* defense attorney's job to set the grounds for an appeal should such an absurd use of a bad law result in a conviction.
Hopefully he did his job of foundation building well enough that this absurd conviction will be overturned.
I don't see this going beyond the appellate court to the SCotUS so watch for a complete reversal and this whole thing to go whiffing away into the ether soon.
Namaste....
It seems to me that this case is just another in the long line of bullshit scare tactics used to convince the public that the internet is just too dangerous in its current state and can only be rendered safe if it's turned into a corporate owned and operated media wasteland patrolled by the jackboots.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
Well, I'm not sure law counts for minors...
Speaking as (one of the few) Internet lawyers, and an Internet policy person, the hand-wringing hysterics coming out of this are ridiculous. Online services and sites can *already* sue people for ToS violations - they always could (it's a breach of contract). And a prosecutor isn't going to waste their time trying to criminalize a ToS violation when no action of a criminal nature has occurred. This was a *very* unusual case. To read our full analysis, see our article here: http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/internet-in-uproar-over-verdict-for-lori-drew-in-megan-meier-teen-suicide-case
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If your goal is to promote good health, there are many safer activities than skiing you could participate in.
As for drinking and smoking, I disagree; they are entertaining in themselves.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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Everyone understood that they could be sued for violating TOS. But losing money is a little different (for most people) from going to jail.
And while it's convenient to say, "a prosecutor isn't going to waste their time trying to criminalize a ToS violation when no action of a criminal nature has occurred," this has the potential to open things pretty wide for a prosecutor who has extreme ideas of criminal behavior. How about someone who wants to crack down on pornography? Or a republican prosecutor who decides that the servers sending out Obama's emails might be violating the terms of the backbone connection they use?
I imagine (hope) the latter would lead to a huge uproar, but the former might be applauded.
"It's only a problem if you're doing something wrong," has often been used to minimize concerns as rights have been curtailed.
Is it too much to ask for parental supervision?
No one is talking about how irresponsible it is to let an emotionally unstable/clinically depressed teen use the internets unsupervised.
After the "breakup", it would be as simple as "I don't want you reading about or associating with that Evans guy because he sounds psychotic".
Which would also be a nice segue into a discussion of what "psychotic" means.
Personally, I think we have a great, new, example.
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