Lori Drew Cyberbullying Case Dismissed

Trepidity writes "About seven weeks after the judge tentatively overturned Lori Drew's guilty verdict for 'cyberbullying' following her online harassment of a teenager that was linked to the teenager's suicide, the case was finally officially dismissed. In a 32-page opinion (PDF), the court avoided a minefield of possible follow-on effects that civil-liberties groups had warned of by holding that merely violating a website's Terms of Service cannot constitute 'unauthorized access' for the purposes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030)."

Comments

great

[Anonymous Coward]

now they can just arrest her for harassment, like what should have happened in the first place.

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

Harassment != being mean.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Harassment != being mean

So just what is 'harassment' then?

Is it harrassment if I call you an asshole?
How about if I make a point of calling you an asshole every time I see you?
What if I stand outside your house yelling "asshole!" for a whole afternoon?
Can I get away with telling all your friends and family that you're an asshole?
Is it harrassment if I put up posters with your name and the word 'asshole' on all round the neighborhood?

Where is the line drawn? Maybe it should be for a jury to decide.

Re:great

[Seumas]

So an adult posting as a child having intimate and/or sexual conversations with a child in order to later manipulate and ridicule them is merely "being mean"? If Lori Drew were a man, she'd be thrown away in prison for life for for being a sexual predator engaging in sexual conversations with a twelve year old girl online.

Her actions and intentions (and the results) could reasonably (in spirit, though certainly not law) be seen as manslaughter. Adults have measures they can take, legally, to retaliate against harassment and various forms of emotional and verbal abuse, but if you're a twelve year old little girl you should "just toughen the fuck up"?

The problem here is that this woman is a petty, vile, remorseless cunt (an applicable use of that word in this case which nobody can deny) that did a despicable thing that absolutely contributed significantly to the death of a child. Because the case was so mishandled (there are already laws which should have allowed certain prosecution without the ridiculous liberty-curtailing precedents involved here), the only way to make sure she gets what she deserves is to put the civil liberties of every person in the country in peril.

There is no great outcome either way in this case.

Re:great

[jbolden]

I'm not so sure that the 19 year old's actions could not be seen as manslaughter, i.e. taking a mentally disturbed person causing great emotional trauma and encouraging suicide as a solution. If that were the case then Drew is part of a conspiracy. But the Missouri DA screwed this up by giving the 19 year old immunity.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but this was harassment, while I don't like the term "cyberbullying", as it's all the same to me, this was harassment.

Re:great

[Spazmania]

No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."

Instead, what Drew did do is negligently bring about the conditions which resulted her death. "Talked her into killing herself" is a tough case to prove though I seem to recall that when Manson talked a bunch of people into killing others it was possible to put him in jail.

Somewhat better odds of pursuing a wrongful death suit. That's a civil rather than criminal case. Still not great odds and still has to be brought in Missouri, not California.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

But it wasn't manslaughter at all. The only people responsible here was the girl who killed herself and her parents for not paying attention to their child. If I call someone names and they go kill themself, the only thing I would be guilty of is being an asshole, which isn't illegal.

Charles Manson wasn't put in prison because he talked some people into killing. He was put in prison because he was part of a conspiracy to commit murder.

Re:great

[Runaway1956]

Yes, there is one great outcome here. Those who are able to discern that a civil suit for wrongful death is open to the girl's family will be able to understand this great outcome.

The outcome boils down to this: the government has no right to meddle in every little dispute that arises between two people. The federal government has no right or responsibility to get involved in petty disputes between bit players. The state governments cannot regulate every aspect of a person's life. A new law cannot be written to cover every possible use of every new technology. Attempting to do so only shows how anally retentive politicians and prosecutors can be.

Each and every individual who was involved in this particular case of harassment has some degree of responsibility. That INCLUDES the parents. Their "child" was permitted unsupervised access to the internet. This unstable child was permitted by her parents to suffer ongoing emotional and psychological abuse by her own parents.

There is plenty of responsibility to go around. Enough to keep a civil lawsuit going for years.

Criminal responsibility? Sorry. If I call you a flaming homosexual moron, and you go commit suicide, I've not committed a criminal act. Of course, that goes both ways - if you call ME the same thing, and I commit suicide, you aren't criminally liable either.

There - aren't you relieved that you aren't likely to spend the rest of your life in prison if you insult someone? Even if that someone happens to be a kid?

Be back later - I've got some queer little monkey faced bastards on my lawn.......

Re:great

[Hubbell]

So if I tell someone only to go kill themself or the world would be better off without them, which I and many others do online as well as off, I should go to jail if that person actually does it? That's absurd.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Harassment != being mean

So just what is 'harassment' then? Is it harrassment if I call you an asshole? How about if I make a point of calling you an asshole every time I see you? What if I stand outside your house yelling "asshole!" for a whole afternoon? Can I get away with telling all your friends and family that you're an asshole? Is it harrassment if I put up posters with your name and the word 'asshole' on all round the neighborhood? Where is the line drawn? Maybe it should be for a jury to decide.

Maybe all those things are harassment and maybe harassment shouldn't be a crime in an of itself. Maybe trespassing, slander, public disorder, etc. should cover it. We're so ready to outlaw every little thing we don't like these days that we're cutting into things that are much more important. If you can't call me an asshole in public then how can I speak out against the actions of others in public? Who's going to decide what is ok to be said and what isn't? When you make speech subject to jury review regardless of how seemingly reasonable that is you gut the idea of free speech.

Additionally, while I think this woman is a worthless piece of crap why is she responsible for the actions of another who harmed themselves. Personal responsibility plays a part in all things and we're so ready to find others to blame we ignore that. Just because she is worthless, mean, and stupid does not make her responsible for another's actions.

Re:great

[TRRosen]

No Its MURDER. Manslaughter means there was no intent. The act of committing fraud in order to do it creates an intent to injure.
Killing someone with no intent to injury = Manslaughter
Killing someone with intent to injure but not kill = second degree murder

Re:great

[jbolden]

No the same way that if you push someone you don't go to jail for murder; while if you push them in front of a train you do. The 19 year old did far more than just tell someone something mean. She spent hours developing a close emotional connection with a child (not a peer) prior to telling them to kill themselves.

Re:great

[lysergic.acid]

Huh? No one said she should be charged with murder (which is what would happen if she were held responsible for what the girl did to herself). But she is still responsible for the direct consequences of her actions.

Even if the girl didn't end up committing suicide from the psychological harm that women inflicted upon her (with clear malicious intent), an adult should still not be allowed to bully a child without legal consequences. Heck, disciplinary actions are even taken on a 1st or 2nd grader who picks on another kid at school, so why would an adult doing much more harm to a child be given a free ride?

Re:great

[Hubbell]

Over the internet, never met in person, the girls parents knew EVERY STEP OF THE WAY WHAT WAS GOING ON IN ITS ENTIRETY, yet noone wants to blame the parents? This is a CLASSIC case of what every slashdotter talks about where the parent's don't have to take any responsibility for their children. Read about the case, the girl's parents knew she was in a terrible place emotionally cause of this internet boyfriend she had, 'but she still went on the computer even though we would tell her not to' is their excuse for why she was allowed to continue.


TL:DR version:

Where the fuck were her parents?

Re:great

[_Sprocket_]

No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."

I see. So Drew was able to cultivate this false relationship with the girl in order to inflict emotional damage all with a single message? It didn't take a pattern of repeated communications to pull this off?

Re:great

[iamhassi]

" an adult should still not be allowed to bully a child without legal consequences."

let me fix that: an adult should not be allowed to harass a child without legal consequences. This should be fairly obvious, we don't have a law against that already? I mean I don't think Lori Drew should serve a life sentence, but I'd be very happy if she served at least 6 months, and several years would not be unreasonable since this was no accident, this was a targeted attack at a particular teenage and Lori spent quite some time harassing the child, even going to far to pretend to be a child herself.

How is it that an adult harassed a child to the point of committing suicide and all we could throw at her is a TOS violation? Men just trying to have sex with teenage girls get jail time, but succeeding in coercing suicide gets nothing?

Re:great

[iamhassi]

"I'm not so sure that the 19 year old's...."

what 19 yr old? Lori Drew is 40+, and she's admitted to everything to police, there pretty much was no one else responsible.

Re:great

[_Sprocket_]

Criminal responsibility? Sorry. If I call you a flaming homosexual moron, and you go commit suicide, I've not committed a criminal act. Of course, that goes both ways - if you call ME the same thing, and I commit suicide, you aren't criminally liable either.

If you call me a "flaming homosexual moron", you have no idea of what my mental state is. You don't know me. I am a complete stranger. However, this case didn't involve complete strangers. This case involved an adult who had some knowledge of the mental state of her victim. This involved a case of an adult who went out of her way to cultivate a lie; create the deception of a personal relationship with the girl. This adult set up an emotional unstable teenager to be her most vulnerable. And then that adult let loose with an insult that would take the most advantage and do the most damage in this crafted situation.

This is not a case of flaming on an Internet forum. This is not heated words or throw-away insults. This was something far beyond the pale of what you're describing.

Re:great

[lysergic.acid]

No, not jail. But you should probably go back to Philosophy 101: Intro to Logic for using such a bad analogy.

Certain portions of any society's population are more easily victimized (and more vulnerable to predation or exploitation) than others. Our legal system takes that into account, as it should, and offers those groups greater protection. That is why an adult can be prosecuted if they allow an infant to drown in a bathtub, but not if instead it had been a non-physically-or-mentally-handicapped adult that drowned. It's also why it's considered a greater crime to murder someone with a handicap, a child, or a senior citizen.

The fact of the matter is, many mental disabilities make the sufferer more susceptible to suggestion or external influence. The victim in this case was an adolescent girl suffering from clinical depression. In fact, she was even on multiple mood-stabilizers. It should be quite obvious that someone in that situation is already predisposed to self-harm and suicide without others bullying them. But when someone deliberately causes psychological harm on such an individual, the situation becomes even more dangerous. In this case, it was a grown woman preying on the psychological vulnerability of a 13-year-old child, and the results proved fatal.

If I approached a man standing on the ledge of a cliff and intentionally frightened them, and as a result they lost their balance and fell to their death, I would certainly be held accountable (and charged with involuntary manslaughter). If a suicidal person is standing on a ledge on a tall building, and I tell them to jump&mdashand they do, should I not be held accountable as well? Now, in this case, the woman had to make much more of an effort to get this girl to commit suicide. I'm certain she had no intent to kill, but she is still potentially liable for involuntary manslaughter or at least criminal negligence (though not likely as this is a clear case of malicious intent).

Re:great

[Spazmania]

There was no intent to cause physical injury. This is like yelling fire in a theater and someone is trampled to death in the crush at the emergency exit. There was no intent to specifically harm anybody, yet a reasonable person would understand that someone could be killed as a result of such misbehavior.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

When you make speech subject to jury review regardless of how seemingly reasonable that is you gut the idea of free speech. Additionally, while I think this woman is a worthless piece of crap why is she responsible for the actions of another who harmed themselves. Personal responsibility plays a part in all things and we're so ready to find others to blame we ignore that. Just because she is worthless, mean, and stupid does not make her responsible for another's actions.

A few things of note here:

"Speech" covers a very broad area, and some of it has to be subject to review. If I advertise that my magic potion can cure diabetes and eliminate the need for the consumer to take insulin, and someone dies because of that, shouldn't I be responsible for that "speech"? If I incite a mob to kill someone, shouldn't I be responsible for that? Speech has consequences, and "freedom of speech" doesn't cover all sins. Sorry. Doesn't work that way.

In the case at hand, one could argue that an adult would be responsible for his/her actions, and should have been expected to handle the situation better. But this was a child with mental health issues that were apparently known by her killer (which is a word I use very deliberately).

Personal responsibility is all well and good for an adult, but we don't hold children to the same standard in civilized countries. And we do hold adults responsible for exploiting children. I can't think of a more clear-cut example of someone exploiting that vulnerability than the case we have here.

In a just universe, Lori Drew would be stoned to death by angry townspeople using the sharpest rocks possible. (Obsidian sounds about right.)

Re:great

[Quakerjono]

I'm not sure that under Missouri Law the situation is so clear cut.

Section 565-021states that second degree murder is when a person, "Knowingly causes the death of another person or, with the purpose of causing serious physical injury to another person, causes the death of another person." Drew, while perhaps a despicable human being, Neither set out nor intended to do physical harm to Meier, not in any provable way. Emotionally upset? Perhaps, but the wording is pretty stark here so it would be futile to try and claim Drew's actions were ever intended to be physical in nature.

This section also has a second clause, defining second degree murder as: "Commits or attempts to commit any felony, and, in the perpetration or the attempted perpetration of such felony or in the flight from the perpetration or attempted perpetration of such felony, another person is killed as a result of the perpetration or attempted perpetration of such felony or immediate flight from the perpetration of such felony or attempted perpetration of such felony." You might be able to gain more traction with this approach. However, the only "crime" that Drew was guilty of was the weird "violation of ToS" runaround that was rightly thrown out. If Drew's actions could have somehow been linked to a felony (and I'm sure some RIAA lawyer could figure out that torturous linkage somehow), then you might have been able to chain a second degree murder charge on her this way. As that was never going to happen, the second degree murder case for Drew is nonexistant.

You might be able to pull off a manslaughter charge under section 565-024, Involuntary Manslaughter, if you could prove that Drew's reckless behavior (1st degree) or criminal negligence (2nd degree) brought about Meier's death. Again, though, this is tough to link. Under section 562.016, reckless behavior is defined as a conscious disregard of "a substantial and unjustifiable risk that circumstances exist or that a result will follow, and such disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation." There are several hurdles here that must be passed and, if Drew were to be convicted under them, that sets an uncomfortable precedent that sort of allows John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory to become the de facto law of the land and anyone who has ever flamed anyone else might suddenly then be held accountable under law. If we're going to throw up our hands and scream bloody murder when Amazon yanks back a book, crying that they're not the police and don't have a legal right to do that, then enshrining either Facebook/MySpace's ToS or Penny Arcade as the law of the land must surely be equally as abhorrent.

Criminal negligence is much the same, but the wording goes: "he fails to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk...". That "fails to be aware" might be something to hang Drew on if Meier had previous suicide attempts, however it's sort of a Catch 22 argument. Could Drew's actions have pushed Meier over the edge? Certainly, but then, if she's that fragile, couldn't anything have pushed her over the edge? How can you argue the uniqueness of Drew's behavior being the deciding factor?

This is why Missouri chose not to prosecute, which led the Feds to step in and try to Capone Drew, nabbing her on the squirrely ToS violation. It didn't work and shouldn't have worked, but it means Drew gets away, at least from a criminal standpoint, with being a real waste of flesh, water and air. Hopefully, she'll get rammed in civil court.

It also points out the simple fact: Due to a level of informational sharing and processing that we as a civilization have not seen since Hammurabi pointed at a slab of stone and said, "I've got something to say!", our legal system is simply not equipped to handle edge cases that are suddenly not so 'edgy' in terms of the Internet. For instance, what counts as harassment online? Sure, a huge email campaign may be obvious,

Re:great

[jbolden]

Actually did meet in person. The boy didn't exist but at least 2 of the perps knew Megan well. As for the parents, parents doing a bad job parenting was a contributing factor. However the perps intended to do harm and accidentally killed her. Which is similar if I intend to beat someone up and accidentally kill them.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Huh? No one said she should be charged with murder (which is what would happen if she were held responsible for what the girl did to herself).

I'm having a hard time understanding how Drew isn't responsible, since part of what she did was to tell the girl the world would be a better place without her.

Drew deserves the worst society could possibly do to her. I am utterly without sympathy for that pathetic piece of crap.

Re:great

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Where the fuck were her parents?

Doing their best to be parents. Before you piss all over them, how about you read some goddamn background?

Re:great

[Hubbell]

I've read the background. It literally shows that they would get into fights, with their 12 year old daughter, because she'd go on the computer after being told she couldn't...time after time after time. They REFUSED to be parents and simply stood back as she did whatever the fuck she wanted.

Re:great

[Pentium100]

Men just trying to have sex with teenage girls get jail time, but succeeding in coercing suicide gets nothing?

This is obvious - sex is worse than death.

Re:great

[Pentium100]

Personal responsibility is all well and good for an adult, but we don't hold children to the same standard in civilized countries.

Depends on how old the dead girl was. If instead of killing herself she would have been caught dealing drugs (or killed someone), would she go to prison? If so, it means she was responsible for her actions, because if a very young child commits a crime the parents are held responsible. When the child is older (the age depends on the country) he/she is held responsible for whatever crime he/she committed.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it obvious what should happen now? We are the lords of cyberspace, and this is a call to action. This is a call to arms.

It's about time for those of us with the technical skills and social engineering talents to step up and "harass" this woman. I'm willing to bet /. won't step up, but I'm pretty sure I know a few other gathering points for web minions that will.

Maybe someone should get on lexus-nexus and post all her info to 4chan and fark and all the rest of the shady underbelly of the net. Someone somewhere will have the time to truly make this woman suffer for her actions.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then their best sucked. No good parent allows this to happen to their child and I firmly believe that the entire blame is on the parents. If they had raised their child right and had become involved then none of this would have ever happened.

Lori Drew was a bitch but Megan's parents are the true murderers here.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

She was 13. Children of this age are not typically tried as adults. That's what juvenile detention is for. And the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to execute a child, meaning that it is unconstitutional to hold a child to the same standard as an adult. (There are some circumstances under which an adult may be executed, so this difference alone means we always treat children as different.)

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Maybe someone should get on lexus-nexus and post all her info to 4chan and fark and all the rest of the shady underbelly of the net. Someone somewhere will have the time to truly make this woman suffer for her actions.

I'm fairly certain that all her personal information is already readily available online. I don't know what acts have been taken against her by her fellow citizens, but I certainly wouldn't shed a tear for her, whatever they were/are.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

For the love of all that is holy, please try to exercise some common sense! Please?!

If I tell my child, "Don't go down that dark alley.", and he/she goes down the dark alley anyway, and someone shoots her, are you seriously contending that I, and not the goddamn shooter, am responsible?!

Re:great

[Pentium100]

That's what juvenile detention is for.

What is the purpose of separating child criminals from the adult ones? If it is so that the adult criminals don't prey on the (physically weaker) children then it's jail just with a different name and the children are responsible for their actions (since they (and not their parents) were sent there). If the juvenile detention is different from adult jail in more ways than just the age of prisoners then you can say that it is different. Otherwise it's the same as prison for men vs prison for women.

Anyway, I do not live in the US, so I know little about its penal system.

Re:great

[liquidsin]

no, but if you watch the child do it time after time, and every time you say "no sweetie, really, don't do it" without ever imposing some sanctions on YOUR CHILD then maybe when they do get shot people may be justified in saying "if only the parents had done some parenting". they allowed their child to repeatedly defy their rules, and now they have to live with knowing that if they'd just stuck to their guns their daughter might still be alive. obviously the people who drove her to suicide shoulder most of the responsibility (though i'm glad this shitty ruling was overturned) but the child should never have been in that situation in the first place, and that's mostly on her parents.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

That's what juvenile detention is for.

What is the purpose of separating child criminals from the adult ones? If it is so that the adult criminals don't prey on the (physically weaker) children then it's jail just with a different name and the children are responsible for their actions (since they (and not their parents) were sent there). If the juvenile detention is different from adult jail in more ways than just the age of prisoners then you can say that it is different. Otherwise it's the same as prison for men vs prison for women.

Anyway, I do not live in the US, so I know little about its penal system.

Juvenile detention is not meant to be a kiddie prison. It's more like a reform/boarding school kind of situation.

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

I'm having a hard time understanding how Drew isn't responsible, since part of what she did was to tell the girl the world would be a better place without her.

If I told you to jump in a river, would you do it?

Re:great

[Trahloc]

I agree and disagree. I agree on the stoning part but that's my personal opinion of her being a cuntbag, I would also have her parents stoned right along side her. Where I mainly disagree with you is that it should be legislated. There are enough laws in place to cover what she did without creating new ones that have far reaching effects. I also don't hear enough people who want her condemed pushing to have her parents right along side her. Those people are the most likely the ones responsible for their childs suicide if the girl herself isn't. Either the girl is responsible for her own death (the stance I keep) or her parents and Lori Drew are (the stance people who disagree with me should keep if they want to remain logical). Lori Drew harassed her causing her emotional distress, that's unfortunate and shows what a total shtibag she is. But humans bear the responsibility of dealing with that sort of thing, life isn't love and unicorns but stress and pain. Parents should be there for their child to help them get through those tough times, hers weren't and ignored everything telling them they should be helping her, child negligence. Neglect coupled with not having the tools to be able to handle that sort of thing is what lead to her death, Lori Drew just gave the final push, her parents are the ones who put her on the cliff naked and alone.

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

Is it harrassment if I call you an asshole?

No, but I'd call you much worse.

How about if I make a point of calling you an asshole every time I see you?

Since you've met me zero times, no. If it was daily, probably yes.

What if I stand outside your house yelling "asshole!" for a whole afternoon?

Yes. Also a breach of the peace.

Can I get away with telling all your friends and family that you're an asshole?

Possibly slander; civil, not criminal, matter.

Is it harrassment if I put up posters with your name and the word 'asshole' on all round the neighborhood?

Possibly libel; also civil matter.

Now your turn: how many of those are relevant to the case in hand - i.e. how many can you prove BRD that Lori Drew did?

Re:great

[einhverfr]

I don't think that the latter two are defamatory (slander, libel, etc). After all, if I post to all of the world that so-and-so is an asshole, that is a matter of opinion and not fact, so it can't possibly be slander.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Sorry, but that's crap.

Short of locking your kid up, he/she is always going to be able to find a way to defy the rules. Parents can't be held responsible for everything their children do. That's especially true when the rebellion in question is over something that should be safe to do. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of teenagers go online every day without any harm at all befalling them. It's not the big, bad Internet's fault. It's this worthless piece of crap of a human being who decided to torture a 13-year old girl.

Besides that, we are fast approaching a time when it will be literally impossible to "stay off" the Internet. If anything, the girl's parents are guilty of not giving the girl practical guidance, rather than failing to make sure their guidance was followed. Staying off the Internet wasn't the solution to the problem in the first place.

The solution would've been to find out who was sending the message and take action against them. By "action", I mean talking to the parents, if it turned out to be a minor, and talking to the police, if it turned out to be an adult. As others have pointed out, harrassment is both a crime and a violation of most ISPs terms of service. At the very least, the parents could have, if they had been more savvy, gotten the account of the perpetrator pulled. But that still doesn't make the parents responsible for the death. Not in any rational way, at least.

Re:great

[einhverfr]

The fundamental issue here though is that the jury acquitted Drew of the charges involving actual malice.

The charges that were left were sufficient to have thrown Megan Meiers in jail too had she not committed suicide. After all, as Wu notes in his case, she violated the terms of service too.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Parents should be there for their child to help them get through those tough times, hers weren't and ignored everything telling them they should be helping her, child negligence. Neglect coupled with not having the tools to be able to handle that sort of thing is what lead to her death, Lori Drew just gave the final push, her parents are the ones who put her on the cliff naked and alone.

I don't think it's that simple. Sure, they made some mistakes, but I'd hardly call them negligent. They were getting the girl treatment for her depression, after all. They weren't just ignoring her.

Re:great

[Trahloc]

Hmm, perhaps I has misunderstood something I had read. My understanding was that while she was seeing someone it was due to another concerned adult, not actively initiated and supported by her parents.

Re:great

[jbolden]

She was never tried for charges that involve malice. Missouri never tried her because the 19 year old who did most of the bad stuff already had immunity.

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

let me fix that: an adult should not be allowed to harass a child without legal consequences.

Pretty sure it's already illegal, but since she was never charged with it the logical conclusion is that the case was weak at best.

We'll just change the law retroactively to satisfy all the kneejerk dickheads, shall we?

Re:great

[jbolden]

What are you talking about there were 3 conspirators:
Lori Drew
Drew's daughter who was a friend of Megan's
Ashley Grills a 19 year old employee of Drew's.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you didn't misunderstand anything. phartman is a fucking moron and a liar.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

posting to undo moderation misclick

Re:great

[SL Baur]

In a just universe, Lori Drew would be stoned to death by angry townspeople using the sharpest rocks possible. (Obsidian sounds about right.)

Like women should be stoned for adultery under Sharia law?

Just asking ...

Re:great

[SL Baur]

The problem here is that this woman is a petty, vile, remorseless cunt (an applicable use of that word in this case which nobody can deny) that did a despicable thing that absolutely contributed significantly to the death of a child. Because the case was so mishandled (there are already laws which should have allowed certain prosecution without the ridiculous liberty-curtailing precedents involved here), the only way to make sure she gets what she deserves is to put the civil liberties of every person in the country in peril.

No, it doesn't. She should have been charged with a crime specific for what she did. There apparently was no crime they could charge her for, so they used something ridiculous and hoped it would stick.

I find both despicable. I find people like you even more despicable. The ends DO NOT justify the means.

If you call yourself Christian I quote Romans 12:19 "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord". If you're not, I say we are a nation of laws not men.

Now, after this comment is moderated down and I get really depressed at the loss of karma and jump off a bridge, do the moderators share any blame?

Re:great

[Rakarra]

Seems a lot of people here want someone who is alive to be at fault here. That way we can blame someone living and go after them. That the person responsible might be dead feels inadequate. We want someone living to blame, dammit!

The problem is, the person truly responsible for Lori Drew's death is Lori Drew herself. No one shot her in a dark alley, nor did her parents push her in front of a train. Teenager or not, harassment or not, she made the conscious decision.

Re:great

[einhverfr]

Actually, if you had been following the case and had read the indictment.....

She was tried for 3 misdemeanor counts (jury convicted) on the basis that violating the ToS was a misdemeanor in violation of the CFAA.

She as also tried for 3 felony counts (jury acquitted) on the basis that violating the ToS in furtherance of intentional infliction of emotional distress (a civil claim) was a felony violation of the CFAA.

She was also tried for a variety of conspiracy counts both misdemeanor and felony, and the jury acquitted on all felony counts and deadlocked on one misdemeanor count.

Re:great

[liquidsin]

go hang out on 4chan for a minute and tell me that the internet should be safe for children. that's like saying central park should be safe for children: it sure can be WITH PROPER PARENTAL SUPERVISION. shit, even some filtering software. but asking your child not to do something that you as a parent deem detrimental to their health? fuck that, TELL THEM. disconnect their internet.

oh, and i'm pretty sure i never said her parents were responsible for her death, just that they were irresponsible as parents. unfortunately, they lost their child because of it.

Re:great

[MikeFM]

The fact she did this using the Internet shouldn't matter. If an adult were harassing a child, without the Internet, and drove the child to suicide would she just be let off? She did this on purpose and should suffer a serious punishment. I think she should face a similar to punishment to what she'd have gotten for killing the child.

Re:great

[Totenglocke]

The victim in this case was an adolescent girl suffering from clinical depression. In fact, she was even on multiple mood-stabilizers. It should be quite obvious that someone in that situation is already predisposed to self-harm and suicide without others bullying them. But when someone deliberately causes psychological harm on such an individual, the situation becomes even more dangerous.

I used to have depression (probably technically still do, but whatever) and have spent my entire life with pretty much everyone treating me like shit and had plenty of people tell me that I should kill myself when I was in middle school / high school. You know what? I never did, even though I thought about suicide plenty. There is no one to blame for that girl's actions but herself. No one can make you kill yourself. People who kill themselves are ones that are going to do it and then society likes to blame SOMEONE because they can't accept that some people just hate life and would rather die than live in this crappy world.

Re:great

[Thinboy00]

Isn't it obvious what should happen now? We are the lords of cyberspace, and this is a call to action. This is a call to arms.

  It's about time for those of us with the technical skills and social engineering talents to step up and "harass" this woman. I'm willing to bet /. won't step up, but I'm pretty sure I know a few other gathering points for web minions that will.

Maybe someone should get on lexus-nexus and post all her info to 4chan and fark and all the rest of the shady underbelly of the net. Someone somewhere will have the time to truly make this woman suffer for her actions.

Sorry, 4chan is busy outing the "Church" of Scientology right now; can I take a message?

Re:great

[Seumas]

What wasn't repeated and intentional about it? Lori Drew posed as a 17 year old boy over a length of time with the intention of eventually dropping the hammer on her by having his fake 17 year old boy "dump" her and tell her she should go kill herself.

That was entirely premeditated, intentional, and repeated. This case is ANYTHING but a case of someone saying "you smell like a poopy head" and then the person killing themselves five minutes later. This was an orchestrated conspiracy among several people to manipulate and harass this little kid.

Negligence is if I forget to set my parking break and my car smashes your fence at the bottom of the incline. Pointing the car toward your house, dropping a brick on the accelerator and then laughing as I watch it smash into your family room is hardly negligence.

Re:great

[Seumas]

And don't forget the thing everyone seems to keep glossing over.

This 30/40 year old woman was POSING AS A YOUNG BOY ONLINE TO ENGAGE IN INTIMATE CONVERSATION WITH THE TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL.

I mean, seriously. When the fuck did THAT become legal?!

I'm pretty sure if your next door neighbor was pretending to be a child so that they could engage in that kind of talk with your underage child, there'd be some ass hauled to jail fucking STAT. Why is that not even a consideration here in this case?!

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

You would be just as responsible as the shooter, because if you had raised your child properly then they would have listened to you and would have the sense to not go to places like that. Being a good parent runs much deeper than simply saying "no, don't do that". It's an instillment of VALUES, RESPECT and COMMON SENSE every single day from the day they are born. If you can't handle that, if you are too lazy to deal with it or if you are too "busy" for them, then you need to seriously dwell on those things before ever considering having children because you probably aren't ready for them.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Anonymous Douchebag:
She was under the care of a psychiatrist since the third grade, including taking numerous medications. Who, pray tell, do you think took her to the appointments with the psychiatrist and paid for the medications? Are you truly that much of an idiot? Try researching the case before you spout your mouth off.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Actually, she had been seeing a psychiatrist for 5 years, and had been taking various medications, none of which (because of her age) could be given to her without consent of her parents (and some of which are actually controlled substances). All of this means that the parents had to have taken an active role in her treatment. Here's a good article on the whole thing.

I understand that some people are just contrarian by nature, and want to blame the parents when everyone else wants to blame Drew, and I'm certainly not saying that the parents did everything right, but this does not appear to be a neglected child, in the sense that her parents saw that she was troubled and did nothing.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

In a just universe, Lori Drew would be stoned to death by angry townspeople using the sharpest rocks possible. (Obsidian sounds about right.)

Like women should be stoned for adultery under Sharia law?

Just asking ...

Well, since you're just asking, no, this has nothing to do with Sharia law. Stoning is a punishment that's much older than Sharia law, and was used for much more than just adultery back then.

The reason I specified stoning is because it's the most direct expression of a community's condemnation of a person, because everyone with a rock participates. Remember that I specified a just universe, in which (presumably) people could agree on the concept that a 40-something woman anonymously tormenting a teenage girl is inherently evil and not fit to live among the rest of us.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

I think you meant Megan Meier, rather than Lori Drew. Drew was the harasser, not the harassed party. (At least, in respect to Meier. Drew is apparently getting some much-deserved harassment herself now.)

On a literal level, of course, you're correct: No one killed Meier. She killed herself. But law and morality separately both acknowledge indirect responsibility for death.

To give you an example (although I'll admit this is more extreme than the case in question):

If you were to pose as someone's doctor, and tell them that they had a terminal illness that would cause them to die a painful death (or if you were their doctor, and decided to do it), and they decided to kill themselves, rather than to die that way, would you or would you not be responsible for that? (Assume that it's not the correct diagnosis, and you know it, for the sake of this discussion.)

Certainly, it was the person's own decision to kill themselves, but it's not like you were just standing there minding your own business. If not for the information you provided, they would be alive. And you would reasonably be expected to anticipate that suicide as a potential reaction to the diagnosis.

The main difference here is that Drew could reasonably say that she didn't intend for the suicide to happen. But given the totality of what she knew, Drew certainly acted with reckless disregard, because to any reasonable person who knew what she knw, that was a possible result of her actions.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

go hang out on 4chan for a minute and tell me that the internet should be safe for children. that's like saying central park should be safe for children: it sure can be WITH PROPER PARENTAL SUPERVISION. shit, even some filtering software. but asking your child not to do something that you as a parent deem detrimental to their health? fuck that, TELL THEM. disconnect their internet.

I'm not saying that her parents should be nominated for Parents of the Year. I would argue that disconnecting the Internet altogether is the wrong solution, because it doesn't teach the child how to deal with the Internet (which, as I said, is becoming pretty much ubiquitous, at this point). But doing the wrong thing and being irresponsible are two different things. A lot of parents simply park their kids in front of a monitor and don't care or understand anything about their Internet access, and don't have relationships with their kids where the kids can tell them things. This doesn't appear to be one of those cases.

It also seems to me that the parents didn't deem the Internet detrimental to her health. Otherwise, the discussions they had about it would've been very different (from what's been reported, at least).

As for the Internet in general: MySpace is not 4chan. Granted, the Internet gives you access to both, but I haven't seen any evidence that the parents didn't know what she was doing online. In fact, this seems to indicate that the parents were involved with her computer use, and, with the exception of the day of her death, did insist on being present when she was online. Now, admittedly, I don't know how much of that is actually true, but it's at least consistent with the way things seem to have come out.

oh, and i'm pretty sure i never said her parents were responsible for her death, just that they were irresponsible as parents. unfortunately, they lost their child because of it.

You are saying they were responsible of her death, if you say they "lost their child because of" their actions.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

I'm having a hard time understanding how Drew isn't responsible, since part of what she did was to tell the girl the world would be a better place without her.

If I told you to jump in a river, would you do it?

No, but:

a) I'm not clinically depressed
b) I'm not 13.
c) Telling someone once to jump in a river is very different from constructing a persona for the expressed purpose of tormenting someone over a sustained period of time.

Drew was dealing with someone she knew was emotionally vulnerable and unstable, and she took advantage of that. If you simply ignore those factors, you'll never get a full understanding of what actually happened. This wasn't some anonymous flame war among adults (or even children).

Re:great

[bhartman34]

You would be just as responsible as the shooter, because if you had raised your child properly then they would have listened to you and would have the sense to not go to places like that.

Great. So by that logic, parents are responsible for their children getting molested by Internet predators, women are responsible for getting themselves raped, and people who live in high crime neighborhoods are responsible for getting mugged.

Thanks. Good to know...

Now, back here in the real world, we actually hold the perpetrators of such actions entirely responsible for their crimes. "Well, if they hadn't have been there, I would've never been able to do it" isn't a defense.

My question is, why do people want to take the responsibility away from the people who do the evil acts, and on to the people who are the victims of the acts? Is it really so important to defend one's right to be an a**hole online? Because that's the only advantage I can see to defending scum like Drew.

Re:great

[SL Baur]

The comment that you made that I quoted, scares me a lot more than anything Lori Drew did. Your justification doesn't make it any better.

The time for kicking Drew's ass was before the child killed herself. Imagining any kind of punishment now is just barbaric. She should be punished as the law specifies - no more and no less. It's in the US constitution.

Re:great

[dpastern]

Yeah well, if this was the RIAA or MPAA...when are people going to learn that the courts are NOT for the people. They do not dispense justice. They are there to keep the weak, and powerless in check, to stop them, in any way, means or shape from moving upwards in the social world and threatening the rich and the powerful.

The bitch should have been found guilty, lock, stock & barrel and locked up for a VERY long time.

Dave

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

The reason I specified stoning is because it's the most direct expression of a community's condemnation of a person

Wrong. It's because you think it makes you sound like some uber-tough vigilante.

Re:great

[Hognoxious]

Some part of "possibly" you need explaining?

Re:great

[jbolden]

1) The talk has to be highly explicit, essentially pornographic to qualify.

2) I don't know of a single case where a person was charged solely for this.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a hint:

a) The girl was Clinically Depressed
b) Her PARENTS should have been observing what she was doing a bit more closely.

There's little doubt that Dre should be held accountable for this. But, you're also ignoring that B played a big, big factor in all of this too. It's without that understanding that we end up with so many laws "for the children" and people asking "don't you care about the children"?

Re:great

[bhartman34]

The reason I specified stoning is because it's the most direct expression of a community's condemnation of a person

Wrong. It's because you think it makes you sound like some uber-tough vigilante.

Glad to hear those mind-reading lessons are giving you more confidence. Keep a it. It might work someday.

An "uber-tough vigilante" would probably express a desire to do such a thing themselves. And public stoning isn't vigilantism. In societies that practiced public stoning, the stoning is part of the justice system, whereas vigilantism is a reaction to an inadequate justice system. IOW, if there's a trial and you don't get the result you want, and then you stone the person, that's vigilantism. If the community decides the person is guilty and fixes the punishment at stoning, that's not vigilantism.

It kind of helps to define your terms before you assume to know people's motives.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

The time for kicking Drew's ass was before the child killed herself.

Frankly, that would be less just, not more just. It's the consequences of her action that justify the response. If she had done the same thing, and the child hadn't killed herself, I don't think you'd see the same reaction from most people. She'd simply be another immature middle-aged woman who needed to get a life. The fact that a death resulted is what makes it worth punishing her severely. (Just as a drunk driver is punished more severely when their actions result in death.)

In retrospect, though, I'll say this much: I should've specified that the communal stoning I mentioned was not meant to be in reaction to an "innocent" verdict by the court. In a just universe, the community itself would decide her guilt or innocence, and affix the punishment. In this case, the judge tossed the verdict of the jury (which, incidentally, is exactly the kind of thing that leads to vigilantism). We've got the jury system for a reason. Judges should respect it. It's bad enough that we insist that our juries be ignorant of most of the pertinent facts in a case in the first place (because such facts may be "prejudicial"). When they actually do come up with a just verdict, a judge shouldn't be able to just flush it.

Re:great

[j_166]

"There's little doubt that Dre should be held accountable for this. "

WHOA WHOA WHOA! Leave Dr. Dre out of this!

Re:great

[jbolden]

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/files/my_space_lori_drew_indictment.pdf

You can see the 4 counts.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Here's a hint:

a) The girl was Clinically Depressed b) Her PARENTS should have been observing what she was doing a bit more closely.

Every indication we have at this point is that the parents were observing what Meier was doing closely, other than the day that she died, when she stayed on the computer when her parents told her to get off (because they couldn't be there, apparently).

"Friend Game" -- 1/21/2008

Would I nominate them for Parents of the Year? Probably not. They could've been more understanding to what she was going through at the time, or taken it more seriously. But at the same time, these don't appear to be parents who simply let the computer babysit their child.

Re:great

[einhverfr]

You can see the IIED part on page 9.

The prosecutor argued that there were other included charges, which lead to the misdemeanor convictions (i.e. that unauthorized access in furtherance of a tort included unauthorized access) and so these were added. So the indictment listed four counts, but she was acquitted of five counts and convicted of three misdemeanor ones.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. So by that logic, parents are responsible for their children getting molested by Internet predators, women are responsible for getting themselves raped, and people who live in high crime neighborhoods are responsible for getting mugged.

Children getting molested by predators, internet or not? Yes, the parents are responsible.

Women being raped? No, because women are adults and therefore not under the guardianship of their parents.

People living in high crime neighborhoods being mugged? No, because they choose to live in those places and are presumably adults so they are not under the care of their parents.

We aren't defending the right to be an asshole online. We are defending the right to not be sued or imprisoned any time someone gets their feelings hurt or tries to pin the blame for their actions on the words of another. We are defending our right to free speech. We are defending our rights to not live in a police state. We are defending our rights to live without thought control.

The scope and severity of the issues that would follow a sentence for Lori Drew are obviously far beyond your comprehension. Think precedent. If they give Lori Drew a prison sentence for merely writing some words, then what comes next? Someone gets their feelings hurt or someone states an unpopular opinion and that person gets thrown in the slammer too?

Your rights don't get stripped away wholesale, but they will get slowly eroded over time if people like you had their way. Personally, I do think that Lori Drew was a bitch but to paraphrase the old saying, I disapprove of what she said, but I will defend to the death her right to say it.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Children getting molested by predators, internet or not? Yes, the parents are responsible.

Could you explain your rationale for that? There are plenty of situations (online or off) where parents couldn't possibly have control over what happened to their children. As a parent, you'd like to protect your child 24/7, but it's not a practical goal. Put bluntly, shit happens, and if someone molests a child, it's the child molestor's fault, not the parents (unless they had knowledge of it, or they happened to be the molestors).

Women being raped? No, because women are adults and therefore not under the guardianship of their parents.

That wasn't actually my question. I'll rephrase:

Are the women who get raped responsible for getting raped? That's what I was asking.

People living in high crime neighborhoods being mugged? No, because they choose to live in those places and are presumably adults so they are not under the care of their parents.

Again, it's not a question of parental care in this case. Are the people who choose to live in that area (either because of financial reasons or because it's their chosen neighborhood) responsible for getting mugged?

The point I'm trying to get across is this: It's the people who commit the crime who are guilty. The victims, or the victim's families, may make themselves more or less vulnerable by their actions, but the ultimate responsibility for evil acts rests with the person who commits the acts. "But they made it so easy..." isn't a defense.

We aren't defending the right to be an asshole online. We are defending the right to not be sued or imprisoned any time someone gets their feelings hurt or tries to pin the blame for their actions on the words of another.

This case isn't merely a matter of someone getting their feelings hurt. There are lots of ways and reasons a person can get their feelings hurt online, as I'm sure all of us know. This case involves someone maliciously picking on someone they knew was vulnerable and weaker than them, and intending to cause them harm (although not necessarily the harm that actually resulted, admittedly). Calling some random person you "see" on a forum an asshole is a completely different matter, because you don't know anything about them and can assume they can handle the assault. This was a very different situation. I think if the person doing the harassment (who innitiated it, I mean) had been under 18 and/or hadn't known Meier personally, this would've been written off as a tragic Internet coincidence. As it is, this is more akin to the asshats who watched someone commit suicide online and egged him on during the process.

We are defending our right to free speech. We are defending our rights to not live in a police state. We are defending our rights to live without thought control.

Free speech doesn't mean the right to say anything you please without consequences. Like every other constitutional right, there are reasonable limits on free speech.

The scope and severity of the issues that would follow a sentence for Lori Drew are obviously far beyond your comprehension. Think precedent. If they give Lori Drew a prison sentence for merely writing some words, then what comes next? Someone gets their feelings hurt or someone states an unpopular opinion and that person gets thrown in the slammer too?

The prison sentence wouldn't be for "merely writing some words". What you're missing is that there was a great deal more intent and knowledge involved here than that. It wasn't some drive-by flame war. It was very deliberate. The closest analogy I can think of would be something like PrankNet, but even there, the targets are not personally known to the "pranksters". The situation with Meier is more akin to s

Re:great

[bhartman34]

I've read the background. It literally shows that they would get into fights, with their 12 year old daughter, because she'd go on the computer after being told she couldn't...time after time after time. They REFUSED to be parents and simply stood back as she did whatever the fuck she wanted.

Can you show where you found that information? That's not what I've read concerning it. What I've read is, she was supervised online, except for the day the messages started coming, and that in fact, the parents had been monitoring her use (even reading the "boy's" profile and messages) up to that point.

Reference Article

I've read lots of blog comments claiming she was unsupervised/running wild, etc., but I haven't read anything from a reputable source to that affect.

Re:great

[bhartman34]

Sorry. I thought I replied to this already. I guess not.

Juvenile detention is more like a boarding school than prison. The main idea of it is to get the child back on the right track, so to speak (operating under the assumption that the child isn't already a lost cause).

Fighting Abuse of Power

[reporter]

Though we may justifiably consider Lori Drew to be despicable, she did not violate any federal statute. The government's case was driven by public opinion, not the facts. In this case, public opinion is just a synonym for "tyranny of the masses".

The government chose to use the legal system to make her life a living hell. The government has infinitely deep pockets to fund a lawsuit against a private citizen, but the citizen does not have such pockets. Fighting the government in the courts could drive a private citizen into bankruptcy.

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[boliboboli]

She can sue the gov't... if she get's permission from congress. For some reason, I don't think anyone will be very compassionate about her "mental distress" considering the reason she was put through all of this was by causing "mental distress" of another and subsequent suicide of that individual...

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Norsefire]

Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

Mental distress you say? Like the kind Meier was under? In that case, surely the prosecutor should be tried by a federal court. It would only be fair.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

This is true. I want the USA to be seen as the country which lets a murderer(*) go free then allows her to sue the government and win millions.

(*) The US has this quasi-religious fallacy that the mind is somehow less a biological entity than the body, so while we are limited by physical disability/limitation/programming, mental disability/limitation/programming somehow doesn't exist because it runs contrary to the philosophy about man running as a free rational entity. On the contrary, the mind is just another biological function, and driving someone to suicide (i.e. by manipulating their mind until they think of death as the only way out) is as much murdering them as pushing them onto a sword.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of punishment and responsibility for crimes rests on the assumption that man is a free rational entity.

If you do away with that, how can you hold Lori Drew responsible for driving someone to suicide? After all, she has no control over the biological functions of her mind, right?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true. I want the USA to be seen as the country which lets a murderer(*) go free then allows her to sue the government and win millions.

Well, Drew is clearly not a murderer under the legal definition of murder. Now, you could change the legal definition of murder, or pass additional legislation to make what Drew did illegal, but it is a long standing principle of US law (and some other countries) that you can't be prosecuted for something that was made illegal after you did it.

Most importantly, the egregious acts were NOT COMMITTED BY DREW, but someone else. If anything, the OTHER PERSON should be prosecuted, not Drew.

Now, since Drew was prosecuted by an overzealous district attorney, when it was absolutely clear that Drew did not commit a crime, then the overzealous district attorney should pay the consequences.

Compare with the Duke University rape case. There was absolute proof that the Duke lacrosse players did not rape the complainant. Despite that, the government & Duke treated them as guilty. Once the truth came out, the lacrosse players sued, and won big. The overzealous district attorney was disbarred.

The abuses of the state are by far the worst that can occur. It is far worse to put the innocent in jail than to let the guilty go free.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Seumas]

The government chose to use the legal system to make her life a living hell.

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

Oh, poor, poor lady. Maybe she should hang herself. After all, she's shown *so* much remorse (*eyeroll*) for her actions.

If there was ever a case of harassment that justified some sort of prosecution, it's this one. For fuck's sake, the woman is -- at the very least -- a sexual predator. Posing as an underage boy to have sexual conversations with a twelve year old girl? What the fuck?! Not to mention adding on the intent to cause serious detriment by the machinations of her contrived plot to the girl.

She deserves everything she gets coming to her in a negative fashion. She and her family haven't even shown the slightest bit of remorse over what they did. Fuck them.

The only distressing thing here is that in order for her to get what she deserves, the liberties of everybody in this country have to be put in jeopardy. So to avoid setting such precedents, we have to smile and nod and say "sure, she clearly contributed to this girl killing herself, but she gets to continue being a free useless member of society pursuing her own happiness, because prosecutors couldn't come up with something more applicable than TOS violations.

All outcomes in this are miserable, in some way. Even the right one, which it seems won-out.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

re: On the contrary, the mind is just another biological function, and driving someone to suicide (i.e. by manipulating their mind until they think of death as the only way out) is as much murdering them as pushing them onto a sword.

Are you out of your mind? ;-) This implies that if an unstable individual listens to music that drives him/her to suicide, then the person(s) that performed and/or wrote the music is guilty of murder.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[jbolden]

The public was of the opinion that Drew organized a conspiracy to commit petty fraud that indirectly resulted in a death (i.e. manslaughter). Organizing a conspiracy to commit a felony is a crime.

I agree she didn't violate federal law. Missouri should have handled this.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

The idea of punishment and responsibility for crimes rests on the assumption that man is a free rational entity.

This is another silly mistake of US philosophy:

(1) We've had criminal justice systems for much longer than people thought of man this way - they've been justified on anything from Divine Right to "well, I have a bigger stick than you";

(2) Actually, what a criminal justice system does is:
(i) Physically stop criminals from doing the same thing again for a certain amount of time;
(ii) Discourage minds from telling their bodies to perform acts considered criminal, in the knowledge that they'll be restricted if they are caught.

Criminal justice systems enable society to flourish in certain ways by restricting certain sorts of behaviour. You don't need to say that individuals are "responsible" for their behaviour for this to work.

As for the "punishment" argument, there are two angles to this:
(i) The idea of revenge as justice. This is just silly, but unfortunately the above fallacy is sometimes used to conclude it as correct;
(ii) Punishment as a way of conditioning the mind to stop behaving in a certain way. This sometimes works, but usually doesn't, whence recidivism.

If you do away with that, how can you hold Lori Drew responsible for driving someone to suicide?

You don't ever need to. You merely need to establish the best way to stop her from doing it again: being locked up, psych treatment, whatever.

After all, she has no control over the biological functions of her mind, right?

Who cares? All your arguments rest on the same fallacy.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Seumas]

People who go around saying that a twelve year old girl should just "toughen up" really piss me off. Even if her attackers and harassers were her own age, it could be brutal and destructive, but in this case the harassers included a group of adults conspiring against her to cause her harm. That has to count for something. It's bullshit to say that a child should just "toughen up" against the orchestrated attacks and manipulations of full grown fucking adults.

If you're a balanced normal adult, you should be able to take a lot of crap and let it roll off your back. But there would certainly be legal consequences if, say, your spouse had serious mental and emotional problems that they were being treat\ed for and you went out of your way to orchestrate their mental torture and abuse and took advantage of their unbalanced state (hell, in many places, you can't take advantage of someone simply in a drunk state and there are protections for consumers who make large purchases and think otherwise within 72 hours!).

And yet... when it comes to a twelve year old girl... she's somehow supposed to be a solid fucking stoic rock. Not only against other children, but fucking adults three or four times her age. Lori Drew reminds me of that movie where the guys pretend to like that girl, but really it's all a game they're playing to make her feel loved and wanted and then they all drop her like a rock on the same day to see if they can collectively drive her to suicide. Except the guy who did that here wasn't a 17 year old boy but a 30-something year old woman and her family.

I'm not saying that we should put in peril every American's rights here just to prosecute this one insignificant twat. I guess considering what the prosecutors were trying her on, the judge did the only right thing that could be done. But that doesn't make the outcome any more pleasant. Justice for all had to trump over justice for one dead kid. And even though it was probably right... it still fucking sucks.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

This implies that if an unstable individual listens to music that drives him/her to suicide, then the person(s) that performed and/or wrote the music is guilty of murder.

Are the performers and writers playing this music intentionally over a period of time in such a way ostensibly as to harass this individual? Is it planned meticulously to cause distress? As interrogators might play loud music for hours every day to break your "unstable" mind while they also aim bright lights at you and threaten you or your family, say? If so, yes, the involved performers/writers are murderers.

If you mean that just listening to this song (e.g. once on the radio) drove the individual to killing himself, then you'll need to provide some evidence that the person's decision to commit suicide came about in a significant way from listening to the song. Do you have one example of this, anywhere? There are many examples in psych and popular literature of people killing themselves after being exposed to a concerted bullying campaign, you see, but I'm yet to find anyone written up who had no intention of suicide before listening to a song, but killed himself right after.

And no points for the Gloomy Sunday urban legend, sorry.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Ihmhi]

RE: recidivism, it doesn't really help that the best place to learn how to commit crimes is jail. You just stick a few hundred criminals in a big courtyard, what the hell else do you think they're gonna talk about?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TheRaven64]

No, she's not meant to be solid as a rock, she's meant to have an emotional support system in place, in the form of her parents, her peers, and her teachers (but most especially her parents). If her parents were not giving her this kind of emotional support then I would be perfectly happy for that to be classed as criminal negligence or wilful neglect, but in the media-powered US judicial system you can't go after the parents. If a child is so emotionally fragile that she can be talked into suicide by someone she has never met face to face, her parents are failing in their duty. If a twelve-year-old is allowed to develop close relationships with people she know knows online without being educated that people online often lie or misrepresent themselves, then her parents are failing in their responsibility.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[KillerBob]

Are you out of your mind? ;-) This implies that if an unstable individual listens to music that drives him/her to suicide, then the person(s) that performed and/or wrote the music is guilty of murder.

I suspect the GP would draw a distinction between music driving somebody to suicide and making a fraudulent online identity to drive somebody to suicide. If for no other reason, then on grounds of intent. Music isn't generally written with the expressed purpose of tormenting somebody to the point that they end up killing themselves. But it's pretty hard to argue that Drew had anything other than tormenting and harrassing the child in mind when she set up a fake identity to be her boyfriend.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[poetmatt]

for the last time, in the USofA, if it is not hate speech, not threatening, maybe rude, derogatory, it is called freedom of speech. We understand that it gets abused sometimes, but your choice is either: be able to say what you want (aka comments -> slashdot), or have them moderated by the government. I don't know about you, but I'd rather let a few retarded idiots going "keep your government hands off my medicare" than stifle all speech altogether.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[omb]

I absolutely agree, prosecutors MUST be held to account, __but__ also,

This starts a precedent to limit mis-use of the Miss-Use Act.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens if I tell you to go fuck yourself?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

Can we throw out another fallacy? You assume that the government has no right or obligation to seek revenge or to seek to punish harmful conduct. You assume that rehabilitation is possible, and that attempting to rehabilitate people is desirable.

Have you looked at the Dugard case in California? That rat bastard who kidnapped Jaycee has a HISTORY of kidnapping and sexual assault. He deserves a bullet in the ear. Or, if the family members of any of the victims wants some hands-on revenge, let them deal with both Garridos in whatever way they choose.

There are to damned many self-proclaimed psychologists involved in making and enforcing law.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[SetupWeasel]

The right thing for Drew to do is shut the fuck up, be grateful for a loophole in the law, change her name, and move far away. If I were that girl's parent, I would spend the rest of my life looking for revenge.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

The "victim" LIED about her age to get on MySpace in the first place. Mom knew about this. If anyone should be charged with murder, it should be the Mom.

She didn't have to toughen up much! Just stop going to MySpace.com and the problem would have been solved.

There's a "reason" for nearly every suicide. Unless the person is doing it because of some terminal illness, there's usually a person or persons to blame. Should DJ AM's girlfriend be charged with murder, too?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

sudo mod theraven64 up.

Having lived through an abused childhood, I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges. Not quite zero, but near it. This girl who committed suicide because some boy she had never met apparently turned on her isn't very far up the food chain from the idiots who choose to "go out in a blaze of glory" while shooting up their school. She was weak and unstable, and she chose to suicide. Her lack of a support group contributed, yes, but the fact remains, she failed.

I've seen someone's sig - "Instead of child proofing the world, let's world proof the child!" Damned good advice - I just can't remember where I've seen the sig.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TRRosen]

COOL - its not illegal to use a stolen account and password to access a computer system. Remember that when I'm using your account and password to access all your banking info.

She should sue that why she'll have some more money to pay the settlement to the family of the girl she MURDERED.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you base your assumption about rehabilitation on one badly handled case? The plural of anecdote is not data, one anecdote even less.

Other nations have really good experiences about rehabilitation. Although they're better handled than the US prison industry.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TRRosen]

Thats absolutely true if the musician intended to cause mental anguish to that specific person.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pecisk]

Nope, it is right. There is special note however - indent is important. Musician who writes a song about guy who is fed up with life and want peace and happiness isn't targeting someone to make sucide, he just expreses the way he feels sometime (or maybe all the time). If someone it gives last punch to do what they intended to do - well, it's harsh, but more or less it's still their decision to listen to this music.

These adults aim was to harm emotionally girl as much as possible. They had a reason, indent and they did it without any remorse. It could get clasified in some countries as 'driving someone to sucide' and is criminal case. Strangely, US dismiss such responsibility about humans.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

You assume that rehabilitation is possible

I am finding it difficult to establish how you concluded this. The closest I think I came was in to state: "You merely need to establish the best way to stop her from doing it again." But I followed with the list, "being locked up, psych treatment, whatever." Perhaps your post was merely a non sequitur opportunity to let out some feelings on a rather horrible Individual, which is fair enough.

However, I would hope you can read I'm not suggesting "psych treatment", or any other rehabilitative programme, as a singular and definite solution. Sometimes, "being locked up" forever might be both necessary and sufficient: for example, for repeat offenders who have dishonestly progressed through rehabilitation attempts.

He deserves a bullet in the ear.

Does he? Why?

Or, if the family members of any of the victims wants some hands-on revenge, let them deal with both Garridos in whatever way they choose.

You want to teach society to see anything-goes revenge as a form of justice? What happens when I feel you've wronged me and it just so happens I have a better private security force, public relations team and/or lawyer than you? There are societies with legal systems based on emotional superstition and victim-determined punishments based on emotional revenge. Could you give an example of one which has developed in some way preferable to those based on English common law, where attempts are made from arrest through court to sentencing to avoid personal conflicts of interest?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TRRosen]

You half right dummy. Your free to say anything you want. Even if it is threatening or hate speech they can't stop you. they can punish you afterwards for the content of hate speech if directed towards someone or if it is viewed as a threat. But free speech does not absolve you of the responsibility for the end result of anything you say. Speech is an action and actions have consequences. If what you say causes death or injury your still responsible.
Freedom of speech doesn't give you the right to harass someone to the point of suicide any more than the right to bear arms gives you the right to shoot someone.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong the music is not directed at a specific person as in this case

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[ZosX]

I thought my opinion would be the minority, but it seems well supported here. I'm sorry, but life can be tough and challenging on many levels and if you cannot adapt even at age 12 and decide to off yourself, then I say its called thinning the herd. Sure the story is tragic, but there is a lot of tragedy in life. Lori Drew may be a monster, but she did not kill anyone, or otherwise she would be charged with murder. When I was a child and then later, a teenager, I was harassed on a repeated basis. Obviously this sort of thing leaves long and deep emotional scars, but for as much as I wanted to kill myself (and I still do occasionally when things start breaking apart) I always saw it as the most pussy and selfish way out of it. There are a lot of people in this world that care about me, and even if I were all alone in the world, I would still want to go forward in spite of facing a constant uphill battle. The only way a man reaches the top of the mountain is by climbing. For some reason I purposefully chose the hardest path. Suicide is totally giving in. Or maybe worse is becoming complacent and sitting around and waiting to die. Natural order states that only the strong survive. I never once saw anything inherently wrong with this philosophy. I'd love for some breakdown of society to occur, just if only, so people can come out of their fantasy world and live and breathe in reality for one singular moment. I'm looking at you soccer moms, driving your Honda Odyssey to soccer practice, just down the road from your expensive housing projects, I mean, um, plans. (The newer government built ones do look pretty similar I must admit) I'm looking at you, whathefuckoccino sipping, crackberry tapping, eddie bauer shoes wearing metrosexual freak. Think you can skin a deer? Reload ammo? A lot of people wouldn't make it, but we would survive as we have done as hominids for millions of years. Either you bite the bullet and take life in stride or you put one in your head. I'm sorry this little girl chose the latter, but it was, in the end, her choice to make.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

Having lived through an abused childhood, I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges.

I say that people are born with and develop (mostly in very early life) different physical and mental abilities for handling tough circumstances. If you believe that everyone has the potential to act as you did in response to your abuse, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of biology and psychology, and are taking refuge in a non-scientific philosophy. What is more, no two difficult situations are the same, with details being the difference between a seemingly insurmountable and a "merely" challenging situation.

I'm sorry you were abused. Because you chose to reveal this, I ask you please not to turn your unresolved anger into thinly veiled justification for the abuse of others.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

He deserves a bullet in the ear.

Does he? Why?
__________________

He is a lowlife sumbitch who has preyed on the innocent and the helpless for most of his life. He is undeserving of so much as a bread and water diet, and a prison cell.

Your post makes it obvious that you have discarded the possibility of capital punishment.

I am willing to put a cur dog down, you are not. There's not much point in arguing over it. Just stay out of the way while real men and women go about getting the job done.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

You hold her responsible in the same sense that if cars coming off an assembly line blow up when you turn the key you send them to the scrap heap instead of the dealer showrooms.

If you can figure out how to fix the problem you fix it, if it can't be fixed you remove the car.

We haven't quite advanced to the point where we can reliably "fix" murderers, rapists, arsonists etc. So once they are identified (guilty by trial) we remove them from society so they can cause no further harm.

A distinction that is fuzzy has to be made with humans though. Since it's not a case of either a person is capable of something or they aren't. Rather it's a question of under what circumstances would they do so. Almost everyone is capable of murder given a situation extreme enough. You'd want to lock up somebody that killed another human for a couple hundred bucks in a robbery. You wouldn't want to lockup someone that kills during a just war in defense of their country.

Because of this it isn't practical to lockup people before they commit crimes, instead we have to rely on "self-identification" wherein a person commits a heinous crime under circumstances society deems unjustified.

It's not about freewill or revenge, it's about protecting society from individuals that are a threat to those around them. Why someone is defective in this way doesn't really matter, though too many people think it does.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

A shrink speaks.

Where did I justify anyone abusing anyone else? Abuse is wrong, no matter when, where, or how. This doesn't change the fact that the weak succumb, and the strong fight.

Sorry, the shrink didn't speak, he blathered.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

spoken like a true asshole.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

A shrink speaks.

I'm not a shrink; I'm a mathematician, if you care to know. But you seem to have issues with shrinks, looking at all your posts in this thread. Why?

Where did I justify anyone abusing anyone else?

"I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges [abuse?]. Not quite zero, but near it. This girl who committed suicide because some boy she had never met apparently turned on her isn't very far up the food chain from [murderers] the idiots who choose to "go out in a blaze of glory" while shooting up their school. She was weak and unstable, and she chose to suicide. Her lack of a support group contributed, yes, but the fact remains, she failed."

Your rhetoric is an exemplar for how to de-humanise someone as a precursor to justification for maltreatment. They're only retards, they're only Catholics, they're only gypsies, they're only Jews, they're only weak. Each post you make here lifts more of the mask over the anger you're feeling in relation to your abuse.

This doesn't change the fact that the weak succumb, and the strong fight.

But those consequences aren't mutually exclusive, are they? The strong fight, yet sometimes they succumb too. You'd succumb to a sufficiently mentally and/or physically stronger oppressor. So would I. So would anyone. Fortunately, neither you nor I have encountered such a person yet. But if you did, I wouldn't dismiss you after your death as a sub-human weakling. Would you do the same to me?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you read your link? First of all, it doesn't apply since it's discussing negligence claims that cause injuries to employees. Furthermore, it says that all you have to do is file a complaint with the offending agency. If the agency denies you, then you have a right to file a lawsuit within 6 months. No permission necessary from congress.

I seriously doubt there's anything stopping someone from suing the prosecutor's office for malicious prosecution. She'll probably lose unless there's compelling evidence, but that's another story. How many civil rights cases involve suing the police or prosecutor's - congress definitely would not have been involved in any part of that process except passing laws after-the fact if they wished to.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TheLink]

Maybe she should have been prosecuted for child abuse?

After all don't they lock up guys who try dubious stuff with FBI agents pretending to be 14 year olds?

BTW I wonder if those guys could get away with it if treated their correspondents as FBI agents pretending to be 14 year olds ;).

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[iamhassi]

"For fuck's sake, the woman is -- at the very least -- a sexual predator. Posing as an underage boy to have sexual conversations with a twelve year old girl? What the fuck?! Not to mention adding on the intent to cause serious detriment by the machinations of her contrived plot to the girl."

Don't forget this was a neighbor girl, a girl they had gone on vacation with, a girl in her daughter's class that her daughter didn't like. W...T...F. Daughter comes home crying saying "Mommy Mommy I don't like this girl!" and mommy said "Oh? Well I'll get her!" and 47-yr old mommy created a fake online teen boy profile for the sole purpose of harassment, even going to far as to having sexual conversations with the 14 yr old. If that's not the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.

If Lori was a man and if Megan had lived Lori would be jail for being a sexual predator.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TerranFury]

This post was flamey, yes, but perhaps understandably so.

When a child is born with a heart defect, we view it simply as unfortunate. Bad luck, maybe. But when a child has a tendency towards suicidal depression -- or has some other serious mental illness -- we blame the parents. Have you considered just how cruel this is to them?

So I'm wondering if this is why AC responded so violently, as if he had been personally offended. Maybe he was.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[lysergic.acid]

I suppose any time that public opinion agrees with government action (i.e. any time that the government is acting democratically) it's a tyranny of the masses. That really can't be helped, there will always be a small minority that doesn't agree with the rest of society. As long as it's not the same group of people who are the minority every time, it's really not a problem.

Also, it's up to the judicial system to decide whether a federal/state/local statute has been violated, not you. That's what court cases are for. And there has certainly been precedence for this type of prosecution. If there's a building about to be demolished, and I see a child walk in there, and I neither stop her nor warn the demolition team, then I can still be held liable in my inaction. And that is even without malice.

Our laws are pretty stupid, but luckily they're not as stupid as you seem to think they are. They do a half-decent job of protecting the vulnerable. I mean, that's what the justice system is there for—to protect the public. Certain segments of society are more vulnerable than others, and that is why they receive greater protection under the law. Here you have a fully mentally-capable adult preying on a child with a mental disability. Children are quite emotionally vulnerable enough on their own. But when a child suffers from clinical depression and is thus runs a high risk of self-harm or suicide, then it becomes a highly dangerous and potentially lethal situation. Our legal establishment would be remiss if it did not seek to prevent such dangerous situations from arising.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so arrogant, having a different philosophy is not fallacious.

"well, I have a bigger stick than you";

That's the only real justification for any kind of social rule.

(2) Actually, what a criminal justice system does is:
(i) Physically stop criminals from doing the same thing again for a certain amount of time;
(ii) Discourage minds from telling their bodies to perform acts considered criminal, in the knowledge that they'll be restricted if they are caught.

Criminal justice systems enable society to flourish in certain ways by restricting certain sorts of behaviour. You don't need to say that individuals are "responsible" for their behaviour for this to work.

As for the "punishment" argument, there are two angles to this:
(i) The idea of revenge as justice. This is just silly, but unfortunately the above fallacy is sometimes used to conclude it as correct;
(ii) Punishment as a way of conditioning the mind to stop behaving in a certain way. This sometimes works, but usually doesn't, whence recidivism.

That's just your personal view on what criminal justice should be, not some absolute truth.

Why is revenge silly? Retribution has been a goal of many criminal justice systems.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[cdrguru]

Correct in that the freedom of speech does not absolve you of responsibility for your words.

The use of the Internet absolves you of responsibility.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... Sucks to be a parent...

Since when were adolescents known for including their parents in their emotional lives? I remember being very skilled at pushing my family away and ensuring they did not know everything that was going on in my life.

A twelve year old is not going to analyze a situation like this and ask, "Wait... Could this individual online be misrepresenting themselves? My parents said that people online may." They don't even understand the feelings they're having much less the ability to reflect on those feelings with perspective. By your reasoning the cause for any young person committing suicide can be the parents negligence for improperly preparing them for whatever difficult situation they may run into.

Suppport group in place? Oh yeah, this support group knows whats going on even when the child doesn't express their distress.

This is absurd.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[smoker2]

Just stay out of the way while real men and women go about getting the job done.

We're coming for you too, asshole.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[GofG]

Lori Drew may be a monster, but she did not kill anyone, or otherwise she would be charged with murder.

...Huh? That is not how our legal system works. If you are implying that something is true simply because it agreed upon in court, you are wrong and naive.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[elucido]

sudo mod theraven64 up.

Having lived through an abused childhood, I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges. Not quite zero, but near it. This girl who committed suicide because some boy she had never met apparently turned on her isn't very far up the food chain from the idiots who choose to "go out in a blaze of glory" while shooting up their school. She was weak and unstable, and she chose to suicide. Her lack of a support group contributed, yes, but the fact remains, she failed.

I've seen someone's sig - "Instead of child proofing the world, let's world proof the child!" Damned good advice - I just can't remember where I've seen the sig.

I see your point and I understand your argument. This is what people use to ban violent video games as well. I don't think violent video games should be banned just because a few kids shoot up their schools. I don't think the internet should be ruined because a few kids commit suicide. And I also don't think the internet should be ruined because there are pedophiles on the net.

I think liberty must be preserved for the responsible. Anything which takes away liberty from responsible citizens to protect the children, is a political trick. We should enhance parental responsibility and control over the media that their children access, and if a parent buys a kid violent video games and the kid goes and shoots up their school, the parents should take responsibility for buying the game. You shouldn't try to ban the game.

So what should we do? We cannot just decide to continue to let people be victims of bullying, so perhaps we should teach kids how to deal with the internet before they use it? A mandatory class in school might help.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

Oh. I'm scared. Perhaps you'll explain, first, why you are coming for me. Because I'm an asshole, and you disagree with me? Talk about petty......

Get a clue, lackwit. This predator has spent a lifetime destroying other lives. He has proven himself unworthy of our time, our compassion, our understanding, or our resources. He does not deserve a moldy crust of bread, or a scummy glass of dirty water.

This bastard kidnapped and repeatedly raped an 11 year old child. One might presume that he was looking forward to raping the children he fathered on the first child. Whether that be so, or not, he is far beyond any reasonable man's hope for redemption.

Let him look to his creator for redemption in the next life.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[interkin3tic]

*) The US has this quasi-religious fallacy that the mind is somehow less a biological entity than the body, so while we are limited by physical disability/limitation/programming, mental disability/limitation/programming somehow doesn't exist because it runs contrary to the philosophy about man running as a free rational entity. On the contrary, the mind is just another biological function, and driving someone to suicide (i.e. by manipulating their mind until they think of death as the only way out) is as much murdering them as pushing them onto a sword.

citation needed.

You're saying that an entire country is wrong in how it thinks of the mind? By what standard? I have a guess: your standard here is "I think something different." Specifically, you have one quasi-religious belief, and a lot of other people don't, so everyone else is wrong.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

"The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award."

This statement is what is wrong with people. You do not feel it is her fault in any way after what she did to someone else, nah forget all that lets just sue somebody. People need to be held accountable for their actions, and frankly as a human race, all we do is point the finger at someone else. Sure the government went a bit far in this case, but it is also an unprecedented case.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[ZosX]

No. I'm implying that they had nothing to charge her with, which is why she is not sitting in a jail cell right now. Whether that is right or not is really a matter of your stance with morality, but the truth remains that she is not charged with any sort of crime as there really is not a crime to charge her with other than perhaps fraud on some sort of level. This is probably more a case for the civil courts, and her parents may certainly have some sort of case, but that won't bring their daughter back, nor will throwing Lori Drew in prison for the rest of her life. Lori Drew is a horrible person, no doubt, but the world is full of horrible people. People choose different paths in life. We are all going to die. Some just decide to choose that time themselves. It is tragic, but so is death, and we all die. Just be glad you are still alive and woke up this morning. I think the planet has much larger problems than cyber bullies.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TheRaven64]

We don't blame the parents if their child is born with a tendency towards suicidal depression. We blame the parents for allowing a twelve year old child with a tendency towards suicidal depression to go on the Internet unmonitored and chat to strangers without any kind of safeguards. We don't blame the parent if a child has a heard defect, but we do blame the parents if they allow the child with a heart defect to participate in activities that raise their heart rate and endanger their life without educating them as to the possible dangers.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[TRRosen]

At least in her state it does.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Your body may have lived through an abused childhood, but it is sadly obvious your mind was terribly broken.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

Not really since the artists did not design their communication specifically to cause mental distress to the victim in particular, had no malice for the victim and took no steps to make sure the victim in particular got a copy.

It's highly unlikely that even the most avant-garde band is going to deliberately produce a work THAT distressing AND then deliberately deceive a particular person into expecting sunshine and lollipops.

In the case at hand, the outcome may well have been more extreme than expected, but Drew clearly intended to cause a great deal of distress (emotional injury) to a particular person. That she was an adult attacking a child is a serious aggravation. According to the eggshell skull rule, the victim being especially vulnerable doesn't in any way make the attacker less responsible for the outcome.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Metathran0]

I may not be a shrink, but I am working towards that end, and do have postgraduate theraputic training and experience, so I'm going to take a crack at explaining why it's a bit unfair to see the poor girl as "weak" and a "loser".

Generally it's easiest to compare mental and physical capacities. Just as there is a normal distribution of physical strengths and tolerances, there is also a normal distribution of mental strengths and tolerances. The majority have a certain level, while some have either a higher or lower tolerance, sometimes differing from the norm significantly.

Now, for the purposes of argument, let's say your history of surviving abuse places on the high end of the scale. Congrats, you're mentally strong, and there is much to be admired about that. However, your summary judgment of the poor girl would be like Shaquille O'Neal looking at someone who is 5'1" and calling him a loser because he isn't bigger or stronger. From his perspective, it's true, but does it make it a fair judgment? For that matter, is it the fault of the man for not being bigger or stronger?

Yes, you may have survived abuse, and it is an amazing accomplishment (maybe not to you, but to all those who don't, it is). Does it make you an expert on other people's mental strengths and tolerances? No. Just remember, not everyone is as strong as you, nor will everyone be able to "train" to your level, but that doesn't make them a "loser".

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo mod theraven64 up.

Having lived through an abused childhood, I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges.

theraven64 said:

If a child is so emotionally fragile that she can be talked into suicide by someone she has never met face to face, her parents are failing in their duty.

So theraven64 blames the parents, you blame the kid. I know I'm oversimplifying a bit. But aren't you saying the exact opposite? Why mod him up if you disagree?

And I want you to know I utterly despise your blame-the-victim mentality. Has it occurred to you that the people who abuse children, perhaps also the ones who abused you, may take more responsibility for their actions if they feel the offender is the one to blame?

Having said that, to cope with an abusive past (and I too know what I'm talking about) the best thing you can do is take responsibility for your own life and don't assume the eternal victim role. But I don't think of people who aren't (yet) strong enough as losers. Certainly not when they're still kids. Giving them that message can only help to make their self-esteem even lower, and that's the last thing they need.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

Not necessarily if the intent of that speech is a crime. For example, I cannot claim free speech protection if I deliberately instruct someone to do something knowing it will kill them (grab that wire, don't worry it's switched off) It's not the SPEECH that gets me into trouble. Likewise if I yell fire in a movie theater, it's not the speech part that gets me in trouble there, it's the deliberate creation of a dangerous panic. I would be in just as much trouble if I created the illusion of a fire somehow.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

The parents already proved they couldn't raise a child. They should stop blaming others.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

Fair enough. Food for thought.......

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking moron. There, now if you go kill yourself because of that, there is no way in hell I should be held responsible. This isn't fucking Nazi Germany so take your fascist ideas of censorship and control to someplace like Britain or Australia where the people are already getting ass raped by their governments.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Mitreya]

The right thing for Drew to do is shut the fuck up, be grateful for a loophole in the law, change her name, and move far away.

I was going to moderate here, but you pushed me to answer. Mind you, I think this woman should be punished. But you are still wrong. There is no loophole in the law. She was charged for some bullshit crime that was at best tangentially related to what she actually did (violating TOS). Someone who didn't do anything bad (i.e. practical joke with no bad consequences) could be charged for the same thing.

If we want her to go to jail (which she should) we should find a law that she violated. Violating TOS and misrepresenting yourself online is not a jail-able crime, I would hope. If what she did is not a crime, perhaps we should make it a crime, but in that case she will walk.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

It's the stupid prosecutor's fault, there were plenty of more viable angles that wouldn't endanger everyone's rights, they just wanted to use this one to fluff up their careers. For example, suicide is a crime (odd but true) and she contributed to a minor's decision to commit that crime. Therefor she should be tried for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She deliberately inflicted an emotional damage on a child, so assault. She is a mother who has demonstrated that she doesn't have sufficient emotional maturity to behave responsibly. Perhaps social services should look in to that.

But NO, the prosecutors were determined to grab some headlines and make it a "cybercrime" for their own benefit and so she goes free.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

You're saying that an entire country is wrong in how it thinks of the mind?

Don't be obtuse: I'm talking in terms of the founding principles of the US (which the government sometimes still tries to base its actions on), not the opinion of every last citizen/resident.

Specifically, you have one quasi-religious belief, and a lot of other people don't, so everyone else is wrong.

The view that man is a free rational being is quasi-religious, because it assumes that the mind is supernatural. Religion, or something else requiring leaps of pure faith, is required to justify this argument.

In fact, your mind is just part of your body, and just as subject to disability, limitation and programming. Biology and psychology - the former being hard science and the latter trying its best to follow the scientific method, despite being in relative infancy - provide much evidence in favour of this. Meanwhile, there is no scientific evidence whatever that man is in general a free rational being, in full control of his own faculties.

Thus, my opinion is scientific; your opinion is quasi-religious. I admit that all scientific explanations for the working of man's mind are incomplete, but at least they're rational. You're waving your hands in the ether and pulling out idealised nonsense from the start. You're doing nothing more advanced than Plato did when he used the regular solids to model the solar system because it's so beautifully and seductively convenient. It's perhaps troubling to accept, but the Universe is not that simple.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Scrameustache]

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

The right thing for her to do is to kill herself. The world does not need her brand of subhumanity, and the government finances do not need this parasite sucking at its funds.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

On the contrary, the mind is just another biological function, and driving someone to suicide (i.e. by manipulating their mind until they think of death as the only way out) is as much murdering them as pushing them onto a sword.

So a serial killer has no control over his actions and is not responsible for the people he killed?

As for the "mind is just a biological entity and can be disabled", it is very hard to determine which minds are "disabled", because there are a lot of different people with different minds. At least it is quite easy to tell a physically disabled person from a healthy one.

Still, I believe that if someone has a malfunctioning mind and is a danger to himself or others he should be put in an asylum. If the level of stupidity is not enough to warrant an asylum or medication with supervision then "stupidity is no excuse".

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

Wait, so in the US it is not a crime to "drive somebody to suicide"? OK, then Drew is not guilty of it, because it is not a crime.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Toonol]

With your response, you removed my need to post in reply*. You said what I was going to say, more elegantly. The GP post is profoundly philosophically flawed. No one disputes the mind is a biological mechanism. The flaw is in believing that negates concepts of freedom, choice, and responsibility.

*Now I'm free to post if I want to...

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

Still, I believe that if someone has a malfunctioning mind and is a danger to himself or others he should be put in an asylum.

Others, fair enough. Himself in short term, perhaps. Himself in long term - sure?

If the level of stupidity is not enough to warrant an asylum or medication with supervision then "stupidity is no excuse".

This is groundless. Man's mind is not binary free/broken, just as man's legs are not runner/cripple. There is a multi-dimensional field of mental ability, and no two people are in exactly the same place. The binary hypothesis is an incredibly seductive premise upon which to justify the principles of US society, but it is unscientific.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of our survival strategy as humans is to stick together and help each other through difficult episodes. Solidarity makes the group stronger.

Feeling bad about the herd being thinned, and trying to prevent it, is part of our survival strategy. Not treating severely depressed people as losers or pussies is part of that survival strategy, it doesn't contradict it. Someone who has been suicidal at some point in life may well turn into a valuable and succesful member of society later on. Solidarity helps to preserve their talents for the group.

The people who can't skin deers or reload ammo (I'm one of them) have adapted to survive in the environment they actually live in. It's as natural to them as an ant nest is to ants.

Good luck with your uphill battle. I have a suspicion that your tough attitude plays a role in coping with your scars. If so, I hope you reach a point where you don't need the toughness anymore. I think you may find you're actually stronger without it.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

He's probably just another parent who wants to fuck off and be lazy without actually raising his children. I mean the fact that he mentioned "god" shows just how lazy and out of touch with reality the guy is.

He's obviously mentally inept and should seek help.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

No one disputes the mind is a biological mechanism. The flaw is in believing that negates concepts of freedom, choice, and responsibility.

It negates the concepts to the extent that they're interpreted as ideals manifested in reality. If you think you're a free, rational being, able to make decisions independently of your genetics, upbringing, irrational fears and drives, inter al., then you're announcing yourself to be supernatural. Such simplistic nonsense has a place on a religious forum or among dilettante philosophers who conflate ideas and their pragmatic application, but not in scientific discourse.

All the rhetoric about individual responsibility of the perfect rational man, buried underneath Britain's sound pragmatic legal foundations so the US Founding Businessmen could differentiate themselves from Britain, has no basis beyond deist faith. The nascent US was perhaps great merely because it swung the pendulum with such aplomb, and there's nothing like overthrowing a tyrant from time to time.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[MBGMorden]

She didn't solicit sexual favors though. That's what all those cases hinge on with the FBI agents and the fake 14 year old girls (which slightly off topic, but I had heard a while back that in a few cases even in those examples they were having trouble making charges stick, since they never had sex nor was there ever an actual minor involved).

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It's bullshit to say that a child should just "toughen up" against the orchestrated attacks and manipulations of full grown fucking adults.

There are people, many younger than 12 years old, who had to put up with a lot more than nasty IMs from adults in their lives. Most of those people are still here, trying to get on with their lives.

Yes Megan Meier's suicide was tragic. Yes Lori Drew's behaviour was reprehensible, even illegal, and was a direct cause of Meier's decision to commit suicide. But it's clear to any reasonable person that Lori Drew, vicious as she was, was in no way the sole reason for Meier's death.

People who commit suicide kill themselves. Driving someone to commit suicide, even intentionally, is no more murder than a woman dressing up for an evening is an incitement to rape. Ultimately people are responsible for their own actions. Megan Meier was one month away from her 14th birthday. That's not young. That's old; and hang those that would treat young people like infants. I was 14 once, so were most people. What do you think people would have said if you stood up back then and said: "I'm too young to be responsible for my own actions". I don't think it would have gone down well.

Justice for all had to trump over justice for one dead kid. And even though it was probably right... it still fucking sucks.

What justice? Was the prosecution of Lori Drew all that just or noble? I'll admit the woman could have been brought up on fairly strong charges for fraternising in the way she did with a minor. But that wasn't the charge she was brought up on. She was brought up on a made up law spurred on by a fit of rage and media publicity. That's not justice. Not for Lori Drew, or Megan Meier, or anyone else.

The law is not a bludgeon that the public can beat people with to make itself feel better. It's a social contract made to keep the world sane. When it degenerates into illogical rulings and outright lunacy, as it did in this case, you can be sure that the peaceful world we live in won't be far behind.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you fucking retard, she wasn't browsing the internet 'unmonitored'.
If you'll recall, she had to get permission from her mom before she could add this kid to her friends-list.
Her mom was monitoring it a LOT. She slipped off and killed herself in just a few minutes.
Next time, read some of the fucking articles.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[MBGMorden]

Whether or not it HAS ever happened is irrelevant. You can't say that there is no possibility.

Given that it could happen, you're effectively saying that they should be charged with manslaughter instead? You see we already have a criminal charge for killing someone even if you didn't mean to, and that would be the case for the band whose song drove someone crazy (hell M Night Shamalan's movie "The Happening" was so bad it almost made me want to kill myself, which is very ironic considering it's subject matter, but I digress).

The bottom line is that it's not against the law to be an asshole. Lots of people are assholes. Society shuns them, and rightly so, but I think we'd all agree that it's not right to arrest the assholes. This is just a case where this woman was an asshole and an emotionally unstable kid killed herself because of it. It's sad, but that doesn't mean that we should revert back to "That ain't raht." logic and start bending and twisting the law so as to try and make sure somebody ends up in jail, regardless of it what they did was actually illegal.

Due process - it's not just a good idea - it's the law.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[SetupWeasel]

I don't disagree with you that she should be punished. However, what law would you suggest they use? Is it considered harassment? I would have guessed that would be the first place prosecutors would go if they could use it.

I don't think the law is set up to handle such a weird crime of intent. We are allowed to be cruel with one another in America. We could not build enough prisons if we made being an asshole against the law. The difference here is an adult intending to cause mental distress to a minor. There need to be laws against this, but those laws will necessarily be pretty weak and hard to prove. Here we have a woman who deserves punishment, but I'm not sure that we as a society can easily legislate a punishment for what she has done.

In the end, she has been punished. Our overactive news media has been used to its fullest, distributing her name and her actions to every house in America and many throughout the world. Unfortunately, there are others like her, but those stories don't end as outrageously. At least she will start to understand what it is like to be the subject of another's hate. If there is any justice in the world, it will drive her to the same fate.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. I'm scared. Perhaps you'll explain, first, why you are coming for me.

Because you are a ruthless and bloodthirsty fuckwit who has admitted to planning to commit premeditated murder.
You commit that murder and you are just another cur dog to be put down.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

sure, your view on the human mind is quite reasonable

however, when you equate this girl's suicide to being pushed onto a sword, when you call it murder, you seem to be arguing that the girl has no responsibility for her own death (a suicide)

that is absurd

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[interkin3tic]

Thus, my opinion is scientific; your opinion is quasi-religious. I admit that all scientific explanations for the working of man's mind are incomplete, but at least they're rational.

Minor point: I didn't endorse any opinion on the nature of the mind, I was just pointing out your hypocrisy.

More importantly, to say it's incomplete is an overstatement, as is "my opinon is scientific." Both viewpoints make assumptions without evidence on the same scale. Few people would argue that thoughts are impulses carried over neurons, but to have much proof that free will doesn't exist, you would have to find a way around the uncertainty principle.

It comes back down to you have different asssumptions than other people and you like yours better.

I'm not sure why people make the mistake of trying to fight concepts which are not based on logic or evidence WITH logic or evidence. Sometimes such concepts make predictions or have parts which can be specifically tested, like young earth creationism, but the illogical core of "God created the world/universe" isn't going to be disproven to people who believe it with logic or evidence any more than young earth creationists are going to convince scientists that the world was created in 7 days by quoting bible passages. You're saying "people are wrong, I've got science," even if you weren't dramatically overstating things, who do you expect to convince?

Come to think of it, now I'M trying to disprove an illogical belief using logic...

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you get an FBI agent masquerading as a 14 year old girl to agree to sexual favors = jail, but if you convince a 13 year old girl to kill herself it's ok?

OK maybe the 13 year old was a bit sensitive and overreacted but still...

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

And I want you to know I utterly despise your blame-the-victim mentality.

Because everyone is a victim, right?

A kid shoots up his school - he is not guilty, the guns, video games, movies, books, someone is guilty, but not the shooter.
A kid kills himself - he is not responsible, the parents, guns, video games, movies, books, someone is, but not he himself.
A serial killer kills a lot of people - he is not guilty, the parents, video games, guns, knives, movies, books, victims are, but not the killer, oh no. He had a troubled childhood, you see.
A drunk driver causes an accident and injures, kills people - he is not guilty, the alcohol, the alcohol ads, the shops are, but not the man behind the wheel.

Or maybe they are responsible for their own actions? And not the guns, video games, movies, alcohol, drugs. Unless the guns, video games, movies come with some device that controls the perpetrators brain. And no, he bought alcohol and drugs while he was sober knowing that they will mess up his brain.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

I remember being very skilled at pushing my family away and ensuring they did not know everything that was going on in my life.

Maybe it was you.... or maybe it was them letting you think it was you...

In this case the parents should have monitored her conversations with the "boyfriend", especially because they knew that she was predisposed to suicide.

And adults are either responsible for their actions or they are in an asylum.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

The "victim" LIED about her age to get on MySpace in the first place.

Wait, so if she had survived her suicide attempt she would have been charged with the same crime as the "murderer"?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

COOL - its not illegal to use a stolen account and password to access a computer system.

It was not a stolen account. It was a fake account. The boy did not exist IRL. It's the same when you sign up on some forum and specify some fake name instead of your real one.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

But when a child suffers from clinical depression and is thus runs a high risk of self-harm or suicide,

then the child should be under supervision (parents, nurse or in an asylum) because he/she is a threat to him/herself and there is a high risk of self-harm or suicide for real or imaginary reasons.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Teriblows]

simply said, douchbaggery shouldnt be a crime. telling someone to go f**king jump off a bridge shouldn't mean you are responsible for it if they do. you cannot go around assuming everyone is mentally delicate. esp in a country that values free speech. i don't care if shes' 12, if she had murdered someone she would still be responsible. and in any case, it was a ridiculous waste of tax money processing this case. what should happen is the prosecutors involved should be fired for wasting public money.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the stupid prosecutor's fault, there were plenty of more viable angles that wouldn't endanger everyone's rights, they just wanted to use this one to fluff up their careers. For example, suicide is a crime (odd but true) and she contributed to a minor's decision to commit that crime. Therefor she should be tried for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She deliberately inflicted an emotional damage on a child, so assault. She is a mother who has demonstrated that she doesn't have sufficient emotional maturity to behave responsibly. Perhaps social services should look in to that.

But NO, the prosecutors were determined to grab some headlines and make it a "cybercrime" for their own benefit and so she goes free.

Social services removing children from parents must never be motivated by a desire to punish the parents. It must be about protecting the children from an actual threat, and that must be the only thing it is about. Suggesting otherwise, as you are implicitly doing here, is just... please don't.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[FuckingNickName]

Isn't it absurd, then, to call me a murderer if I push you onto a sword? Aren't you mentally and physically quick enough to dart out of the way, or position yourself to minimise your injury? Didn't you decide not to be mentally strong enough to find an alternative life-saving response to my pushing?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

No, my argument was not specious. Consider the "lesson" she was actively teaching her daughter in the process of tormenting a 13 year old girl! Consider that the family is being driven from the community by the mother's behavior. She really is a terrible influence on her child. We can only hope that watching the social consequences will teach the daughter the things her mom failed to, but somehow I suspect mom will twist it around and do her best to teach the daughter that everyone else was wrong.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

She was charged for some bullshit crime that was at best tangentially related to what she actually did (violating TOS). Someone who didn't do anything bad (i.e. practical joke with no bad consequences) could be charged for the same thing.

I was thinking about similar situations that could arise in suicides. Pranks can also go horribly wrong and cause harm to another even if that wasn't the intent. Radio stations occasionally call random people to get their reactions when told that their husband/wife has died in a car accident. If the person on the phone commits suicide out of grief, would the pranksters go unpunished? What if you just told them they were having an affair, and they killed the spouse instead? What about if someone sets up a fake suicide hotline to toy with people who call in and that results in a suicide? While the latter certainly should illicit a "maybe we should know better" thought, similar end results of all three scenarios should be punished the same way, in my opinion.

If we want her to go to jail (which she should) we should find a law that she violated. Violating TOS and misrepresenting yourself online is not a jail-able crime, I would hope. If what she did is not a crime, perhaps we should make it a crime, but in that case she will walk.

I agree that charging her for a violation of the ToS was wrong. What she did was a crime. It just happens that it's something so horrendous that we haven't had need to codify it. It is an unfortunate statement about society when it comes to having to make a new law against something that should be already within the realm of "Nobody does that because it's unthinkable."

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[bhartman34]

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney.

No, the right thing for Lori Drew to do is to commit suicide. She's using up valuable oxygen and polluting the gene pool. In a just universe, she'd simply be stoned to death and the world would be a better place.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

This wasn't about treating killers as victims, it was about a depressed 13 year old killing herself after being bullied by an adult who probably knew about her condition.

Runaway1956 has "near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges", "She was weak and unstable [...] she failed."

This is like saying that the victims of your school shooting / serial killer / drunk driver were losers that deserve no sympathy, not like saying the offenders were victims. They were all weaker than the bullet, cars or whatever it was that hit them.

Lori Drew probably didn't anticipate that Megan would kill herself, so it wasn't as extreme as the killer examples. But picking on someone because she's weak she did. Blaming the victim isn't too far removed from that, looking down on people you perceive as weak is very close treating them correspondingly, you might not even be aware you're doing it at first. It's a destructive attitude, and I despise it.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[einhverfr]

I am not saying Megan should have toughened up. However, her parents clearly should have monitored her internet usage quite a bit more.

Drew was acquitted of criminal charges relating to causing intentional harm to Megan. The jury only convicted on unrelated charges due to testimony from prosecution witnesses which threw doubt on who intended to cause harm to Megan.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[nasor]

It amuses me that you think you are better qualified that the prosecutor to concoct a charge against her. Contrary to popular rumor, suicide is not a crime. Merely inflicting "emotional damage" does not qualify as assault; you have to make the other person believe that they are in immediate danger of being attacked, which clearly wasn't the case here. The prosecutor was not attempting to "grab headlines" by making it a "cybercrime"; the charge leveled against her was merely the closest thing they could come up with to an actual crime.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Rakarra]

Oh. I'm scared. Perhaps you'll explain, first, why you are coming for me. Because I'm an asshole, and you disagree with me? Talk about petty......

Because once you decide you are the law and the executioner, you get to live in a society where others can decide the same. And they might find your... eagerness, and your activities, if you followed your earlier suggestions, to be somewhat disturbing, and may indeed find you to be beyond rehabilitation. At that point, the only solution, by your code, would be to put you down.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Its an issue of inconsistency, as well as provability.

What that 'last straw' is for Anonymous Coward A, isn't the same as Anonymous Coward B, and further, can't - in most cases - be reasonably demonstrated as being causal, never mind "Beyond a reasonable doubt" as specified in U.S. criminal law.

In other words, how is it just to try someone for something they cannot disprove, or even begin to show innocence of the act they are accused of?
There are solutions for the case, most of them involving the *much* lower burden of evidence in a civil case by the *next of kin* rather then an action on the part of the government.

Be aware I'm not any form of attorney, but this in my psuedo-study of it, strikes me as the major point behind it.
Now that I have anonymously stirred the fecal matter, back to lurk mode... =)

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[SL Baur]

RE: recidivism, it doesn't really help that the best place to learn how to commit crimes is jail.

Not to mention that after the time is served, getting a job is kind of tough - who wants to hire a convicted criminal?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

Any one of my suggestions was at least as close to a correct application of law as the actual prosecution. Further, my suggestions are a lot less likely to damage civil liberty for the short term gain.

Given that the law is for the people, I find your "just leave it to the experts and don't worry your pretty little head about it" attitude unfortunate.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[lysergic.acid]

I assume you're not familiar at all with clinical depression or the social and legal infrastructure we have to deal with it?

Clearly there are a lot of misconceptions about how clinical depression manifests itself or should be treated. Firstly, depression is not the same as schizophrenic paranoia. By itself, it doesn't make a person act irrationally or become detached from reality. The most common form of clinical depression is bipolar disorder. Even though the disease is not clearly understood by the medical community, it's believed that a chemical imbalance underlies its pathology—serotonin is commonly pointed to as the root cause, but the illness is almost certainly the result of many other different interactions.

So how does clinical depression manifests itself in emotional disorders like bipolar disorder/manic-depression? Well, it's not terribly different from how it manifests itself in everyone else. Everyone gets depressed from time to time. Sometimes people get gloomy or melancholic over their station in life, or they may feel overwhelming sadness at the loss of a spouse or friend. Even someone who isn't clinically depressed can become so depressed that they seek to kill themselves (and some actually do). The difference is one of degree and frequency. A manic-depressive individual going through a depressive episode is much more likely to feel the extreme sadness that most people only feel when a personal tragedy has occurred. Likewise, in their manic stage, they are predisposed towards feelings of great elation that ordinarily accompany something like winning the lottery.

You can also think of it sort of like a scale of emotional disposition. On the one end of the scale you might think of the person as having blunted affect disorder, where they are practically incapable of experiencing or expressing any emotion. On the other end of the scale you'd then have extreme bipolarism, where the person easily experiences the highest of highs, but also the lowest of lows. In a way, you can almost say that manic-depressive disorder is not really a disease. It's just another segment on the spectrum of neurodiversity that makes our society so great. It would not be inaccurate to say that those who have bipolarism have a greater capacity for emotion than those who don't. They exhibit more empathy, and because of the passionate feelings they experience, they become great artists, great writers, great musicians, etc. Quite a few famous and successful people "suffer" from depression.

Part of the problem with diagnosing depression is because there really isn't a discrete cut-off between "normal" and clinically depressed. We can't just prescribe prozac to everyone every time they feel sad. So, for practical purposes, clinical depression is described as depression to such a degree as to interfere with one's ability to function normally. So if one is constantly struggling with their personal responsibilities (work, family, school, etc.) because they are feeling depressed, etc. then they are considered to have a clinical condition.

But even then it makes no sense to put anyone who's clinically depressed in a strait jacket and lock them in a padded room. The mildest forms of clinical depression can be treated with counseling or therapy. People can learn to cope with or manage their depression in such a way that it is no longer so debilitating. In more serious cases, medication is often prescribed in an attempt to correct the chemical imbalance and stabilize one's mood. Only in the most drastic cases are individuals actually institutionalized. And even then, it's typically because the individual suffers from multiple axis I/II mental disorders.

There's also a difference between immediate/acute risk and long-term/statistical risk. A person with clinical depression is not always in immediate risk of hurting themselves. If a bipolar individual is experiencing a manic episode, then suicide is likely the

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Runaway1956]

Ruthless, no. Lackwit, I've gone to some extremes in my life to help people who need help. Bloodthirsty, no. I do what needs to be done, and if that means putting a dog down, I do it. Doesn't mean I enjoy it.

Grow up stupid ass. The bastard who stole that little girl for his own deviant pleasure deserves nothing more than a bullet in the ear. If you imagine anything else, you are one sick shit.

Now, every bleeding heart liberal in the world needs to shut the fuck up, sit down, and watch. Give the man a trial. Make it fair. Let some fucktard try to convince reasonable men and women that he's not at fault. Listen to the guilty verdict come back. Then watch him be marched into a tiny cell where he gets his injections.

And, I'll laugh at all you morons who worry about his humane execution. He DESERVES a bullet in the ear. He deserves as much compassion as you would display as you stomped on a roach.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pentium100]

Thank you for the explanation. I understand better now.

Since the dead girl was clinically depressed, she probably was treated so she would not be depressed anymore, right? If so, the doctor probably hoped that the treatment made it so that she would not want to kill herself. If so, then her killing herself means that the treatment failed.

Since the girl killed herself over what someone, who she has never met, said on the internet means that her threshold for suicide was quite low. You cannot protect someone from such traumas without locking them up in their room. For example, she killed herself because her virtual boyfriend broke up with her and told her to kill herself. What are the odds of this happening in real life (she finds a boyfriend and later they fight over something real (maybe him cheating on her) and he then tells her that she can go hang herself)? Quite likely, unless her parents were planning on locking her up and not allowing any boyfriends. A lot of bad stuff can happen in real life, a lot of bad stuff happens that drive a "normal" person to suicide. So the doctors needed to prescribe stronger medication or something, I don't know, I am not a doctor.

What Drew did was bad, she knew about the condition and used the knowledge. If she wouldn't have done it, odds are that somebody else would (a disgruntled boyfriend, some girl who is envious, someone random).

It is sad about what happened, but the dead girl should have had better shields.

Now I'll try to make a computer analogy. A lot of people want to hack computers, a lot of programs have vulnerabilities, but you do not put an unpatched computer on the network and hope that nobody hacks it, you patch, install firewalls so that even if anybody tries to hack it, they can't. If you have to use an unpatched computer (for some reason), you do not connect it to a network, unless the network is tightly controlled by you.

If someone hacks the computer anyway, they are guilty, but so are you. For example, someone hacks the computers at my bank and steals my money. While I will be angry at the hackers, I will be more angry at the banks inability to protect their system and my money. The managers of the bank will probably be angry at their IT guys.

If the dead girl was "programmed" with such severe vulnerabilities, she should have been protected by doctors and parents, who should have read her conversations and maybe put a stop to them.

Drew is not guilty of murder or manslaughter, and the relevant law seems to agree with me, but now they added new law that effectively makes it a crime to hurt a teenagers feelings over the internet. If I lived there and told some kid that he was stupid and the kid started crying, I would probably be a criminal for doing that.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sg_oneill]

Pretty sure the prosecutor didn't purposefully set up to fuck up a child to the point the child committed suicide bro.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[youarelying]

Where did I justify anyone abusing anyone else?

"I have near zero sympathy for kids who are such losers that they can't face life's challenges [abuse?]. Not quite zero, but near it. This girl who committed suicide because some boy she had never met apparently turned on her isn't very far up the food chain from [murderers] the idiots who choose to "go out in a blaze of glory" while shooting up their school. She was weak and unstable, and she chose to suicide. Her lack of a support group contributed, yes, but the fact remains, she failed."

Nothing in the quoted statment "justifies" abuse, either implicitly or explicitly. And you know it. Therefore, claiming that it does makes you a liar.

Your rhetoric is an exemplar for how to de-humanise someone as a precursor to justification for maltreatment. They're only retards, they're only Catholics, they're only gypsies, they're only Jews, they're only weak.

Again, not expressed or implied by anything you quoted. You made up that position and assigned it to him. It is a straw man argument. All straw man arguments are lies.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[SL Baur]

We haven't quite advanced to the point where we can reliably "fix" murderers, rapists, arsonists etc.

What are you talking about? War, which involves all of the above, has been the most popular of recreational sports throughout human history.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[SL Baur]

It's highly unlikely that even the most avant-garde band is going to deliberately produce a work THAT distressing

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Toonol]

You're bringing baggage to the discussion. Nobody is arguing that man is perfectly, supremely rational. Nobody is arguing that the concepts of choice and responsibility require absolute freedom from environment, genetics. You're arguing against a position nobody is taking.

It's simpler. Lori Drew is a chaotic system. Input, all sorts of input, went into it. It was processed by her mind, in a way that is unique to Lori Drew, and unpredictable by anyone else; and she acted. Her mind was the final, causal mechanism of the despicable actions she did; and there is no way to unequivocally trace the responsibility any further back, to any specific event outside of her mind. Lori Drew bears the responsibility and blame for her actions.

If you want to discuss how to balance punishment and rehabilitation, that's fine; reasonable people can disagree over where the line should be drawn. However, I don't believe that pure rehabilitation will work without punishment in the mix, somewhere, as a motivating tool... and vice-versa.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Seumas]

If you tease someone or make a hurtful comment to them and you don't know much about them or they're a stranger, you shouldn't be held accountable to the degree Lori Drew should.

In this case, the criminal KNEW the mental state of the child involved and then conspired with two other people over a long period of time to orchestrate an entire relationship with an underage girl with the sole intention of mentally damaging her and humiliating her and embarrassing her.

Two random people on slashdot telling each other to fuck off and die is one thing. An adult down the street from you who clearly knows your situation and that you probably don't have the strongest support structure around orchestrating your downfall over a long period of time, eventually resulting in the fake child you created to get close to her dumping her and telling her she should go kill herself is inherently more vile, vicious, evil, and criminally responsible for the outcome than two relative strangers spatting at each other here and there.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Seumas]

I'll remember your comments next time your house is burglarized or someone holds you up at gunpoint. You don't need any assistance or justice, because you can face life's challenges. Like being a twelve year old child who is the victim of a cruel conspiracy of two adults several times your age and another child over an extending length of time.

I know it probably helps you come to terms with your shitty childhood by responding to other people's problems like a cockface, but at some point you've got to be an adult and realize that just make a twelve year old girl doesn't have the toolkit in life by that time to combat and handle a group of adults conspiring against her and trying to convince her to kill herself.

I mean, maybe that's just me, but I thought childhood was about developing those tools. Not coming out of the womb with them and having to defend yourself against some evil twat and her fucked up brood before you've even stop playing with your My Little Pony toys.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[lysergic.acid]

I don't want to seem rude, as I'm genuinely interested in engaging in fruitful discussions—especially with people with alternate viewpoints—but it doesn't seem possible at this point, especially when I'm still reading stuff like:

Since the dead girl was clinically depressed, she probably was treated so she would not be depressed anymore, right?

or

If I lived there and told some kid that he was stupid and the kid started crying, I would probably be a criminal for doing that.

I don't know if this is a reading comprehension issue, if it's some failing on my part to communicate myself clearly (I tried my best), or if some people just prefer resorting to gross oversimplifications and strawman attacks. I will just reiterate one last time that, no one here is suggesting that hurting someone's feelings should be a crime. It might be criminally negligent to give a toddler a knife, but that doesn't mean you'll be charged with criminal negligence if a fully-cognizant adult cuts themselves with a knife you handed them. As far as specious argumentative tactics go, inapt analogies are probably among the least convincing (and the most crude).

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[MR.Mic]

but to have much proof that free will doesn't exist, you would have to find a way around the uncertainty principle.

How does the uncertainty principle have anything to do with free will as you or I know it?
Just because a system is unpredictable to an outside observer does not exclude that same system from being deterministic.

Additionally, you would have to prove that neurons rely on QM as a major part in their function. Especially in aiding decision making.
Unless I have been grossly misinformed, all evidence so far suggests that neurons do not rely on QM, and their behavior can be modeled using classical physics.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[poetmatt]

Actually, hasn't that been debated to the exact opposite in court? I seem to recall bomb-making, lock picking, etc things that have gone to court over that many times.

If what you said was true, eminem would be guilty of murder.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

Telling someone something that COULD kill them if done wrong or that could allow them to commit a crime is entirely different from telling them something that WILL harm them or will actually be a crime in itself.

If I tell you how to build a bomb, that's just speech. If I deliberately alter the design so that it will inevitably blow up in your face, it's a crime.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that you apparently grew up to be a massive douche is a good reason not to endorse your viewpoint. On anything.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Though we may justifiably consider Lori Drew to be despicable, she did not violate any federal statute. The government's case was driven by public opinion, not the facts. In this case, public opinion is just a synonym for "tyranny of the masses".

The government chose to use the legal system to make her life a living hell. The government has infinitely deep pockets to fund a lawsuit against a private citizen, but the citizen does not have such pockets. Fighting the government in the courts could drive a private citizen into bankruptcy.

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

Though we may justifiably consider Lori Drew to be despicable, she did not violate any federal statute. The government's case was driven by public opinion, not the facts. In this case, public opinion is just a synonym for "tyranny of the masses".

The government chose to use the legal system to make her life a living hell. The government has infinitely deep pockets to fund a lawsuit against a private citizen, but the citizen does not have such pockets. Fighting the government in the courts could drive a private citizen into bankruptcy.

The right thing for Drew to do in this case is to sue the government and, specifically, the lead prosecuting attorney. Drew should sue them for mental distress and seek a multi-million dollar award.

you just said that suing hte govt can easily bankrupt a private citizen then say thats the right thing to do thats real intelligent
id suggest suing in a civil suit such as family did to robert blake because of the lower standard of proof required
an no im not an anoymous coward im just sick and tired of having to go to all the hassle of registrering just to reply to you stupid post

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[bhartman34]

It's bullshit to say that a child should just "toughen up" against the orchestrated attacks and manipulations of full grown fucking adults.

There are people, many younger than 12 years old, who had to put up with a lot more than nasty IMs from adults in their lives. Most of those people are still here, trying to get on with their lives.

Yes Megan Meier's suicide was tragic. Yes Lori Drew's behaviour was reprehensible, even illegal, and was a direct cause of Meier's decision to commit suicide. But it's clear to any reasonable person that Lori Drew, vicious as she was, was in no way the sole reason for Meier's death.

It would be wrong to say that Drew was the sole reason for Megan's death. But the fact of the matter is that Drew knew the girl's vulnerability and mental state, and preyed on it. I'm quite certain that she didn't intend for Megan to kill herself (she probably just wanted to torment her as long as she could, for her own amusement), but she certainly acted in reckless disregard of what should have been seen as a possibility.

It should also be noted that clinical depression is a medical condition, and someone suffering from this condition can't just suck it up and get over it. They sometimes require lifelong medication. So expecting Megan Meier to respond to the situation even as well as a typical teenager would (which in itself wouldn't be particularly well) isn't reasonable.

I certainly can concede the point that merely making offensive statements toward someone online shouldn't be a crime in itself, but this kind of targeted harassment, where the tormentor had knowledge of their target's mental state, is another thing entirely, and that should be taken into account. This isn't a case where the person doing the harassment could reasonably believe that they were doing something harmless.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[bhartman34]

I am not saying Megan should have toughened up. However, her parents clearly should have monitored her internet usage quite a bit more.

I can certainly agree with that. I just don't think their failure to monitor the Internet (which is becoming ever-more difficult, given how many different ways you can access the Internet now) is enough to put the responsibility for her death on the parents, rather than on Drew. Drew was the one who went above and beyond to cause the girl torment. For the most part, Meier's parents reacted the way most parents would (e.g., becoming angry at being defied). The fact that she discussed these things with her parents in the first place would seem to indicate she had a closer relationship with them than many children her age.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Tybalt_Capulet]

Wait, so in order to sue the government, you need the government's permission?

Isn't that like saying, "Hey, Louis, do you mind if we behead you for sending our country into debt?" Man, that would have been an odd revolution for France.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget conspiracy, which is a really heavy charge, it definitely applies here. (multiple persons were involved in targeting a single person for one mutual goal)

Then there's contributing to the delinquency of a minor (driving her to suicide, which is a crime), and other fun things that can be thrown at her.

But I'm assuming the Meiers, or at least their lawyers, are incompetent for not pushing for conspiracy. At least get the Mother and Daughter.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[uninformedLuddite]

I wouldn't dismiss you after your death as a sub-human weakling. Would you do the same to me?

Well let's face facts. You are a mathematician

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[uninformedLuddite]

Violating TOS and misrepresenting yourself online is not a jail-able crime, I would hope. If what she did is not a crime, perhaps we should make it a crime, but in that case she will walk.

There has probably been a memo floating around from the DOJ begging prosecutors to make misrepresenting yourself online a crime to try and force people to use their true identities in all that they conspire against the government(whoops I meant 'do') online. They apparently want to try and introduce an Internet Driver's License for (insert deity of choice)'s sake in Australia.
I don't know what i will do if I am forced to relinquish my UL ID on /. UL can pretend to be smart and witty with an amazing and wonderful life. If UL is forced to use his real name then people will find out I live in a cardboard box and use the libraries computers (but only on shower day when my smell doesn't overpower other customers). BTW: How do I get GT and LT symbols to appear in comments?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[glyneth]

INTENT.

Gah. Not indent.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Svartalf]

After her mother had a shouting match over the girl cussing at her and over the girl spending too much time on the Internet- according to other official accounts of things here.

We haven't a friggin' clue either way (because we're not entitled to gaining that, mind...) of what all transpired- and we're judging both sides of the equation as if we had them all.

Do I think Drew was a heinous individual? YES.
Do I think that she should be held accountable for her actions? YES.

Do I think all this caterwauling about what Drew did/did not do is a waste of time and resources? YES.

You didn't get the whole data dump. Neither, did I.

I would think that the fact that the State didn't bother to pursue charges and fobbed it up to the Federal level should be indication that the story's not cut-and-dried like most people are making it out to be in the thread.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Phoenixlol]

Since when do people sympathize with drunk drivers? I've never heard anyone blame alcohol ads for that.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[einhverfr]

But the jury acquitted Drew of the three felony charges (and 2 more conspiracy charges) involving unauthorized access to a computer in furtherance of intentional inflection of emotional distress.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[nasor]

Any one of my suggestions was at least as close to a correct application of law as the actual prosecution. Further, my suggestions are a lot less likely to damage civil liberty for the short term gain.

One of your suggestions was to charge her with a crime that does not exist, and your other was to charge her with a crime that she very obviously did not commit. It is at least somewhat plausible that she committed unauthorized computer access.

Given that the law is for the people, I find your "just leave it to the experts and don't worry your pretty little head about it" attitude unfortunate.

I never said anything of the kind.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[bhartman34]

But the jury acquitted Drew of the three felony charges (and 2 more conspiracy charges) involving unauthorized access to a computer in furtherance of intentional inflection of emotional distress.

I can't say why the jury reached that decision, but I can take a stab at it: She didn't have unauthorized access to the computer in question. "Unauthorized access" can be taken to mean more than violating the terms of service. In order to gain "unauthorized" access, someone would have to break in to a system, or use someone else's credentials (i.e., not be the one actually authorized to use the system), wouldn't they?

I'm not at all certain that it was the "intentional infliction of emotional distress" part that the jury had the problem with.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Sloppy]

This is true. I want the USA to be seen as the country which lets a murderer(*) go free then allows her to sue the government and win millions.

If the government out-slimes her, and makes her conduct look exemplary by comparison? Hell yes I want the government to pay out millions. I want the taxpayers to be out millions, because I want the taxpayers to be furious and to demand the resignation of everyone connected with the case -- not just the prosecuting lawyers but the legislators who voted for the bullshit law Drew was charged with violating.

driving someone to suicide .. is as much murdering them as pushing them onto a sword.

I'm not sure I agree, but please, keep saying that. Because the worse Drew's crime is, the worse it is that the government failed to charge her with that crime, and charged her with some bullshit instead. The worse it is that the government chose to let her go, and instead try to misuse a bullshit law in order to try to win a precedent that works directly against the interests of the people.

It is impossible to condemn Drew's behavior without twice-condemning the government. The only way the government can come out smelling good in this situation, is if you advocate that what Drew did was a good thing and should be encouraged.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Sloppy]

If that's not the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.

You think that's fucked up? I can top it, and in this very same case.

Draw was charged with criminally violating MySpace's ToS. She was not charged with harming a person. Let that sink in: our government's position was that harming people is less important than using MySpace incorrectly.

If Lori was a man and if Megan had lived Lori would be jail for being a sexual predator.

No, she would be in jail for computer misuse. And someday, maybe you could be in jail for the same thing too. It would have been a fucking disaster if this case had not been dismissed.

We are all pretty lucky that Lori is a woman, and we are all pretty lucky that the girl died.

There. I just topped your fuckedupness. Say thanks to your government for making it true.

And the more fuckedupness you find Drew's stalker behavior, the more fucked up the decision to charge her with a MySpace ToS violation (and look the other way on harming a little girl) becomes. Drew cannot win who-is-more-evil contest with the government, unless she kills yet another girl and then the government redeems itself by charging her with committing a real crime. What are the chances? It ain't gonna happen.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

The death of the young lady was certainly tragic. The lady that harassed her was certainly despicable and deserves to be punished in some way. However, they way they went about trying to do that was wrong. Why? Because when the government tries to for some kind of punishment for something that the laws really do not cover, they start setting unfortunate precedents that can be abused later on. That last thing I want happening to me is to get life for posting a cross reply to someone after a bad day who then goes off and commits suicide Granted, this case was a lot more severe than that. I do not know all the details of the story, and I am not trying to appear callous about the death of the young lady, but I have a few questions. Where were the adults who were responsible for this young lady? I might agree that she did not deserve the harassment she received, and that the harassment was rather cruel, but if the harassment was the only cause of her suicide, how could her parents not know how bad she was feeling? Why did she not tell her parents what was going on? What should have happened is that either the young lady, or her parents should have turned off the computer and walked away, or at least stop visiting the site. Certainly there had to have been other issues in this young lady's life to have helped make her that depressed. I do agree that the woman who harassed her needs punished, but I do not necessarily agree that she is 100% responsible for causing the death of the young lady. We can't just swing a big stick and hope to hit the person who deserves to be hit.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[einhverfr]

The jury didn't convict because Ashley Grills, the prosecutor's witness, testified that she (not Drew) sent the most hurtful of the emails. She testified she sent the message saying "The world would be better off without you." And she testified Megan replied "You are the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over."

The jury basically felt there was reasonable doubt in Lori Drew's role in the infliction of emotional distress.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[bhartman34]

Okay, thanks for that information.

I'm sort of surprised that such a thing came out of the mouth of the prosecutor's witness. I always thought the first rule of putting a witness on the stand was to know what the witness was going to say.

At any rate, if that's what the testimony was, I'm not surprised by the verdict.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

In the new age of internet murder via urging people to commit suicide and giving them detailed instructions - vastly popularized by web sites like Something Awful, 4chan and Encyclopedia Dramatica (the Anonymous organization) - it's obvious that the law will not protect people. Only vigilantism and taking the law into your own hands will help. If someone online urges you to kill yourself, the first person you should kill is that person who told you to do it. Find them, hunt them down, and make them pay. You have nothing to lose as you were on the way out anyway. Kill those creeps. If you cant find the person, destroy their web site or the head of their organization.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[poetmatt]

I agree with what you just said. However, how does that apply to the Lori Drew case?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

While I see your point, such legislation would have a broad gray area with many unintended consequences. Just consider the number of people who's lives have been ruined by overly active sex offender legislation. Teens taking nude images of themselves and people arrested for public urination come to mind as examples. Any legislation that enforces criminal prosecution for such an unclear crime as psychologically driving someone to suicide would certainly result in many unintended victims targeted by the said legislation. A reverse consequence of such thinking would also allow one to argue that one has the right to kill those who psychologically bully them as self defense.

Here are some unintended targets for your criminal theory. It is doubtful that the actions of Lori Drew alone are responsible for the young girl choosing death. Clearly the parents of the girl failed to properly raise and train the girl to cope with such stresses in life. At the very least they should be tried for neglect and at the most accomplice to murder. Feel free to add anyone else to the witch list that might have compromised the girl's sense of self worth, or are part of the process in providing for a sense of self worth in the rearing of the child.

There would be thousands of problems with such over-active legislation. Please think your good intentions through first before you pave us another roadway to hell.

However, I would join your cause if you agree to support my argument that taxation causes undue psychological stress, from which there is no escape except death. Hence taxation is the ultimate form of psychological bullying and so should be banned, as it is a form of state sponsored murder.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[scot4875]

Are you seriously suggesting that the claim that the mind is a biological function is a "quasi-religious belief"?

--Jeremy

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[sjames]

It means that holding Drew accountable for her words which were chosen to inflict emotional harm would not be a violation of free speech.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd certainly have a hard time feeling compassion for her mental distress. She stalked and bullied a child. while she broke no laws, what she did was horrid and beyond despicable. And in no way, is she entitled to any type of monetary compensation. One of the reasons this country is in bad shape right now is all the pointless lawsuits--hers would be so far beyond pointless, and it would just be another waste of money. she needs to get on with her life and hopefully learn from her mistakes.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide Club?

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Godwin's Law does NOT say the invoker loses the argument. YOU lose.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[alexo]

There is special note however - indent is important.

Only in Python.

Re:Fighting Abuse of Power

[Pecisk]

Yes, sorry, my fault. I was very tired when wrote that post.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat unrelated to anything:
It's stupid to withhold sexual assault victims' names while at the same time plastering photos and names of their alleged assailants everywhere. Even if the latter are eventually found innocent, the public will never know and will always picture those people as evil ("Hey, I saw that guy on TV once, and they said he was a rapist! I should stay away from him!").

Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Smidge207]

Well, no; there is no such thing as "simply speech." There are plenty of things that you can write on the internet or issue from your mouth that should rightfully result in you being imprisoned. Such as shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

Or:
1. purposefully playing with the emotions of one specific child (not general rants on the internet)
2. a child she knows to have psychologically problems
3. over an extended period of time
4. directly suggesting suicide after manipulating, setting up, and torturing this child

That's not "simply speech". not REMOTELY "simply speech". This is nothing like me calling Rob Malda a douchebag or advocating for greater acceptance of necrophilia or defending the Baptist church or anything else that someone might object to but is obviously free speech. there are lots of free speech that are odious but not criminal.

This does not consider how complicated the interplay between your rights and your responsibilities are in this world. No, you do not get automatic protection from the consequences of EVERYTHING you can possibly say

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

4. directly suggesting suicide after manipulating, setting up, and torturing this child

I don't think that you can call what she did torture. Participation in an online social networking site is not compulsory. Sure, it was rotten, heartless, and disgusting. But, at any moment, the girl could have walked away from the situation.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[TheRaven64]

One aspect I consider important in defending limits on speech is that your right to free speech does not include the right to make me listen. In this case, that line was not crossed. She did not force the other party to pay attention in any way; it would have been a single click to reject all messages from her.

That said, this is not the issue here. The issue is that the government chose to attempt to apply a clearly-irrelevant law on the basis that she is a bad person and deserved punishing for something. That is an incredibly dangerous precedent because it turns the rule of law into the rule of mob emotions. If you can put someone in prison just because the media has decided to vilify them (justly or not), how long do you think your society will remain free?

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Written words on the Internet, or even words spoken out loud, cannot hurt anyone. What can lead to harm is if people reading or heading those words choose (note, this is important!) to then act in a harmful manner.

The person expression those thoughts has caused no harm, and should thus not be held responsible for any harm that may arise. The only people who should be held responsible are those who partook in the actions that actually caused the harm.

If somebody screams "FIRE!" in a theater and causes a stampede, only the stampeders should be blamed for any injuries or deaths that occur. After all, they're the ones who panicked and caused the harm, rather than acting responsibly and leaving the theater in a civilized manner.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Mozk]

Okay... but this court case was meant to determine whether violating a website's ToS constitutes a crime under the CFAA—not whether the right to free speech is guaranteed on the Web. I'm all for her going to jail for other things, but not for violating a website's ToS. This is a win for everybody.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[HangingChad]

That's not "simply speech". not REMOTELY "simply speech".

I agree with you for the most part. There are lines that free speech does not get to cross, but this case was a little different. The prosecutors were bending the law to make it fit. As much I despise any adult who would play mind games with a child, that doesn't make it okay to reinterpret some law to make the case.

In Mississippi a while back a lady was accused of selling one of her children. The case got a lot of attention because it turned out selling children was not technically illegal in MS. I'm not sure if they found other charges to level against the lady in question and I believe MS has since amended state law to make selling children a crime but I don't think that particular lady ever got charged for that specific crime.

Yes, what the child stalker lady did should be a crime. You have every right to be mad, as a society we should be appalled at stalker lady's behavior. But that doesn't mean we get to make up the law to fit the situation.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[jbolden]

I think you are exaggerating. Lynching (including non racial) was an American tradition for two centuries until it got exclusively tied with the Klan and the Klan was discredited. Not a good feature but we were still a free society.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[TheRaven64]

But that doesn't mean we get to make up the law to fit the situation.

Making up a law to fit this situation is fine. That's exactly how a lot of laws are made - see something that people feel should be illegal, make a law that codifies this. What you can't do is pass laws that make things illegal retroactively or, as in this case, try her with something largely unrelated just because we agree that she's a bad person.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Runaway1956]

"This is nothing like me calling Rob Malda a douchebag "

And, you're a fucking psychologist, right? You know for certain that Rob Malda is rock stable, that he has never once considered suicide, right? That one more fucking douchebag won't push him over the edge with one more idiot insult? And, because you are a professional psychologist, your insult doesn't imply the same responsibility as some redneck bitch in Missouri improperly getting involved in her daughter's love life - or the life of her daughter's peers.

Get a grip on reality. If Malda suicides after you call him a douchebag, you are just about as responsible as the redneck bitch in Missouri.

We should all be grateful that this particular case has been thrown out. Very few of us on slashdot use our proper names - obviously putting us into the same class of predator as Lori Drew - at least in the mind of an overzealous prosecutor who doesn't like what we might have to say.

Once again, I remind people that the proper course of action in this case would have been CIVIL, not criminal. We don't need more criminal law on the books, there is already enough to make criminals of all of us. We especially don't need criminal law that threatens free speech.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are social creatures. We care what our peers say. To say, words can't harm us, shows a serious lack of understanding. Abuse by words can be even more destructive to a psyche, than abuse by force.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are exaggerating. Lynching (including non racial) was an American tradition for two centuries until it got exclusively tied with the Klan and the Klan was discredited. Not a good feature but we were still a free society as long as you were in the mob and not targeted by it.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[iamhassi]

"In Mississippi a while back a lady was accused of selling one of her children. The case got a lot of attention because it turned out selling children was not technically illegal in MS."

Yeah don't remind me, I had the other 3 and I missed that last one so I don't have the whole set and they're worthless now!

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Dragonslicer]

You know for certain that Rob Malda is rock stable, that he has never once considered suicide, right? That one more fucking douchebag won't push him over the edge with one more idiot insult? And, because you are a professional psychologist, your insult doesn't imply the same responsibility as some redneck bitch in Missouri improperly getting involved in her daughter's love life - or the life of her daughter's peers.

If you can't tell the difference between a one-sentence insult about a person that you don't personally know and a prolonged, methodical plan to inflict mental damage on a 12-year-old girl that you know well enough to be aware of her existing psychological problems, then you have no credibility in this discussion.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[elucido]

1." purposefully playing with the emotions of one specific child (not general rants on the internet)"

I disagree with this. Emotions cannot be measured or quantified. How do you measure emotional damages to another person? How do we even know other people have emotions, do we have some way to scan their brain to know what they are feeling? That idea is completely stupid from a legal point of view, but from a moral point of view I can see why its wrong to bully children.

2. "a child she knows to have psychologically problems"

How do you know this?

3. "over an extended period of time"

There are already laws to address this. It's called harassment.

4. "directly suggesting suicide after manipulating, setting up, and torturing this child"

While I believe it's sad that a child had to die, the only one to blame for a suicide is the individual who committed it. You can never blame anyone else for how you feel or what you do in response. You have to accept and own your own emotions. In this case I have sympathy because it's a child involved, but if it were an adult I would not have sympathy about this.

5. "This does not consider how complicated the interplay between your rights and your responsibilities are in this world. No, you do not get automatic protection from the consequences of EVERYTHING you can possibly say."

Nobody has a responsibility to be nice to you. People can say whatever they want. If you try and censor what people can say you only make the matter worse.
Let people express themselves in text on the internet rather than violently.

Free speech is too important to throw it away over feelings being hurt. Free speech isn't about feelings, emotions, or psychology. It serves a vital practical purpose.

If someone harasses you then you can charge them with harassment, there are laws in place already. If someone stalks you then get a restraining order.
But if someone hurts your feelings, learn to own your emotions or stop talking to people who hurt your feelings.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Runaway1956]

Oh. I see. An isolated, one sentence insult. Hmmmm. I wonder what I would find if I searched slashdot for "Rob Malda" and "cock", or "Rob Malda" and any number of other derogatory terms?

If Rob committed suicide, a good prosecuting attorney might make a case of conspiracy against all the people who have ever spewed hatred toward Rob. Think about it.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[libkarl2]

We don't need more criminal law on the books, there is already enough to make criminals of all of us.

The Agile Police State: Criminalize everything/everyone you don't like. Selectively enforce.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Not a good feature but we were still a free society as long as you were in the mob and not targeted by it.

This is spot-on.

Whoever modded this Troll ought to think really, really hard, and then be ashamed of himself.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Zontar The Mindless]

If somebody screams "FIRE!" in a theater and causes a stampede, only the stampeders should be blamed for any injuries or deaths that occur. After all, they're the ones who panicked and caused the harm, rather than acting responsibly and leaving the theater in a civilized manner.

Anyone who believes this is unthinking at best.

I'm more inclined, however, to deem such a person "seriously fucking disturbed".

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[einhverfr]

Or:
1. purposefully playing with the emotions of one specific child (not general rants on the internet)
2. a child she knows to have psychologically problems
3. over an extended period of time
4. directly suggesting suicide after manipulating, setting up, and torturing this child

Well, I think that the behavior in this case at least arguably falls outside the protections of the First Amendment. However, there are some areas where your analogy fails here according to the record of evidence developed during trial.

The basic thing is that Ashley Grills is the one who claimed to have suggested suicide, but she was given immunity in exchange for her testimony. Thus there is an open question (the basis for the jury acquitting Drew of the felony CFAA and felony conspiracy counts) as to how much your criteria apply to this case. In short, she was tried for these and acquitted.

It is worth reading the opinion. Judge Wu didn't discuss first amendment elements because he concluded that the basis for conviction of the remaining charges wa limited to contractual violations, and that the due process guarantee forbids this sort of criminalization of contractual clauses. As he noted, Megal was also in violation of the same contracts and that the government was not treating her behavior in this matter as crimina. Thus it seems to be a typical vagueness case-- the same legal standard Drew was convicted under makes everyone, including Megan, a criminal.

However, getting back to the free speech element, if Lori simply (anonymously or otherwise) and her group did similar things but without the ruse element, I think it would be protected under the First Amendment. The only real basis for this is arguing that the fraud elements of the scheme were outside first amendment protection.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. I see.

No, obviously you don't.

To reference the grandparent, this was a prolonged, methodical plan designed to inflict mental damage on an individual that they knew well enough to be aware of their existing psychological problems, it was enacted against a child, by multiple adults, where the perpetrators falsely represented their identities specifically for the purpose of causing psychological harm.

Your "examples" don't even begin to compare. Unfortunately, based on your posts... it's unlikely you possess the ability to see that.

Re:Isn't this like shouting 'fire' in a theatre?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad hominem is always nice, isn't it

Yeah.. okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is was bugs me about cases like these: if it was a matter of conflicting aspects of law, I could see bringing a trial to seek resolution, but more it seems things are decided on whim and substantuating it with a very tortured reading of the law. It debases the very concept of rule of law.

Good to see it was ultimately dismissed, but that such a shakey claim was event brought to trial (and the requsite trouble it causes for involved parties) seems vindictive, and just furthers the idea that our system of justice is a sham.

Karma Police

[Dolphinzilla]

I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !

Re:Karma Police

[thisnamestoolong]

I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !

No it doesn't. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say that there is something to that, karma is total bullshit. I mean, Hitler committed suicide before we could get to him -- how's that for karma? Or the evil, scumfuck businessmen who defraud the world of billions of dollars only to die of natural causes after getting fat, rich, and happy at the expense of the world? I wish there were something to be said for karma, but alas, it seems that ordinary means of revenge and retribution are all we have. As for Lori Drew, she will be punished by those around her for the rest of her life -- everyone knows who she is and what she has done and she will be an outcast forever. There's nothing mystical about that.

Re:Karma Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma appeals to lazy people who want some sort of mystical deity/force to handle justice for them, absolving society of the responsibility.

Re:Karma Police

[donaggie03]

There's a reality TV show I saw the other day where the main character balances Karma by getting rid of bad people after the court system fails to do so. The show is called Dester or something like that.

Re:Karma Police

[Stan92057]

Well Hitler did take his own life because of his actions and the fat businessman dies because of his abuses of the things he stole so i think karma is fulfilled here don't ya think?

Re:Karma Police

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm.. you mean the HBO drama, Dexter, where the main character is a serial killer who was adopted and raised by a cop, who taught him to kill only those people who really deserve it? The show that is based on the Dexter novels by Jeff Lindsay?

Yeah... not a reality show in the least... although it would be nice ;)

Re:Karma Police

[thisnamestoolong]

WHHOOOOSH!!!!

Re:Karma Police

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking of Destro from that new GI Joe movie.

Re:Karma Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Try harder

Re:Karma Police

[citizenr]

reality TV shows, best education Americans can get ...

Re:Karma Police

[iamhassi]

"I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !"

Seriously? ...... I mean, seriously? So, what are you suggesting? If you were to create your own legal system, would bad karma be the sentences?

Re:Karma Police

[iamhassi]

oh.... i see what you did here....

Re:Karma Police

[__aagctu1952]

I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !

*cough*Just-world fallacy*cough*

Re:Karma Police

[Pentium100]

Hitler himself chose when and how to die, some people probably wanted to choose for him.

The fat businessman dies from old age, a person who was good all his life also dies of old age, so how is karma fulfilled for the businessman?

Re:Karma Police

[pclminion]

No it doesn't. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say that there is something to that, karma is total bullshit. I mean, Hitler committed suicide before we could get to him -- how's that for karma?

If you really buy into the karma theory, then you know that the balancing of karma can occur over multiple lifetimes. Just because you die before karma balances doesn't mean there will be no balance. Remember that most religions which have a karma concept also incorporate the reincarnation concept.

Re:Karma Police

[thisnamestoolong]

First of all, I wouldn't go so far as to call karma a "theory", since it has no basis in fact. Second, I would propose two alternatives and let the reader decide which is more likely:

1.) Human beings somehow discovered some deep, dark, unobservable secret to the Universe

OR

2.) Someone just made all this shit up to control people/make themselves feel better.

I think it is pretty obvious which option here is more likely.

On to the civil case

[voss]

Sue that witch into the ground, take every asset she owns.

It may not bring megan back but if it discourages some other jerk from doing the same thing it will be worth it.

Re:On to the civil case

[iamhassi]

she's already lost everything, she lost her printing business and her husband lost his job as a real estate agent.

Re:On to the civil case

[voss]

Lori Drew lost a printing business and her hubby lost a job as a realtor...thats terrible *sarcasm*, they havent begun to feel what a civil trial feels like.

Megan is still dead. This piece of crap knew this 13 year old girl was on anti-depressant medication, she even went to the girls funeral without telling the parents what she had done. She didnt even admit anything until she was caught.

 

Unfortunate neccesity

[onyxruby]

This was truly an unfortunate necessity for the best interest of civil liberties. The reasoning that this case was presented would have made criminals of a great many people for things that should not be criminalized. I understand the charges would have essentially criminalized breaking TOS for a web site, something that simply should not be a criminal action. Will used against this evil bitch who does richly deserve prison, it would set a bad legal precedent.

That being said, I would still like to find a way to charge her with something appropriate, such as a lesser murder charge, as well as holding her civilly responsible (such as how oj still got held civilly) responsible for the murders he committed)

Re:Unfortunate neccesity

[TRRosen]

She didn't violate the TOS she used a stolen account and password. Just because the person she stole them from was a figment of her imagination doesn't change a thing, She logged in with someone else's password. Thats the definition of unauthorized access.

Re:Unfortunate neccesity

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just because the person she stole them from was a figment of her imagination doesn't change a thing,"

I'm pretty sure that would change everything. Stealing from a figment of one own's imagination? Are you on psychedelic drugs or something?

Re:Unfortunate neccesity

[einhverfr]

I would note that by the government's standards, Megan Meier was a hardened criminal, guilty of vast numbers of CFAA violations including violations of the MySpace terms of service (which say no under-14 yo's allowed). Probably guilty of using Google despite the fact that its ToS says one must be of the age of majority.

Heck, if Lori Drew, Ashley Grills, etc. hadn't driven her to suicide, I bet that prosecutor could have gotten her locked up for life.

Re:Unfortunate neccesity

[The_mad_linguist]

You just stole that account from the TRRosen who's a figment of '''my''' imagination.

Now give it back.

Re:Unfortunate neccesity

[uninformedLuddite]

IHeck, if Lori Drew, Ashley Grills, etc. hadn't driven her to suicide, I bet that prosecutor could have gotten her locked up for life.

probably 800+ years. It was in the USA after all

Does Ms. Drew deserve to go to jail?

[Constantin]

IIRC, Ms. Drew, family, and an employee went to elaborate lengths to ensnare a susceptible and troubled teenager in a web of lies, followed by making very pointed suggestions for the teenager to commit suicide. What legal basis to prosecute her under is one question... but if the allegations are true, there is certainly a moral basis for ostracizing her, which is apparently what happened in her community.

I really hope I misread this article, but...

[lbalbalba]

Does this imply that bullying someone (especially underage or pre-teen childeren), by including but not limited to, claiming that 'The world would be a better place without you', up till the point that they feel so miserable that they commit suicide, is somehow not illegal and cannot be punished by law ?

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[lukas84]

The world is a bad and cruel place. Everyone needs to learn that at some point.

The law and police protect civilization as a whole, not the individual. As such, as an individual, injustice may be done to without anything happening.

It's just how the world works.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. This type of thing is a social matter; not a legal one. The woman who made the teenager commit suicide will indeed not be punished by the powers that be, but she will be rejected by her peers because now everyone knows what a bitch she is. Just acting like an asshole isn't grounds for prosecution.

(of course, harassement is another thing altogether, it goes beyond just acting like an asshole)

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[TheRaven64]

For a given value of bullying, where bullying means never meeting the person in the real world and only sending them messages through a trivially-blocked panel, yes. Unfortunately, it also means that failing to bring up your child with any kind of emotional resilience, so that a person represented only by characters on a screen can talk them into suicide doesn't count as criminal neglect, which is a much sadder precedent.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't imply anything. Saying those things in and of themselves is not covered by a particular law, which is what's been tying the prosecutors up in civil-liberties endangering knots here. Saying them in a particular manner to someone who you know is going to commit suicide because of them might be covered by a law in some jurisdictions, but using a computer to do so shouldn't make it more or less illegal, which is what the prosecutors were trying to do here. It is important to temper one's disapproval of this act and a desire for revenge (not justice) with a knowlege of what's going to happen if people do try to pass laws against this. Unintended consequences are a bitch, especially for broad behavior-based laws with the inevitable draconian mandatory minimums and of course the lifetime registry published on the Internet that everyone's so fond of these days. We have that for sex offenders--and we all know that nobody ever ends up on those lists who doesn't deserve to be there--not.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[KillerBob]

The world is a bad and cruel place. Everyone needs to learn that at some point.

You're right, but this is a case where somebody has abused their experience and better understanding of the human psyche in order to augment the nature of the harrassment that was ocurring. The woman had been on this planet for 20 years longer than her victim. In that time, she'd learned a great deal about what buttons to push and what to avoid saying. She had a great deal more experience, and that's really the gravity of the crime.

See... her victim wasn't another adult. It was a 12-year old child with mental illness (depression). Quite frankly, most 12-year olds have not been on the planet long enough to learn that the world can be a cruel place. People do need to learn that fact, but not at the expense of their childhood... most of us learn it in our teens/early 20's, not when we're still counting our age by quarter and half years, and have yet to see our first decade through. Add into that the effects that raging hormones can have on a pubescent body, as well as the fact that she was clinically depressed, and you have a recipe for an extremely confused and upset person who is not mentally equipped to deal with somebody like Drew. Somebody nearly 3x their age who is using her experience and understanding in order to specifically make her *more* miserable.

I've been clinically depressed. I've been suicidal. I wasn't much older than Drew's victim the first time I threatened to kill myself. I know, first hand, that this was not somebody who could deal with that kind of harrassment. And had Drew had any sort of sense or conscience, she would have realized that the child needed help, not another tormentor. The woman is psychopath, in the clinical sense.

Now, I do think that the feds screwed up in her prosecution. She should have been charged with child abuse, being a sexual predator, or any number of laws that she actually did break. They wanted a high profile online case, and so they tried using that vector to prosecute. What they should have done is treated it the same way they'd have treated her actions if they were done offline. I can only hope that it'll balance out in a civil case, but it's small penance for what she's done.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[TheDarkMaster]

Is how the world works, yes... but, you do not need to agree with this.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[TheDarkMaster]

Yep, because a lot of people thinks the act of "bullying" is "normal". I personaly calls this "bullshit" and I will sent anyone trying do bullying someone to the hospital ASAP.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[cdrguru]

It means that once the Internet is involved, the rules have been suspended. Any rules. All rules.

Yes, if I can ruin your life through the Internet, I can get away with it. In most cases, you can try to sue me and you will lose because "it's just the Interent."

There is a complete disconnect in most people's minds between the "real world" and "the Internet", such that people just aren't going to be held accountable for actions on the Internet. Period. Get used to it.

Kinda sucks of your life is the one ruined, but then you shouldn't have offended someone with power. Power on the Internet. What started this whole thing was Megan pissed off Lori Drew's daughter. That seems to have been a mistake.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[iamhassi]

"It's just how the world works."

well technically, if you want to go by "the way the world works", there are no laws in nature, biggest and strongest survive and the small and weak are eaten.

But we have laws, and I'm pretty sure one of those laws is adults do not mess with children.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[smoker2]

Maybe you should pay more attention to your own sig.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It only means trying you by that particular law isn't very likely to succeed due to precedent. They should have tried her for conspiracy to commit fraud or something else. She may well have done jailtime that way.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[smoker2]

But we have laws, and I'm pretty sure one of those laws is adults do not mess with children.

Except when those adults are advertisers, ministers of religion, governments, parents, peer groups ...

Can we expect the same level of ignorant vitriol towards religions that say you will go to hell unless you comply ? I am not responsible for your or anybody elses mental state. If you can't handle reading unpleasant material, DON'T READ IT !

Or should all porn be banned ? Are we likely to see educators being accused of murder because they wrote a disparaging report and the kid lost it ?

So in short - fuck off and die. If you do it then you have bigger problems than my last sentence.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[Dragonslicer]

Does this imply that bullying someone (especially underage or pre-teen childeren), by including but not limited to, claiming that 'The world would be a better place without you', up till the point that they feel so miserable that they commit suicide, is somehow not illegal and cannot be punished by law ?

No, it means that the prosecution was completely incompetent. Drew was charged with unauthorized access to a computer system because she violated the Terms of Service of the web site, which nearly everyone would agree should not be illegal. The case actually had nothing to do with harassment, abuse, or manslaughter.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[elucido]

I agree, Lori Drew is a psychopath. And because Lori Drew is a psychopath she deserves to be blacklisted.
It's not the fact of what she did that causes people to hate her, it's the fact that she is not remorseful about what she did.

Most people if they bully a child and that child commits suicide, they will feel bad about it for the rest of their life, because they know just like you do that a child has not had the experience to know. It's the age difference here that makes it so wrong, 20 years difference is just ridiculous and I can't imagine a normal adult doing something like that.

On the other hand I don't feel much sympathy for adults who commit suicide and blame others for it. Adults are on the same experience level and are responsible for their own moods and emotions. It's not like a child who might not be old enough to understand responsibility, even if the child is supposed to be responsible, a child might not be mature enough to understand it. An adult should understand it.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[einhverfr]

She was acquitted of those charges. She was acquitted of all charges except unauthorized access to a computer involved in interstate commerce or communication. The fraud and access in furtherance of intentional infliction of emotional distress all resulted in acquittal.

Re:I really hope I misread this article, but...

[yuna49]

Drew was charged with unauthorized access to a computer system because she violated the Terms of Service of the web site, which nearly everyone would agree should not be illegal

Not everyone, and in particular, not Judge Wu. From his decision:

....this Court concludes that an intentional breach of the [MySpace Terms of Service] can potentially constitute accessing the MySpace computer/server without authorization and/or in excess of authorization under the statute.

That says to me that if the TOS are written properly, behaviors contrary to the TOS could constitute a criminal act. While I'm generally in agreement with Wu's decision, this ruling may be much more significant in the long run than his finding that the MySpace TOS were too vague.

Silly question?

[Darkon]

So does that mean that if I break a web site's terms of service then my access is still 'authorized'? Authorized by whom?

Re:Silly question?

[MicktheMech]

No, it means that if you break a web site's ToS you're not committing fraud.

Re:Silly question?

[MathFox]

What Judge Wu ruled is that breaking the contract that you have with a website should be seen as a "civil matter", and should not be treated as a crime. (This is for access that the website owner granted you in return for accepting his terms.) When you exceed the granted access and really hack the system, you still risk criminal prosecution.

P.S. Civil action may cost you tons too, in damages and attorney fees.

Re:Silly question?

[shentino]

It would only be hacking if she was banned and then evaded.

If that were the case I'd be more inclined to go after her for unauthorized access.

Re:Silly question?

[Shawndeisi]

You are authorized by the web server which is providing a public facing service. The law for unauthorized acces is intended to cover services which are not public, e.g. I gain access to the shell via an exploit of your web service. If I break your TOS, you're more then welcome to ban me from your public facing service. Simply saying that I'm breaking your TOS while your server happily performs the function that you specifically designed it to do (serve up web pages) and trying to have me prosecuted is ludicrous.

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

Judge Wu is an idiot. TOS is not an issue. SHE never agreed to the TOS. SHE was never authorized to access the systems. Their was no contract. She willfully entered a members only club that she knew she didn't belong to thats trespassing. PERIOD

Re:Silly question?

[MathFox]

I have read the article and the verdict and I would call Judge Wu wise and intelligent.
The doorman allowed Mrs. Drew access to the "private club", where she mixed in with the rest of the crowd and talked with Megan, a girl that, because of her age, should not be allowed in the club anyway. Yes, MySpace's door policy leaves something to be desired; it is assumed that the majority of the visitors have not been 100% honest in filling out their application forms.

While Mrs. Drew might have violated the law (Fraud/Impersonation and Harassment), she did not exceed the access to MySpace that she was granted after processing of her application. BTW, we all know that 90% of the girls commit suicide after being dumped by a cyber-boyfriend.

Re:Silly question?

[Anonymous Coward]

When this "victim" joined MySpace she violated the TOS by being 1 year too young.

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

true (although it was no bearing on this case).
Its like those cases we've seen of people getting in trouble for taking pictures in a store. It's not trespassing to go into the store. It's not trespassing to take a picture in violation of there policys (a Brick and Mortar TOS sortof). It is trespassing if you stay there after they ask you to leave.

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

Explain please how using a username and password that aren't yours isn't hacking. Hell thats 90% of all hacking.

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

If i log on to your system with your ID and password its not hacking then?

Re:Silly question?

[MathFox]

How can using a username and password, given to you by the owner of the system, be hacking?
Am I hacking when a co-worker allows me to use his account?
Should violation of "MySpace can change these terms and conditions without giving notice" terms and conditions ever give rise to criminal proscecution?

Do you want to make all US Citizens Felons?

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

Problem is Mrs Drew wasn't a member of the club, she gave the doorman the membership card of a teenage boy. Thats trespassing.

Re:Silly question?

[TRRosen]

How can using a username and password, given to you by the owner of the system, be hacking?

if I trick the server to reset the password of an account and send the new password to my email instead of the real users its not Hacking COOL.

Am I hacking when a co-worker allows me to use his account?

Um Yes. co-worker has no authority to allow you to use his account. Authorization can only come from the owner of the computer system. Is it trespassing if i trick your landlord into giving me the keys to your apartment. YES.

Should violation of "MySpace can change these terms and conditions without giving notice" terms and conditions ever give rise to criminal proscecution?

No and that never was a charge here. it was an element of a charge.

Do you want to make all US Citizens Felons?

No but lets face reality and admit we are all criminals.

Re:Silly question?

[Pentium100]

if I trick the server

this is hacking. If you trick the owner of the account to give you the password that may be considered fraud. If the owner of the account gives you the password without tricks, it should not be illegal.

For example, my friend asked me to modify his website. To do that I needed FTP access to the server, I asked him and he gave me the password. Should this be illegal?

Is it trespassing if i trick your landlord into giving me the keys to your apartment. YES.

But if I give you the keys to my house voluntarily (not because I was beat up or dead) it is not trespassing.

Re:Silly question?

[shentino]

Having an account on a system is a lot like being a tenant.

Once you sign the lease (agree to the ToS), you have the privilege of being in the unit, much like you have access privilege to the site.

If you break the rules, you get written up or worse evicted, but until you get kicked to the curb you have the privilege of residing there. Similarly, you have access privileges until such time as they are revoked.

Only by breaking and entering AFTER getting tossed does it count as trespassing. Similarly, you have to defy an express revocation of access to be considered hacking.

Re:Silly question?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just not a criminal violation if it's based solely on violating the terms of service (with no added intentional tort or crime), at least until it is a lot more specified in the statute.

Damage is already done

[Shivetya]

Missouri has made harassing a minor a felony, http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_16-2009_08_22.shtml#1250896617

So what I figure is, they knew that the current charges would most likely not stick so they crafted a law to handle the situation. The new law is worse that than even the laws they attempted to prosecute Lori Drew under the first time. They are just too open to interpretation.

Re:Damage is already done

[Anonymous Coward]

This law was created because of this case and did not exist before. That is why the feds decided to prosecute this lady 1/2 way across the country.

Re:Damage is already done

[einhverfr]

Also, I don't think the Missouri law would have been any more likely to result in a sustained conviction of Lori Drew than the CFAA did. There were real questions as to what role Drew actually played in the infliction of emotional distress and the jury acquitted her of related charges in the California case.

I hope however the Missouri law gets struck down as facially Unconstitutional.

Harrasment

[BlueParrot]

Can somebody explain precisely why this woman was not prosecuted under charges of harassment, mental abuse or similar ? Did some lawyer screw up, is the prosecution being twats or is the law just so weird that deliberately trying to hurt somebody by lying to them with the specific intention to cause harm is not criminal?

Don't get me wrong, charging her for violating a ToS was bullshit, but I just don't see why what she did would not be a violation of at least some other law. Libel, slander and bashing ethnic minorities is illegal, so why is deliberately trying to hurt a minor through carefully targeted verbal abuse, lies and harassment not? That it happened over the Internet is surely tangential to the real issue here, which is that a very cruel woman set out to mentally abuse a child.

Re:Harrasment

[jbolden]

I'm not sure how she meets the criteria for harassment. That requires involuntary / forced contact. Meier engaged in the contact voluntarily but under false pretenses. I don't know what mental abuse is i'm not sure any state has a law against it.

The closest crime I can come up with is manslaughter.

Re:Harrasment

[Lehk228]

because you are making up charges.

"mental abuse" isn't a charge i have ever heard of someone being prosecuted, it's not harassment because the actions don't fit the charge at all

as for libel, slander, and bashing ethnic minorities. the first two are not illegal, they are civil torts, and the third is completely legal. Go start your own white power website and see what happens, your neighbors will think less of you, your family will think less of you, but you won't be arrested.

Re:Harrasment

[Loadmaster]

Intentional infliction of emotional distress is an intentional tort.

Elements:
      1. Defendant acted intentionally or recklessly; and
      2. Defendantâ(TM)s conduct was extreme and outrageous; and
      3. Defendantâ(TM)s act is the cause of the distress; and
      4. Plaintiff suffers severe emotional distress as a result of defendantâ(TM)s conduct.

No involuntary or forced contact necessary.

Re:Harrasment

[TRRosen]

Its because 'them there fancy computer dellybobs scare us poor simple prosicuter folks'

Re:Harrasment

[jbolden]

That's civil not criminal. Whole different system and you aren't charged with torts. The civil case is an easy one.

glad its not considered terrorism...

[mwilliamson]

Finally a sane ruling. I'm happily surprized a court didn't rule that breaking a website's T.O.S. is an act of domestic terrorism, punishable by loss of citizenship and infinite water boarding at guantanamo followed by an eternity in hell.

Hey!

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't take kindly to cases being dismissed around here!

I just do not understand the judge!

[Anonymous Coward]

If, as a matter of law, the charges were not legitimate, why the fuck didn't the judge make that determination and dismiss before trial???

stupid judge

[TRRosen]

Explain to me exactly how the fact that she accessed a computer system that she did not have authority to access isn't 'unauthorized access'.

Notes
She never violated the TOS. The TOS is a contract which she never agreed to (the nonexistent user she created did).

Giving false info to obtain something of value is a crime. PERIOD. Just because everybody on this site commits it doesn't change the fact that its a crime (just like speeding).

If you willfully commit a crime and it leads to someone's death, by law, its murder. Even if you just steal a candy bar and the clerk has a heart attack chasing you its murder.

THIS LADY IS A MURDERER. Plain and simple no if ands or buts.

Re:stupid judge

[OSPolicy]

It is possible that you are not a skilled lawyer. Starting with the easy stuff first...

>Giving false info to obtain something of value is a crime. PERIOD.

Incorrect. First, I may mistakenly give false information by, for example, accidentally transposing digits in a phone number on a form. Not a crime.

Second, I may give false information that is not material to the transaction. For example, when dealing with someone who has the discretion to complete a transaction with me or someone else but not both (i.e., has a single item for sale and two potential buyers) and who is wearing an ugly hat, I may tell that person that the hat is attractive in an attempt to get the person to deal with me. Not a crime.

Third, the thing of value may not be something that the court feels like adjudicating. I man tell you that I will lower your taxes if you give me your vote, which is something of value. Not a crime.

Numerous other examples suggest themselves. Not crimes.

>She never violated the TOS. The TOS is a contract which she never agreed to (the nonexistent user she created did).

If you enter into a contract, say to buy a house, and sign the name of a non-existent person at the bottom, your imaginary friend did not just enter into a contract - you did. The signature element of a contract is satisfied by the parties giving objectively reasonable indications that they intend to enter a contract. Nodding ones head, stating agreement orally, or making a mark of whatever sort (a signature, a big red X, whatever) are all acceptable indications. Crossing your fingers behind your back, mentally adding certain reservations of which the other party is unaware, and using someone else's name are all things that do not negate the agreement to be bound by the contract.

Re:stupid judge

[TRRosen]

It is possible that you are not a skilled lawyer.

Its possible I'm not, but its definite your not.
The parties involved in a contract will always be material. duh.
False clearly implies intentional. Incorrect can be accidental.
Contracts are entered by two parties in agreement If one party is falsifying its identity there is no agreement.

Re:stupid judge

[OSPolicy]

>The parties involved in a contract will always be material. duh.

The parties are almost never material. When I buy lunch from a restaurant, I enter into a contract to give the restaurant money in exchange for food. As long as I get food and they get cash, it is basically true that no other information is material to the transaction. I can tell them that I'm the Sultan of Brunei and as long as the "Sultan of Brunei" pays in full for his Supersized Fries, it's all good.

>False clearly implies intentional. Incorrect can be accidental.

No, false implies wrong. Intentional versus accidental goes to state of mind (mens rea, if you want to sound like a lawyer). In any event, intent is not in play here. In the example that I gave in the previous post of promising to cut taxes in exchange for your vote, I may be deliberately lying because I actually plan to raise your taxes. Despite my deliberate deception to get something of value, that valuable item being your vote, there is no crime. Your earlier statement to the effect that giving false information to get something of value is always a crime is incorrect.

>Contracts are entered by two parties in agreement If one party is falsifying its identity there is no agreement.

Incorrect. As noted in the Sultan of Brunei example above, identity of the parties need not be material.

If identify is material then giving a false identity may affect the contract. However, even in that case, it need not void the contract. For example, in a contract involving exchange of cash for goods, if I give counterfeit cash then I have violated a material term just as I would violate a material term by misstating my identify where identity is material. However, that need not void the contract. The contract may still be valid and enforceable, and it may be that I am forced to come up with real money.

Finally, in answer to your original question of how accessing the system without authorization is not unauthorized access, it actually comes down to the penalty, not the conduct. As the judge explained on page 21 of the opinion, what Drew did could well constitute unauthorized access. However, for reasons that he went on to explain, although she might be civilly liable in some other context, she could not be held criminally liable for the conduct alleged in this particular court case.

Re:stupid judge

[TRRosen]

Incorrect. As noted in the Sultan of Brunei example above, identity of the parties need not be material.

it need not be, but it is when one of the elements of the contract is that your not using a false identity. If I say I will sell you a meal for $10 if and only if your the sultan of Brunei. Its sure as hell is material.

As the judge explained on page 21 of the opinion, what Drew did could well constitute unauthorized access

OK if the judge admits that the first element of the crime may have been met what the hell are we bitching about the TOS for. Oh I see now hmm thats some quality judging there he actually validates "ignorance of the Law" as an excuse. I stand behind and reaffirm my STUPID.

Re:stupid judge

[pclminion]

Giving false info to obtain something of value is a crime. PERIOD. Just because everybody on this site commits it doesn't change the fact that its a crime (just like speeding).

Speeding is not a crime. It is a traffic infraction. If speeding was a crime, a speeding ticket would result in a criminal record.

Depraved Indifference

[Crashspeeder]

I'm of the belief that she knew what she was doing and chose to let this girl die, even goading her on to kill herself. I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person. She should be held accountable for her actions. This woman is the scum of the earth.

I've had words with people before but I've never attempted to talk somebody into committing suicide. I also tend not to get into arguments with minors. What in the world could possibly lead somebody to think this ever sounded like a good idea?

Re:Depraved Indifference

[cdrguru]

It is different because there was no physical presence involved. The victim could have turned off the computer but didn't.

This goes to the basic idea that all "crimes" committed through the Internet cannot be prosecuted. There is only a "virtual" presence involved and we can't have people's "virtual" presence being prosecuted, now can we? Nothing is really criminal on the Internet. From fraud to piracy to theft and vandalism, there is an unlimited justification that none of this is really happening in the physical world and therefore none of it can be prosecuted as if it was.

What the entire set of decisions involving Lori Drew really means is that you are free to do anything on the Internet without fear of consequences. No matter what results from your actions in "virtual space", you can't be convicted of anything in "real space". The one exception to this is if you do something incredibily stupid - like purjury or admitting to a non-crime as if it was a crime.

It sucks, but the Internet continues to be a lawless, consequences-free zone. I see little happening that would change this anytime soon.

Re:Depraved Indifference

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm of the belief that she knew what she was doing and chose to let this girl die, even goading her on to kill herself. I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person. She should be held accountable for her actions. This woman is the scum of the earth.

I've had words with people before but I've never attempted to talk somebody into committing suicide. I also tend not to get into arguments with minors. What in the world could possibly lead somebody to think this ever sounded like a good idea?

It's not a good idea--ever. It is especially not a good idea to talk to, express an opinion about, or even notice a minor in a society that insists on treating every last one of them as fragile possessions incapable of doing anything wrong or making any decisions.

However, your opinions and beliefs on what the law is don't really matter here, and that's a good thing because I really don't want to live in a society where the law is twisted after the fact to appease public opinion.

Re:Depraved Indifference

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm of the belief that she knew what she was doing and chose to let this girl die, even goading her on to kill herself. I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person. She should be held accountable for her actions. This woman is the scum of the earth.

Please understand the difference between you wishing ill on someone, like this woman, and then for the legal system to bend itself to your, and many other people's, wishes, outside of the democratic processes of elections that are already in place. One is appropriate, the other is a fast track to the sort of country you yourself don't want to live in.

Re:Depraved Indifference

[TrekkieGod]

I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person.

It's not, but trying to convince someone to commit suicide in person isn't illegal either. Nor should it be.

This woman is the scum of the earth.

She sure is. Being a bad person is also not illegal, nor should it be.

I've had words with people before but I've never attempted to talk somebody into committing suicide. I also tend not to get into arguments with minors.

Congratulations. You're a better person than someone who we both agree is "the scum of the earth." Most people wouldn't do the things she did, that's why everyone is outraged.

What in the world could possibly lead somebody to think this ever sounded like a good idea?

She's the scum of the earth. It really isn't any more complicated than that. She's a fucking evil bitch. Making the laws unreasonable just to make sure she gets punished isn't going to bring the kid back to life, and it's going to make it worse for the rest of us because now we'd have unreasonable laws in the books in addition to a dead kid.

Where's Dexter

[Anonymous Coward]

....when you need him?

Re:Where's Dexter

[MRe_nl]

In his laboratory, fighting school bullies of course ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CybozuChzNw&hl

What this decision was really about

[yuna49]

First, Judge Wu's decision has nothing to do with whether Drew's actions constituted "cyberbullying" or whether she deserved to be prosecuted for her ill-treatment of Megan. All of that was decided long ago, first in Missouri, where the AG said Drew had violated no existing statute, nor in the Federal prosecution where the jury refused to treat Drew's actions as felonious.

What was left to determine was whether Drew's act of creating a fictitious identity at MySpace, in contravention of its Terms of Service, constituted a misdemeanor under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). When Congress passed this law its intent was to criminalize activities like hacking into computers at banks or military contractors. After public outcry at the fact Drew was not convicted of anything for her actions, Justice Department attorneys in California (where the MySpace computers were housed) prosecuted Drew for violating the CFAA.

Judge Wu's decision is extremely cautious and proscribed in many ways. First, he specifically states that an "intentional" breach of a website's Terms of Service may come under the purview of the CFAA:

....this Court concludes that an intentional breach of the [MySpace Terms of Service] can potentially constitute accessing the MySpace computer/server without authorization and/or in excess of authorization under the statute.

What's really at issue is whether someone can be prosecuted for violating the TOS, or whether MySpace's specific TOS were too vague to provide reasonable grounds for criminal prosecution. "Vagueness" in this case means whether "individuals of 'common intelligence' are on notice that a breach of the terms of service contract can become a crime under the CFAA." His ruling rejects the Justice Department's case on the grounds that the MySpace TOS are simply too vague to provide a basis for prosecution. In particular, he ruled that the TOS were so expansive that a wide variety of behaviors would become criminalized (lying about one's age or weight, for instance):

In sum, if any conscious breach of a website's terms of service is held to be sufficient by itself to constitute intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or in excess of authorization, the result will be that section 1030(a)(2)(C) becomes a law "that affords too much discretion to the police and too little notice to citizens who wish to use the [Internet]."

My guess is that attorneys for popular websites, particularly social networking sites, will be revising their TOS to comply with Wu's decision.

Re:What this decision was really about

[mdmkolbe]

My guess is that attorneys for popular websites, particularly social networking sites, will be revising their TOS to comply with Wu's decision.

I hope not. The determining factor of whether Lori Drew's actions were a crime under the CFAA shouldn't be whether the lawyers put the right incantations in the TOS.

Re:What this decision was really about

[einhverfr]

Agreed. OTOH if the web site's lawyer sends you a C&D lawyer threatening prosecution unless you top using their site, that would meet the requirements.

I would note here that Megan also violated the terms of service, but as Wu notes, the government didn't contend her behavior was criminal. That is a pretty good indication of a vagueness problem....

makes me sick

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but if posting a completely fake profile on a website with the intention of harassing another individual is not considered 'unauthorized access', can someone please tell me WTF is?

fuck her

[Anonymous Coward]

if that were my kid she would never have made it to trial

Re:fuck her

[Loconut1389]

That might make her sore, but I don't see how that would preclude trial?

forgive me, I couldn't resist.

The Accused are Innocent, Till Proven Guilty...

[LifesABeach]

Home Buyer: This is such a beautiful home, why is the price so low?

Realtor: The owners said that the husband got a new job, selling Jolt Cola next to Mosque's in Baghdad. The husband is a Born Again Christian.

Home Buyer: That's different. Why are there so many For Sale signs on this street. Except over there?

Realtor: Oh, well, that's the home of Lori Drew.

Home Buyer: You brought me to the street that Lori Drew lives on? That's Messed Up, I think we're done doing business, forever.

Re:The Accused are Innocent, Till Proven Guilty...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take it from a lifelong St Louis resident:

Nobody wants to live in Dardenne Prairie.

Re:It needs to be done now...

[iamhassi]

"In closing, you are a miserable piece of shit and not one single person worth a damn would miss your ignorant ass if you were gone. Fuck you."

tell me how you really feel, stop holding back, give it to me straight i can take it!

Bullies always existed.

[elucido]

The only reason this case was pumped up was for political reasons. Bullies existed offline when I was growing up, and I had to deal with child and adult bullies. So how is this new? Because it's on the internet?

12 year olds shouldn't be on social networking sites in the first place. If they aren't old enough to distinguish reality from the internet, they should not be online. The same with violent movies and video games which also might cause suicides. Lori Drew was what we'd consider a bad person, and a bully, but alternatively you can turn the internet off, disconnect, block, ignore list, all which work better than suing.

In this case the girl is dead so it's too late, and the stuff Drew said was just wrong to say to a 12 year old, but since we cannot rid the world or the internet of assholes, and we have too many assholes to sue each one of them, we have to find a better solution. Maybe create an internet for kids only, or put some sorta age limits on social networking sites.

Mob emotions was the point.

[elucido]

People who hate Lori Drew, wanted to form a lynch mob using the law and the courts.

This is wrong, it was the wrong tactic from the beginning and I said that many months ago.
I'm not surprised that it failed, anyone who knows the law at all knew it wouldn't work.

But assume somehow the precedent was set, and now if you hurt a powerful persons feelings they can form a lynch mob and put you in prison? I'm sure many people would like that, but that is not justice.

Harassment is a crime already.

[elucido]

If what she did was criminal they could have charged her with harassment. It's not a crime to trick a minor or an adult over the internet, nor should it be a crime. Yes there was more to it than that, and those aspects could be a crime depending on the details of the case.

The fact that she used a fake profile is not and should not be a crime. The fact that she tricked the child might be immoral but it should not be a crime. It should only be a crime if the child asked to be left alone, over and over again, and this individual would not go away. Then it should be a crime.

But no I don't think it should be a crime to hurt a child or adults feelings over the internet. Being an asshole should not be a crime.

Re:Harassment is a crime already.

[Pentium100]

It should only be a crime if the child asked to be left alone, over and over again, and this individual would not go away.

Doesn't the website have a "block this person" button. If not, it should have it. I can block someone in Skype, email (filter by sender address) and probably can call my cell provider to block a specific number or install some blacklist software to my phone. What I can't do is getting someone to stay away from me IRL (maybe there is some law in my country, I did not need it and hope to never need it). However, in this case, the virtual buyfriend did not exist IRL so it was possible to completely block him.

Nobody is responsible for anyone elses suicide.

[elucido]

No matter what anyone says to you, if you decide to commit suicide it's your fault.
You are the owner of your emotions, not anyone else. Nobody but you is responsible for how you feel, and if you don't like how someone is making you feel you can stop talking to them.

If you talk to someone and call them a douch bag and they go and commit suicide you are not responsible for their suicide, they are.

The only emotions you are responsible for is your own.

Re:Nobody is responsible for anyone elses suicide.

[bhartman34]

No matter what anyone says to you, if you decide to commit suicide it's your fault. You are the owner of your emotions, not anyone else. Nobody but you is responsible for how you feel, and if you don't like how someone is making you feel you can stop talking to them.

If you talk to someone and call them a douch bag and they go and commit suicide you are not responsible for their suicide, they are.

The only emotions you are responsible for is your own.

In a literal sense, you're correct, and if we were talking about an apparently emotionally stable adult having committed suicide, it would be a different situation. In this case, however, we're talking about a psychologically unstable teenager (more psychologically unstable than most), being specifically set up by one adult (at least) and a cohort of accomplices, who tailored their attack to do the most harm possible. That's a lot to expect a 13-year old to stand up to -- even if they weren't suffering from clinical depression.

In short, you're expecting too much in this case. It's almost akin to expecting a blind person to accept responsibility if someone gave them incorrect change in bills.

Whether her parents should have anticipated such a situation is a different question. I can see the argument to be made that she shouldn't have been able to access the computer without her parents being there (e.g., with a password only they knew), but a) this would be a hard situation to anticipate, and b) my understanding from what I've read is that she did need her parents to log on to the site. The problem was that they allowed her to stay on after they left.

The other difference is this: The parents are being punished every day for their error in judgment, with no possibility of reprieve. Drew, on the other hand, apparently isn't burdened with a conscience that can bother her, which is why, IMO, another punishment should have been meted out. In retrospect, if they didn't know beforehand (which apparently the prosecutor didn't) who made the "the world would be better off without you" comment, they simply should have made it a conspiracy charge, so that as long as they had the players, it wouldn't matter who said which thing.

It's not murder.

[elucido]

No matter what you charge her with, she's not a murderer. She's a bad person, she's a heartless cruel person but she is not a murderer.

Prison probably wont change anything in this case because this is a unique case. The reason this case is unique is because the girl was 12 and this woman was in her 40s. If any new laws should be created it should be to ban under 13 from using social networking sites. Why on earth should kids even be on social networking sites?

I wouldn't mind if it were illegal to allow those under 13 to use the internet unsupervised. But to sue Lori Drew would be to blame the internet for Megans suicide, and that is not fair.This situation is an accident, and Lori Drew is a bad person who should have known better. She will never find a job again, she will be demonized for the rest of her life, and her reputation is ruined, that is worse than being in prison.

Harassment is correct.

[elucido]

But Harassment should be defined very specifically to mean that the minor said "leave me alone" or blocked the person, and the person continued to contact the individual. That is what harassment is. Just insulting a minor should never be illegal and if it is illegal, then we need to keep minor from Missouri off Slashdot so that none of us get sued if they commit suicide.

I favor using the technology to solve most of these issues, banning, blocking, ignore lists, and if all of that fails then use the law. The law should be the LAST resort.

It's definitely not manslaughter.

[elucido]

Basically Lori Drew is a typical asshole. She hurt a childs feelings, the child killed herself, and now people are angry and looking for laws to use against Lori Drew.

I don't think it should ever be a illegal to hurt someones feelings because then any minor you piss off can sue you.

1. A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she: ...

(3) Knowingly ... causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making ... any electronic communication; or

(4) Knowingly communicates with another person who is ... seventeen years of age or younger and in so doing and without good cause recklessly ... causes emotional distress to such other person; or ...

(6) Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to ... cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be ... emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of such person.

2. Harassment is a [class D felony if] ...:

(1) Committed by a person twenty-one years of age or older against a person seventeen years of age or younger ...

That is the new law. And I think it's poorly written because it tries to claim a child is anyone under 18, which is completely ridiculous. Megan was 12 so I can understand, but if someone is 15 years old they should know better than to commit suicide over being insulted on the internet, even if its by an adult.

Also it means any child can claim something you said hurt their feelings and because it's so subjective then you are guilty until proven innocent.

Re:It's definitely not manslaughter.

[mdmkolbe]

Knowingly ... causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making ... any electronic communication; ...

This just in. Authorities have issued a warrant for the arrest of "Anonymous Coward" on 184,495 counts of felony harassment.

Re:It's definitely not manslaughter.

[jbolden]

Right there is a new law in Missouri. Most people won't commit suicide if they are 5. On the other hand adults are better able to cause emotional distress than children. People do suffer distress on the internet. I don't see any reason that if the distress ends up causing real harm not to charge people.

It is the same with a physical attack. If I shove someone I most likely don't get charged with battery. If I shove them and I break their arm I do.

The new Harassment law = Being Mean.

[elucido]

1. A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she: ...

(3) Knowingly ... causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making ... any electronic communication; or

(4) Knowingly communicates with another person who is ... seventeen years of age or younger and in so doing and without good cause recklessly ... causes emotional distress to such other person; or ...

(6) Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to ... cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be ... emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of such person.

2. Harassment is a [class D felony if] ...:

(1) Committed by a person twenty-one years of age or older against a person seventeen years of age or younger ...

That is ridiculous though.

[elucido]

You cannot talk a person into killing themselves if they don't already want to. You cannot talk a person into doing something they truly don't want to do.

What Lori Drew did is talk Megan into doing what she wanted to do. It's morally wrong but it should not be illegal. And also the new Missouri law is beyond ridiculous, it says that if you hurt anyones feelings who are under 18, you committed a crime. Let's be realistic, if you are in Missouri it's best that you don't talk to anyone under 18 on the internet because you can be sued more on the internet than if you hurt their feelings in person.

Ultimately the solutions they are coming up with are worse than the problem.

Re:That is ridiculous though.

[Spazmania]

You cannot talk a person into doing something they truly don't want to do.

Sure you can. It's called "charisma." And anyway, you don't talk them into doing something they don't want to do. You convince them that they want to do it.

Re:That is ridiculous though.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a load of shit. Try taking responsibility for yourself and stop looking for scapegoats for everything.

Re:That is ridiculous though.

[Spazmania]

If we were talking about an adult victim without known mental disability (and you weren't posting as a anonymous coward) I might be inclined to agree.

Re:That is ridiculous though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, and here I wasted all my modifiers in stamina and dexterity.

Re:That is ridiculous though.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't making excuses (and you weren't posting as an anonymous "Spazmania"), I might be inclined to agree.

Karma=The Blacklist

[elucido]

If you have bad Karma, you go on the blacklist. You get put on the blacklist and thats the green light for anyone to victimize you.
Lori Drew should be put on the blacklist, not because shes an asshole, or a bully, or even because she bullied a minor, but because she does not show remorse for what she did. Once on the blacklist, nobody will hire her anywhere, when burglars are looking for a house to rob they'll choose hers, when hackers are deciding whos computer to hack they'll choose hers, when con artists and predators decide who to prey on, they will choose her.

Being on the blacklist / having bad karma means nobody will feel any sympathy or compassion for you. If you go to prison and get raped in prison, nobody will care because you were a rapist.

Re:Karma=The Blacklist

[Phoenixlol]

I'm on the /. blacklist for making a couple bad jokes that got modded up, then subsequently back down... no one will read this....... :(

Re:great straw man

[pentalive]

No, If that is all you did. But add these things to your straw man..

You pretend to be a friend to your target, you build up and flatter them for a period, you build trust. You spend months doing this. Then you suddenly change. That's the harassment. You should be charged for that. If it can be proven that your target was not of sound mind and might have been easy to push to suicide and you knew it, that's worse than harassment.

So what about nooses?

[elucido]

If you hang a noose in front of the house of a black person, and it hurts their feelings, should you be charged and go to prison?

Re:So what about nooses?

[lysergic.acid]

For the answer to that question, see the first paragraph of the post you just replied to.

If you're confused at this point, re-read the rest of the comment (if you haven't already done so).

Re:So what about nooses?

[Zontar The Mindless]

If you hang a noose in front of the house of a black person, and it hurts their feelings, should you be charged and go to prison?

I think a much better question is, "Why are you (and lots of others, apparently) so interested in getting away with being a mean-spirited shit to people most likely to suffer real emotional hurt from it under the guise of 'freedom of speech'?"

Whatever happened to the notion that others' feelings ought to matter to us as much as our own?

Re:So what about nooses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hanging a noose is a threat. Surely you've heard of all the real-life cases where a noose was hung and a person soon followed.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Rakarra]

If you hang a noose in front of the house of a black person, and it hurts their feelings, should you be charged and go to prison?

I think a much better question is, "Why are you (and lots of others, apparently) so interested in getting away with being a mean-spirited shit to people most likely to suffer real emotional hurt from it under the guise of 'freedom of speech'?"

Whatever happened to the notion that others' feelings ought to matter to us as much as our own?

There is a difference between "being a mean-spirited asshole that no one likes" and "being a mean-spirited asshole who goes to jail for it." Yeah, sorry, but being a mean asshole should not be a jailable offense. It should be enough that they're ostracised from society.

Re:So what about nooses?

[SL Baur]

Whatever happened to the notion that others' feelings ought to matter to us as much as our own?

That's about politeness and respect. The lack of which is regrettable, but not a criminal act.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Whatever happened to the notion that others' feelings ought to matter to us as much as our own?

When did being a total asshat become a jailable offense?

Re:So what about nooses?

[Totenglocke]

Hurting someone's feelings is not (nor should it be) against the law.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Seumas]

You've clearly missed the entire point. This case goes far beyond one person saying something mean and the second person's hurt feelings resulting in prosecution.

This case involves a twelve/thirteen year old child.

That the criminal knew was having problems.

That was manipulated by several people much older than her including a 30+ year old
woman who conspired against her.

It involves a grown woman posting as a teenage boy to engage in sexual/intimate conversations with a child.

It involves repeated harassment over a period of time.

It involves an attempt to coerce the person into suicide.

Reducing it to "so now you go to jail for hurting someone's feelings" is ridiculous.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Seumas]

This case has nothing to do with hurt feelings and if that's all you have walked away with, you haven't paid any attention to the facts of the case.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Totenglocke]

Actually, I'm one of the few people (if not the only one) to actually read about the case from more than summaries on Slashdot.

Did you know that the message that Lori Drew supposedly sent of "the world would be better off without you" was never found on anyone's account or on the server? Are you also aware that the girl did not kill herself after reading an email from Lori Drew, but in fact killed herself after having an argument with her mother where her mother yelled at her for swearing and told her she was spending too much time on the computer and was going to restrict her computer access?

I'm going to go ahead and assume that, like so many others, you were not aware of those things. Now that you know those things, will you step back and look at it objectively? Or will you continue to follow the sensationalist bullshit of "she didn't like this girl and then the girl kill herself later -> she forced this girl to kill herself!"?

Re:So what about nooses?

[Hognoxious]

I think a much better question is, "Why are you (and lots of others, apparently) so interested in getting away with being a mean-spirited shit to people most likely to suffer real emotional hurt from it under the guise of 'freedom of speech'?"

I think an even better question is "Why are you (and lots of others) in favour of mob rule, vigilantism, malicious prosecution and misuse of laws, at the expense of rule of law and due process?"

Re:So what about nooses?

[Zontar The Mindless]

I honestly fail to see where expressing the view that people ought to be held accountable for their actions equates to vigilantism.

So please don't try to tar me with that particular brush. (Check my posting history; I think you'll see I'm no fan of mob rule.)

In Lori Drew's case, I think she's already got her just desserts, since she's outed herself as a callous and manipulative bully to half the people on the planet. However, if it could be done in an appropriate legal way, I wouldn't shed any tears if they locked her up and threw away the key.

Re:So what about nooses?

[Zontar The Mindless]

...being a mean asshole should not be a jailable offense.

Where did I say that it ought to be?

Re:So what about nooses?

[Anonymous Coward]

That notion was never widely held.

Re:So what about nooses?

[elucido]

If you hang a noose in front of the house of a black person, and it hurts their feelings, should you be charged and go to prison?

I think a much better question is, "Why are you (and lots of others, apparently) so interested in getting away with being a mean-spirited shit to people most likely to suffer real emotional hurt from it under the guise of 'freedom of speech'?"

Whatever happened to the notion that others' feelings ought to matter to us as much as our own?

What notion is that? I don't exist to protect the feelings of complete strangers just like I don't exist to protect the bank accounts of complete strangers. Your emotions are your property just like my emotions are mine.

And I don't think the laws should remove all personal responsibility or individuality just to prevent some sensitive people from committing suicide. Those people will always find a reason to commit suicide whether you are nice to them or not so what is the point?

Re:So what about nooses?

[elucido]

This is the law
1. A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she: ...

(3) Knowingly ... causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making ... any electronic communication; or

(4) Knowingly communicates with another person who is ... seventeen years of age or younger and in so doing and without good cause recklessly ... causes emotional distress to such other person; or ...

(6) Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to ... cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be ... emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of such person.

2. Harassment is a [class D felony if] ...:

(1) Committed by a person twenty-one years of age or older against a person seventeen years of age or younger ...

all right!

[chucklebutte]

seriously what she did was messed up, but not a crime

BS

[elucido]

Have personal responsibility for your own mind. If you commit suicide it's no one elses fault but your own.

Open license to make her life miserable??

[grapeape]

One can only hope that family and friends of the girl uses that same loophole hat got Drew off the hook to make the rest of her life a living hell.

Finally...thankfully.

[moxley]

Lori Drew seems to be a disgusting and cruel harpy, but what happened to her had nothing to do with the rule of law or justice and everything to do with abusing the legal system to try to try punish her for many things that weren't crimes. Violating a website's TOS being de facto turned into a crime? Please...

The precedents this would have set (had it been allowed to stand) would have been horrible for everyone who loves anonymity on the internet (among other things).

It's so sad, what happened to Meghan Meier, but Lori Drew wasn't ultimately responsible for that - and it is my opinion that the people who think she was are the type of people who like to pass reactionary legislation without really looking at the full picture.

Now there is all sorts of bad state legislation flying around to keep an eye on.

Re:Finally...thankfully.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so sad, what happened to Meghan Meier, but Lori Drew wasn't ultimately responsible for that

Er, no, she was ultimately responsible for that. Perhaps not legally because there existed [at the time] no laws against her specific infraction against society. But morally she is absolutely responsible.

- and it is my opinion that the people who think she was are the type of people who like to pass reactionary legislation without really looking at the full picture.

The judge did the appropriate thing in allowing her to escape punishment for Meier's death by not allowing a violation of ToS as the legal route to convict her.. There is no legal justice for this because the crime was so inhuman that nobody in the legislature thought ahead to the limits of human depravity. Social justice would be for her to be shunned. Karmic balance would be for her daughter to kill herself. Poetic justice would be for the father of Meghan Meier to kill Drew's entire family save her, and then get off on a technicality.

Don't be sorry

[Mathinker]

I'm sorry but if posting a completely fake profile on a website with the intention of harassing another individual is not considered 'unauthorized access', can someone please tell me WTF is?

Unfortunately, if posting a completely fake profile on a website with the intention of harassing another individual is considered 'unauthorized access', then so is merely posting a completely fake profile on a website.

And Goethe is a mass murderer

[einhverfr]

For having written "Das Leiden des Jungend Werther"

Read the opinion

[einhverfr]

Oh, and Megan Meier violated the web site's terms of service too. MySpace said you had to be 14 or older to use the site.

However if what Megan did wasn't a crime, and what Lori was convicted of doing was a crime (the misdemeanor counts did NOT include a tort component) then the law is arbitrary and capricious and cannot be applied in this sort of way in a free society.

Re:great straw man

[jbolden]

What you are describing might be fraud but doing nice stuff isn't harassment.

I know this is a crazy idea...

[Totenglocke]

but I've actually read up on this case.

First, the mythical message where she told her to kill herself or that "the world would be a better place without her" has never been found (even if it was found that she said the world would be a better place without her, how the hell can you call stating an opinion a crime? Good god, I'm terrified of the kind of politicians you vote for with views like that...) - on anyone's myspace account or server. Secondly, the girl killed herself after having an argument with her mother about her spending too much time online and her swearing .

Lori Drew being mean to the girl had nothing to do with her committing suicide. It was her crappy relationship with her parents that resulted in her suicide and her parents, like most Americans these days, wanted a scapegoat to avoid taking the blame for being crappy parents.

Re:I know this is a crazy idea...

[bhartman34]

but I've actually read up on this case.

First, the mythical message where she told her to kill herself or that "the world would be a better place without her" has never been found (even if it was found that she said the world would be a better place without her, how the hell can you call stating an opinion a crime? Good god, I'm terrified of the kind of politicians you vote for with views like that...) - on anyone's myspace account or server. Secondly, the girl killed herself after having an argument with her mother about her spending too much time online and her swearing .

Lori Drew being mean to the girl had nothing to do with her committing suicide. It was her crappy relationship with her parents that resulted in her suicide and her parents, like most Americans these days, wanted a scapegoat to avoid taking the blame for being crappy parents.

Since you've read up on the case, could you point to anything that indicates a poor relationship with her parents? I haven't been able to find anything that indicates anything other than a fairly typical teenage dynamic with the parents. In fact, most of what I've read has given me the impression that her parents did monitor her Internet use, and even exerted some control over her MySpace account.

New Yorker article

Re:I know this is a crazy idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really read up on this? Her parents were actually even more involved in her welfare than mine (and I'd say I had really good parents). They tried to monitor her internet access, and during the entire last day, their daughter was calling the mother about it and crying and the mom kept telling her to get off of the internet and stop reading the comments on there. There was no argument about her spending too much time on there, it was a mother imploring her daughter to get off and not read anymore of the hateful comments.

Saying "I've actually read up on this case" doesn't mean you did, and doesn't validate the things you say after.

Tom Cruise: "I know the history of psychology, you don't". Did that make him a learned expert? Nope.

Conspiracy charge

[Anonymous Coward]

The Meiers need to re-open a case against her for conspiracy, rather than murder. That way, not only will Lori Drew suffer, but anyone else involved in the events that drove their daughter to suicide.

Conspiracy holds a much much more harsh punishment than murder, oddly enough.

Get the democrats out of power and bring back ol'

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like democrats to let criminals go free!

Get the democrats out of power and bring back ol' sparky!

Remove the criminals from the earth to eliminate crime. Use capital punishment to get rid of them!

Impeach all democrats, they are marxists!

No amnesty for aliens,l they are criminals as soon as they enter illegally, deport them, no amnesty!

Remove the czars and political advisors, they are marxists!

Good decision

[LittleGuy]

If it hasn't been done, has there been a civil suit filed? With the lower standard of proof and the exemption of double jeopardy, it should not be difficult to win.

Then again, what was the point of all this? Pretty troubled girl dies, person does horrendous acts against pretty troubled girl, person must be punished.

get's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> if she get's permission from congress.

WTF is "get's" !? That makes even less sense than the idiotic plural-turned-possesive stuff.

Are people now automatically adding apostrophes before every "s" they type ?

Not everyone deserves respect.

[elucido]

Respect is earned not given for free.

And no we should not be concerned about other peoples emotions unless we personally care about those people. If it's your friend or family, or if you need them for some reason then perhaps you should care, but even then you have to draw the line somewhere. There is no way to live life without hurting peoples feelings.

If you don't like what I have to say...

[elucido]

Then stop talking to me. It's that simple. There is no reason to go and commit suicide just like theres no reason to go on a killing spree. It's never an excuse and no you can never blame someone else for what you do.

Re:If you don't like what I have to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you don't like what I say, just go away", eh?

WTF are you doing posting on a *discussion* site, then?

"It involves an attempt to coerce the person into"

[elucido]

It is impossible to coerce a person into suicide. People have free will and suicidal people are mentally ill, they are not coerced by others anymore than you can blame society for the suicides.

Re:great straw man

[pentalive]

Fake nice for the purpose of making the later mean worse.