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

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

[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: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.

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)

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: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

[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?

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.