Slashdot Mirror
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)."
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.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
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)
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.