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Texas Teen Arrested Under New Online Harassment Law
SpaceGhost sends in a story from San Antonio, TX: "Police have arrested a 16-year-old girl on charges of harassment under a new Texas law that took effect September 1, 2009. H.B. 2003 says a person commits a third degree felony if the person posts one or more messages on a social networking site with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person. Police say the harassment went on for a few months and involved a dispute over a boy. ... Some people expect legal challenges to the constitutionality of the new Internet law.' The law is evidently a response to the Lori Drew case.
we'd better get these young people used to the idea that everyone is a criminal, no sense in letting them think they ever were or ever could be innocent. after all, there's no way to rule law-abiding citizens.
Obviously Texas lawmakers are unfamiliar with the legal principle "Sticks and stones make break my bones, but words will never hurt me!" If I post online that Cmdr Taco is a goat fucker, have I really "harmed" him or his reputation in any way? It's not slander unless a reasonable person would believe it to be true, and no rational person believes Taco actually dates outside his own species (unlike Captain Kirk).
Of course, she's a minor being 16 so the punishment will most likely be up to the judge and expunged at age 18 but for you adults who like to poke and prod people online ... better think twice in states where these kind of laws are enforced lest you target the wrong person.
My work here is dung.
Here's the new hot sport: intimidation bait!
Step 1: Write something so stupid and of bad taste that some people will just have to reply to intimidate or threaten you.
Step 2: See a picture of them in handcuffs in tomorrow's newspapers.
Was that a transcript from the case or a transcript from the latest session of Congress?
Seriously though... any time speech is regulated, there's a problem. Yes, the Supreme Court has ruled that the right to Free Speech is not absolute, but the prosecution of a girl for calling another girl names over a dispute over a boy? A matter for parents and possibly high school guidance counselors, or on the rare outside case for a psychiatrist, but not for the courts.
It is about fucking time that people start getting punished for this. It has been far to long where people could harass you online, and go free.
I'm sure most of you have heard about that gal committing suicide because of the online bullying.
Finally justice will be handed out to individuals like that.
-BigL
Harassment online should be no different than harassment offline. If I send an email threating to break someone's leg how is that any different than a message over the phone or in person? Why do people make a big deal that otherwise illegal behavior is somehow legal online? Intimidation, coercion and other forms of threatening behavior are all readily accepted as illegal offline, this case has absolutely no defense in the first amendment (and I'm usually the one defending it).
Having been a victim of such harassment in the past myself I agree wholeheartedly, I reported it to the police however they fairly resoundingly didn't appear to give a toss.
Given how common it is for one's name to be googled by others these days online harassment can be every bit as damaging as real life harassment, it caused me quite serious upset for some months. This wasn't merely some childish dispute but an ex looking for revenge over every medium possible, creating profiles on facebook, bebo, myspace and various other websites with the specific intent of causing me as much damage as possible.
While I'm in no means in favour of putting the internet under any form of state control this sort of activity warrants police attention and needs to be against the law. It strikes me as insane that so much focus is put on policing the internet to stop file sharers as opposed to protecting the individual.
Here's the text. Basically all it targets are people who harass others online assuming another person's identity. One girl creating a profile for another, where she claims to be a homosexual drug user who steals to support her habit would fall under this. Generic harassment doesn't. About the only thing that is far-reaching, and it's likely based on ignorance, is the "domain address" language which could be twisted by a prosecutor.
Perhaps the law goes too far on the punishment side, but it doesn't prohibit any behavior which is protected by the first amendment. Only a moron would say "there are first amendment issues" since this law is little more than a double whammy on libel and slander.
I happen to know that the Commander's relationship with farm animals is a completely enlightened and fulfilling one for all parties involved. It's narrowed minded individuals like yourself which sullies these otherwise warm and positive relationships. Kirk on the other-hand was clearly a sexist (as was the writers which always wrote into the universe aliens which had all the necessary parts to get him hot and bothered).
However, unlike your comment and mine, its easy to differentiate "reality". What has happened on in these cases that they are attempting to address is that the attack on the individual is such that a peer does believe the tripe. At the age we're talking about, both males and females, many are particularly vulnerable. Their friends and what their peers think of them is massively important.
whether we can legislate politeness is another matter. I don't believe that teens are any more villainous than before, its more that the internet allows a wider audience to attack while the anonymity makes it more difficult to defend oneself (though I would at the same time believe that net anonymity is massively important, though I'll post this, non-anonymously).
We should really look at the emotional/psychological reasons that these kids are attacking each other and come up with strategies for treating those issues rather than arresting children for mistakes they make online.
How can that be?
What I don't understand is why is this not covered under previous harassment laws?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
While I do agree with you, I can't avoid pointing out to the fact that you, and seemingly, a great majority of people, think these stupid things that are set as precedents, or, in fact, used by lawyers as precedents, are the lawyers' fault.
A lawyer has one of two jobs. Both involve winning by any legal means possible, if that means saying you smoke pot to make the jury believe you're a crazy psychopath, or, on the other hand, bringing you out to court with a shrink saying you were verbally abused for years and you killing your wife was just the last straw, so the jury can take pity and sentence you to a lighter sentence, he'll do it.
The whole precedent asshattery is brought to you by juries, who choose to convict and by judges, who refuse to say "well fuck you, that precedent clearly doesn't apply here".
I miss the days when disputes were settled on the playground after school. *sigh*
Seemed a much simpler time, didn't it?
Sent from your iPad.
Do you believe this girl deserves a minimum stint of 2 years in jail with a maximum of 10 plus a fine up to $10,000? We don't know the details, but regardless, the State of Texas will destroy her life for something she did when she was 16. Our country doesn't rehabilitate people, she won't end up with simple counseling, she will end up in prison for what amounts to stupid shit. The brain is not fully developed by 16, hormones are definitely unstable at 16, and yet she has been charged with a felony for saying something stupid.
By the time her "victim" is in her mid-20's she will likely think nothing of it, but the "assailant" could still be in prison. And because of our wonderful penal system, she will likely be black marked for life and moving in and out of the criminal system. Why this couldn't be stopped at a much lower level, I don't know, but by using this method instead of others our "victim" and "assailant" will very much reverse roles.
Hopefully, she can get a good judge who will she the long term effects of charging her as a felon and reverse course, but I don't have that sort of faith in humanity.
The punishment doesn't even matter. If she has a felony conviction she's fucked.
Almost every company out there now does background checks. While most of them claim "This won't necessarily disqualify you from this position" it most certainly will.
It's a scarlet letter that keeps people that made some mistakes in their lives down. I have a few friends that are really decent people that made some stupid mistakes when they were 19/20/21 and such, and now 10 years later they still can't get work at a lot of places. Basically, they did what a lot of kids did, but they got caught..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I agree with you that this is no laughing matter. It's libel, and defamation of character. And, I DO agree that this girl should be punished if this went on ruthlessly for months.
But a felony conviction for a kid? She'll live with that on her criminal record for the rest of her life and she'll have a hard time getting good work..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The south of the U.S. has a higher proportion of ignorant people than other areas.
Yet people keep moving there because they can actually afford to live in the South without being taxed and regulated to death. As someone who was born, raised and still lives in the Northeast, let me assure you that it's no paradise.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I agree with you that this is no laughing matter. It's libel, and defamation of character. And, I DO agree that this girl should be punished if this went on ruthlessly for months.
But a felony conviction for a kid? She'll live with that on her criminal record for the rest of her life and she'll have a hard time getting good work..
This girl's parents should have thought about this. It's their responsibility to teach their kid decent values and respect for other people. Why should she not have her life ruined when that's exactly what she tried to do someone else? If she has so little respect for other people that she engaged in this behavior at her age, then what makes you think she will ever learn differently unless she suffers some pretty severe consequences?
She's old enough now to know the difference between right and wrong, and she obviously doesn't care about it. That's something that needs to be learned early in life--by the age of 5 or 6, or it's often never learned at all.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Depends on whether you were the stronger or the weaker of the disputing parties, I suspect...
This is where you are wrong. An entire generation or more has been raised to believe in its own innate and unearned importance, and bolstered with a solid and unshakable faith in its responsibility-less intrinsic rights. They truly believe that they are entitled to do whatsoever they please, whenever they please to, and that they are educated and savvy enough to inject their opinions in any arena they see fit, and how dare anyone presume to tell them otherwise. Their rights are absolute at all times, without qualification of any kind.
If you disagree with them, or are simply in their way, they're not going to engage in productive discussion or debate. That would imply that you are somehow their equal. Instead, they will call upon the full force of the great edifice of the Law, which exists solely to defend their inalienable right to _make_ the world bend to their will. As free, intelligent and independent citizens, they have every right to bring the full force of the State to bear in crushing you and your impudent challenges to their unique and inestimable way of life.
May the Maths Be with you!
I concur. And I don't see why it was tagged "flamebait". Maybe the trap fit the mod.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
There's already recourse for harassment or stalking. It's called a restraining order. I see no reason why we need special laws to guard against "special" cases like online social networks. I recall reading about a person being charged with violating a restraining order for "poking" someone on Facebook, so it appears at least one court understands how old laws continue to apply as society changes.
The law mentions "with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person." I didn't see the comment she left in TFA, so how do you know it was just "calling another girl names?" You don't know what the comments were, so don't them off as trivial.
If this girl left threatening comments to someone with criminal intent, and the girl who read the comments honestly believed she would act on them, then does it matter how those comments were communicated? This is outside the scope of free speech.
Sure they could... they would issue a restraining order, which if violated could result in criminal charges.
This law is unnecessary and open to abuse, the old system of filing a complaint, getting the courts to issue a restraining order, and daring your enemy to violate the order so that they can get busted is much more fun... and more fair too.
Essentially the old system said "Stop it, I'm serious and I have the law on my side"... the new system will punish harassers without giving them a warning to stop first. There are many circumstances where a harasser might not realize that things have reached the point where the harassed is feeling harassed. Especially in the case of children, where the child may be OK, but the parents see some kid saying mean things about their "baby" and they want retribution... even when their "little angel" has already laughed it off.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Because might make right was such a good system?
Anything which prepares kids to deal with the real world is a good system.
... think about the children? Thank you.
No, I didn't say think about civil liberties - stop that. Think about the children. Keep thinking about them. No, don't think about checks and balances. Listen to me, just think about the children. There. Good man.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
All of a sudden it begins to sound reasonable... basic law should be written in normal language.
Lawyers have invented legalese to make themselves indispensible, because no normally-functioning human can understand half the laws in the land. "Common law" and "precedent" dictate that nobody can even know what constitutes an infringement at a given time. In fact, not even the government can tell you how many possible felonies there are any more thanks to laws that are based on treaties, based on "you can't do this if it would violate the law of some shithole country whose government gets overthrown every 6 months but we have a treaty with them and a whole bunch of other countries" or based on "a regulation yet to be created by a government bureaucracy or shithead appointee to be named later."
It may be time for a reset. Toss everything out, rewrite the laws to be clearly understandable, re-institute basic civics courses in public school, and go from there. I'd rather not have it get to the point where I have to consult a fucking lawyer before tying my shoes or using a public restroom, but it might one day come to that the way we're currently headed.
"these dag-blasted kiddies think they know it all! and they think theyre soooo special! Sometimes they have the gall to do weird things i dont approve of and they dont want to listen to my complaining! these confounded kids call the sheriff when theres a disagreement instead of just fighting like i did back when i was a kid! I live in a peppridge farm commercial where nobody needs the police and you only call the sheriff when mountain justice wont work! "
mod parent down...just becuse you use big words doesnt mean you suddenly become insightful.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And what about all those who don't want to fight, not because they are weak, but because they don't like fighting. Of course, you don't have an answer to that. Because your attitude stinks of the fighter mentality. Your choice of words like "proving yourself" is very revealing.
It is people like you who encourage young people to fight that is the problem. Perpetuating and encouraging violence in society is not a good solution.
And yes, I have stood up for myself, but I will never be proud of it, and I will not respect those who I stood up to. Violence is not something to be respected for. At best it is a last resort when other things didn't work. But when kids are forced to resort to violence because of the inaction of adults, then it is a failure of the adults.
You mean like passing judgment on an entire generation? Don't for a second pretend that ego is a phenomena new to this generation. The simple fact is that every older generation in history has felt that the next generation was presumptuous and rude, and all too full of themselves. But what does that have to do with the law?
Young people will be immature, and, since it is a forum on which they are a disproportional demographic, will be the majority of the forum trolls and flame-baiters and haters out there, and thus are most likely to get caught under this law (yes, I know the law doesn't cover trolling, but the trolls mentality is much closer producing threats than is the average mature person's). This does not change the fact that classifying threats online as illegal breaks with free speech precedent. Free speech does not include threats ONLY if it is backed by the threat of imminent violence, or if it is defamation (ok, most trolls fit here, but that's a civil matter, not a felony), or if it incites to riot. Threatening online matches none of these; no threat is imminent, as I'd have to get up, drive to your house, and THEN do whatever I said (in which case the prosecutable act is the physical one, the speech is peripheral and can only be evidence of forethought and intent, not a crime itself). So no, we are not claiming "responsibility-less intrinsic rights;" we are merely pointing out that the same rights that we enjoy elsewhere also should apply online.
DISCLAIMER: I am very rarely serious. If the above comment seems asinine makes no sense, it is most likely a bad joke.
This is so unbelievably redneck, I'm at a loss for words. That attitude is something out of the 50's or earlier.
Taught your kids, huh? Like, that violence solves things. You really think they heard that, warn once warn twice? No what they heard was Dad will back us up if we kick the crap out of someone. Whether that someone had it coming due to their over-all stupidity or not.
And, btw, I was never in a fight in high school. Never had a cause and it wasn't because I was intimidating physically. I just had a knack for getting along with people; i.e. I tried to respect everyone.
To this day the most confident, rational, and competent people I know are the kids I grew up with which got their asses kicked across a parking lot at least once during middle school or high school. Every single one of them got in some good blows themselves and could sit there afterword bleeding out the nose or mouth smiling that they at least had a chance to 'shut that guy up' who wouldn't lay off of of them. It's completely anecdotal, but I have to say that I agree with what you posted in every respect. Tasting your own blood is a memorable and grounding experience in life that more people need to experience, in my opinion.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
This is all very nice, but if you haven't noticed it's impossible to punch someone over the internet, which is what the article is about.
An entire generation or more has been raised to believe in its own innate and unearned importance, and bolstered with a solid and unshakable faith in its responsibility-less intrinsic rights. They truly believe that they are entitled to do whatsoever they please, whenever they please to, and that they are educated and savvy enough to inject their opinions in any arena they see fit, and how dare anyone presume to tell them otherwise. Their rights are absolute at all times, without qualification of any kind.
You know, I'm getting a bit tired of this. It's the same crap that's been heaped on the younger generation for ages. I remember it when I was a kid.
Kids today by and large are more responsible, if anything, than the kids in my generation were. They are under more pressure, in a more dangerous environment, than we were and they're dealing with it pretty well.
There seems to be this bizarre "whack a mole" approach to dealing with kids... Let them do what they want, but once in a while take a kid out back and shoot him/her for being a kid as an example.
No wonder the kids today are confused.
They've been taught really good social skills, conflict resolution, sharing in school, and then they get hammered when they do something wrong.
Some of the grownups need to attend those social skills classes instead of their kids.
Then that seems to be a problem with the current law in all cases, not a need for a new law for a specific case.
If you insult and mouth off to someone, they can slap you, as hard as they want, as many times as they want, and it's legal.
Great!
I find your comment rather offensive and an insult to my way of thinking. Allow me to commence slapping you're bruised and bleeding, and you go down in an unconscious heap.
What?
Note: the secret here, is that insult and offense is 100% in the eyes and ears of the receiver. If you can't see where the problem lies here...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
If we accept physical violence as a respectable method for resolving disputes, then women will be at a significant disadvantage (past a certain age). Or would you give different advice to a girl? What about to a boy who doesn't have the courage to fight? Does he deserve the harassment more than someone who does? Regardless, since there's no positive correlation as far as I know between being right and being tough, we potentially reinforce or encourage the behavior of jerks.
Besides, I should be able to solve the problem without risking physical harm to myself. Adult disputes should not be solved through physical violence, so why should we teach our children otherwise?
One qualification: I believe in defending yourself. If you are attacked as an adult or as a child, fight back with everything you have. Like the old adage about starting vs ending fights.
Your romanticization of violence sort of falls apart when you stop looking at flukes like Columbine where middle class disaffected teenagers have never experienced violence and start looking at the every day violence in the inner city. Kids don't get shot or stabbed downtown because they've been bottling it up too long.