Who doesn’t feel sorry for the family of Megan Meir. Their daughter after being harassed mercilessly on Myspace by someone who she thought was a teenage boy by the name of Josh Evan, commits suicide.
We come to find out that the harassment was not by vicious, immature, uncaring Josh, which you could certainly argue happens all the time with teenagers in the real and cyberworld. This harassment however was actually allegedly being perpetrated by vicious, immature uncaring adult Lori Drew who set up a fake Myspace profile, posing as the young Josh Evans. Lori’s daughter was a long time friend of Megans
After months of harassment by this fictional teen peer, Megan, who was already suffering from a myriad of teen social and psychological issues tragically killed herself. You can read a full account of this story in the New Yorker Magazine article.
Lori Drew has now been indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.
Outrageous, immature and cruel behavior by Lori Drew? Absolutely. If this is the kind of behavior she engages in, I would argue she is just as much a danger to the futures of her own children as the mothers in the Texas Polygamist Compound who had their kids placed in foster care. I certainly would not want my kids in the same mall or high school as hers…
In any event, this case engendered enormous publicity and outrage over Drew’s actions and the fact that there did not appear to be any crime committed. Certainly a moral crime but no legal one hence Ms. Drew apparently would continue on her life path not encumbered by the steel bars so many wanted but only her conscience.
In true Jack McCoy, Law and Order style, federal prosecutors decided they they would seek what I call a “outrage indictment” against Lori Drew. An “outrage indictment” is when there is no criminal statute that will hold someone responsible but the public outrage is so great over the act that prosecutors throw every irrelevant statute that has no bearing on the “crime” against the wall to see what sticks. They do this because they know that public outrage is so great that they will get an indictment regardless of how ridiculous the attempt would seen if people were not so outraged over what happened.
The prosecutors even knowing that there is practically no chance of a conviction can then hold their heads high having satisfied the blood lust of those calling for the head of Lori Drew.
I know that Jack McCoy gets convictions all the time on these “outrage indictments” He is my idol.
I certainly understand the publicity and “public deterrent” rationale behind obtaining these “outrage indictments”. Even if you can’t get a conviction there is publicity and deterrent value. Maybe the next idiot parent who would otherwise “act like a child” will think twice and hopefully get some counseling before their next idiot move.
I am not saying there should not be a special place in hell reserved for Lori Drew . Maybe one day there will be appropriate legislation that deals with these types of situations. I have no doubt that there will be numerous emotional “if it was your child” or “you must not have children” type comments. Those are emotional statements. Those are revenge statements. The rule of law is supposed to be unemotional, rational and fairly applied.
Is it a “perversion of justice” that Lori Drew suffers no consequences for her acts? You bet it is. So our solution is to balance out one perversion with another?
A prosecution twisting a statute not intended for this situation to obtain an “outrage indictment” violates every one of those principals and improperly uses the courts to legislate criminal acts Over the next 10 years, you will see proper legislation enacted to address the issue of “cyber bullying” in the social media and other contexts.
Until that time, the rule of law is not about turning Lori Drew into some high tech cyber criminal for which the statute she was indicted under was designed to deal with as much as we would like to see her pay a high price. That is the rule of media justice. That is the rule of outrage justice. That is the rule of a “legal lynch mob”
Not rules to live by….
May 16th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Definitely a “legal lynch mob”! Two wrongs don’t make it right…
William Fernandezs last blog post..Where Do Googlers Go Next?
May 16th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“Perversion of justice” for indicting someone over legally enacted laws? Please.
You are not only not giving the prosecutors enough credit, you are not giving the grand jurors enough credit for making a logical choice with the presented evidence.
If the prosecution loses it will be on its merits, not because of some perversion, media justice or Jack McCoy-ish outrage justice.
And all the while people are trying to give thungs like this mom justice that she doesn’t deserve, action oriented folks are assuredly tweaking future legislation to address this next manifestation of criminal act.
Michael M.s last blog post..Girl Scouts & NY Yankees!
May 16th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
@Michael M.: “mom justice that she doesn’t deserve” and what singles her out to not deserve justice.. when was there a subjective standard set for who deserves it and who doesn’t and who set that standard? I must have missed it on CNN
May 16th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Got me Brian. Mine was a poorly written statement. Yes, she deserves justice. Which is why she is being tried in a court of law (a chance that the girl down the street will never have by the way).
What I disagree with is the suggestion that she not receive a legal consequence because her deviant act didn’t fall into the alleged narrow scope of the current law.
That child would still be alive if it wasn’t for the actions of this defendant, let’s not forget that.
And I am entitled to my own “subjective standard” same as you are, right?
Michael M.s last blog post..Girl Scouts & NY Yankees!
May 16th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
@Michael M.: we are all entitled to our own emotional subjective interpretation but prosecutors are paid to put that aside and simply “do justice”
May 16th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
You’re making my point Brian. Too many arm chair quarterbacks suggest that they know what should or shouldn’t happen within the construct of a court case. The prosecutors and LE in that area have the responsibility to seek justice on behalf of the victim, which it appears they are doing. The rest of us, however we come down on the issue of punishment, etc. are merely part of the peanut gallery that are on the outside looking in.
Just because one doesn’t agree with the prosecutors for seeking punishment for that lady; that doesn’t mean that the prosecutors are doing so under duress or with ‘emotionally subjective interpretation’. They may in fact actually be doing their job!
Michael M.s last blog post..Girl Scouts & NY Yankees!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
@Michael M.: Life would be boring without the “peanut gallery”
)
May 17th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Sometimes you need to take drastic measures even in the form of legal lynch mobs. The problem with people today is the large amount of apathy that we have towards events as they unfold. It’s this apathy that prevents us from forming change. In Mexico a couple years back there was a child molester that terrorized several children in a village for years, when the judge basically gave him a slap on the wrist the villagers rioted, took the judge and the child molester and strung them both up on one of the nearest tree’s. As a result judges in the area cracked down on molesters. Was it the right thing to do? No probably not but the result was swift and their actions got results. This is often the case in history and yet we’ve removed ourselves from this type of societal behavior because we deem it uncivilized. What we often forget is that politicians, the legal system and criminals often pray on our submissive civilized demeanor. Rare are the days when we see people stand up and fight for what they believe in, much worse, we actually have become less interested in taking a stand. Instead we wax poetic about the miscarriage of justice or about the corruption of current political policies and yet we never a individuals nor as a collective whole, take that displeasure and turn it into something productive. As such we are the reasons for this type of conduct to be condoned. Now I’m not saying that we need to take the drastic measure’s seen in Mexico but we need to shake off those scales from our eyes and take back our rights to freedom of speech and expressions and organize ourselves to speak up. Perhaps when people see that their actions have consequences with some teeth that could bite them back they will start to value the society that we live in.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
That child would still be alive if it wasn’t for the actions of this defendant, let’s not forget that.
Not necessarily. She might have offed herself when the next person said something unflattering. From what I’ve heard, this girl was a suicide waiting to happen anyway.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
remember that this “justice” you speak of is atavistic to the “emotional subjective interpretation(s)” you went into great lengths to point out. manner is certainly not relevant or privvy when one remembers that law is produced by its own spirit, and this spirit is something not subject to discretion or consensus of writ or tort or whathaveyou, no matter how many statutes all of human history are able to enscribe. law, like mathematics, is not so much a tool or functionality as it is like an organism or greater being and legislation does not (nor may it ever) wholly define the scope of its gestalt. in fact, we refine its emergence at best.
we all know that rules are a folly of humankind and that law or justice is not like an attempt to define art, yet you persist this course.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Mr. Cuban makes a good and thoughtful point, but laws are made to deter as well as to punish. Even if outrage indictments are brought by politically minded prosecutors, they do serve a purpose.
Lori Drew is probably not satanically evil, but allowing her to go unharrassed by criminal justice sends a bad message to those who are.
“Off-label” prosecutions of new statutes are an efficient way of fine tuning statute. If she is not convicted, at least issues related to the criminal boundries of computer fraud committed by adults against children will be explored publicly, and the law will evolve.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I think there is good grounds for a major civil lawsuit. Take away everything this person owns, and I think people would think twice about doing stuff like that.
swines last blog post..Low budget music making
May 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
First off Michael M. you comments seam to be biased that emotion fist ideals Brain’s article was suggesting was not how we should look at this situation. Sorry dude.
Personally if I was working as pre-judgment if such a case would go to full court, I’d turn a blind eye to the HUGE holes in the prosecutions case.(play dumb) I’d let my emotions over take me this once. I say this in part because I have faith in the system (ONLY when it’s put up against white middle class Americans) that would not actually convict her, but I know going through any legal case is living hell and punishment on it’s own. If you ever go to trial there is never a victory, only a much lesser loss when you are acquitted.
Even the fact that the prosecutors have taken it this far, added on top of media exposure this has been a punishment to Lori Drew.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The law is not strictly positivist, it is designed to accomodate the evolving mores of the public and not solely through legislation (not something the public is used to hearing on all “the law is the law” day-time lawyer and cop dramas). She better hope it’s a bench trial and she doesn’t have to convince twelve other people that what she did wasn’t wrong because it wasn’t exactly illegal.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Conspiracy to create a fake identity (Josh) in order to spy on and harrass a teenage girl is hardly a non-crime, especially when one already knows she is having emotional problems. I’m not sure how you feel it’s not worthy of the courts. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime. Harrassment is a crime. Harrassing someone until they die, even if that’s not what the woman intended to happen, is a crime.
I know you aren’t going to agree. You’ve already made up your mind that it’s only over the outrage.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
this is just stupid. that child probably would have done it anyway. blame her real parents.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I have a feeling the daughter of the mother did this, and that the mother is just covering for her daughter….
I find it much more believable, especially if they went to school together. You know how girls can be sometimes, devious, and cruel.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Anything that happens to that woman, up to and including getting stabbed to death in prison sounds a hell of a lot like justice to me.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“That child would still be alive if it wasn’t for the actions of this defendant, let’s not forget that.”
Here is where I have a problem with prosecuting this woman. If there really was a Josh Evan who was vicious and cruel to Megan, there would be no public outrage, there would be no criminal prosecution of the boy. Instead, the discussion would be on what warning signs the parents missed, how could this be prevented, etc., etc. There would be no legal basis for pursuing him – he may be an incredibly insensitive person, but ultimately Megan would be seen as sick and was needing help she did not receive. The fact that this was perpetrated by an adult in a malicious manner does not change the fact that the issue ultimately was with Megan, and frankly her parents who were not involved enough in her life to realize she had some serious problems. The pursuit of Lori is another instance of the “do something, anything!” hysteria that the general public has, and it really is a lynch mob mentality.
If there was any true justice, the public and the media attention should be on the parents, asking the hard question – “how could this happen to your daughter and you not be aware of it?”, “Did you have a relationship with your daughter where you could talk with her freely and openly”, “is there a history of mental illness in the family that would have caused you to be more vigilant of your daughters mental health?”. At the end of the day though, sometimes people are just sick and they do things to themselves that aren’t preventable. Going after this woman to make it look like the prosecutor’s office is doing something, anything, is truly a perversion of justice.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
The legal system is not and should not be as rigid as people like to profess. New laws are created all the time to address wrongs that are done either intentionally or not. There are laws about using the telephone in commission of crime that obviously didn’t exist in 1776.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I believe most people are really missing the point of this whole thing. Regardless of the legal lynch mob or not, the fact is some stupid teenager killed herself because of this ridiculous harassment by this immature adult. But the thing is, before facebook, myspace, and whatever other ’social’ websites have sprung up with the explosion of the internet, this kind of crap happened all the time in high schools across the country. Only difference is, the harasser was an adult, instead of a peer, although the girl believed it was a peer, so for all intents and purposes, it’s the same thing again.
Now, understandably, the public is outraged that the harassment came from an adult that should have been mature enough to not engage in such ridiculous behavior, but at the same time, the girl shouldn’t have been stupid. The parents of this girl should have been more attentive to what was going on in their daughters’ life. Parents don’t generally try to lock up other kids for harassing their children at school, unless of course it turns violent. So why be any different for an adult?
I think the point that is trying to be made here by the blogger is that the fact stands, we have no law to combat this type of thing, and rightly so. You can’t (or shouldn’t) be able to lock someone up for what they say. If the girl didn’t want to be harassed, you can always cancel a myspace account. Christ, i’ve canceled countless numbers of ’social’ website accounts just for spam alone. I see this as just another case of redirecting the blame away form the parents and on to someone else. Not that the woman who harassed the girl shouldn’t be a social outcast and harassed herself for what she’s done, but jail time and prosecution? There’s nothing illegal about calling names. Stop trying to write law based on emotional outrage.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
@tom: Very true but laws must be created by the legislature, not the courts
May 17th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I think that many people have missed the point. Sure if she had been treated like this by a peer it wouldn’t be a crime. but she wasn’t. She was targetted and pursued by an adult and the law certainly recognises that age is material in relationships and how they are viewed. For example in sexual relationships. What was committed here in my opinion was a perverted “grooming” activity where an adult has attempted to substantially influence a minor and where the adult should certainly have been able to foresee the possibility of the consequence. This was an evil, well thought out campaign which was vindictive and cruel and the perpetrator deservves to be treated as a criminal. Adults who are this stupid or corrupt belong in either a prison or a mental health institution. We need to protect young vulnerable people from predators like this. Sex isn’t the only crime where age makes a difference.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
To all people here suggesting that outrage indictment and/or lynch mobs are ok, I say let’s change the law and allow “evilness” indictments where if we agree that something was unmoral but not illegal, you have the right to hang the perpetrator.
I know layers say that laws are not a source of morality and applying laws retroactively is not allowed, but what the heck, we know better.
I hate vigilante justice because it is a cheap form of revenge, just like this outrage indictments and I believe they weaken democracy. “what would you do if it were your daughter” is not an argument, it is a redneck call for revenge and is very far away from justice. Lawyers have that thing called “tipycity” that works just against this in some places.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Brian–
I can’t believe you feel this is not worthy of trial. You’ve grown completely out of touch.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Sorry, quick follow-up…also, by comparing this to a television show further compounds the fact that you have no empathy here whatsoever.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
@Chad V.: Try her for what? She has not committed a crime as defined by any statute enacted to deal for these situations. If you think she should be tried, write your congressman and press for a law to deal with this.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
This indictment is outrageous, 20 years?. I’m not defending the actions of this woman, vile indeed. Would a 18 year old boy from the high school get 20 years for the same actions? All the courts are doing is trying to set an example and it’s grotesque. The parents of the child should also be held for child neglect and endangering a child for letting their kid continue to use these online sites when they knew she had issues, her profile even had a poem, “M is for Modern, E is for Enthusiastic, G is for Goofy, A is for Alluring, N is for Neglected”, the kid even says she was neglected. Once again, parents relying on the gov’t to protect their children instead of themselves. I fault all three adults on this one.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
@Chad V.: I have never been in either side’s shoes so it would be very difficult for me to “empathize” with them. If you meant to say I have no “sympathy” for them, I do appreciate your trying to tell me who I have sympathy for and who I don’t . Not knowing anything about me, I suspect it would be difficult to “empathize” with my position. You should sell those mind reading skills to the military.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Seems to me that if there is a law against inciting a riot, there should be something against lies leading to suicide. This was a willful, malicious act that lead to someone’s death, it can’t go unpunished.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Jury of your peers is a b**ch. Just ask the african american community. Where is the general outrage when that happens? There is a public hypocrisy on this subject.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Sometimes, no matter how great the legal system, horrible people still find ways to break the law and get away with it. Capone was indicted on tax evasion, remember? Anyone hear of RICO. We always have to find creative ways of making those who break the laws get punished, sometimes the laws we have just don’t cut it.
@Rick C – your comment is almost as good as the article.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Missouri Revised Statutes
Chapter 565
Offenses Against the Person
Section 565.225
This is only an excerpt of laws that were made to deal with electronic harassment and in effect by august 2007:
“(3) “Harasses”, to engage in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that serves no legitimate purpose, that would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and that actually causes substantial emotional distress to that person.
2. Any person who purposely and repeatedly harasses or follows with the intent of harassing another person commits the crime of stalking. ”
An indictment is not a conviction, although I’d like to see the voir dire on this case. The harassment alone is enough to indict.
http://www.moga.state.mo.us/statutes/C500-599/5650000225.HTM
May 17th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
It’s simple and it is legal to prosecute several criminal counts against this woman, PROVIDED that the prosecution PROVES that the woman had PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of the teenager’s mental condition.
I would imagine that the DA’s Office went out of their way to make sure that they could prosecute this bitch. If the teen had been my daughter, the bitch would have disappeared weeks ago.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I think the victims family should just take the law in their own hands. No witnesses, no evidence, no case. I think that’d be fair. There’s just too much red tape and loop holes in the justice system.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Yo. Harassment is illegal. Harassment via the Internet is illegal.
It was an adult harassing a minor.
You seem to not understand something here?
May 17th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Of all the incidents where the federal government selectively enforces unrelated laws to pursue individuals toward ulterior motives and you choose this loser to champion? If you cannot find a more egregious example of self-indulgent prosecutorial zealotry than this, you are apparently not looking very hard.
Brett Trouts last blog post..Law.Alltop.Com – The Legal Blogs
May 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I get what you are saying, but I think it only perverts the legal system. While in many cases the legal system comes through, I can think of times where I was screwed because the concrete letter of the law is not adequate enough to deal with the relativity of everyday life. While the lynch mobs and vigilante justice may not result in true justice, sometimes I think the absolutes of legal systems pervert justice more than any lynch mob ever could.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
If you point a gun at someone as a joke and they die, you can be charged with manslaughter or murder. This is no different. The law is meant to protect the innocent. I don’t know how much more innocent you can get then a 13 year old girl who has low self esteem and a fragile state of mind. If she had picked the child up from school and told her that her parents were dead and the child hung herself would you have a different opinion?
Just because someone uses a computer and isn’t physically involved does not mean they escape culpability.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
@Brett Trout:
Brett:
Do you routinely go to blogs making content empty statements or do you have some intelligent, thought out issues/examples in mind? (If I missed something in your comment, please tell me what the meaningful content was) If you do I am all ears and will be happy to write it about it if I find it something that grabs my interest. By the way, I went to your blawg at http://blawgit.com/and to my surprise it looks strangely similar to what I wrote… Hmmmmmm. You did change the “expression of the idea” but it sure is easier when someone else’s work gives you the structure isn’t it….
Feel free to look at my other posts and fill up your blawg. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It may up your numbers since it appears that no on is reading yours….
I did get a good laugh out of one thing on your blawg. It says on your site you practice trademark law among other things. You used the trademarked myspace logo in your post. You clearly use your blog to generate revenue. I am not a trademark expert by any means that that is something that makes me go hmmm……..(to date myself with an old Arsenio Hall line) Would Myspace consider that fair use?
May 17th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Brian
You are making an argument for a very bad legal precedent.
Imagine a similar situation in real life. There is a person who is very emotionally distressed and self-conscious, and someone in public calls that person ugly (because they honestly find the person ugly). Then that person goes and kills themselves. Is it the fault of the other person for calling the person ugly ? No, the parents of the emotinal person should have not allowed for a harmful public situation to happen.
In the same way, if Megan was emotionally distressed her parents should have prevented her from using MySpace, because it could cause harm to her. (although they might have not know how distressed she was.) If you aren’t prepared for people to throw insults at you and showing you goatse, then you shouldn’t be using the internet.
Of course the exception to this rule of freedom of speech, are direct threats.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
@Logical Dude: Thank you for your comment. My argument is actually that there is no legal precedent or law to prosecute the mother as much as we would like to.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:37 am
This is precisely the type of situation that the civil court system was created to address. In the absence of criminal precedent, redress to civil proceedings, with all its attendant publicity and social stigma, serves the cause of justice in the law’s stead.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Logical Dude, you would also have to imagine that person is a middle-aged woman dressed up as a male teenager, interacting with a 13-year old girl in a romantic way. After several months of interactions, in which the middle-aged woman draws the 13 year-old into a relationship with her, and knowing her mental state, the woman says that the world would be better without her. The Missouri statutes are clear on cyberstalking and harassment, although relatively new (I think they were revised and set in place about two months before this happened, I’d check that though). However, coming up with a variety of hypotheticals could be a lifelong endeavor if one so chose. Did Drew interact with Meier on a regular basis with the intent to harass? Would this emotionally damage an average person? Did this harassment cause substantial emotional damage? These seem valid questions for a court to decide. Okay, I’m done now, thanks for the post.
If you guys want a really fun Saturday night, spend it reading U.S. codes relevant to this case: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html
It will proably end up being a successful civil case, if nothing else.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:03 am
The only way just would be perverted in this case would be if the jurors who hear the evidence convict the accused regardless of what the law says. The Justice Department is free to pursue whatever trial they wish to (and they should) but they are not guaranteed a victory.
Would Al Capone have served any time if the government hadn’t decided to attempt to convict him on income tax evasion?
May 18th, 2008 at 2:07 am
@somepunk: Al Capone actually evaded income taxes and there was a law on the books to deal with that exact crime…
May 18th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Yes, that was my point — although I probably didn’t word it very well.
Al Capone was convicted on what seemed a minor crime when compared to the crimes that many people believe he committed (or that were committed on his orders). The Justice Department was unable to convict him for the murders but they managed to punish him nonetheless.
May 18th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Brian,
You have no idea how the Law actually works. Firstly Drew committed a fraud, that was a direct cause of the death of a teenage girl. She is guilty of a crime. Because of the real workings of the judicial system she will certainly be convicted. Most importantly however, society sees things that are wrong, and has a myriad of abiguous laws that can arbitrarily be applied to a behavior, to get a conviction from a Jury. Read here, Martha Stuart. Obstruction of Justice. There are 100s of ridiculously vauge statues that prosecuters use every day to charge people their gut tells them did something wrong. That Brain, is exactly how justice works in America.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
@Fanning: I don’t know whether the laugh my head off or be terrified that there are people like you out there. God I hope you are not in a position of judicial authority! You have actually just defined how a lynch mob works. You can take the white hood off now. The wizard has been exposed….
May 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
“That child would still be alive if it wasn’t for the actions of this defendant, let’s not forget that.”
Huh? I think you’re confused. She would be alive if she didn’t hang herself.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:04 am
I hate to say this but if someone is weak how are you to know? whats next? Getting life because you told someone to get stuffed and they took you seriously? Its absurd on its face Period. That poor kid had issues no one knows what would have set her off. But going after someone who was clearly mean is garbage…um excuse me the thought police are at my door.
May 26th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Brian
The paragraph above the video has, “Until that time, the rule of law is not about turning Lori *Meir* into some high tech cyber criminal for which the…”
You may awant to change that to Lori *Drew*.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Michael M, with all due respect, you don’t know what you are talking about. This prosecutor has indicted a woman for “accessing protected computers without authorization”, a felony offense, over a minor violation of a private website’s TOS. It is the setting up of the account under a fictitious name that was the violation. Otherwise, her speech is protected and cannot be prosecuted at present. In other words, if this charge sticks, we are ALL felons if we ever got mad at someone on the internet. What constitutes unlawful bullying or illegal speech anyway? You sound like you are willing to let a federal prosecutor make those decisions. Me, I’m not.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Brian,
I copied your post, but I changed all of the words, included completely different outbound links and took a position diametrically opposed to your own? Is that your argument? You must run into that a lot.
Brett
Brett Trouts last blog post..BlawgIT Has Moved
May 30th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
@Brett Trout: Knock yourself out Brett. I don’t own the topic. I did find it pretty bizarre that you criticize my choice of topic and then copy it for your blog….
May 30th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Brian,
Correct me if I am wrong, but rather that copying you, wasn’t I writing about this topic months before you? My issue is not with the topic (obviously, since I selected it before you). Instead, my issue is with using this case to make the point.
Highlighting prosecutors who unfairly use ambiguous laws to pursue much less morally repulsive defendants, on more tenuous charges might be better. There are many out there. Choosing a better champion for your cause also may go further toward a voter backlash against the lax scriveners who write ambiguous laws in the first place.
Brett
Brett Trouts last blog post..BlawgIT Has Moved