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Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Nov 30, 2008 06:37 PM
from the unpredictable-and-retroactve dept.
from the unpredictable-and-retroactve dept.
Bootsy Collins writes "Last Wednesday, the Lori Drew 'cyberbullying' case ended in three misdemeanor convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 US Federal law intended to address illegally accessing computer systems. The interpretation of the act by the Court to cover violations of website terms of service, a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage, may have profound effects on the intersection of the Internet and US law. Referring to an amicus curiae brief filed by online rights organizations and law professors, PJ at Groklaw breaks down the implications of the decision to support her assertion that 'unless this case is overturned, it is time to get off the Internet completely, because it will have become too risky to use a computer.'"
Related Stories
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Your Rights Online: Lori Drew Trial Results In 3 Misdemeanor Convictions 568 comments
grassy_knoll writes "As a follow up to an earlier story, the Lori Drew 'cyber-bullying' trial has resulted in misdemeanor convictions." grassy_knoll quotes from the AP story as carried by Salon: "The Los Angeles federal court jury on Wednesday rejected felony charges of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress on young Megan Meier.
However, the jury found defendant Lori Drew guilty of three counts of the lesser offense of accessing a computer without authorization.
The jurors could not reach a verdict on a conspiracy count.
Prosecutors said Drew violated the MySpace terms of service by conspiring with her young daughter and a business assistant to create a fictitious profile of a teen boy on the MySpace social networking site to harass Megan.
Megan, who had been treated for depression, hanged herself in 2006 after receiving a message saying the world would be better without her."
Adds reader gillbates: "She now faces up to 3 years in jail and $300,000 in fines — a troubling precedent for anyone who has ever registered with a website under a pseudonym."
[+]
Your Rights Online: Groklaw's PJ Says SCO's Demise Greatly Exaggerated 152 comments
blackbearnh writes "Last week, the net was all abuzz with speculation that SCO was finally gone and done for. With the final judgment in SCO v. Novell in, and SCO millions of dollars in the hole to Novell, it seemed like the fat lady had finally sung. But like most things in the legal system, it isn't nearly that simple. O'Reilly Media sought out Groklaw's Pamela Jones, and got a rundown of what's still alive, and why a final end to the madness may be many years away. 'Summing up, it looks bleak for SCO at the moment, but let's enter the alternate realm of SCO's best-case scenario in its dreams: in that realm, SCO wins on appeal, which one of SCO's lawyers indicated might take a year and a half or five years, and the case is sent back to Utah for trial by jury, which is what SCO wanted (as opposed to trial by judge, which is what it got), then everything listed above (except for the IPO class action) comes alive again, presumably, depending on what the appellate court decides. Then SCO is in position once again to go after Linux end users, as well as IBM, et al.'"
[+]
Games: The State of Video Game Regulation 154 comments
Gamasutra is running an in-depth look at the regulation of video games in the US and other countries. They discuss the reasons for such legislation, such as child protection and intellectual property restrictions, as well as what gamers can expect to see in the coming years.
"Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. It's good for prosecuting hackers, but it makes for a strange fit with social networking websites and user-generated content. That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren't quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace's End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law."
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Your Rights Online: Texas Teen Arrested Under New Online Harassment Law 494 comments
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.
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Way too dangerous. (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. Get off the Internet. It's too dangerous. Everyone from AOL on - get the hell off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone from AOL on - get the hell off.
Replace AOL with "whistleblowers" or any other group... and you'll get the real reason why this case most likely won't be overturned.
Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Insightful)
She's an asshole, but this is a bullshit conviction and as the article describes....it hurts everybody.
America is a country of Laws, until butthurt turds scream for revenge. Then fuck the law and rational application of said law...we's gonna get some revenge!
Bye bye free speech...
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me the man and I'll find you the law to imprison him.
Parent
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Interesting)
You need a law?
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richelieu
I myself have been known to condemn people merely for posting a single sentence on slashdot :)
Parent
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree, when the law is inadequate, it it time to change the law. Would you really want a system where the law never adapted to the modern world? She contributed to someone's death, the fact that she did it over the internet is irrelevant. She had intent to harass, and harassment is illegal, so, all things considered, I think she should be punished for her actions.
Parent
That's not what I'm saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Make a new law, call it the Lori Drew law, and have that law make what she did specifically illegal.
The prosecution twisted the existing laws, which I cannot abide. This conviction should be over-turned.
That's how our system of law works.
Parent
Re:That's not what I'm saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:That's not what I'm saying. (Score:5, Informative)
We live under the rule of law, not under the rule of justice. They should have prosecuted her for harassment instead of trying to shoehorn her offenses into cybercrime law.
Parent
Re:Can't do that (Score:4, Funny)
Damned if you don't, damned if you do. In Hell or in Abyss, in D&D cosmology...
I'll take Hell, please. Few enough separate planes of existence to count on both hands so it's easier to find the truly valuable treasures, and the denizens (devils or whatever the fsck they were called in 2nd edition) are Lawful evil and thus easier to bargain with.
Hm, wait, I'm getting the feeling I am missing your point somehow...
Parent
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Interesting)
She was not convicted of harassment. If she had been convicted of harassment, there would be no issue with the decision. But, she was convicted of illegally accessing a computer.
If you don't have a valid ID that states your real name as ChromeAeonium, you are also 'illegally accessing a computer' and could be in the same boat as Lori Drew.
Parent
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really, because slashdot's terms and conditions don't require that you use your real name when creating an account or signing posts.
Parent
Re:Time to start a fund for Lori Drew (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the law inadequate in this case? I don't think so. While what Lori Drew did was despicable and wrong, I don't believe it is right to make all despicable and wrong things illegal. Laws should arbitrate instances where one person violates the rights of another. Nothing in this case shows how Lori Drew violated Megan Meier's rights.
Parent
Names will never hurt me.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for the rule of law making it so the weak and the strong have equal standing in society.. but crying to the courts because someone called your daughter a name and she killed herself is just bullshit. It's just like all this sensitivity shit in the workplace and the restrictions on speech at colleges now. Grow a spine.
Re:Names will never hurt me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't entirely disagree, but this was more than a calling someone a name. This was a long and thought out harassment on a minor that resulted in the minor's death. Bit of a difference.
Parent
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
A 49yo woman subjects a 13yo neighbor to humiliation and emotional torment. Why wasn't this prosecuted as a case of felony child abuse?
Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)
For child abuse charges to apply, the adult has to be in direct contact with the child. I'm not too sure on the specifics, but it doesn't sound like Lori Drew ever really came into direct contact with Megan Meier. It seems that all of their interaction was over the Internet.
Parent
PJ does have her moments (Score:5, Insightful)
I value PJs contributions to the open source movement, in terms of her legal coverage, but she does have a tendency to go off the deep end sometimes, and I think this is one of those occasions.
The internet has no privacy whatsoever, everything you do can be tracked. This has been true since day one when they turned on ArpaNet, and it will continue to be true. Even if you encrypt your traffic, it can't hide heavy usage, and you cannot hide from your ISP when you are online any more then you can hide making a phonecall from your telecom provider.
People need to realise this and move on. I realise it, and I can cope, but then I never was inclined to tinhattery.
Re:PJ does have her moments (Score:4, Informative)
The internet has no privacy whatsoever, everything you do can be tracked. This has been true since day one when they turned on ArpaNet, and it will continue to be true.
To hear that from someone on slashdot just makes me laugh. There's a million ways to be anonymous from open WiFi (even the retards should have that one figured out) to misconfigured proxies, mixmaster networks, freenet, TOR, JAP and a host of other possibilities for anyone that wants real anonymity.
Even if you encrypt your traffic, it can't hide heavy usage, and you cannot hide from your ISP when you are online any more then you can hide making a phonecall from your telecom provider.
Between my encrypted bittorrent connections which run 24/7, they certainly couldn't by volume alone and all it'd take would be a way to piggy-back over a similar connection to run normal internet services.
Of course, it won't do you any good when you got your whole life on a semi-public blog/facebook/myspace page anyway, but that's not a technical problem...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been more of a social/news site ever since they added the politics section. I think the definition of 'nerd' has expanded somewhat as well... you certainly don't see as many tech savvy folks here as you used to.
Re:PJ does have her moments (Score:4, Insightful)
Security isn't magic fairy dust you sprinkle on your computer.
Parent
Two things. (Score:4, Insightful)
First off; you know damned well and good that this will be overturned on appeal. It can't be allowed to stand because the interpretation is skewed to begin with. Secondly; This article reads as a scare tactic to shut down the Internet. Come on; get real.
This lady is bad. But there are way to many others of like kind out there and to tie this all together like that is just crappy thinking and reasoning. The kid did have emotional issues that were an underlying complicit part of this formula. Now lets all come back to earth.
blog posts by one of her lawyers (Score:5, Informative)
Orin Kerr, one of Lori Drew's attorneys, is a regular blogger at the libertarian legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.
http://volokh.com/ [volokh.com]
He has a summary here:
"What does the Lori Drew Verdict Mean?"
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_23-2008_11_29.shtml#1227728513 [volokh.com]
and has updated the blog's terms of use:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_23-2008_11_29.shtml#1227896387 [volokh.com]
Re:blog posts by one of her lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
See "reductio ad absurdum".
Parent
Bad facts make bad law (Score:4, Interesting)
As for serverco retroactively ruling conduct "unauthorized", there's a panoply of affirmative defenses such as invitation, habitual tolerence, failure to notify, discriminatory enforcement. Cyberbullying wouldn't have those available.
Lori Drew is guilty.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the thing she's guilty of wasn't actually illegal when she did it. It was immoral, indefensible, and even if she gets off on these charges(which she probably will) she's going to be punished for the rest of her life and she deserves it.
She, as an adult who should have known better, created a false identity to harrass a minor, and that minor commited suicide, at least partially as a result. She set out to hurt that little girl, and the fact that this kid was mentally ill does not excuse that.
As in all cases like this, the government had to show both the victim's family and society at large that they'd go after this sort of thing. The case will probably be overturned because the case they could put together was pretty tenuous(because there wasn't a crime for what she did), but they've shown people that they're serious about this shit.
The crime they've charged her with may not be the one she's guilty of, but she's still guilty, and she deserves everything that's coming to her and more. She's an adult, she should have known better.
Re:Lori Drew is guilty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does she deserve the punishment headed her way?
Yes, I believe she does.
But if the law does not recognize the act as a crime, then they should not be punished under the law.
Those who would pursue charges against her have two real options.
The first option, and the ideal one, is to find a law that more clearly criminalizes her conduct.
The second option would be to push for new laws to be made to cover future offenders. While this would leave Lori Drew unpunished, that is a necesary price for a nation where the rule of law is applied fairly and impartially. It may also be appropriate to pursue this along with option 1, to strengthen the applicable laws that did exist.
Stretching the law they used this far sets a dangerous precedent and spits in the face of the rule of law.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, but there was no need for this.
She should have been sued for wrongful death. She would have spent the rest of her life paying whatever she makes to the family of that little girl and the rest of us wouldn't have had our rights trampled in the process.
LK
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? She pretended to be an "internet boyfriend" and then told the girl she didn't want to talk to her anymore. She didn't put rat poison in her coffee. No-one is responsible for the death of a person who commits suicide, except the person who commits suicide. Oh, no, life is too hard. A boy I've never met (and didn't even really exist) doesn't like me anymore, where's the sleeping pills?
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, had this been a man talking to a 13-year old girl and pretending to be her boyfriend......
"Have a seat over here"
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
So? A normal, well adjusted person will immediately disregard such a statement to be false. The fact that the suicide victim was not a normal well adjusted person is not the fault of Lori Drew.
Depression is a disease. It is not the "fault" of any one person or circumstance. Blaming Lori Drew for the victim's depression would be like blaming McDonald's for heart attacks caused by fatty foods. Sure, McDonald's bears some responsibility for serving such fare, and likewise, Lori Drew bears some responsibility for her words. But does the level of responsibility rise to a criminal level? I don't think so. Just like one has the ability to choose what one eats, one also has the ability to choose what words one listens to. The fact that the victim chose to listen to her is no fault of Lori Drew's.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) People are not blaming Lori Drew for the depression in the young girl.
2) Inflicting this sort of mental anguish to someone who is clinically depressed is like feeding sugary treats by the bucket to someone with diabetes or lighting up cigarettes for someone with lung cancer.
Drew should have been put before a judge - I totally agree with that. Doing it for computer fraud is the wrong charges. If they didn't stick, she would be off scott free. If they do stick they open up the nasties can of worms on the rest of us just to punish this woman.
The fact that the victim chose to listen to her is no fault of Lori Drew's.
That's pretty close to saying that cigarette companies have nothing to do with smokers dying of cancers and other smoking related illness.
Again, my view is that the entire thing is a tragedy, one that wouldn't have happened had people not been so mean/stupid/whatever but charging them with computer fraud is not the right way to go about righting the wrongs that they did.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty close to saying that cigarette companies have nothing to do with smokers dying of cancers and other smoking related illness.
They don't.
Neither do alcohol companies have anything to do with alcohol related deaths.
Neither do car companies have anything to do with driving related deaths.
Neither do skiing companies have anything to do with skiing deaths.
What is so fucking hard to understand here? Everything has risk, if you choose to engage in an activity then it is your choice and you are responsible.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, tobacco companies have been held responsible for cancer deaths because they deliberately withheld knowledge that their product caused that disease, and point-blank lied about it (to the courts and to the public.) Might have been different if they'd been open and honest about their products' effects. Now, to my way of thinking smoke inhalation is a bad idea anyway, but whatever. People fell for it, are still falling for it.
But in general, I agree. Look at our recent history: everything has been about shifting responsibility (and blame) for our own actions onto other people or organizations. Hot coffee spills in your lap
Makes me sick. Not the America I grew up in, or thought I grew up in.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Driving is fun.
Skiing is fun.
Alcohol is a whole hell of a lot of fun.
Cigarettes are also fun, just ask a teenager.
Your problem is that freedom and personal responsibility scares you.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Alcohol and cigarettes have no function apart from bodily harm. People who sell these things are selling bodily harm.
Don't be silly. Of course they have functions apart from bodily harm. Nobody drinks to hurt themselves, they drink because it feels good, because it releases inhibitions, because it helps them sleep, whatever. People smoke because it makes them feel better, gives them something to fiddle with, etc.
Yes, people who sell those things are selling bodily harm. So are motorcycle manufacturers, fast food joints, and the company that makes B-1 bombers. Only the last of those items is specifically intended to cause bodily harm.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Guilty of what exactly?
You and I are not bound by any particular relationship here. So if I tell you it would be a good idea for you to kill a puppy, and then you go kill a puppy, for what am I to be held accountable? I didn't help you kill the puppy. I didn't make any decision for you. You should know that killing puppies is inherently harmful. That leaves us with the crime of hurting someone else's feelings.
That's the crime that has been committed here. Emotional abuse, not murder.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose I purposefully throw a baseball at your head, hard enough to sting a normal person, but not hard enough to cause serious damage.
You happen to have an unusually thin skull, and die. It's not my fault you have a thin skull, so would you say I'm not responsible for your death?
What if I know you have a thin skull? Does that change anything?
Drew is not being blamed for the victim's depression. She is being blamed for taking actions that used that depression to kill the victim. Just like the hypothetical with my baseball and your thin skull, I would not be blamed for your thin skull--I would be blamed for throwing the baseball that killed you.
If you go around chucking baseballs at people's heads, you run the risk of running into someone with a thin skull, and then you have to pay the price. I don't see why tormenting teenage girls online should be any different. Drew wanted to harm the girl, and she happened to cause more harm then she may have intended. Too bad for Drew--that's the gamble she took, and she lost.
(The law will take into account the likelihood of a thin skull in the baseball example, so if thin skulls are so rare that a reasonable person would not consider them a possibility when deciding whether to go around chucking baseballs at people, then you might not face liability for the death. But depressed teenage girls aren't that rare, so that defense won't fly here).
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me guess, you're a lawyer. You quoted almost word for word the 'eggshell-skull' doctrine.
That is, "You must take your victims as you find them". The fact that a regular person would not have been affected in such a way is no excuse.
I agree with you, entirely. An excellent comment.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:4, Informative)
The doctrine of the thin-skulled plaintiff only applies to damages. It cannot create liability for an act that is not a tort to begin with. So yeah, if you bean someone with a baseball and they die because they had a thin skull, you're liable for wrongful death. But if you accidentally bump into them in the subway and they die because they're especially fragile, you're not liable because your actions didn't constitute a tort to begin with.
Parent
Everyone ignores the most important thing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you a doctor? Because as far as I know depression is exactly the disease where one is unable to choose to be happy and ignore the bad things that happen to everybody.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Informative)
Check out the Wikipedia Page [wikipedia.org] for the whole case.
last message sent by Evans read: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." Investigators did not find a record of this message.
It was NOT Lori who sent this message. It was Evans. In fact, if you do some quick Googling, you can find that it was in fact Evans who sent most of the messages! Sure Lori knew about all the messages and laughed, but she was not the one who sent them. It's because the stupid knob gobs who gave Evans immunity for testifying that Lori is getting prosecuted right now. They have to prosecute SOMEONE - the easiest and closest person to get anything to stick to was Lori.
Also, everyone is forgetting that Megan killed herself DIRECTLY after having a argument with her mother about profane language used on MySpace messages to "Josh". The mother scolded her emotionally unstable daughter and sent her to her room, where she proceeded to hang herself. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page:
Other troubling messages were sent; some of Megan's messages were shared with others; and bulletins were posted about her.[4] After telling her mother, Christina "Tina" Meier, about the increasing number of hurtful messages, the two got into an argument over the vulgar language Megan used in response to the messages and the fact that she did not log off when her mother told her to.[4] After the argument, Meier ran upstairs to her room. She was found twenty minutes later, hanging by the neck in a closet.
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Informative)
"Josh Evans" was the 'fictitious person' like you stated.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You just hit the nail on the head. What if Lori Drew was the guy she pretended to be. Would that make it better? Would he be on trial? Lets think this through. This girl thought she was talking to a boy (mistake #1) and believed what this internet person said (mistake #2) then acted on that information (mistake #3) to her own detriment. Three strikes and you're out as they say. I have sympathy for her family, I'm not cruel, but I am realistic. If you want to believe everything you hear, your life won't last
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been suggested (if not 'found') that emotional/social bullying is far far worse that physical bulling. The effects are felt more keenly and last far longer than if you're punched and kicked.
Parent
Re:lori drew is an outlier, she sets no precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Alarmist bullshit - and not the first time, eit (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing. This ruling says that violating the ToS on a website is in itself a federal crime.
The idea is that there is a law saying that "unauthorized access to a computer" is considered hacking and is federal crime. Because Lori Drew violated the Terms of Service, her access to myspace's servers were unauthorized, therefore, she gets convicted of computer hacking.
That's the only thing she was actually convicted of: Violating Myspace's Terms of Service. As various articles have pointed out, treating a terms of service violation as a federal offense is absurd. If someone under 18 does a google search (google's ToS says you need to be 18), do they deserve to spend a year in jail? According to this ruling, they violated the Terms of Service, and that alone is computer abuse, and they're guilty.
Parent