Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict 457
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.'"
Way too dangerous. (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. Get off the Internet. It's too dangerous. Everyone from AOL on - get the hell off.
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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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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That would work well for future cases, but because laws cannot be retroactive in the United States, it alone would not be sufficient to handle this case.
Perhaps harassment would be a better line of reasoning to pursue than this.
Re:That's not what I'm saying. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The purpose of the cyberbullying was to use Meganâ(TM)s e-mails with Josh Evans to later humiliate Megan in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Sarah Drew
What we see here is someone seeking their own kind of justice. It unfortunately resulted in the death of Megan.
For all those treating Lori as a murderer, probably aren't taking into account that wasn't her intention. If we punish her for being mean to another person, shouldn't we also look at punishing her mother as well, after all they had a huge fight right before Megan hung herself.
I'd say that was a large contributing factor as well.
What are laws, when justice is not spoken?
What are laws, when Justice is not spoken? Incomplete, Incorrect, or ou
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"Clearly unconscionable by wide societal consensus" is quite different than "clearly unconscionable to somebody".
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I do agree there. As the other person who replied to this said, harassment charges (followed by a new law to explicitly outlaw this brand of harassment) would have been a better way to handle it than getting her on something computer related.
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Agreed, although it would solve nothing that this case is about...
1) You couldn't prosecute Lori on a law that was not around when she did what she did.
2) Someone has to pay for the unnecessary suicide of a depressed teenager - considering it is apart of life.
Who's going to take the rap?
Not the loving mother who is was frustrated with an emotionally upset teenager not listening to her (go figure), regardless of the fact that the argument with her was the final straw.
You can't prosecute and entire society, t
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And if you don't punish someone who's found a loophole in law to commit murder (in the minds of the people at least), then you run the risk of people doing that by themselves. The more it happens, the less likely they are to even bother with the courts any more; they'll just hire a contract killer and be done with it.
Damned if you don't, damned if you do. In Hell or in Abyss, in D&D cosm
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...
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.
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.
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.
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I disagree, when the law is inadequate, it it time to change the law.
I agree with you. But your disagreement isn't with what the parent said.
Of course laws should be changed as the context of their application changes around them.
What shouldn't happen is judges twisting existing laws to punish people who did something morally wrong but legal. That's what the parent says.
If what Drew did was illegal under some reasonable interpretation of the law, the use the law she violated to punish her. Harassment law seems like a good place to start. If what Drew did was not illegal
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But (if I read TFA correctly) she was acquitted from contributing to someone's death; the federal crime she's getting nailed with is entirely about doing things on the internet.
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America is a country of Laws
You don't really believe that, do you?
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As far as free speech goes, it is not clear it applies. Facebook may be private property, but even if it is a commons, like a shopping mall, free speech still has limits. Do we not deny people the right of free speech in the mall to ask the patron passing by
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.
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Grow a spine.
{sigh} We Americans have them surgically removed in childhood, mainly because our parents had theirs removed, and their parents before them. The more people have something to lose, the less they're likely to defend their civil liberties. Doing so requires courage and the acceptance of risk ... and we're pretty damn risk-averse nowadays.
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.
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.
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...
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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.
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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.
It's funny that you mention JAP. Do you know that it was compromised [securityfocus.com] by law enforcement in 2003? And how about the poor sap that got busted for breaking into Palin's email. He used a proxy that stated [ctunnel.com]: "Because government subpenoa could require us to hand over our server access logs, access logs are regularly deleted to protect your privacy. In short, we value your browsing experience as well as your anonymity, and would not do anything to break your trust in us."
This guy gladly handed over the logs to t
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See, you already made one mistake there. Tor does not give you anonymity - only plausible deniability. By the way, did you miss the news story where CIA and German police run their own Tor honeypots to track connections? Freenet, well, it's a network on top of Internet, a big difference there. It's also too slow to be usable in practice. Proxies usually have logs, even if misconfigured. And so on. Don't worry, as soon as they can get a child porn charge against you, they will find you.
By the way, when "anon
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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]
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Re:blog posts by one of her lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
See "reductio ad absurdum".
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.
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So long as we're talking about fictional laws, I think "inciting suicide" would be the appropriate charge. In many states it is illegal to commit suicide, so inciting someone to do it is "inciting to commit a crime". Of course, these states are fucked and neither commit suicide, nor inciting someone to commit suicide, should be a crime (IMHO).
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ought to have been charged with "assisting suicide"
Uh, what? Any laws against assisting suicide refer to facilitating the act (i.e. Dr. Kevorkian [wikipedia.org]). Harassment, which the only thing this woman is guilty of, is illegal. Bending laws to try to "nail" her with something bigger is the whole problem we're discussing.
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If you tell me you want to commit suicide and ask where you can buy rope, and I not assisting suicide if I answer you? If you don't say why, then of course I have no proveable intent.
This isn't a question of overcharging, but rather making sure the guilty are punish
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Except the tormenting and suicide occurred in Missouri.
Speaking of that, yet another reason why this case is bullshit. You shouldn't be dragged to a federal court 2000 miles from where you live over a crime that occurred in your home.
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Of course, that'd be assuming a crime was committed. Since they had to stretch the law so badly just to charge her with something, I'm not convinced an actual crime occurred.
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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.
The crime Lori Drew was convicted of was "unauthorized access to a computer system to access information". Nothing about cyberbullying. (She was also charged with "intent to inflict emotional distress" but was acquitted by the jury).
The terms of service she broke were the one
The internet is ALREADY too dangerous for mOSt ... (Score:2)
That has been true for Windows users for as long as I can recall, albeit for different reasons :-)
I noted that it was a fishing expedition (Score:2)
and dangerous to all, I closed with "Lovely, whats next. If crap like this succeeds it opens everyone up to any fishing expedition law enforcement cares to make"
That is exactly what we have. A new way for GOVERNMENT to punish someone who a GOVERNMENT employee doesn't like or thinks something was wrong even if nothing is legally wrong.
Basically it lets them write the laws to prosecute on demand. The problem is that with every organization there are a lot of spiteful people around and this gives them too mu
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.
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I'm afraid for the future if many people think like you. Having the government start prosecuting people for arbitrary charges just because you've done something that is socially unacceptable sends chills down my spine.
Kinda brings back thoughts of the Salem Witch Trials, doesn't it?
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.
lori drew is an outlier, she sets no precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
ignorance of law leads to the interpretation that the lori drew case has far reaching implications. hysteria leads to the rest
and frankly, slashhordes, if this case is your waterloo, then you don't deserve any online rights, because this case, in its proper context that anyone with the faintest understanding of law understands, has absolutely nothing to do with your online rights
you defend your rights from genuine threats to it. only ignorance, stupidity, and hysteria considers the lori drew case a threat t
Re:lori drew is an outlier, she sets no precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Alarmist bullshit - and not the first time, either (Score:3, Insightful)
PJ and groklaw have done a lot of good, but somethimes she just doesn't "get it", and goes off the deep end. This is one of those times
FTFA:
Since when doe web sites have the authority to jail anyone?
They can, like anyone else, decide whether you've violated their TOS. If they decide you have, then they either cancel your account or, if you've been doing something blatantly illegal, they can bring it to the attention of the fuzz. Same as YOU are the final authority to decide whether someone has violated YOUR rights - if you believe so, you can't send them to jail - but you CAN make a complaint to the police.
Like the whole "we must move to GPLv3 or we are doomed!" and "Novell is bad today because they made a deal with Microsoft over linux patents" when they didn't. (And don't bring up mono - nobody gives a f*ck about mono).
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.
Re:Alarmist bullshit - and not the first time, eit (Score:3, Insightful)
Web sites and their owners can't jail anyone directly. But this ruling provides a way to turn TOS violations into criminal offenses, given nothing else but a police department willing to charge you and a jury willing to convict. Do something unpopular but otherwise legal and you could be targeted.
I'm sure Lori Drew could be charged and convicted with something related to what she actually did wrong. Maybe not -- and if not, then she ought to go free...
There are plenty of loopholes that authorities could
Tragic (Score:3, Insightful)
First, I think the girl was emotionally/mentally unstable to begin with. Most teenagers have emotional problems they have to work out, some more so than others.
Second, I think the people who's actions resulted in the suicide of the girl need to be punished..which is happening.
Depression is a REAL disease, and it isn't just being sad. Its where your entire worldview is skewed towards the negative. Like if your friend had to cancel some plans you had made, you might think that it was your fault or maybe they just didn't want to be around you. People think that its just being sad, but being sad is more like a number on a -10 to +10 chart of emotion, whereas depression would be like a chart of -20 to +5.
You can bet that if some people asked a retarded person to do something dangerous that resulted in the retarded person being injured or killed, people would be all over that one. They weren't in the mental capacity to see the consequences, just like the girl in this story wasn't in the emotional capacity to deal with the assholes that did this to her.
Had it been a boy really breaking up with her, no charges would have been pressed. But since the motive (revenge/humiliation) was established and intent to harm was also established, its time for them to pay the piper.
This is perfect. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hysterical overreaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, the fact is, if The Man wants to get you, The Man will get you. It doesn't matter what the laws are, exactly - they'll find something to hit you with.
That was true before the Lori Drew trial, and it's true now. The precedents set by this case in no way make being on the internet one bit more "risky". If you don't do anything to bring down the wrath of The Man, you'll be fine. And if you do, you're screwed, online or off.
Just a response to the 'old west' analogy (Score:3, Interesting)
"Do you actually want a world like that? In some ways, it's worse than lawlessness, worse than the old Wild West. Why worse? Because in the West in the old days, might made "right". That's clear enough, and you knew where you stood. Practice shooting, or move East where there were laws."
The reality was far different than the popular fiction. Studies have shown that a person was more likely to be killed in a criminal encounter in the large Eastern Cites than it the territories of the 'old west.' I understand that the analogy he was trying to make was based on the 'old west' of fiction and lore. However, the facts do not support the fiction.
The cold, American heart? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I know, the title is not fair to most Americans - it is meant as a provocation, of course.
But sadly it isn't far off the mark when it comes to the kind of responses I see on /. that are modded +5 "Insightful" or "Interesting". They seem to range from the dowright disgusting "Who fscking cares about some 13year old brat killing herself" to the rather lame "Lori Drew did something wrong, but 'free speech' is much more important" - and that is at the kind and warm-hearted end of the spectrum.
Freedom is important, oh yes. It is also mostly fictitious, at least in the absolute, quasi-religious sense people on /. seem to think. Everything, from quantum-mechanics up, should tell you that there is no such thing as complete, perfect indepedence; the only real freedom is sufficient freedom to live a worthy and fulfilling life at peace with your neighbors. With freedom comes responsibility, because with action comes consequences.
One can but wonder how it came to that in America, it is certainly not the prevailing viewpoint in the parts of Europe I know of. This is where people usually start pointing to History and Founding Fathers, but I just can't see what that has to do with anything; the freedom of speech should be seen in light of that time, as a reaction to specific oppression of political and religious dissent, and it is clear that it is about the right to practise your faith and express your political views; both of which make a lot of sense. But this idea about "freedom to do and say anything at all with no restrictions or consequences" is simply nonsense - to me it seems to have arisen in the 60es, a time when we also saw some talk about psychopathy as an ideal for mankind, exactly because psychopaths are so void of the moral inhibitions of normal society. Go and look it up if you don't believe me.
Far be it from me to dictate what Americans should think or believe, but before people start idolising what can in many ways be regarded as "the essence of evil", they would be well adviced to at least have thought it through.
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
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?
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"
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Actually I'm surprised that there isn't a simpler way to prosecute this, along the lines of "causing distress to a minor".
But where would one draw the line between "causing distress" and "physically reprimanding"? A simple spanking, while not looked down upon by the court, causes a child quite a bit of distress, hence the crying et al involved.
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intentional infliction of emotional distress is already a tort.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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But your actions have an effect on society. Who do you think has to pay for those police officers, firemen, and medical emergency responders, who are needed to clean up after all the drug overdoses, car accidents, and fire starters?
We are all connected. You can argue that the heroin dealer has no responsibility for the dead addict, or the crimes that they commit to feed the habit, but I doubt the families of the addict, or
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.
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.
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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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the days where people were like "gee, I don't know if cigarettes are bad for me" you could blame the tobacco companies for not doing enough to find out how dangerous their product is. But now, everyone knows that cigarettes cause cancer. The link is firmly established in the public's psyche. Yet people still smoke.
If you don't know by now that eating junk food is bad for you then you should listen to your mother more. It's called junk food for a reason.
Sky diving is dangerous. Skiers get broken
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).
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.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Yeah yeah... ;-). I'm more interested in the ethics of it than the law. To the extent that the notion of "you take your victim as you find him" makes any sense, Lori Drew can be reasonably held accountable for her actions.
The moral question should not be "if Lori Drew targeted a normal person, would they have died?" The fact is that she targeted an especially vulnerable person who died as a result.
Don't put a stumbling block in front of a blind person--just because a person with full sight could avoid
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, as the California Supreme Court ruled in 1855, in a case in which a drunk person fell into a hole in the sidewalk:
"A drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street as a sober one, and much more in need of it." Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co., 5 Cal. 460 (1855)
.
Everyone ignores the most important thing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that the victim chose to listen to her is no fault of Lori Drew's.
Drew's daughter and the victim had been friends. Drew knew the victim was clinically depressed. Drew did this because the victim said something "mean" about her daughter.
An adult knowingly harassed an unstable child.
Is that really okay with you? Do you really think that's acceptable behavior for an adult?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That was his point.
-:sigma.SB
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, mob justice solves loads of problems. It's quick and it's easy, too! Why don't we replace our judicial system with mob justice? Just get rid of this 'cruel and unusual' restriction, get rid of judges, lawyers, and replace blind justice with blind rage.
Sounds like a real winner, there.
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.
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What a tool... (Score:5, Informative)
"Josh Evans" was the 'fictitious person' like you stated.
Re: (Score:2)
No, that's not what she said, not at all...And even if she had it STILL wouldn't have made a difference. She is in no way responsible for the poor girls death.
The woman is a harpy no doubt, but this fucking case needs to be overturned post hast.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference between murder and manslaughter is intention, not action. Are you telling me that suddenly we should ignore this woman's intention to cause the death of another person? That's what her intention was, correct?
If I buy a vial of poison from someone but they give me harmless water yet I still try to carry out a plan to murder someone with the "poison", that is still attempted murder. Intentions have just as much to do with the law as actions.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's totally ignore the facts of the case and go with our fictional story here, cause I care more about the fiction than I do about the facts.
I should be free to instruct anyone to do anything, at all, so long as it isn't a crime. Suicide is not a crime, and should not be a crime. Therefore I should be free to instruct someone to commit suicide. Why? Cause you're a free person. You can decide whether or not you want to commit suicide and my instruction to do so is irrelevant to your decision to do so.
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)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Being punched or kicked is unlikely to leave you unscarred emotionally, either.
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh... wrong story. That's Julie Amero.
This story is about some chick who was a reverse trap, and fucked with some teenage girl's head online, and said teenage girl killed herself.