Who the fuck is Lori Drew?

[Sir Neil]

In the case of internet stuff, I can understand that - my sister is the victim of a cyber stalker and under California law (where she resides as a student), they can't call any of the harrassment illegal, thus there's no investigation into who's behind the threats, horrible eMails, and online impersonations.

I'm surprised that Alabama has a "harassing communications" law and California doesn't.

[Crissa]

Is there any more to it that I'm missing?

Apparently.

So, the girl went online with this friend and made false myspace accounts and stuff when they were twelve. They got in trouble, and the girl had her internet access yanked by parents.

Parents eventually relent, allow on internet years later (that's like forever for a teen). Neighbors, parents of friend who was in on, and got some of the splash of the girl's internet shenanigans make a false account. They use their resources as adults to falsify records and bully their children into supporting this false persona.

Then we get into the summer-long relationship the girl has with fake boy, who happens to be this adult parent of her 'friend'. The adult eventually pulls the plug on the relationship, calls the girl names, says the girl's friends told him she was horrible. The girl's friends corroborate this, as they're under the influence of this adult.

Now cut off from any contact except her parents, she makes a terrible decision.

So, this adult: Had a sexual (online) relationship with this girl. Convinced her to travel to meet them by subterfuge. Used their ability as an adult to coerce cooperation of other children and to falsify the identity.

Had a relationship with a child. That's abuse. Coerced children into harassing her - isn't that abuse of those children?

Like I said, had this happened over a phone or was the direct parent or over state lines, they'd be in jail.

-Crissa

PS; yes, CA has such laws, but the application is up to local enforcement, and unfortunately, if you don't know who it is in RL, they will not attempt to find out. Which really sucks. It means if you actually know the person - they were a business contact, for instance - they can get a restraining order based upon a few backscrolls of arguments. But if you don't know who it is, they won't touch it. Also, whether a website or business will participate is up to the business. They're protected by law, so far, which it should be to some degree.

[Cynic]

Everyday I hear this shit about it's just the internet.

yes, there's some reality to that.

But the interface of the tool has completely traversed all boundaries. We use it across business, entertainment, education, government, military, and fuck-reasons. The last is probably mostly through some strange new tech coming from the Soapland districts in Kyoto. Yes, I'm making a stereotype, shiver me timbers.

Seriously, when you have tools such as [ur=http://www.torproject.org/l]TOR[/url] and Google Chrome and the several hundred dozen net-anonymizers out there that are set up to provide insane levels of anonymity not for the sake of pr0n surf but for actual anonymity, you have to wonder if the issues of One's Identity, and any malfeasance connected to One's Identity are really that simple on the Internet.

I'm not trivializing a murder case on the street. I'm not asking for the trivialization of any other type of crime either. But the internet only becomes a tool for many of these crimes. it can be a stretch at times when one is trying to commit Murder in the First Degree. yes there was the case of that professor who had hooked himself up to the net and his class could read his body readings or something. But, that stretch has been accomplished in this situation.

I'm not calling Lori Drew's case a phenemonally weighted case compared to other Criminal cases out there. I don't have evidence to prove it is or it isn't.

From the story written off that one Wired.com page and from this post, I can draw up the implication that there could be a crime committed with the Internet as the interface.

Whether it is a valid crime or not, I don't know because I've read one rather long and as I've already mentioned, biased by being emotionally-loaded article to get me on this.

Let it get its day in court. That's all I can say.the same way as every other case of equal stature off the net and on the net should get its day in court.

[Orion]

You have to consider that the family came from, IIRC, a really small town. And the hoax was perpetrated by HER NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS.

Teh Break-up letter was also spectacularly nasty and virtually told her to kill herself.

Suicide is always a bad decision, but in this particular case we should remember that if she felt alone in the world, it's because she effectively was.

[Crissa]

Case goes to Superior Court.

They're trying to get away with things like, 'she couldn't have intentionally broken the rules - they're no evidence she read them!' and, 'they're not charging her with lesser crimes she did commit.'

Bah. Although, I'm glad that public opinion managed to get the state to move on this case, but wish it was not needed. Someone lying and abusing others is a crime against society and should be prosecuted. Breaking down the very lines of trust which need to operate for society to work.

-Crissa

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, I'll just go around breaking the laws and state that I wasn't intentionally robbing porn stores and kicking cops in the butt because I didn't know it was illegal. Let's see how that goes.

[Koumei]

Yeah, last I checked, ignorance was no defence.

It does seem stupid that in a case where there is obviously a guilty party and it is obvious that harm was done, they can't seem to find something to charge her for. Aside from the fact that, if they try hard enough, the police can always find something to charge you for, it seems stupid to imply that this woman committed no crime.

[Neeeek]

Yeah, last I checked, ignorance was no defence.

It does seem stupid that in a case where there is obviously a guilty party and it is obvious that harm was done, they can't seem to find something to charge her for. Aside from the fact that, if they try hard enough, the police can always find something to charge you for, it seems stupid to imply that this woman committed no crime.

Here's the thing: To be convicted of a crime, there must be a statute on the books that you violated. This isn't one of those nebulous legal things: If there isn't a law specifically against it, you can't face criminal charges.

However, this is a slam-dunk civil case. And an intentional tort. The intentional tort part matters because you can't get rid of that debt until you pay it or die (and they get to go after your estate when you die). Bankruptcy doesn't get rid of it. So if the parents sue her, she'll essentially be broke for the rest of her life.

[Crissa]

However, we have crimes on the books which are nebulous like, 'used equipment without permission,' and 'by your actions, harm befell someone as a direct result.' There's also the laws against abusing children - whether they're yours or someone else's.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

However, we have crimes on the books which are nebulous like, 'used equipment without permission,' and 'by your actions, harm befell someone as a direct result.' There's also the laws against abusing children - whether they're yours or someone else's.

Yeah, there's a ton of minor bullshit crimes. Many of them haven't been brought to trial in like forever, but they exist.

[Bigode]

Yeah, there's a ton of minor bullshit crimes. Many of them haven't been brought to trial in like forever, but they exist.

Yeah, abusing children's so very minor. I actually do think that crap shouldn't slip - I just don't think the girl would've gone very far either way ...

[RandomCasualty2]

Yeah, there's a ton of minor bullshit crimes. Many of them haven't been brought to trial in like forever, but they exist.

Yeah, abusing children's so very minor. I actually do think that crap shouldn't slip - I just don't think the girl would've gone very far either way ...

I didn't say that abusing children was minor. I just said that there were lots of bullshit crimes, agreeing with what Crissa was saying that the police can always find something to charge you with.

[Crissa]

I was just pissed that when it seems to matter, the police aren't so hot about finding something. Only when it matters to them... Not to us.

I get pissed when hate crimes and rape get glossed over, too.

-Crissa

[SphereOfFeetMan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/techn ... 751849.stm

An American woman, accused of driving a teenage girl to suicide by bullying her on MySpace, has been cleared of one of the most serious charges against her.

Lori Drew, 49, was found not guilty of accessing a computer without authorisation to inflict emotional distress.

The jury failed to reach a verdict on another conspiracy charge.

She was convicted on three minor counts of violating the website's terms and conditions.

Drew, from Missouri, was accused of posing as a boy on MySpace to befriend 13-year-old Megan Meier, who hanged herself after their virtual relationship ended.

The court in Los Angeles heard that Lori Drew was aware Megan suffered from depression and was emotionally fragile.

Drew was charged with violating MySpace's terms of use, which ban users from assuming false identities and harassing other members.

The case is the first in the US relating to cyber-bullying.

Lori Drew could receive up to three years in prison when she is sentenced.

She would have faced a maximum 20 years if convicted of the more serious felony charges.

So...we no longer punish people for breaking the law and committing harassment. Instead, we punish people for violating terms and conditions of large companies. Fantastic.

[Ice9]

Yeah, this kind of stupidity is why we have less rights by the minute.

Harrassment charges didn't stick? I know, let's make signing up to a website with a fake name a federal crime with huge penalties! Sure, we may be fucking things up for everyone who uses the internet, but it's more important that we punish this one person who nobody will remember in a few weeks! You know what? On a national scale, this legal precident is more destructive than Lori Drew could ever be, even if she made inciting suicide her full-time job.

It's the same thing as US vs Arnold - some dipshit tries to smuggle in child porn, and now border agents can search your laptop with no justification, just because they feel like it. Because of the immediate case blinding people to the large scale effects.

[RandomCasualty2]

So...we no longer punish people for breaking the law and committing harassment. Instead, we punish people for violating terms and conditions of large companies. Fantastic.

How is that even a crime?

I mean the company should be able to ban you from the site for breaking the terms and conditions, but how is it illegal to break their terms and conditions? I always thought breaking a contract was a civil matter, not a criminal one.

And also...

It's the same thing as US vs Arnold - some dipshit tries to smuggle in child porn, and now border agents can search your laptop with no justification, just because they feel like it. Because of the immediate case blinding people to the large scale effects.

Who the hell smuggles in child porn on a laptop? I mean, this is the internet we're talking about, you don't need to smuggle anything electronic, you can just send it like you'd send anything else.

[Crissa]

Actually, they've alway held the right to search papers and such; they just never did it as a matter of politeness and expediency.

...I don't understand what they're expecting to find, now that people can carry around the equivalent of a billion times more text and pictures than existed at the time the law was written, though.

-Crissa

[cthulhu]

Because now they can copy it and search it later, which is a different power. we now have to delete all sensative infomation and email it to ourselves if travelling to the US.

[Crissa]

They can copy and save that, too, Cthu, because it's data sent between foreign nodes of the relay system.

-Crissa