A California jury began deliberating yesterday whether a cruel MySpace hoax perpetrated by 49-year-old Lori Drew was a criminal offense. Drew worked with her daughter and another girl to create a fictional character they passed off as real to another 13-year-old girl. After the character sent a message to Megan Meier saying “the world would be better off without you”, Meier killed herself.
There is no doubt that what Drew did was sick and depraved. It is beyond perverted for a 49-year-old allegedly “adult” woman to play this kind of game with a 13 year old girl and emotionally abuse her. Drew deserves nothing but contempt and scorn from everyone around her. Nonetheless, should she be potentially facing 20 years in prison for creating a fake MySpace profile?
(Read more after the leap)
The foundation of the case against Drew is that she illegally accessed computers, but she is not a computer hacker. She did not access another person’s account. She did violate the MySpace Terms of Service agreement in setting up a fake profile. Is that a criminal offense, or is it a breach of contract? MySpace certainly has the right to remove a profile in violation of the TOS, but should law enforcement be bringing criminal charges for a TOS violation?
The answer as no. As a person and as a “mother”, Drew is beneath contempt. But the dispute should be between her and MySpace, not her and the federal government. I am concerned that the emotionally charged atmosphere surrounding the tragic suicide of a 13-year-old girl will convince the jury to find Drew “guilty”. That would be an overzealous application of the law.
My other concern is that this does have implications for free speech. If the federal government can take a Terms of Service violation and make it into a criminal matter with the potential for two decades in prison, what will be the next activity that will be criminalized? How easy will it be for the government to engage in a politically-motivated prosecution of an annoying political opponent based on breach of contract with a website offering a free service? Political discourse on the internet can be at least as nasty as Drew’s fake profile, after all.
Again, what we have here is a Terms of Service violation. This is not a homicide case. This is not even a computer hacking case. It is a breach of contract that should be handled by termination of the service by the interactive content provider, not by prison time. Congress needs to revisit cybercrime laws and limit the scope of what is considered a crime so these kinds of prosecutions are prohibited in the future, and if Drew is convicted she should be immediately pardoned.
This post is also available at ConservaTibbs.
We need a lawyer input here, but it would seem to me that 1) if I talked someone into killing another person, I would be guilty of murder. 2) It was my impression that suicide is against the law in most places, so wouldn’t inciting someone to commit suicide be guilty of whatever that is?
Of course I would think that the girl’s family would have an incredibly good civil case against this woman.
Sad story. Not a lawyer, but the girl clearly had issues. Just in case it works though: The world would be a better place without democrats, child molesters, marion county gop leadership, cancer and Mondays.
IANAL, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but it seems like there’s a case for involuntary manslaughter at the very least. The girl’s death could be easily attributed to recklessness on the part of Lori Drew. Wiki sez
“Recklessness, or willful blindness, is defined as a wanton disregard for the known dangers of a particular situation. An instance of this would be a defendant throwing a brick off a bridge, into vehicular traffic below. There exists no intent to kill; consequently, a resulting death wouldn’t be considered murder. However, the conduct is probably reckless, sometimes used interchangeably with criminally negligent, which may subject the principal to prosecution for involuntary manslaughter: the individual was aware of the risk of injury to others and willfully disregarded it.
“In many jurisdictions, such as in California, if the unintentional conduct amounts to such gross negligence as to amount to a willful or depraved indifference to human life, the mens rea may be considered to constitute malice. In such a case, the charged offense may be murder, often characterized as second degree murder.”
But she is NOT being tried for murder or manslaughter. She is being tried for illegally accessing computers – basically for violating the MySpace.com Terms of Service agreement.
The comparison between a nasty private message on MySpace to throwing a brick off a bridge lacks credibility. No one forced Meier to hang herself. If you’re going to use that logic, a large portion of political discourse could be defined as recklessness that could lead to death.
Did she attempt to intentionally cause emotional harm? Yes. Is she responsible for Meier’s suicide? No.
Lori Drew is a contemptible, depraved individual. In order to explain what I really think of her, it would require a string of obscenities that would be completely inappropriate for this (or any other) website. But the government is overreaching by trying to put her in prison for what is – let’s be honest – a fairly minor breach of contract.
Suicide is legal in all 50 states. Lori Drew is NOT being prosecuted for Megan Meier’s death. She’s being prosecuted for fraud.
She did violate the MySpace Terms of Service agreement in setting up a fake profile. Is that a criminal offense, or is it a breach of contract?
This fraud is a criminal offense. Federal law 47 USC 1030 specifically makes it a crime to access a protected computer in excess of your authority.
And you can go to prison for 20 years for it. This isn’t really a matter at controversy. The law exists, it is regularly used, people are regularly convicted, and people regularly are sent to prison for such activities.
Oh, please. 20 years in prison for setting up a fake MySpace profile? Do you have any idea how radically authoritarian you sound?
I think she should rot in prison for a few years. A family is now without their daughter. You people don’t really understand that, do you? A little girl is DEAD because of what this woman said. Now mabye she still would have killed herself even if Drew hadn’t said anything, but how likley is that? Because of what she did a mother doesn’t get to see her daughter grow up, she doesn’t get to be a grandmother and she doesn’t have a daughter to confide in when she gets old. Now the girl doesn’t get to live her life. What would you feel if your son or daughter killed themselves and you figured out it was because some 46 yr. old woman told them the world would be better off without her? What would you feel if you went to go wake your daughter up one day and you found her dead? Her brains all over the wall, or her wrists slashed, or mabye she hung herself? Do you people have any idea what the family must be going through? Who cares what happens to Drew so long as she goes away for a long time. It’s really sad to see other human, who have feelings, acting like this…
So what is the answer? To live in a totalitarian state where all of our communications are monitored by a powerful central government? No one has denied that Drew is a despicable, depraved individual.
No one has denied that Megan Meier’s death was terribly tragic. The problem is that the government is overreaching and turning a TOS violation – something that would normally be punished by deleting the offending profile – into a felony deserving years of prison time.
MySpace is saturated with fake profiles. Are we going to send all of those people to prison?
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