Lori Drew indicted

A Los Angeles federal grand jury has indicted a woman for her alleged role in a MySpace online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide.

Lori Drew of St Louis, Missouri was indicted on Thursday on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.

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Such a horrible story. It's good that someone is going to be punished, but the fact that any adult can be so hateful towards a child is just incomprehensible. Someone on another thread kept asking if we really needed to have so many of our citizens incarcerated in order to have a free society. In this case, I say yes.

That story made me sick. A cruel joke. Pfft. Some people just don't grow up.

This was a bad story all the way around

First, parents are supposed to help children deal with the real world. At some point, we forgot that sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Instead of looking at the child, and saying, sweetie, get over it. It doesn't mean anything.

No, this anal retentive mother instead set Meagan up, trying to get her to talk bad about her own daughter, which is beyond inexcusable. What bothers me about this current twist is that the Grand Jury in Los Angeles was the one which charged the woman in Missouri. That is excessive in my opinion.

The local authorities, state authorities, and even Federal Authorities in Missouri have looked at this, and decided that no crime was committed. Do I think that is nonsense? Yes. Do I think that Los Angeles overstepped? Yes.

While I'm outraged that there is apparently no way to punish this woman using existing laws, I'm also outraged that another Grand Jury, which is in and of itself a crock, fifteen hundred miles away, decided to prosecute.

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says we are entitled to a trial by jury of our peers. My peers are not located some fifteen hundred miles away. My peers are located at the very least in the same state in which the crime was committed in. The victim was in Missouri, the accused woman was located in Missouri, and the crime took place over a block, not two time zones. Using the claim that My Space is located in Los Angeles, which gives them jurisdiction is a crock of shit.

Where does that end? Let's say I send a letter to you in Washington State, and in it I say you are an oxygen thief, and with luck, you'll die before you infect the species with more of your ilk. Washington State looks at it and decides that it's not a threat. Georgia looks at it and decides it's not a threat, and I shouldn't be charged with a crime.

The Truck which carried the letter passed through twelve states getting to you. Does that mean each of those twelve states has jurisdiction over the matter too? Am I to be charged in Kansas, or Nebraska next? If I'm found innocent in Kansas, does Tennessee next charge me with a crime? This has serious implications, and while I detest the woman Lori Drew, I don't think she should be charged in Los Angeles just because the company who maintained the website is there. That's chicken shit slick tricks if there was ever such an example.

I wish Lori Drew was an adult instead of an overgrown teenager herself. She could have just told her daughter to grow up and get over it. I wish Meagan wasn't so obsessed with the opinions of others, she could have sent some smart ass comment back like this. "What amazes me is this. There were several million sperm in the shot that created you, and your's was the best of the bunch?" If that fails, whip out a ready Mother is so fat joke, and then move along.

I have no love for Lori Drew, and wish that the officials in Missouri had found something to charge her with. Since they didn't, that means there was no specific law on the books that fit this crime. I personally may believe that to be outrageous, but charging her from Los Angeles is just as wrong.

The charges were laid in Los Angeles because the servers for the site on which this occurred are in the LA jurisdiction so, technically, the crime happened in LA. That's why there were no charges laid in Missouri.

On a side note...

One of the indicements concerns contract breach. Drew opened a Myspace account with the sole intention of harassing someone. And in the EULA of Myspace it says that it's against the rules to use the account for that purpose. So she entered a legally binding agreement - with the clear, premeditated intention of breaking it.

Which is pretty much exactly what thousands of trolling alts on web boards do. Might be an interresting precedent...

Liar said:

So she entered a legally binding agreement - with the clear, premeditated intention of breaking it.

Which is pretty much exactly what thousands of trolling alts on web boards do. Might be an interresting precedent...

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I think it would be like copyright infringement for cover bands in night clubs. Everyone knows you're supposed to have permission to perform someone else's song for money, but it's never been prosecuted. This case is such a bizarre example that I think they can do this without opening a floodgate of similar prosecutions. Then again, this is the land of suing because your coffee is too hot, so who knows?

I've read the indictment

All of the charges are criminal violations of the terms of service. Now, the unauthorized access claim, which is three of the charges. Those would be as if we disagreed here in the message board. Then you go to my stories, which I'm inviting you to do with my sig line, and give me a vote of one on each and every story.

The claim that she use the My Space Server to get information, that is why people put the information on the page, so others will read it. If I put a sign in my front yard that says I write erotica, I can't blame the Baptist church down the street for reading it. If I put a page up with my name and address, real ones obviously, and that I regularly attend church here, I can't blame them for reading it can I?

Now, the one crime that she did commit and could be found guilty of is conspiracy. She could have been charged with that in Missouri. She did conspire to create the account, and she did conspire to trick the girl, and she did conspire to cover up her actions after Meagan died. Conspiracy, sure, I'll go along with that. The lame assed claim that Missouri couldn't indict her for that because the server for My Space was in California? Totally lame. The victim in the crime was not My Space, they were the tool. The victim was the girl Meagan. The person who perpetrated the crime didn't go to My space because they were outside of Missouri, but because it was a tool the girl accessed, which is part of the reason I don't have a my space page. I don't care to let people know anything about me. My friends and family, I have a phone, and email, I can talk to them at will without my space.

I still say the charged should have been filed in Missouri, and I think that this is going to be thrown out of court because of that. I should say I hope so. Because if it isn't, then we're all in a lot of trouble.

Let's say that my typing of this message bounces through some small town in Mississippi. This town passes an anti pornography law, and subpeona's the data record from that router. We all get charged for distributing pornography because it passed through that town in violation of the law. Yeah, we could fight it, and in ten years or so, after we're all ruined financially, we might even be victorious.

The idea behind the law is the local of the defendant, and the victim. Sometimes, the means of transmission is brought in. Wire fraud and mail fraud. Those charges are filed where the rest are.

I had trouble with the idea that Missouri couldn't find anything to charge Lori Drew with, but this is wrong. My space isn't the victim, it's the tool. It would be like charging me in detroit for destruction of property by driving my Chevrolet too fast, losing control on a corner, and sliding across your prize azaleas in Arkansas. Sure, Chevrolet is located in Detroit, and sure, there is a line in the owners manual that instructs me to always operate the vehicle carefully, and at a speed which allows me to maintain control. That doesn't mean Chevrolet was the victim because I was an ass. It just means that the local prosecutors were not doing their jobs right in your town.

I think it's going to be thrown out during the inevitable constitutional reviews through the various chains of the courts. I just don't like the idea of being charged clear across the nation. If it isn't, it's a dangerous new precedent, and I'm liable to have to change a few things myself. Obviously, my name isn't SavannahMann in real life. Does that mean I'm violating, criminally violating the law? Should Los Angeles charge me next? Give them this one, and they will be charging someone just like me, or you.

bogus charges

[greatly revised after reading the indictments]. i would modify the title, "bogus charges" to "questionable charges"

i'm afraid the charges are highly questionable. first of all, is there a violation of terms of service? has anyone else here done that? "obtain information" is mentioned. ever read another's profile?

second, the charge specifically is violating the TOS in furtherance of a tortious act (not a criminal one), namely infliction of emotional distress, etc. by means of interstate communication. while it has a surface plausibility, any sort of harassment in my space, e.g. posting insults, could result in the same charges.

third, the focus on 'conspiracy' is a danger sign indicating desperate prosecutors. why, because if there is an illegal end, and talk about it (why don't we kidnap X? great idea) , then *only legal acts* pursuant thereto (e.g. buying a rope to tie the kidnap victim), bring down the force of the law.

a more plausible charge would have been sexual abuse of a minor.

if there is a "tortious" [i.e. NOT criminal]act, then the procedure should be through civil means, arguably. have megan's parents sue Drew for 10,000,000 dollars and ruin her.


it may just be that no law covers the despicable act* (of inducing distress leading to suicide). it happens. and there are difficulties in drafting a new one, though in my opinion, "harassment", by internet, broadly defined, might do, modeled after the laws that apply to phone harassment.

---
*there are despicable acts that are not illegal: to woo someone with intent break off and break their heart, is an example. even leading to suicide.

see charges at. key excerpts below:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0515083drew1.html

[charge one]
14. Defendant DREW and co conspirators…knowingly conspired and agreed with each other intentionally to access a computer used in interstate and foreign commerce without authorization and in excess of authorized access and, by means of an interstate communication, obtain information from that computer to further a tortious act, namely intentional infliction of emotional distress, in violation of 18 U.S.C. ss 1030a (2) (C)

[charges two and three]
18. Defendant DREW, using a computer in O/Fallon Missouri intentionally accessed a computer used in interstate and foreign commerce… without authorization and in excess of authorized access and, by means of an interstate communication, obtain ed or caused to be obtained from that computer to further tortious acts, namely intentional infliction of emotional distress on MTM, in violation of 18 U.S.C. ss 1030a (2) (C)

I'll watch this case, but I suspect it will be a tough one for the prosecution to win with anything other than the most minor offenses. Should Lori be held responsible for the death? Maybe, but how do you prove she was the only factor?

SavannahMann said:

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says we are entitled to a trial by jury of our peers. My peers are not located some fifteen hundred miles away.

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Um, so you're saying that none of us are your peers? This is bullshit. By this logic, there can only be the most local of crimes prosecuted. By this logic you could say, "You can't try me in any other state that I commit a crime in because none of those folk are from my neighborhood!" Or for that matter, "You can't try me for any crime I commit in a city outside my own because there are no peers in that city."

Here, in fact, is what the 6th Amendment says:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."

Now the sticky part here is the question of where the crime was committed. No internet back in when this was written up. But the woman was on the internet. What if the mom had harassed a girl in Los Angeles? She's is Missouri, but the victim is in LA. So where DID the crime occur? The argument here would seem to be that it occurred in the virtual space where the server is located. Hence, it happened in LA (weird as that seems). The crime ultimately being against the server, not against the girl. The girl wasn't harassed outside her house in Missouri, she was harassed on line. If they don't make it that way, then anyone in any other state could do the same to anyone else and argue: "The crime didn't happen here."

Hm. Where is that jury by peers? Well, there have been discussions on what the 6th Amendment says and means. Here's what Wikapedia has to say:

"The Sixth Amendment extends the rule by requiring trials to occur in districts ascertained by statute. As the Supreme Court found in Beavers v. Henkel (1904), the place where the offense is charged to have occurred determines the trial's location. Where multiple districts are alleged to have been locations of the crime, any of them may be chosen for the trial. In cases of offenses not committed in any state (for example, offenses committed at sea), the place of trial may be determined by Congress."

So either the offense was in multiple places (LA and Missouri), or it was against the server (LA) or it should be determined by Congress. But either way, a "jury of peers" doesn't mean that, should this go to trial, this woman is entitled to a jury of people in Missouri. The argument is that the crime she's being accused of didn't happen there. Now if you or someone else wants to argue that it did, then that's a whole other kettle of fish, but trial by peers doesn't enter into it.

JennyShould Lori be held responsible for the death? Maybe, but how do you prove she was the only factor?

P: for a criminal charge, "only factor" would not be necessary in my lay opinion.

there is a class of cases known as 'thin skull.' IOW you whack a person on the head (assault) in a nasty way, but one that would NOT normally cause grave harm. BUT they have a thin skull, get brain hemorrhage, and die. i believe the charge, then, is not murder, but manslaughter. same idea if you are driving over the speed limit and hit a child who runs into the street; you are not the *only* cause of death; clearly the child is, in some sense, partly responsible and/or her parents.

megan's death was somewhat like a 'thin skull' death. she was unusually susceptible to emotional trauma after a NOT extraordinary event (though the manner of break up was callous).

a more difficult factor, however, is *predisposition to suicide*. this would be UNlike having a thin skull, perhaps. *suppose* megan was highly suicide prone and Drew did not know it?

NOTE: the charges do not specify death. this was smart: they say emotional distress was inflicted, and that seems clear. obviously the case is prosecuted because of the death, but strictly speaking Drew is NOT charge with bringing about the death of Megan. it's a bit like charging someone with 'reckless driving' after a death, without asserting in the charge, that a death was thereby caused.

This is a really bad way to go about it-- this woman is not being charged with bullying a kid, and that is her crime. This is the best they can do, since they desperately want to charge her with something-- and quite rightly, too.

Where was the crime committed

3113 said:

Um, so you're saying that none of us are your peers? This is bullshit. By this logic, there can only be the most local of crimes prosecuted. By this logic you could say, "You can't try me in any other state that I commit a crime in because none of those folk are from my neighborhood!" Or for that matter, "You can't try me for any crime I commit in a city outside my own because there are no peers in that city."

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Edited out a large portion of well thought out response

So either the offense was in multiple places (LA and Missouri), or it was against the server (LA) or it should be determined by Congress. But either way, a "jury of peers" doesn't mean that, should this go to trial, this woman is entitled to a jury of people in Missouri. The argument is that the crime she's being accused of didn't happen there. Now if you or someone else wants to argue that it did, then that's a whole other kettle of fish, but trial by peers doesn't enter into it.

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Greetings and I thank you for taking up the nuances of the point I was trying to make.

First, what was the crime? Violation of the Terms of Service? That is the crime? I thought it was the death of the girl Meagan. If the crime in question, or the act in question is that the girl died. Then the fact of the location is still in Missouri. Filing the charges in Los Angeles says that the server and My Space was the victim of the crime, not the girl. The only charge that has any hope in hell of sticking is the Conspiracy charge. Alone, I don't see much chance of it going the distance and resulting in a conviction.

Again, my space was the tool that got the result, intended or otherwise, of Megan's death. It was a horrible outcome, and showed that Lori Drew was less of an adult than I would hope anyone would be. If the prosecution in Los Angeles fails, does that mean that New Mexico files the next charge? The routers that presumably were used by the internet to get her typed words from Missouri to Los Angeles must have passed through New Mexico at some point.

Better yet. Let's imagine this for a moment. You post a story in which a reference is made to age play. This is a violation of the newly passed internet child porn act as even the imagery of underage sexual activity is prohibited. In Berkley California, where you reside, the jury might feel that this was done to further the story, and is protected first amendment speech. In Alabama, where the internet hosting company and servers are maintained, this would not be viewed so open minded.

Alabama charges you, and argues that it's the site of the crime, and thus has jurisdiction. A jury of your peers consisting of twelve good fundamentalist evangelical right wing nuts concludes that you are indeed a creator of smut, and smut which violates the above mentioned statute, and you're found guilty. Would that be fair? What really bothers me is it would allow the prosecutors to set up sham trials. Pick the part of the country in which you'll get the result you want, and install an overzealous prosecutor, and you're off and running now.

I think there was a crime, and the crime was committed in Missouri, where Lori Drew typed the messages that so upset Megan, and where Megan took her own life. These charges are such a stretch of the imagination that they defy logic. Not only where they are filed, but the claim that it's My Space that was the victim, so that's where the charges have to be filed.

If this case goes forward, and results in a conviction. I'm leaving the internet. Because some sham Grand Jury of easily outraged nuts will be spun up and filing charges because a router sits in their jurisdiction. We'll all end up in a Motel Six while we stand trial in Enterprise Alabama or some such damn thing. Like I said, this is just too much of a stretch, and I hope that the Notoriously Liberal juries in California agree with me. If they don't I'm willing to bet that courts will eventually see it my way. This was never the intent of the sixth Amendment, and it isn't justice. It's a sham.

If these crimes were committed, as alleged in the indictment. The words were typed in Missouri, to be read in Missouri, and the woman should have been charged, and I have to think there was some law she could have been charged with, in Missouri.

ok, but...

i understand that, where the 'net is involved, 'location of crime' is an issue, one that arises, e.g. with xxx material that might be written and disseminated from X, but end up being received at Y. (location is not a new issue, of course; it arose with mailed material and was easier to deal with).

HOWEVER, savannah et al: ASUMING that location was correct, what the heck do you charge Drew with? Missouri has apparently failed to act, i.e. its grand jury-- if one was called-- could not see a basis for charges.

ARE you simply saying, same charges, but filed in Missouri, and stating that the crime was committed in Missouri?

ADDED: Drew is charged with violating a federal law. This sort of approach has been used in civil rights cases: if Mississippi won't prosecute for murder [mississippi law] of a voting registration activist, the feds lay charges of 'violating the civil rights' of that activist [i.e., a federal law]. I'm not sure, however, if the charge are filed in the district of federal court that includes Mississippi.

What is worrying me is the location of crime issue.

Suppose I were to write an erotic story involving 16-year-olds? (Not for Literotica of course!)

If I posted it in the UK it would be legal as sex between consenting 16-year-olds is legal.

However if I put that story, via Yahoo UK, into a Yahoo Group based in Yahoo US, I could be committing an offence in US territory. Because of the one-sided extradition treaty between the US and the UK, if I was charged in a US court I, as a UK citizen, couldn't avoid extradition to the US even though I had never set foot on any US territory.

The US could theoretically claim that any material available to a US citizen resident in the US could be actionable in a US court so effectively the US's jurisdiction of the internet is worldwide. That may not worry US citizens, but what if Russia and China claimed the same? If you wrote anything defamatory about their rulers on the internet could they sue you in their courts? Could they go further and take the line the US does that it doesn't matter how a person appears on their territory US courts can try them?

Could Russian or Chinese snatch squads kidnap Literoticans and take them for trial back home? Or Iran do the same for impuning their Muslim principles?

Where does it stop?

Og

Missouri and the long distance charges

Missouri has more than one Federal Prosecutor there. The US Attorney's office in St. Louis did look at this, and determined that they couldn't charge Lori Drew. I think this is one of those really bad situations where we want justice, and will get it any way we can.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned. I've never really thought that the ends justified the means, but I'm open to it. I'd consider dipping bullets in pig fat if it would end the asinine terrorist attacks. What always bothers me is I automatically ask a question, what comes next. The future inevitably gets worse. We use the justification we whipped out yesterday, as a basis for another justification tomorrow. There has to be a line, a squick line if you will, where we won't cross.

If this doesn't cross that line, what does? Does Og's scenario of being charged in the US for something he wrote in the UK, which would be legal there? If that doesn't, then what does cross that line? Where do we say enough?

I regret Meagan's death. I wish she was alive. I wish there was something we could charge Lori Drew with. I'm surprised that Missouri didn't have an internet stalking statute that covers this, but supposedly they don't. I'm surprised that the hundreds of millions of pages of laws our legislature in Washington DC crank out every damn year didn't cover this with anything more than conspiracy.

It's weak, and it's wrong. If anything, it proves that the career politicians in Washington are too busy doing favors for each other and their contributors to bother doing anything for the dang voter.

This prosecution feels like it's ginned up, rigged to satisfy the public, and not do anything for true justice. Conspiracy works a lot better when you have another crime to go with it. When it's your biggest and most important charge, you've got a hell of a mountain to climb to win that case.

SavannahMann said:

First, what was the crime? Violation of the Terms of Service? That is the crime? I thought it was the death of the girl Meagan. If the crime in question, or the act in question is that the girl died. Then the fact of the location is still in Missouri. Filing the charges in Los Angeles says that the server and My Space was the victim of the crime, not the girl. The only charge that has any hope in hell of sticking is the Conspiracy charge. Alone, I don't see much chance of it going the distance and resulting in a conviction.

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Maybe not, but that is the crime. They're not filing charges of murder or manslaughter. So, no, the victim was not a girl Missouri. The victim was MySpace in LA which says that Lori Drew used them to do things they didn't want to be used for--and were in violation of the contract she made with them.

Will it stick? Will it go to trial? Who knows? But they have a case and they can file charges. Just like if you have a contract with some company in some other state that company can charge you of violation of contract even if you committed those violations in your state. I don't see why you find this frightening or confusing. There's a contract. She violated it. She also was in a conspiracy to do harm. The results of that harm are immaterial. She was involved in it. They can file suit.

If the prosecution in Los Angeles fails, does that mean that New Mexico files the next charge? The routers that presumably were used by the internet to get her typed words from Missouri to Los Angeles must have passed through New Mexico at some point.

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This is rather like saying that someone using a company of trucks to ship mail plotting murder will be charged with a crime by every state the trucks went through. I don't think the states are going to waste tax payer dollars or their DA's time on that. The trucking company is charging this person with violating an agreement--an agreement not to use them for something like this. End of story.

Alabama charges you, and argues that it's the site of the crime, and thus has jurisdiction. A jury of your peers consisting of twelve good fundamentalist evangelical right wing nuts concludes that you are indeed a creator of smut, and smut which violates the above mentioned statute, and you're found guilty. Would that be fair?

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So if a Fundamentalist in Alabama uses the internet to destroy the life of an doctor at an abortion clinic in Berkley, the trail should be in Alabama where the fundamentalist's peers will let her off? Your logic is fucked up here. You seem to want a "jury of peers" to be a jury that will agree with the person who committed the crime and let them off. Bias in a jury will happen and it will happen often because of local biases--and the 6th amendment does address the issue of making sure there are as few biases as possible on ANY jury anywhere--but at this point, you're simply saying that jury trials can't be trusted, period. That's all you're arguing.

A jury is supposed to weigh the evidence and see if the crime has been committed. DID this hypothetical sex story of yours violate the law as written? If the jury system works at all, then people on the jury, whether in Alabama or Berkley, should judge according to the law, not according to their own personal likes/dislikes. That means even if the Berkley people feel that the sex-between-minors was important to the story, if it violated the law as written the author is guility. And even if the Alabama people hate the smut, they will still vote the person innocent if the story did not violate the law as written. If you don't believe a jury, any jury in any city can do this, fine. Then trial by jury is a crock.

But, again, that has nothing to do with the whether this woman violated the contract and used MySpace to commit conspiracy and therefore can be charged and go to trail in LA. for it. It isn't like she was put on trail in Missouri, found innocent by a jury of her bias peers, and so LA filed suit in hopes of putting her in front of a jury bias in the other direction so she can pay for this crime. If you're going to argue that she should only be charged with the girl's murder and that's the only crime, argue that. But this hyperbolic fear of theoretical juries in other states makes no sense at all and has no relevancy that I can see to the argument in any way.

I think we've got a difference of terms going on.

To file suit, in the United States means that you're being sued. The only thing you can lose is money in that case. You can't lose your freedom, nor can you lose your property. Normally, when someone breaks a contract, or violates a term of service, that person is sued, not charged criminally. That's another first in this case, the criminal violation of the terms of service, or agreement.

A criminal charge is one where you can be in risk of losing life, or be sentenced to jail and or prison. The "victim" My Space, if they were honestly the victim, would have filed suit.

The rule on interstate suit? Guess what it is, go ahead. I know you can. That's right, the suit is filed where the defendant is in the case of interstate business, or communications breach of contract. That would be Missouri.

This is such a huge stretch on so many levels, it's a whole new style of prosecution. One I'm loath to embrace, and I hope gets' tossed out.

Sue me all day long. The most you can do is win money. Unless I refuse to pay, I can't go to jail. If I file bankruptcy, then you'll get your money, and I'll pay everything to the court first, and they'll pay you after they take their cut.

My Space isn't suing for breach of contract, or violation of the TOS. I doubt they're even the ones who suggest to LA that they press charges. Normally when you violate the TOS, your account is deleted, which is another of the complaints in the conspiracy charge from LA. Apparently, if I violate the TOS now, I can't have my account deleted, or we may be destroying evidence against me for the criminal violation of the TOS. I wonder what's next? Debtors Prison? I'm sure that Master Card would love that idea.

SavannahMann said:

Perhaps I'm old fashioned. I've never really thought that the ends justified the means, but I'm open to it. I'd consider dipping bullets in pig fat if it would end the asinine terrorist attacks. What always bothers me is I automatically ask a question, what comes next. The future inevitably gets worse. We use the justification we whipped out yesterday, as a basis for another justification tomorrow. There has to be a line, a squick line if you will, where we won't cross.

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I don't believe it has been crossed. Look. If someone uses you, your name, your home, something to do with you, without your knowledge or consent, to commit a horrible crime, it doesn't matter if they're brought to justice for that horrible crime or get off scott free. Your *honor,* your good name, your peace of mind, your company has been violated, besmurched, possibly ruined. Why is that NOT a crime? Why shouldn't you be able to say to the criminal, "You may have gotten away with this shit, but you're not getting away with ruining my house"?

Is this an "end justifies the means" scenario? Undoubtedly. But that doesn't mean this woman did not commit a crime against MySpace. Or that MySpace should just let it slide. Do you really believe they should say, "Sure, go ahead, use us to do these things to people. We won't come after you if you do. We'll turn a blind eye to it all...."

This is what you seem to be arguing. Why? Because you're scared they're going to start policing the internet and come after you for porn. Hey, maybe they will. It's a fucked up world. But deliberately and maliciously hounding a teenaged girl to death is not quite the same as writing porn. Not yet. Thinking "what comes next" is a quick way to paralyze yourself and everyone else and end up doing nothing. How about this "what comes next?"--Lori Drew gets off scott free, and so a dozen other Lori Drews hound other teenagers to suicide, because no one convinced them that there would be consequences for doing such a thing.

Do you prefer that "what's next?" If we're going to base our decisions on imagined futures and maybes instead of facts (like she either violated the contract or not), then we might as well imagine that future as compared to your future of porn writers from around the U.S. in Alabama jails.

SavannahMann said:

The rule on interstate suit? Guess what it is, go ahead. I know you can. That's right, the suit is filed where the defendant is in the case of interstate business, or communications breach of contract. That would be Missouri.

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Excellent. Now we're talking FACTS not "maybes." Not imaginary juries with fundamentalists on them or imaginary porn stories that might or might not violate laws, etc.

Okay. Fine. Now, using the FACTS that you seem to know so well about U.S. law, do you think it will go to trial? Using the FACTS do you think if it goes to trail that she will be found guilty? Using the FACTS do you think this has a chance in HELL of leading to any of those imaginary dystopian scenarios you've dreamed up and which are making you sick to your stomach?

If no, then what are you going on about? If you're just angry that they tried this...shrug. Welcome to the world.

Why are you upset with me?

It's an unprecedented abuse of the Prosecutors Power. I didn't do it. It's not my fault. If I had been on the Grand Jury, unlikely considering my feelings towards that abuse, I would like to think I'd have been asking questions about the justification behind this.

This is a really shameful attempt to create law, or an interpretation of law. I asked the question before. If we don't object to this, were do we object to the practice? By the time we do object to it, won't it be a "understood and long held legal principal?"

We wanted to get our hands on a really bad guy, but he was hiding in a country where extradition didn't exist. So we kidnapped him and brought him forcibly to the US. He objected in court that he shouldn't be there, he was kidnapped illegally, and delivered to the court.

The court really wanted this guy, and it was big political deal, so they said. "Well, we don't care how you got here, you're here, and we're keeping you."

Was it that big of a leap from legalizing kidnapping, to legalizing Rendition? Rendition was justified under the same arguments as the kidnapping of people around the world for the courts.

I don't like Lori Drew. I'd like to see her arrested for Stalking, Reckless Endangerment, even Involuntary Manslaughter. I don't like the way Governments accept that doing the wrong thing, for the right reason, is acceptable, this time. This time comes up a lot more often after that.

Remember the PATRIOT Act. The National Security letters were only going to be used when there wasn't time for a warrant remember? So a few thousand times a year, there isn't time for a warrant? Just how many ticking time bomb scenarios are the Feds chasing down, and why haven't we heard of any of these? Don't tell me we have a Federal Government full of Jack Bauer type agents who are running amok. Yet, the FBI admits to using the National Security letters more than a thousand times a year. There are only 365 days in a year. So they're whipping out one of these letters more than three times a day? They quickly went from not enough time for a warrant, to not enough evidence for a warrant didn't they?

Don't tell me this new legal precedent won't be abused. The Government quickly abuses each new authority, and each new power given it. Allowing this one to stand will create a web of overlapping jurisdictions. New York has just passed a state law requiring you to collect New York Sales tax, even if you or your business don't reside in New York. If the buyer is in New York, then the business must collect and remit, the sales tax. The EU has had that requirement for a long time. Is it right? Should I have to collect and pay taxes to all fifty states and a dozen different countries?

I generally agree with SavannahMann's post above.

I don't like what Lori Drew did. However I like the legal principles being abused even less.

The case of General Pinochet of Chile was an example of "Universal Jurisdiction" but only for crimes against humanity such as genocide: Universal Jurisdiction.

The UK House of Lords (the highest court in the UK) agreed that Pinochet could be committed for trial. The Home Secretary overruled them on the grounds of Pinochet's ill health. Whether Pinochet was that ill is a moot point. The UK didn't want the mess that Pinochet's trial would have caused.

The US has used "legal kidnapping" and justified "Extraordinary Rendition". I prefer the UK system - Pinochet was given all the legal processes available to him, lost, and yet was still not tried in the UK. If he had been the UK would have had to defend the principle of Universal Jurisdiction. That might be feasible for genocide, but for anything less?

What were the precedents set at Nuremberg? That the winners decide what is legal? Had the Allies lost could they have been prosecuted for War Crimes at Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

In the long term the legal principles should be more important to US citizens than stretching the law to punish the horrible crime alleged to have been committed by Lori Drew.

Og

I'm with Ogg and savannahman on this one. What the trial is talking about has nothing to do with her real culpability, and it's truly unfortunate. It should give rise to some carefully thought-out (ahahahaha) laws about cyber-stalking and damages arising from such practices-- in the way that Matthew Shepard's brutal murder created laws against hate crimes and Amber's kidnapping and murder created a brand new alert system.

As for Lori Drew, her business is ruined. her family is seperated. her name and face are going to be recognisable for the rest of her life-- which may well be somewhat shortened, unless she goes into a protection program. That's a good start, as far as I'm concerned.

I had originally written a longer post, but I decided to summarise the salient point.

Al Capone was arrested and charged with tax evasion in 1931. There is absolutely nothing new about charging someone with something because the law is not amenable to charging them for what they really did that was wrong. This case, regardless of its merits or lack thereof, is by no stretch of the imagination an example of the decline in the standard of the application of US law.


And it still has nothing to do with the Sixth Amendment.