In a perfect display of mob justice, federal prosecutors are going after Lori Drew for what she did to Megan Meier. This story exploded pretty quickly once state prosecutors announced that they couldn't find any state statutes to charge Drew with for the way that she manipulated 14 year old Megan Meier into a state which ultimately resulted in her killing herself. A terrible case, but as they say, hard cases make for bad law.
So now federal prosecutors are stepping in and charging Drew with violating federal anti-hacking laws because she gained "unauthorized access" to MySpace's services by violating the MySpace Terms of Service in order to inflict emotional distress. While it is a somewhat tortured definition of "unauthorized access," the sort of thinking at work here is damning in so many ways because it elevates breach of contract to the status of criminal offense. Here is a perfect example of how it could be used in other ways.
Take the case of Vilmar, the Right Wing Howler. His blog was shut down for some pretty nasty anti-Muslim commentary due to breaking his hosting service's contract. This all happened after CAIR singled him out and went after him and his hosting service. It would certainly not be hard to argue that a Muslim could feel emotional distress after reading an argument about killing all Muslim children, and then leverage this case's precedent to argue that that emotional distress coupled with the violation of the Terms of Service is sufficient to argue that federal law was violated.
Think of this as a potential backdoor into the first amendment.
It's hard to believe that Lori Drew cannot be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child abuse or something to that effect. However, the fact of the matter is that justice will not be done in this case through the means that are being sought by those who, come hell or high water, want to see Drew sent to prison at any cost.
Whether or not Drew goes to prison or not is not even relevant to the matter of justice. Drew and her family will probably never live this down. In that sense, she is like a typical sex offender. The moment that someone in any community she moves to gets a whiff of this case, her efforts to start over will be rendered moot. Given the severity of what she did, and the possibility, nay, probability, that she will be a social leper for the rest of her life, I think that is good enough.
So now federal prosecutors are stepping in and charging Drew with violating federal anti-hacking laws because she gained "unauthorized access" to MySpace's services by violating the MySpace Terms of Service in order to inflict emotional distress. While it is a somewhat tortured definition of "unauthorized access," the sort of thinking at work here is damning in so many ways because it elevates breach of contract to the status of criminal offense. Here is a perfect example of how it could be used in other ways.
Take the case of Vilmar, the Right Wing Howler. His blog was shut down for some pretty nasty anti-Muslim commentary due to breaking his hosting service's contract. This all happened after CAIR singled him out and went after him and his hosting service. It would certainly not be hard to argue that a Muslim could feel emotional distress after reading an argument about killing all Muslim children, and then leverage this case's precedent to argue that that emotional distress coupled with the violation of the Terms of Service is sufficient to argue that federal law was violated.
Think of this as a potential backdoor into the first amendment.
It's hard to believe that Lori Drew cannot be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child abuse or something to that effect. However, the fact of the matter is that justice will not be done in this case through the means that are being sought by those who, come hell or high water, want to see Drew sent to prison at any cost.
Whether or not Drew goes to prison or not is not even relevant to the matter of justice. Drew and her family will probably never live this down. In that sense, she is like a typical sex offender. The moment that someone in any community she moves to gets a whiff of this case, her efforts to start over will be rendered moot. Given the severity of what she did, and the possibility, nay, probability, that she will be a social leper for the rest of her life, I think that is good enough.
If the People knew about their right and their duty to nullify bad laws, I wouldn't be so concerned about prosecutors going after this gal like this.
But they don't; they let some schmuck in a black robe tell them what they can and cannot think. And on and on it goes.
Sharon R. Hoggard, a spokeswoman for Norfolk State, said that she could not comment at all on Aird’s case. But she did say this, generally, on the issues raised by Aird: “Something is wrong when you cannot impart your knowledge onto students. We are a university of opportunity, so we take students who are underprepared, but we have a history of whipping them into shape. That’s our niche.â€Â
She said it. About a "historically black university". Whipping them into shape. I take it she's looking for a new job now...
If she ends up looking for a new job, it'll probably be because her university has lost too many of its customers--err--students.