LOS ANGELES — A federal judge tentatively decided Thursday to dismiss the case against a Missouri woman who had been convicted of computer fraud stemming from an Internet hoax that prompted a teenage girl to commit suicide.
Lori Drew of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., was convicted in November of three misdemeanor counts of illegally accessing a protected computer.
The decision by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu will not become final until his written ruling is filed, probably next week. Wu said he was concerned that if Drew was found guilty of violating the terms of service in using My Space, anyone who violated the terms could be convicted of a crime.
The verdict was a blow to prosecutors who indicted Drew on what some called tenuous legal grounds after authorities in Missouri declined to file criminal charges. Drew was widely criticized after the 2006 death of eighth-grader Megan Meier, an acquaintance of Drew's daughter.
If we can't do anything else...and apparently, we can't...at least we should make sure that the name and face of Lori Drew is never forgotten--and synonymous with evil.
Prosecutors said Drew, her daughter and her 18-year-old employee used a fake profile of a teenage boy to flirt with Megan online via Beverly Hills-based MySpace. Megan hanged herself with a belt after getting a message, purportedly from the boy, telling her that "the world would be a better place without you."
At the May hearing, Wu grilled Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause at length about whether the government had prosecuted Drew under the appropriate laws when it asserted that violating MySpace's terms of service amounted to a crime.
It's times like this you just have to pray that Karma is real.
All along I've been saying--probably at least a few of you remember--this was the whole problem with the case against Drew that was built up:
Instead of focusing on the fact that a couple of "adults" harassed a 13-year old girl until she committed suicide, it got diverted into the trivial matter of their using MySpace to do it.
And now, these hollow imitations of human beings are going to escape justice on the grounds that nobody really reads the "terms of service," and everybody lies.
"Is a misdemeanor committed by the conduct which is done every single day by millions and millions of people?" Wu asked. "If these people do read (the terms of service) and still say they're 40 when they are 45, is that a misdemeanor?"
Krause argued that Drew's acts were criminal because she signed up for the fake account with the intention of harming Megan by humiliating her. Drew knew her acts were illegal and deleted the account shortly after Megan's death to cover up her crime, he contended.
It fucking breaks my heart, that's all. It really just fucking breaks my heart.
1 comment:
I read about that decision to and was outraged. We have had the internet in our lives long enough to dispense with some meaningless issue with 'terms of service'. Poll any 100 computer users and you will find virtually everyone is guilty of violating the terms of service in some way on some sites and that facts render them useless. If they actually meant anything then more people would be punished for violating them. Its akin to taking a bible verse about not wearing certain kinds of fibres and having god smite down anyone who wears blue jeans and a cotton t-shirt. It ludacrous. The meathod that bitch used to harass that girl is not the issue. Her intent was to cause this girl as much pain as possible and the girl died DIRECTLY as a result of the bitch's actions. It was stalking behavior and hazing behavior and she should have been charged with second degree murder at least. In fact I would reduce that charge to negligent homocide due to the mitigating factors that the meathod of harassment was the internet. Unfortunately the law have yet to catch up with the technology.
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