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From User: Rattle

Current Topic: Internet Civil Liberties

Former Justice Dept. Prosecutor Joins Defense in MySpace Suicide Case | Threat Level
Topic: Internet Civil Liberties 1:01 am EDT, Oct 22, 2008

A former federal prosecutor has decided to take on his ex-employer in defending a woman against charges that she violated federal laws in allegedly creating a MySpace account used to bully a teenage girl who committed suicide.

Orin Kerr, professor of law at George Washington University Law School, was a criminal trial attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the Department of Justice as well as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Kerr wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog that the government was essentially charging Drew with criminal trespassing on MySpace's server for allegedly providing false information to open a MySpace account under the false identity of a nonexistent teenage boy. Kerr said this essentially made it a federal crime to violate any online terms of service contract.

1. I'm sympathetic to Kerr's perspective on this... it would be better for everyone if TOS violations did not create criminal liability.

2. I think the DOJ is only prosecuting this because the mob demands it and I think they pulled this strategy out of a hat because its plausible enough to litigate but they intend to loose. If they intended to win they would have chosen something less radical to charge this woman with. Lets hope they don't accidentally win.

3. I agree with one of the comments in the attached thread... that if an adult man created a MySpace account posing as a teenage boy and made false romatic advances toward a teenage girl, and that girl committed suicide, that man would be prosecuted under some sort of sex crimes/child predation statute such as attempted child molestation with huge prison sentences and permanent sex offender registry associated with it. The fact that the exact same crime is treated in a completely different way because the perpetrator is a woman speaks to the absurdity of our political response to these issues on the whole.

4. I think people care about this case because the media has drawn attention to it, and I think the only reason the media cares is because it has something to do with the Internet, and plays on fears that parents have about what their children are doing on the Internet. Bullies drive people to suicide every day in the United States. Literally several times a day. This case is not exceptional.

5. Are bullies legally culpable if they drive someone to suicide? I'm not sure how I feel about that question as a policy matter, but my understanding is that as a legal matter in general they are not. I don't see why the internet should change that. The internet has absolutely nothing to do with it. The same rules ought to apply whether this woman sent emails to her victim or she sent letters through the mail.

6. If we think bullies ought to be culpable when their victims commit suicide, than we need new state laws across the board. That means letting this one go, no matter how incensed the pitch fork carrying mob is. No Ex-Post Facto laws!

Note that this is different from my earlier read on this. I don't think this falls into the definition of what the law means by fraud because Drew did not cause economic harm.

Former Justice Dept. Prosecutor Joins Defense in MySpace Suicide Case | Threat Level


Wired News: Open Internet, We Hardly Knew Ye
Topic: Internet Civil Liberties 8:29 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2005

The better world is one in which we don't need to seek permission or risk punishment to do cool stuff that makes the world a better place. In the early days of the internet, a lot of people felt that we'd found that better world. Thanks to the internet's open protocols, many of the most useful innovations, from the web to instant messaging to internet telephony, emerged without developers needing anyone's permission to run their cool new code.

But under a permission-only legal regime, the Katrinalist.net volunteers would have had to contact every site with listing data and ask for authorization to use the information first. With dozens of sites popping up in the days following the storm, getting permission would have taken a lot of time -- if the site owners could even be reached and convinced of the merit of the idea in the first place.

On the internet, having to ask permission first can kill the creation of a useful new tool.

The law should treat the internet as open by default -- a public resource rather than a gated community. This doesn't mean that we can't protect our networked computers or data with copyright law, passwords, firewalls or perhaps even terms-of-service agreements. But rather than asking whether a user obtained permission to access computers connected to the internet, the law should ask whether the owner did anything to prevent public access.

Jennifer Granick has an article on Wired talking about risks to the open Internet, using the situation surrounding KatrinaList.net as an example. According to a post on her blog, they have already received a cease and desist letter from one of the sites they are collecting information from.

Jennifer is going to be writing columns for Wired bi-weekly. She is one of the best cyberlaw people in the world, so I expect them to be good. Feel the good karma..

Wired News: Open Internet, We Hardly Knew Ye


Boing Boing: V-TV DAY: WE WON THE BROADCAST FLAG FIGHT!
Topic: Internet Civil Liberties 11:39 am EDT, May  7, 2005

] This morning, the DC Circuit of the US Court of Appeals
] struck down the loathsome Broadcast Flag, ruling that the
] FCC does not have the jurisdiction to regulate what
] people do with TV shows after they've received them.

Sweet!

Boing Boing: V-TV DAY: WE WON THE BROADCAST FLAG FIGHT!


TN Digital Freedom - Down With The TN Super-DMCA Bill
Topic: Internet Civil Liberties 7:57 pm EDT, Apr 24, 2003

] We are a group of Tennesseans who are dedicated to
] preserving your online freedoms. We are specifically
] trying to counteract the new "Super-DMCA" legislation
] proposed by the MPAA. In TN, this legislation has
] been proposed through two bills, namely SB213, and HB457.
]
] Our organization has taken shape very (very) quickly,
] and there is still a lot to be done. We need your help
] if we are going to be able to fight this successfully!

TN Digital Freedom - Down With The TN Super-DMCA Bill


 
 
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