The woman who helped her child create a fake MySpace account to harass a girl who later committed suicide was convicted of misdemeanors.
Lori Drew was found guilty of three counts of accessing a computer without authorization. Each count is punishable by up to a year in jail. She was not found guilty of the felony charge of accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress.
Prosecutors said Drew, her daughter and Drew's business assistant set up an account of a fictitious boy so they could tease 13 year-old Megan Meier.
Meier committed suicide after she received a message that said the world would be better off without her.
Among other things, Drew was charged with conspiring to violate the fine print in MySpace's terms-of-service agreement, which prohibits the use of phony names and harassment of other MySpace members.
"The rules are fairly simple," federal prosecutor Mark Krause said. "You don't lie. You don't pretend to be someone else. You don't use the site to harass others. They harassed Megan Meier."
Krause, you're going to prosecute everyone you can find, who has done that, right? Or is this just a law for when you've already chosen someone and can't find anything else to charge 'em with?
You can get a year in jail for accessing a computer without authorization.
They're hanging the case (pun not intended) on a violation of the MySpace boilerplate Terms of Service and acting like it's fraudulent computer access.
What seems more logical to me is applying existing harassment laws. If the fake boyfriend and fake "the world would be better off without you" messages came over the telephone, that sure sounds like actionable harassment to me.
Too bad you can't get a year in jail for being a shitty mother, which is really the root cause here. Dear Lori Drew: Participating in the harassment of your kids' "enemies" makes you a fucking lunatic.
when the letter of the law hasn't caught up to a shithead's behavior, a judge or jury will accept any theory at hand to pass down the ruling they want. Operating technically within the law won't always save you if you're being a shithead.
every time I got a cruel message I would be really dead right now.
and I'm sure there will be one.
