Cyber Criminal

In a highly unusual use of a federal law in which legal experts describe as “creative” and “aggressive,” a St. Louis, Missouri woman has been indicted in what may be the country’s first case of cyber-bullying. Federal prosecutors say Lori Drew, 49, and others created an account on the social networking site MySpace pretending to be a 16-year-old boy to fool her neighbor, 13-year-old Megan Meier.

According to prosecutors, Drew used the MySpace account to establish a relationship with Meier, acting for weeks to be a boy interested in forming a romantic relationship her. A short time later, Drew suddenly ended the relationship, taunting Meier and telling her the world would be better off without her. Consequently, a distraught Meier committed suicide by hanging herself.

Drew is Arrested and Charged with a Crime

The federal indictment, which was delivered in Los Angeles after state prosecutors in Missouri declined to bring charges, is unprecedented, and legal commentators believe it may seriously stretch the federal statute on which it was based. The indictment charged that in violation of MySpace terms of service, “Drew and co-conspirators knowingly and agreed with each other to intentionally access a computer … to further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotion distress.” According to the prosecution, Drew violated MySpace’s terms by using a fictitious name, among other things, and thus had no authority to access the MySpace service.

“This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” said United States Attorney Thomas O’Brien. “Any adult who uses the Internet or a social-gathering website to harass or bully another person, particularly a young girl, must realize their actions can have serious consequences.”

The Unprecedented Charges may Create a New Realm of Cases

The case presents a new wrinkle in the interpretation of federal law. Legal experts warned that such an interpretation could criminalize routine behavior on the internet. After all, people regularly create accounts or post information under aliases for many legitimate reasons, including avoiding spam and a desire to maintain their privacy online.

This new interpretation also gives a business contract the force of a law: violations of a web site’s terms of service could now lead to criminal sanctions, instead of just civil lawsuits or ejection from a site.

“I think the danger of applying a statute in this way is that it could have unintended consequences,” said John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor. “An application of a general statute like this might result in chilling a great deal of online speech and other freedom.” Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in St. Louis but the trial will be held in Los Angeles were MySpace is headquartered. If convicted of the charges, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.

In a highly unusual use of a federal law in which legal experts describe as “creative” and “aggressive,” a St. Louis, Missouri woman has been indicted in what may be the country’s first case of cyber-bullying. Federal prosecutors say Lori Drew, 49, and others created an account on the social networking site MySpace pretending to be a 16-year-old boy to fool her neighbor, 13-year-old Megan Meier.

According to prosecutors, Drew used the MySpace account to establish a relationship with Meier, acting for weeks to be a boy interested in forming a romantic relationship her. A short time later, Drew suddenly ended the relationship, taunting Meier and telling her the world would be better off without her. Consequently, a distraught Meier committed suicide by hanging herself.

Drew is Arrested and Charged with a Crime

The federal indictment, which was delivered in Los Angeles after state prosecutors in Missouri declined to bring charges, is unprecedented, and legal commentators believe it may seriously stretch the federal statute on which it was based. The indictment charged that in violation of MySpace terms of service, “Drew and co-conspirators knowingly and agreed with each other to intentionally access a computer … to further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotion distress.” According to the prosecution, Drew violated MySpace’s terms by using a fictitious name, among other things, and thus had no authority to access the MySpace service.

“This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications,” said United States Attorney Thomas O’Brien. “Any adult who uses the Internet or a social-gathering website to harass or bully another person, particularly a young girl, must realize their actions can have serious consequences.”

The Unprecedented Charges may Create a New Realm of Cases

The case presents a new wrinkle in the interpretation of federal law. Legal experts warned that such an interpretation could criminalize routine behavior on the internet. After all, people regularly create accounts or post information under aliases for many legitimate reasons, including avoiding spam and a desire to maintain their privacy online.

This new interpretation also gives a business contract the force of a law: violations of a web site’s terms of service could now lead to criminal sanctions, instead of just civil lawsuits or ejection from a site.

“I think the danger of applying a statute in this way is that it could have unintended consequences,” said John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor. “An application of a general statute like this might result in chilling a great deal of online speech and other freedom.” Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in St. Louis but the trial will be held in Los Angeles were MySpace is headquartered. If convicted of the charges, Drew faces up to 20 years in prison.

The internet and the World Wide Web have created a very big impact in the consumer market and have established itself as a one-stop shop for the whole world. Almost anyone anywhere in the world could practically do anything so as long as an internet connection is available.

Communicating, researching, film and television show viewing, education, purchasing and downloading are just a few of the perks that we all have been taking advantage from using the internet and the World Wide Web. Nowadays, one can barely imagine doing some of these things without the internet at hand. This has benefited our society in both a personal and professional level: aiding in personal needs and at the same time creating business opportunities and generating fast and sure profit for a lot aspiring entrepreneurs.

Downloading for instance is one of the very many things on the internet and the World Wide Web that has caused craze amongst people. There is such a huge number of information and items that could be downloaded from the internet. Anyone who has a computer with an internet connection would be able to find and download a book, document, television show, film, song, image or photo. The list could go on. All these could be acquired given that they are uploaded in the web. This information could be downloaded through either pay per download systems or for free through person-to-person file sharing software programs. With the numerous number of person-to-person file sharing software programs and the millions of people sharing their files through the web, downloading for free has deemed to be one of the hottest options in the web. Aside from the fact that the downloading files is for free, it is also a faster way to get what one is looking for. It also encourages a sense of connection to between the users.

Though downloading for free has been a very big advantage for us, it has also its downsides. Since these downloads are files or items mostly bought and uploaded on the web, they are generally not considered for free unless the original owner of such item declares so. Thus, downloading for free could lead to illegally acquiring and using an item or product which is one of the biggest issues there is about free downloading.

A very good example of this is a song or a film. The entertainment industry of today is having a very huge problem with piracy. A lot of people tend to just copy a song or film from someone else instead of purchasing it. Some even purchase pirated products which are much cheaper but of almost the same quality as an original product. And now, with the evolution of technology and the internet, downloading a song or film from the web is as easy as pie and would not even cost one a single cent.

This has unfortunately encourage piracy and in an uncontrollable manner. Compared to those pirated products sold in the market, piracy through free downloads can not be monitored nor ultimately stopped. This has caused a lot of loses for the entertainment industry alone, but has not been able to make downloading users understand it and stop.

Hence, piracy is very wide spread in the internet yet means of controlling it is still unknown. Although this is the case, downloading isn’t that all bad; it does benefit many, just not entirely for everybody.

For privacy activists it appears that the Patriot Act was not enough. Nor the Patriot Act II signed into law shortly after newly elected Barack Obama was sworn into office hiding the provisions of a National Health Care database that is to be created with the stimulus monies housing all Americans personal, private health care records accessible by the government and initially over 600,000 health care providers.

Now there is a move by Congress to grant powers to the President to regulate and control internet access. This “hope” and “change” is getting worse by the day. In it’s current form, it appears the powers given are fairly broad in an effort to protect America’s infrastructure in times of “crisis.” However, the definition of a “crisis” is left to the sole discretion of the President.

Senate bills No. 773 and 778 (The “Cybersecurity Act of 2009) introduced by Senator Jay Rockfeller D-W.V. creates a new government agency (expanding government jobs and taxpayer expense once again) entitled the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor which would be accountable directly to the president whose main publicized function would be in defending the U.S. from “cyber attack.”

The purpose of the bill as stated in its draft form is as follows:

“To ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications,

to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes,

to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cyber security defenses against disruption,

AND FOR OTHER PUPOSES.”

In the working draft of the legislation recently obtained by an Internet privacy group, the plan also grants the Secretary of Commerce access to all internet service providers which can in any way be deemed to be critical to the nation’s infrastructure and defense “without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.”

This measure as defended by Mr. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, co-sponsors of the bills, is meant to give the Secretary of Commerce discretion to protect American’s banking and health records in order to shut down those providers the President designates in the event of a “cyber attack.”

The problems those in the cyber industry have brought up most often in response to these proposals is the lack of a clear definition of just what are the “critical infrastructure” networks, and the lack of any accountability of the President or the Secretary of Commerce given such powers and simply left at their sole discretion.

And the potential for access of the government, of course, to citizens private records in violation of the Constitution’s “search and seizure” provisions.

The bills have been read twice on the floor, and have now been referred to Committee.