Another response:
‘Ben, I was reading through your archives recently when I came across your original post. You’re making some pretty compelling arguments. One request for clarification—is your position that Lori Drew should go completely without punishment for her actions or merely that she shouldn’t be prosecuted on these specific charges?
Also, with this statement “For the rest of her life, Drew will live as a free woman enslaved by what she has caused” are you arguing that the burden of guilt or shame is an adequate consequence to actions that result in a child’s death? (If so, does this apply to all perpetrators, or just the ones for whom there do not exist laws on which to prosecute?)
Would you even concede that Lori Drew’s actions directly correlate to Megan’s suicide?
I think it is important to note that just because the law has not caught up to technology doesn’t mean that a crime has not been committed. Perhaps this case will open the door to the creation of laws that seek not to “limit everyone’s freedoms” but to protect the vulnerable from predators who rely on the anonymity of the Internet to facilitate their behaviour.’
Your assertion that the law hasn’t caught up to technology is the problem I was trying to point out. If Lori Drew had somehow used the internet to snowcrash Megan, I would agree that a crime had been committed that was also relevant to the particular medium involved. However, Megan chose of her own free will to commit suicide. The results of Drew’s actions were dire, but her actions were not criminal. She created a fake account on MySpace and conversed with someone. I’m not sure what damages are directly related to lying about the specific things she used the account for, but the most you could get out of this is a shaky fraud tort (is that the correct syntax?).
As for your question about public shame being appropriate punishment for the death of a child, I absolutely stand behind my opinion that if someone is not guilty of a crime, they shouldn’t be prosecuted. If a student is overwhelmed by schoolwork and decides to commit suicide, do you think the school should be criminally liable? Perhaps the teacher who issued some specific homework? That should answer your question about the correlation between Drew’s actions and Meier’s suicide.
There are already ways to prevent the vulnerable from falling prey to all those evil anonymous people on the internet, such as Lori Drew, 4chan, Iranian protestors, and Chinese dissidents. This includes the decision to not partake in activities that might put you in contact with these anonymous predators and the ability to oversee and limit what your children do.
Any argument that this has anything to do with technology is absurd. Would you contend that if Drew posed as an attractive young pen pal and conversed with Meier through the postal service, it would be a different situation than using MySpace?
In response to my previous post:
‘One thing to keep in mind here is that crimes have two elements, usually: an act and a mental state. The prosecutors don’t seem to have been arguing that she should be criminally liable just for violating the TOS per se (strict liability) but rather for violating the TOS with the intent to do whatever she did. Depending on how steep the intent requirement for the crimes was (e.g., “intent to maliciously harm another” versus “intent to cause mischief” versus “intent to violate the TOS”), this doesn’t seem horribly bad to me, and is a fine-line distinction that is made in the law constantly (e.g., you can be civilly liable in tort for battery but not criminally because your intent was too “low”).
Because the crimes were misdemeanors, I gather the mental state requirement was fairly de minimis (gross negligence? recklessness?), which is why Judge Wu is tossing the case, as it basically amounts to the jury finding willful TOS violations a crime. If the crimes required “more” intent (e.g., “intent to cause someone to hurt herself”), I wouldn’t find them objectionable, as it would narrow the field of who is criminally liable quite a bit and make convictions hard because evidence of such intent would be so difficult to find and admit in court.’
I realized, at one point, that I should have disclosed that I’m not very familiar with law and it is very possible I don’t fully understand the situation due to this limitation. That said, I think this added level of complexity that I was ignoring in my previous post doesn’t alter my original assertions, which were partly based on the arguments given by the defense attorney involved in the case.
To me, the idea of basing a conviction on intent when connected to something that is not a crime (breaking TOS) is a slippery slope. If someone uses a car to accidentally run someone over, the crime is connected to running someone over, not using a car. In cases of gross negligence, the means (I think) only factor in the extent of the damages or possible damages. If, to use the internet or technology, we have to have good intentions, these parts of everyday life become vehicles to prosecute thought crime.
Lori Drew and the Case of the "Cyber Bully"
For the sake of transparency, I was quite proud of the title for this post until I looked it up and found someone beat me to the punch. I think I liked the world better when nobody knew everything had been done before.
I’ve written on this subject previously, but with recent developments, I have decided to return to it. Lori Drew was convicted of at least one misdemeanor charge (I’m not exactly sure of the conviction) in her involvement in the Megan Meier case, but it was recently thrown out before sentencing. This is a victory for justice even if it is, on face, morally troublesome that Drew’s horrendous actions are going unpunished.
From what I gather, the charge Drew was convicted for was falsification when creating the MySpace account and thus being unauthorized to use the account for which she was not technically the owner of, due to the falsification. The unauthorized part is the existing law and the rest was the finagling to make this case apply to it. If you’re not aware of how dangerous a conviction on this charge is (with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison, I believe) for precedence, I’ll quickly explain: First, the government would be able to prosecute people for acting anonymously on the internet. How’s that’s working out for people in China and Iran? Secondly, it could be used to prosecute people who don’t follow end user agreements. If I write in this post that by accessing this page, you agree to a noncompete clause (we need fewer bloggers, anyway), would you be forced to abide by my wishes or else face a misdemeanor charge?
U.S. District Judge George H. Wu has, it seems at this point, acted in the defense of our entire democracy. Just because the majority or authority really wants something, doesn’t mean it should happen. We all read the story of Megan Meier and wanted Drew to be punished, but that doesn’t mean she should be. Shortsighted knee-jerk reactions to punish her through our legal system could and probably would be used against any of us in the future. In this case, we really don’t want to make that bed. For the rest of her life, Drew will live as a free woman enslaved by what she has caused. To her family, neighbors, anyone who hears of the story, and anyone who Googles her name in the future will be her judges and jury. Changing or adapting the law to punish her is on par with prosecuting Communists, homosexuals, mixed-race couples, and other people who we (at one point or another) don’t like but don’t have any real basis for prosecuting.
Aside from that, I’ve noticed a lot of people on the internet using the term “cyber bullying” with a straight face. This sort of anachronism coined by out of touch politicians still wide-eyed and slack-jawed about any sort of technology more complex than their TiVos is insulting to those of us who regularly hang ten on the World Wide Web and use Electronic-mail to discuss our recent Weblogs or whatever we do. Remember the good old days when all we had to worry about was analogue bullying? You know, like putting signs on people’s backs, spreading rumors, prank dates—oh wait. What role did the cyber age really play in this case of bullying? It gave politicians and prosecutors an outlet to try to limit everyone’s freedoms because one girl decided to commit suicide.
Handling Iran
In light of recent events, we need to continue the dialogue about Iran now more than ever. For every minute the news channels play tributes to a man known for his relationships with young boys, another political prisoner sitting in an Iranian jail cell has a lower chance of being released under international pressure.
I’m going to take a look at this from different perspectives to explain what should have and could be done. The way things are going, I foresee a human rights situation reminiscent to North Korea, with similar international implications.
The protesters are doing what they can and it’s hard to criticize that, but there are certain things they should focus on. The first is to clearly document all offenses in ways that are difficult to take out of context. There needs to be a clear list of dead, wounded, and imprisoned with as much evidence collected as possible. For every stone thrown, there should be someone videotaping it. As for what should have been done, when Neda was shot, mourning should have been carried out in the form of major rioting. Let us not forget that for all of the historical importance we put on Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, et al. in the Civil Rights Movement, the real changes followed suspiciously close to the race riots.
Mousavi is at the apex of his life and historical importance. Humans naturally value their safety, but he has a chance to be more than a failed, politically persecuted (relatively) moderate politician. He has all of the world and the Iranian populace watching him, so he should take his chances. He is in the best position to force Khamenei’s hand. If he foments the Iranian populace, Khamenei can try his best to limit his access to any sort of media (which I assume is already the case), arrest him to make that limitation absolute, or martyr him, as it would be called. The government is already arresting all of his friends, so why should he think they would be afraid to do the same to him? The only way he can hope to continue his political career and cultural relevancy is if he acts now to change things. His milquetoast statements make Mike Wallace look like Abbie Hoffman and don’t endear him to anyone.
Khamenei made one mistake after another. He’s right to think he’s untouchable by the West, but he’s removing a certain level of ambiguity from the mix. I, along with many others, was under the impression that there was a certain level of checks and balances within the Iranian political system, and that Ahmedinejad was a reckless, hardline face for a (relatively) more moderate and calculating Khamenei, which has proven not to be the case. Also, Iran’s position on human rights and their reactions to internal and external pressure has been cemented. Whereas before, people could argue how Western and moderate Iran really is, Iran should now be seen as an unreasonable and unrelenting enemy to the West and its ideals, for whatever that’s worth. Khamenei should have let Mousavi win; it was no skin off his back. It would have done well for Iran’s soft power while still promoting its same major interests (namely, nuclear). The least that could have been done is make the fraud not so obvious. He could even have called for a reelection or recount and just repeated the fraud with less audacity. Given that he’s been so stupidly stubborn about this, I bet he’s gleefully doing the moonwalk right about now.
I’ll skip what the Western public could be doing because, honestly, it’s a lost cause.
The big question is about what Obama should do. I’m rather heavy-handed about human rights issues, as they strike me as the backbone to just military action, so my natural inclination is to do as much as allowed by the situation. I would use back channels to threaten Iran, and if the response is less than optimal, I would send Israel in to tactically bomb a few of Iran’s military and nuclear targets. We’re friends with Israel for a reason. The Iranian protesters don’t want some statement condemning authoritarianism; they want concrete help. Without it, they’re going to be crushed. Supporting the protesters in any way other than what I outlined would eventually be used against America. Dealing with Iran through this issue is Obama’s best chance to successfully rebalance the region in our favor. It’s also a big risk, but that’s the nature of the game. Alternatively, Obama can sit on his hands and hope the nuclear issue will be inherited by his successor, which will be great for Obama and horrible for America, the West, and the Middle East.
Critical Processing in Action
I’ve been reading Christopher Hitchen’s Letters to a Young Contrarian, and it has given me some interesting topics to think about. Say what you will about Hitchens, but he is one of the smartest contemporary media figures we have, and he is not oft to neglect an issue out of expedience. The least expedient issue of all is probably the colossal domination of stupidity and injustice in every aspect of society. Justice systems, politics, religions, the media, and popular culture are all saturated not only with disastrous norms, but with people who, if not cruelly self-serving, lack anything resembling what we might classify as common sense, let alone the motivation to use it. Taking offense to this is not arrogance, as the arrogant would not resent their disproportionate intelligence and virtue. To take issue with the majority is the only way to provoke progress. The arrogant are the ones who retreat from the tide and distance themselves from the unseemly aspects of the world. Think of how many people threatened to move to Canada, whether in jest or not, if George W. Bush was reelected. Think of how out of touch your average professors are. Think about where you want your children to go to school.
Hitchens quoted Dr. Israel Shahak, when asked about his impression of recent events, as saying, “There are some encouraging signs of polarization.” Consider American politics. Barack Obama faced one of the most dogmatic and and zealously dangerous American electorates ever, and won thanks to the opposition and previous administration. When you have caricatures like Sarah Palin and George W. Bush acting crass and jingoistic, the reasonably intelligent will know to vote for anyone else. That said, Obama is realistically no better than Bush when you compare foreign policy (renewed military engagements and reassertion of some form of the War on Terror), civil liberties (“prolonged detainment” and upholding Bush’s “No Constitution Zone” encompassing two thirds of the US population), and the failed drug prohibition programs both domestically and abroad (flippantly dismissed the most popular questions regarding drugs in four out of the five of the given topics in the most recent town hall meeting). Polarization in each of these topics has led to more interest and accountability, even if we have a long way to go.
What can we do, aside from recognizing the problems? We can live “as if” we were in the world we want to live in. Hitchens describes the efforts of Rosa Parks and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as in this vein. They acted as if they were in situations that were just and reasoned, even though they were not. This could also take on the guise of privately acting in defiance of established norms or laws. It need not come to conflict, but when it does, it often helps to further the goals of the dissenter by pointing out how unjust the norms or laws are. If you think the laws regarding intellectual property rights are unjust, you may continue, in opposition to the law, to illegally download music. When the RIAA sues children and old women for everything they own because they may have shared a few songs, they will appear crass and the disparate wrongs of song sharing versus large companies suing the livelihoods away from average Americans is illustrated. If that absurd cyber-bullying act that I have previously written about somehow passes, I will continue to operate Unfollow Friday unfettered, and I will happily defend my civil liberties against knee-jerk stupidity and political maneuvering openly in court.
Candy Land
Watching American (or any) television recently, I’ve noticed a trend in daily life. Most humans are woefully limited in information on just about everything. Comprehending the world in this context is monumentally difficult. So difficult, it seems, that most people aren’t tasked with even filling in the gaps of information with their own assertions, sophistry, and wrongheadedness. These dirty jobs are left to the brave, frightened, manipulative, arrogant, and brash, such as politicians, clerics, the press, popular culture, talking heads, and conspiracy theorists.
Balancing absolute stupidity with an assertion of a complete and correct worldview is a rare skill coveted by all populaces. Without Apostles, Evangelicals, Democrats, Republicans, Beatles, Adolph Hitlers, Oprah Winfreys, Karl Marxes, Bill O’Reillys, Michael Moores, Aleister Crowleys, Keith Olbermanns, Hannas and Barberas, MTVs, Daily Shows, New York Times, and the like, humans would be quivering, lost children.
The Bible, particularly, is so accessible because, for as cruel, contradictory, and useless as it is, all you have to do is read a few hundred pages or so to comprehend the whole world and know what you’re doing here. I highly recommend a read if you’re into that sort of thing.
I recently spoke with a young Pakistani man who explained to me that, not content with controlling all Western governments, the Jews also orchestrated 9/11. He assured me that there was ample evidence. It was all over Youtube and the conspiracy website circuit. Who is he to distrust such sources? When we consider what little extra information and reason we have over such extreme cases of dangerous misguidedness, it casts a disturbing shadow over our conceptions of the world.
I’ve spent the last four years studying politics, conflict, terrorism, Islamism, Third World states, and the methods we use for making sense of it all. I’m so used to the “War on Terror” denoting the overtly nonsensical and liberal experiment that turned two destroyed buildings into a completely destabilized Middle East, weakened US military and diplomatic strength, and an explosion in the scope and severity of terrorist attacks, that it came as a shock to me to hear the media still speaking of it with a straight face. We may be better reasoned than my Pakistani acquaintance, but by how much?
I happen to know enough about a very specific subject (in this case, the War on Terror) to know how misguided the majority is about just that issue, and it’s pretty scary to imagine all the things I don’t know enough about to know we’re wrong about. When you can’t trust the only institutions available, the only recourse is to take every opinion and assertion you hear with a grain of salt, because we’re living in candy land.
What it's like to die on the internet
- are you alive sir? we really are very worried over here
- Kapi and I are worried about you
- You’ve been quiet for the last few weeks…
- just thought you should know your absence is noticed
- Just let me know if you are still alive.
- I haven’t heard from you and wanted to make sure you are okay. Please let me know how you are doing.
- Okay for real now, are you dead? and did you graduate?
- Hey where have you been recently ? I could not get any news from you for a long time. Anyway, I found a decent pharmacy store from google last week.
To the fewer than ten people who noticed I was gone: I’ve been busy graduating, moving out, living temporarily in England, and moving out again. The first casualty of all this was blogging and Unfollow Fridaying, and the second was getting around to emailing all the people I was meant to. It wasn’t a publicity stunt or some sort of protest against my abysmal tumblarity. I’ll be blogging more after I get back to America in the next few days, and I’ll start posting all your lovely unfollows soon after that.
Socialist Democrat Party
I think just about everyone is happy with the recent Republican decision to rename the Democratic Party the Socialist Democrat Party. I’m no exception. While Democrats are happy that this underscores how pathetic and ridiculous the Republicans are and Republicans feel this, along with their tea parties, signifies their comeback or secession or whatever they’re doing, I’m just happy we’re renaming things. It’s been long overdue.
Are the Democrats socialist? As Sarah Palin would say, you betcha. It’s no big secret. Nationalizing healthcare doesn’t turn a country to godless communism, but it is most definitely a socialist move. If Democrats really are just about expanding the role of the government, they are being socialist. If we get to vote how we become more socialist, we’re Socialist Democrats.
The Republican Party is similarly in need of a renaming. There’s no question we already live in a republic, so let’s try to encapsulate the current mood of Republicans in a name. How about the Dogmatic Social Oppositional Party? I came up with that name without any malice. The Socialist Democrats are a bit easier to define because their members tend to stick to a clearly defined ideology, but the Republicans don’t make much sense. The tactics they use to rally their base are usually at odds with their foreign policy positions, which are usually at odds with their domestic policy positions. I think it’s fair to say they assert their positions in very dogmatic ways, are most concerned with the social make-up of the country, and they form their policies and rhetoric in opposition of what the Socialist Democrats say.
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Wolfram Alpha is a big phony.
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