Matroshka wrote:Juan_Bottom wrote:Does the law go too far though? This case doesn't seem to be the norm. And I do think bad parenting played a role, and the parents want someone to blame everthing on. The parents were responsible for their child to make sure nothing bad happened to her on the web. Not that I know what they did. Or that I don't understand their being angery.
This case was local news here for awhile. And while I agree that baiting a child on the web so that you can crush their spirit is an awful thing, kids do that crap all the time. I'm just not won over that we need laws to prevent that. It just seems like reaching, doesn't it?
I think we basically agree.
If they are just extending the current harassment laws to encompass the internet, I don't see an issue with that.
The stretch is in the charges, in my opinion. If she does get convicted on the count of "federal charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress." then it seems like it could make lying on the internet a federal crime.
It's only a federal crime because it's fraud relating to a medium of interstate commerce. Prostitution is also typically a state law issue, but when you use the interstate wire transfer system to conduct or conceal an illegal activity- as Eliot Spitzer found out the hard way - you are committing a federal crime. Here, she used false information to violate what is probably a state law right of privacy based on contractual representations and warranties that she made when she signed up for the fake facebook account. There is a legitimate need to have a common standard here because the "internet" is not located in any particular state, so thus the federal jurisdiction. It's not that controvertial... it just boils down to whether or not your case is high profile to put a start in some prosecutor's cap over.
If the woman being charged has any sense, she'll plead guilty to lesser charges. You can never trust a jury - problem #1 with America: there ain't justice for all.
