Woman Accused Under New Cyberbullying Law

[Guest]

Woman Accused Under New Cyberbullying Law

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/22/...toriesBySection

It's encouraging that 45 states now have laws aginst this. It's about time.

Laura

[Guest April63]

So now it's illegal to send a text message? Freedom of speech?

I understand that these laws have good motives, but taking away freedom of speech sounds a little bit totalitarian to me.

April

[Guest bronx]

I don't think it's a matter of free speach , I think it's a matter of harassment and that's not cool

[Guest Linus Thomas]

Agreed. Freedom of speech only applies in regards to allowing people to protest gov't and speak out against gov't. It doesn't apply individual attacks -- verbal or otherwise -- against others. Harassment laws are woefully behind in regards to cyberspace.

[Sally]

Linus is so right on target, we tend to shout freedom of speech whenever someone is asked to be quiet. There is a limit to freedom of speech, there are limits on everything! Here are examples from old sayings - they get to be old sayings, because they have more than just a grain of truth and people repeat them. Your right to wave your arm ends at your neighbors nose - obviously! It is illegal to shout 'Fire' in a crowded theater - we understand and accept that, but we don't combine the two in our minds! Freedom of speech ends when it is directly aimed at and serves no other purpose than to hurt another (like hitting their nose or starting the panic in the theater) and they should not be supported. If you shout at a ball game, "Kill the Ump!" you are being obnoxious, but no need to censor - it's just something that people do at ballgames. If you start a blog on the Internet stating that a particular Umpire be killed, that's wrong! To further go on and give the address and suggest methods has to be stopped. Freedom has it's limits and a price, that price isn't just paid by our wonderful men and women in the armed services, but by all of us in the responsibility to use our freedoms wisely and never to abuse our rights. We can not allow our freedom to bring us to anarchy, because it is always followed by tyranny and unless you are the tyrant - nobody wants that!

The fife music fades away as Sally decends from her soapbax and stores it in the pantry, where it will be ready for the next lecture,

Sally

[Guest April63]

I have to disagree in this case. Insulting others should be protected by freedom of speech. Going to jail for "I hate you" is absurd. It may not be very nice to say it, but I don't think it is worthy of being called a crime. I don't really think harassment is the right word for this either. We're talking cell phones. If you don't want to hear what some lady is saying, you can hang up. You don't have to pick up the call in the first place, or listen to voicemail. You don't need to read the text messages either. By listening or reading the messages, I think you give freedom of speech to the person on the other phone, because you are ultimately in control. You decide if you listen or not.

Just my opinion

April

[Guest Linus Thomas]

I have to disagree in this case. Insulting others should be protected by freedom of speech. Going to jail for "I hate you" is absurd. It may not be very nice to say it, but I don't think it is worthy of being called a crime. I don't really think harassment is the right word for this either. We're talking cell phones. If you don't want to hear what some lady is saying, you can hang up. You don't have to pick up the call in the first place, or listen to voicemail. You don't need to read the text messages either. By listening or reading the messages, I think you give freedom of speech to the person on the other phone, because you are ultimately in control. You decide if you listen or not.

Just my opinion

April

I completely respect your opinion and do hear where you're coming from. Our internal ability to ignore others should be enough.

The problem is that it's actually relatively easy for a stalker to change their number regularly so you may not know who is calling. As a result, you have no choice to listen or you end up afraid to pick up the phone because of the potential that the person on the other line may be your stalker. Threatening rape (which was amongst some of the things this woman said) is far worse than saying "I hate you". It suggests the potential for a crime. People are using the internet to do things that they wouldn't do in person and to go beyond the normal. I have seen some people become obsessive over exes and stalk them mercilessly, ruining any chance for them to be able to exist online. Administrators and moderators can only do so much so having a law that helps individuals take it further may be the one way to remind people that they cannot have carte blanche to do anything.

Freedom of speech, as written in the US Constitution, states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The intent was to allow individuals to speak up against the government, not necessarily to say libelous, inflammatory or slanderous comments about other private individuals. I remember in Canada being taught that one's rights extended as far as another person's nose. The minute that you "smack" their nose, you violate the law. And this kind of behaviour is a "virtual smack" on the nose. The intent of this law is to discourage some of the crap that has result in some teenagers to commit suicide because of bullying. It is this same law that can protect us from the vile that others spew about the trans community.

[Guest April63]

But even if a stalker changes his number or dials from a different phone, once you find out it's him, you can easily hang up. And even with threats such as rape, that's not the same as the crime of committing rape. You could ignore the threat. Or you could live your next day frightened that someone will rape you, but I don't think you would really do anything differently if you knew you were going to be raped. I don't think you would carry a gun, or even a baseball bat to be safe.

I like small governments where you get to have a lot of freedoms, and so I see this as more of a violation of freedom of speech rather than protection from, well, whatever it is supposed to protect people from. Texts threatening rape? I guess that's it.

April

[Guest julia_d]

OK.. I was on the receiving end of threatening calls on my mobile.. my house landline and at work for over 2 years. It was somebody who must know me well, somebody in my circle of "friends" I changed my mobile number so many times the phone people thought I was going insane.. yet a day or two afterwards the calls and texts would start up again. The same with my landline, where it is a lot harder to change the number.. especially as it was my business number. I would get sometimes 60 or 70 calls a day, always the stalker, and always the "I know where you live.. I know where you work,, I know how you travel and when you are alone, and one day I am going to rape and kill you freak".. Block in the incoming number.. no help, there are such things as payphones.

It was never endingf.. in the middle of the night, in my office at work.. all day and all night every day. I ended up taking my home phone off the hook and losing most of my secondary income. I stopped having a mobile.. the only place I could not get away from this creep was at work.. where I was repeatedly reprimanded for receiving "personal" calls.

One day they just stopped... and if anything that was worse. I started thinking "here it comes".. because to suddenly not have the bombardment of abuse was strange. Something was going on.. I locked myself in my house for 2 weeks.. not daring to go out of the door. If people knocked I wasn't in. I wished for the phone to ring and for it to be that hated voice again, at least then I would know they were still on the same track and not waiting in a dark corner for me to go outside.

Eventually I had to return to work, you can only take so much time off without a real excuse. That was probably the most frightened I have ever been in my life. The dark morning walking to work before everybody is about. I didn't see another living soul walking the two miles to work. Every step was a step into panic and terror. When I reached work I must have looked awful, because the first thing the boss said was I could go home if I wanted.. and take as long as I needed to get well. Being there with people around me was very strange. I was looking at everybody, and listening to voices.. trying to pick up if it was one of my colleagues. I had long before lost my trust of even my closest friends... Who was this man? Why was he doing this to me?

To this day I have no idea who it was. It could be somebody I still see every day.. I have nothing except for the low lilting soft possibly southern Irish obviously disguised voice to go on. 6 years on, the horror of that time is still in here. It will never go away, and I know that any day it could all start again. This person is close.. very close.

So you think it's ok and a mater of freedom of speech to be able to scar somebody mentally for life? To cause them to be in fear of their life every waking moment and the nightmares.. don't even want to think about those.. I remember them vividly.. waking up night after night screaming. Even now I don't like sleeping.. My bed holds terrors in the darkness.. I sleep with my ears on. And that is all fine because it's freedom of speech?

[Guest julia_d]

I wanted to add something to that. I would listen to this man. He would tell me what I had been wearing, and what I had bought when I went shopping. Either he was that close, or others were feeding him information...

This man lost me all my friends. I did not have the courage to mix with people. Trust is an odd thing. When you do not know who you can trust you stop trusting everyone, and you stop associating with them. You become more isolated and vulnerable because of your fear and it feeds on itself and gets bigger and bigger. To know you are being followed by somebody who has the nerve to tell you they mean you harm, and to be able to show you how close they are yet unknown is really frightening. Even now I don't know if one day I will get grabbed and hear that voice again. I still watch and listen. I will never forget that voice and the things it said.

[Sally]

I said it before and I will say it again!

Freedom has a price - Responsibility!

Everyone has the right to have a sharp knife, try cutting up a chicken without one - but if you don't understand the dangers of a knife? Would you had a butcher knife to a 2 year old and walk away saying, "Have fun!" - NO!

The Internet is the sharp knife and a great number of people on it are infants (in responsibility and judgement capabilities) sometimes someone has to come in and take that knife away - preferably before someone gets killed!

Because you have self control and understand the consequences of your actions, don't assume that everybody else does. They had a stupid scene in a movie a few years back where a bunch of teenagers went out and laid down on the center stripe of a dark street, I saw it in the coming attractions and thought, "What a bunch of idiots!" A group of teenagers saw it and thought, "That's really cool!" So for the next several weeks you would here reports of police answering calls about kids lying in the street at night or on more than one occasion accident reports!

Don't give people too much credit for being able to govern themselves - remember that people are the ones who put all of the governments into from beofre recorded history and we have yet to get it right!

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest mia 1]

Well said Sally. April I know you are a minor and that you are brighty and well versed and speak above your age group. But the laws and the constitution protect all of us. That includes people of all ages with out the gift of intelligence, those who are unable to afford legal protection etc. The young lady in question, was too vulnerabe to stand up to the "bullies in the room" and was pushed to suicide by a cyberspace bully more than twice her age.

She was in a minority(vulnerable and nonlogical) but the constitution of the USA protects minorities, and this new law was passed on the basis of the First Ammendments protection of Free Speech. Read the History of the First Ammnedment Free Speech is limited when their is a clear and present danger that may harm an individual or a group. Google Annotated Constitution Prototype. I know you have an inquisitive searching mind and will want to read it for yourself Mia.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

April, dear - you can really shake that tree! grin

I should add another hand grenade to all this but... I AM opinionated.

The classic arguement for control of speech rights, in spite of the freedom of speach amendment, runs something like this:

Is it a guaranteed right to telephone in a bomb threat, say to a hospital? Who is responsible if one or more patients on life support die during the evacuation?

So, using the original thread, is it right to pretend to be a boyfriend to a young girl, have her so devistated when shunned by this imaginary lover, she commits suicide? I am sure the vendictive girl and her mother who formulated that plot were not trying to achieve that ending, but it seems irresponsible at the least - because their actions had such a deadly effect - especilly to the girl's family and the community where this happened. Tragedy - yes. Freedom of speech defence, well... I guess that is the best defense available. What they did would be unforgivable even without the resulting suicide.

The question I see you pose is where can you draw the line? The girl caused her own death, so are the mother and daughter murderers?

Another arguement may be - if censorship reigns on the internet after this, the internet will be destroyed as great communictor - yikes, no one wants that.

So we have two problems here, (1) access of the internet by the young and impressionable - those who trust unquestioningly what is posted (2) use of the internet by ruthless and intentionally deceptive individuals, intent only on personal gratification and gain. These don't mix well at all - in fact are sometimes quite deadly - like in this case.

Sound like the real world , don't it. You people be careful out there! Preditors and worse abound.

Elizabeth

[Guest brain(katie)]

There deffinetly needs to be a law in place. Lets put it this way. Your child is at school and is getting bullied. If the school does not stop the bulling they are liable for a law suit. So the internet needs some policing. Cant just let everyone run wild with no laws. Threatining someones life is against the law and ever since 9/11 the patriot act has enabled more leeway to the governement totryand protect the innocent. Times are changing and with technology the laws need to change too.

[Guest April63]

The thing is, the internet is not a place like a school. It is a large set of computers linked together. Everything you find on the internet is the result of binary data being transmitted across a wire from an originating computer. Nobody owns the internet. You can own a server, you can own the linking wires, you can own the client computer, but you cannot own the concept of passing data between the two computers. Therefore, who is to moderate the internet? The servers? The clients? ISPs? Where exactly does the government fit into this?

The government does have the job of protecting its citizens, but why does it need to pick into our property to do so? My computer is my property. My dad's server is his property. The government has its own servers, and it can watch its servers. I don't think we need laws requiring the government to look through our property to make sure that we aren't a threat to anyone. It's a violation of our privacy and personal freedoms. Accidents happen, but we don't need to restrict personal freedoms of good, innocent people to prevent, sorry, attempt to prevent crimes from happening.

April

[Guest Sarah Marie]

I have to disagree in this case. Insulting others should be protected by freedom of speech. Going to jail for "I hate you" is absurd. It may not be very nice to say it, but I don't think it is worthy of being called a crime. I don't really think harassment is the right word for this either. We're talking cell phones. If you don't want to hear what some lady is saying, you can hang up. You don't have to pick up the call in the first place, or listen to voicemail. You don't need to read the text messages either. By listening or reading the messages, I think you give freedom of speech to the person on the other phone, because you are ultimately in control. You decide if you listen or not.

Just my opinion

April

April -- you are so right. There is a difference between being merely annoying, being obnoxious, and being seen as a threat. Ultimately, I think it rests with the recipient of the comments to decide whether they merit taking action or not.

[Guest mia 1]

Yes we do April. The right to bear arms is protected by the Second Ammendment. However you are not allowed to carry a weapon on the Airlines. Why because the government protects its CITZENS from bodily harm as much as possible. CIVIL LIBERTIES do Exist and that is why this forum is most probably not watched by the CIA. {maybe}

Once again referring to the U.S. Constitution, under" Enumerated, Implied and Inherent powers of the Executive, the Federal Gov't has the power to acquire and regulate property whether that property is real or intellectual,,Re: American Ins. Co. v.Cantor. A decision by Justice Marshall writing for the majority. Too much Con. law in undergraduate school Sorry. Mia.

[Guest julia_d]

Unfortunately these kind of debates always come back to the focus on the USA.. which thinks it can police the whole world.

The laws I have to rely on are outmoded harassment laws designed it seems to protect politicians and famous people from press and media, not ordinary citizens who are being stalked and threatened.

I don't think any of tis will lead to any more censorship of the internet than the neutering already planned by the politicos and their controllers.. because this relates to protecting the little people, and actually the big money vested interests don't care about us XD

[Guest April63]

Just because a judge ruled a certain way doesn't mean it is the right way, or that I agree with it.

What's that quote, the one about everything is in the eye of the beholder? Who said that? But anyway, my point is, someone can put something out there on the internet, but it is completely harmless until someone else beholds it. Who's fault is it then? The person who said it, or the person who found it and listened?

April

[Guest mia 1]

This is not just a judges ruling. This is th Chief Justice of The Supreme Court of the U.S.. The decisions handed down may seem arbitrarty, but they are based on common law, dating back to the Magna Charta, Roman law, earlier decisions based on or own constitution, and precedence established by lower court ruling.

However I will concede sometimes these decisions seem capricious and incongrous with our current beliefs. Look up the Dread Scott decision, by Chief Justice Tanny,and the terible Plesy v Fergussen decision, establishing "Seperat but Equal Facilities and instituions for African Americans.. Overturned 75 yrs. later in Brown v Board of Education. Like I said earlier too much Con. Law in my brain.

These decisions do relate to transgender rights and the thread is there to follow,because soon there will be a acse before the Supreme Ct. on adoptive rights of the transgenderd. Bless us all............................You have the inquisitive mind and inteligence to pursue a law carreer, April,,,Think about it........Mia.

[Guest April63]

I have thought about maybe getting a JD after becoming accomplished in some other field. Not sure if I would want to be a lawyer up front though. And defending transsexuals in the Supreme Court will probably get a lot of negative attention.

April