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Judge tentatively upholds charges in ‘cyber-bullying' case
A federal judge handed a partial victory Thursday to prosecutors seeking to put a St. Louis-area woman on trial regarding online harassment of a teenage neighbor who later killed herself.
U.S. District Judge George Wu rejected two lines of attack the defense used to seek dismissal of felony charges against Lori Drew, of Dardenne Prairie. But Wu reserved judgment for later on a third strategy.
Prosecutors say Drew and others schemed to gain the trust of 13-year-old Megan Meier, a former friend of Drew's daughter, inventing a teenage boy to befriend Meier on the social networking Web site MySpace. Then they used information they gained to humiliate Meier, prosecutors said, eventually leading or contributing to her suicide.
Neither side would comment after the hearing.
The defense claims the indictment under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is an improper stretch of a law that was designed to combat hackers engaged in theft or trespassing. It has never before applied to online harassment.
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, the area where MySpace is based, obtained the indictment in May after state and federal prosecutors in the St. Louis area said they could find no violation of law in Drew's alleged conduct. No one else has been charged in the case.
Wu tossed out arguments that the law is unconstitutionally vague, and that it improperly delegates prosecutorial power to the Web site owners.
Defense lawyer H. Dean Steward had argued in court filings that a Web user could be prosecuted simply for violating the terms of service on a Web site. He said those terms could be completely arbitrary and designed to snare surfers by, for example, prohibiting left-handed people.
But Wu said that there were two things necessary for prosecution: unauthorized access and using that access intending to commit a crime or a tort, such as intentional infliction of emotional distress. He repeated the point many times during the nearly 90 minutes of discussions.
He also said that Web site owners do not control the decision to prosecute.
In addition, Wu ruled that the law was not unconstitutionally vague. That elicited a heated response from Steward, who argued that Drew and others allegedly involved could never have known that signing on to MySpace with a fake identity could result in a felony prosecution.
"There's just no way anyone could have known this," he told Wu loudly. "There's no way on God's green earth."
Wu, who made almost all of his statements with a smile, calmly told Steward in the marble and wood-veneer courtroom that the statute was "as plain as there's wood on the walls here."
As the hearing went on, Drew grew more somber and seemed to slouch down slightly in her seat, as her eyes cut from Wu to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause to Steward.
But she perked up when Wu reached Steward's third point - what the judge called the key issue: Whether Drew's indictment showed that she had accessed a protected computer without authorization.
Stopping and interrupting Steward several times, Wu wondered aloud whether simply violating a Web site's terms of service is enough for the access to be unauthorized.
"That's what I want you to argue," he told Steward.
Steward said while prosecutors claim his client violated those terms, they never allege that she looked at them or knew anything about them. The terms prohibit lying when registering, soliciting information from someone under 18 and harassing other users.
Wu noted that the only thing necessary on many Web sites is simply clicking a link to agree with the terms; reading them is not required.
Krause argued that prosecutors don't have to show a violation of the terms, only that the unauthorized access was intentional. He said they could do that with statements such as, "We're going to get in trouble if we do this," or the alleged destruction of evidence and cover-up after news of Megan's death spread.
"Let me think about this last one," Wu told the court, promising a decision in a few days.
Drew's trial on one count of conspiracy and three counts of illegally accessing protected MySpace computers remains scheduled for Oct. 7.
___
© 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Visit the Post-Dispatch on the World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Neither side would comment after the hearing.
The defense claims the indictment under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is an improper stretch of a law that was designed to combat hackers engaged in theft or trespassing. It has never before applied to online harassment.
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, the area where MySpace is based, obtained the indictment in May after state and federal prosecutors in the St. Louis area said they could find no violation of law in Drew's alleged conduct. No one else has been charged in the case.
Wu tossed out arguments that the law is unconstitutionally vague, and that it improperly delegates prosecutorial power to the Web site owners.
Defense lawyer H. Dean Steward had argued in court filings that a Web user could be prosecuted simply for violating the terms of service on a Web site. He said those terms could be completely arbitrary and designed to snare surfers by, for example, prohibiting left-handed people.
But Wu said that there were two things necessary for prosecution: unauthorized access and using that access intending to commit a crime or a tort, such as intentional infliction of emotional distress. He repeated the point many times during the nearly 90 minutes of discussions.
He also said that Web site owners do not control the decision to prosecute.
In addition, Wu ruled that the law was not unconstitutionally vague. That elicited a heated response from Steward, who argued that Drew and others allegedly involved could never have known that signing on to MySpace with a fake identity could result in a felony prosecution.
Wu, who made almost all of his statements with a smile, calmly told Steward in the marble and wood-veneer courtroom that the statute was "as plain as there's wood on the walls here."
As the hearing went on, Drew grew more somber and seemed to slouch down slightly in her seat, as her eyes cut from Wu to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krause to Steward.
But she perked up when Wu reached Steward's third point - what the judge called the key issue: Whether Drew's indictment showed that she had accessed a protected computer without authorization.
Stopping and interrupting Steward several times, Wu wondered aloud whether simply violating a Web site's terms of service is enough for the access to be unauthorized.
"That's what I want you to argue," he told Steward.
Steward said while prosecutors claim his client violated those terms, they never allege that she looked at them or knew anything about them. The terms prohibit lying when registering, soliciting information from someone under 18 and harassing other users.
Wu noted that the only thing necessary on many Web sites is simply clicking a link to agree with the terms; reading them is not required.
Krause argued that prosecutors don't have to show a violation of the terms, only that the unauthorized access was intentional. He said they could do that with statements such as, "We're going to get in trouble if we do this," or the alleged destruction of evidence and cover-up after news of Megan's death spread.
"Let me think about this last one," Wu told the court, promising a decision in a few days.
Drew's trial on one count of conspiracy and three counts of illegally accessing protected MySpace computers remains scheduled for Oct. 7.
___
© 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Visit the Post-Dispatch on the World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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