etee's Blog

Finally, a judge acts with common sense! Convictions 'tentatively' tossed in MySpace cyber-bullying case:

...judge says that if she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site's terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor.

While what happened to the teenage girl was horrific and tragic, and while the woman may well have played a pivotal role in the events leading up to this tragedy, the fact is that there were no laws on the books under which she could be prosecuted. If the convictions had been upheld, we would have had a very bad precedent set, where (as the judge noted) a civil contract (the Terms of Service for MySpace, in this instance) would be elevated to the level of, and therefore be enforceable as, Federal criminal law. And not by an Act of Congress, or an Executive Order, or even by decree of an activist Federal Judge: rather, via a decision rendered by twelve people chosen at random, in a criminal case which should never have been brought. Personally, I would much prefer my ISP or social networking site's lawyers not be the ones writing criminal law.

And, should the teenage girl's parents still wish to seek justice, there are other venues (such as the civil court system) which are far better suited for that purpose in this case.