By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 6:28 PM
Watch out, all you anonymous blog posters who are so mean to Veronica O'Brien, Francis Slay, and Steve Gregali. Pretty soon, you might be prosecuted for your cyber insults. Labels: Board_of_Aldermen, Dumb_Laws
A proposed new law would make it illegal in the City of St. Louis to harass someone over the Internet or other electronic communications, like texting. "Harassment" is defined in the bill as:"To engage in a course of conduct that serves no legitimate purpose and would cause substantial emotional distress, and shall actually cause substantial emotional distress..."
In other words, hurt someone's feelings.
The St. Louis legislation follows legislation passed recently in the cities of Florissant and Dardenne Prairie. The spark for all of this new Internet regulation by local municipalities is the suicide last week of 13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie.
The girl's parents said she hanged herself after receiving mean Internet messages from an adult neighbor posing as a boy.
With Megan in mind, the St. Louis law, co-sponsored by Aldermanic President Lewis Reed and Alderman April Ford-Griffin, further defines harassment as "contact by a person over age eighteen with a person under the age of eighteen that would cause a reasonable parent to fear for the well-being of their minor child."
A suicide by a child is always a tragic thing. They are also often done for reasons that we as adults see as tragically minor — boyfriends or girlfriends... bullies... zits.
As adults, we know what our mothers told us was indeed true: "This too shall pass."
As educated adults we also know that the "reasons" for teen suicide is rarely the real reason at all. The real cause — and I'm not a psychologist here, but I used to date one and armed with that knowledge it seems to me — the real cause is mental illness — namely, clinical depression.
Again, I'm not a psychologist. But neither are aldermen. I do however spend a lot of time on the Internet. More than most, I would bet. I'd also bet I get more annoying, unsolicited e-mail than almost anyone you know. Today, including the mail snagged in my junk filter, I received 304. It was a slow day.
Most of that email was sent to me by someone trying to get me to do something: write a story about them, come to some event, help a foreigner transfer his millions of dollars, enlarge my penis.
Not once has an email caused me to do anything that I didn't choose to do myself — except maybe LOL.
These reactionary lawmakers are putting the freedom of the Internet at risk in the name of preventing a tragedy that no law could have prevented.
The new crime of "cyber-harassment" consists of two basic parts (the bolded language is the most ridiculous):An individual intends to harass, alarm, annoy, abuse, threaten, intimidate, torment or embarrass any other person by means of the transmission of electronic communication or knowingly permits an electronic communication to be transmitted from an electronic communication device under the person’s control using lewd, lascivious, etc… words, images or language; anonymously or repeatedly whether or not the conversation occurs; or threatening to inflict injury on the person or property of the person communicated with or any member of his or her household.
So if someone annoys a person with a text message or an anonymous blog posting using "lewd" language, even if the "victim" engages in the conversation, a crime has been committed.
Consider me both victim and offender.
Part Two:An individual uses or allows the use of an electronic communications device under the person’s control to harass, alarm, annoy, abuse, threaten, intimidate, torment or embarrass any other person through the direct action of the individual or through the actions of a third party, which third party actions are instigated, initiated, prompted or brought about by the person’s communication.
So now if someone is inspired by my blog postings to go and annoy someone else (say a certain unpopular elected official) I can be charged for instigating the annoyance by my email or blog posting?! WFT?!
Bad things happen when legislators try to play psychologists.
16 Comments:
How asinine. More thoughts becoming crimes. Assault and/or battery is a crime, no matter why someone does it.
Making it a bigger crime because of why it's done is sheer stupidity.
I grow weary of the nanny state.
11/29/2007 8:37 PM
I should've also noted the penalties:
A fine of not less than $100 no more than $500 and/or a term of imprisonment not more than 90 days.
For words written on a blog. Is Missouri still in America or have we seceded from the union?
11/29/2007 9:18 PM
While the wording may be up for debate, the need for laws prohibiting cyber-stalking is profound. This is a huge problem in relationships plagued by domestic violence. Stalkers aren't trying to get the victim to hurt themselves, they are trying to get them to feel fear, and they usually succeed in that. There should be penalties for that behavior.
"Substantial emotional distress" is not as simple as having your feelings hurt, in the legal context. It requires quite a bit more evidence than that, often including physical manifestations of the stress felt within.
Katherine Wessling
Managing Attorney
Legal Advocates for Abused Women
11/29/2007 9:24 PM
So are Antonio and Neicy going to jail?
11/29/2007 9:39 PM
Ant, you may have dated a phsycologist once, but I slept at a Holiday Inn! While this is a tragic case, this is just one more example of politicians capitalizing on a news event for the advantage of votes. PATHETIC.
This is how bad laws get on the books and politicians face the threats of recall...single issues dictating actions instead of a broad range of issues.
Yes, abuse is a serious issue. Yes, the parents that set up the fake persona used the worse judgement possible. But hello, Megan's mother states that the absolutly control her internet access, yet that day she told her to get off the internet and walked out the house. Am I to believe that this was just a rare occurance, a single opportunity?
Megan suffering from other issues as wells indicates she was lacking serious parental communication, reassuance, and most importantly...LOVE.
Megan is gone, her parents are suffering, but they also share part of the guilt as well. Why is no one seeing this side of the story?
11/29/2007 9:46 PM
While the wording may be up for debate, the need for laws prohibiting cyber-stalking is profound. This is a huge problem in relationships plagued by domestic violence.
The solution to cyber violence is simple...turn off the d... computer. There are plenty of people that don't have email or internet access. They can get along without.
No one is forcing someone to visit the internet which is totally different from someone stalking physically, which should be severely punished.
11/29/2007 9:52 PM
Katherine, don't current stalking laws cover such behavior?
11/29/2007 9:59 PM
Well, I hope that puts an end to some of the vulgar terms some posters use, e.g., f--k.
What you might have also included in your comments about being so mean to Veronica O'Brien is all the mean, nasty, slanderous things she has posted and said about others. Also, speaking the truth that shows the nasty side of someone else isn't being mean. Just think of all her nasty remarks about Bourisaw, Purdy, Wessling and others.
Despite what had to be said above, condolences for Mark O'Brien, a very nice man, may he rest in peace. His children will miss his stable presence.
11/30/2007 6:36 AM
Hey Ant, is this Slay's fault too?
I bet you can get your girlfriend Neicy to protest and blame him if you ask her nicely.
11/30/2007 7:52 AM
Not very well, Antonio. And the "just turn off the computer" idea doesn't work when someone is posting information about you or your family all around the internet, causing other people to see it (including employers, sometimes)and cause harm to the stalkee. I've had had clients in great anguish because someone is using their own myspace page to disseminate lies about their victim, for example.
It's about more than annoyance, as I said before. It's about using a computer with the intent to cause harm. Not to annoy someone or hurt their feelings, but to actually hurt them.
Frankly, in many cases it is the first time the stalker has been brought to the court system. Practice is to bargain down the charges. The more charges there are, the more likely at least some penalty will be felt by the stalker. Studies have proven there is less recidivism when an abusive personality faces some criminal consequences. The more likely we get it that that happens, the better for all of us.
11/30/2007 8:29 AM
What about Fred Phelps and his crew protesting military funerals?
Legitimate protest speech or words meant to cause emotional distress?
Please don't debate the Phelps crew, they're idiots, but does the idiots have a right to air his views?
11/30/2007 8:49 AM
I feel very sorry for Megan and her parents. I also find it almost impossible to conceive that a mother with her own daughter could have come up with this prank to harm someone else's daughter. What was she thinking?!?!?!However, I must confess that I am hesitate to rush to the legislative chambers with this one...I fear that it will be one of those that we won't be able to define well, but people will say something like..."oh, but we will know it when we see it..." But will we?!?!? And who is to decide????There is no doubt that I fall squarely on the "turn the screen-off" side on this one, and the idea of using existing libel, harassment and stalking laws already on the books.
11/30/2007 3:40 PM
I think these well intentioned laws are of questionable constitutionality. For one thing, the same "void for vagueness" standard used to strike down bans on loitering ought to apply to these proposals.
Also, even if proper when applied to some innocent teenager, the law would have problems if used to suppress political discussion about candidates and issues, like most of the posts on this blog.
11/30/2007 10:00 PM
I've had had clients in great anguish because someone is using their own myspace page to disseminate lies about their victim, for example.
Don't the torts of libel and/or slander cover this?
12/02/2007 9:47 AM
Torts are civil, not criminal, cases. If the person wronged can't afford a private attorney to help them bring the suit, or convince the private attorney to do it on a contingency basis, then that's the end of that.
Please note that the St. Charles prosecuting attorney is not pressing any criminal charges in the Megan Meier case because he doesn't feel existing laws allow him to do so.
It is possible to write a law that criminalizes words intended to bring about personal harm or devastation without infringing on the 1st Amendment. Not all speech is protected (the old "yelling fire in a crowded auditorium" scenario). Legitimate political discussion should be protected. Words intended to inflict harm (not annoyance, harm) should not be.
How do we know what is wrong and who decides? Well, juries have been used for a long time to do this in all sorts of cases. The fact that someone takes steps to hide their identity when exercising their "1st Amendment rights" might be a good clue that they know what they are doing is wrong, otherwise why hide?
12/03/2007 12:44 PM
WOW!!! I know this is an old post, but those essentially trying to blame Megan's parents for her suicide is disgusting to say the least. Obviously, those spouting off with such nonsense have never suffered the devastation of losing a child, especially a young one, to suicide. Yes, Megan did suffer from depression. No one is to blame for that. Not Megan, not her parents, sister, nor the neighbor's. However, what this adult(nicer name than this person deserves, her daughter and daughter's friend did is was and still is, wrong on so many levels. Bullying has been around since who knows when, but back in the day, it wasn't near as easy as it is today with new technology. Along with new technology there should be more personal responsibility and accountability for one's actions. Seems many parents are so busy with their daily life that they forget or just plain don't care about sitting their children down and teaching them personal responsibility nor accountability for one's actions. The school years are the most difficult for children. Most kids have some degree of difficulty with the awkward years and getting teased and bullied by peers certainly don't help the matter. However, new technology has taken bullying to a whole new horrible and out of control level. With just a few strokes of the keys on a keyboard, kids now days can spread rumors all over an entire school population just to humiliate someone else. Photoshop pictures of another student and share with several others who share with several more and so on for absolutely no other reason than to destroy someone else's self-esteem, which can make a depressed person even worse. You can monitor your children all you want on the Internet (while they are in your home), however, kids have access to it on cell phones now days and even if your child doesn't have one, it doesn't mean their friends won't let them borrow theirs to get on social media sites while on the way to or from school, or in some cases, while at school. Don't sit there and try to blame Megan's Mom for her daughter ending her own life. People need to start spending less time on the Internet and more time teaching their children how to act appropriately, responsibly, and most of all, start holding their children accountable for their negative behavior. Aside from the horrible tragedy of the loss of Megan's life and sorrow her family and friends have had to endure, the fact that this neighbor lady is free to continue raising her own child with no obvious morals and her jacked up way of thinking is just as tragic. Just another generation of kids that will grow up with the same jacked up thinking, have their own children and teach them to act the same...a vicious cycle. Just because the Constitution allows the right to run your mouth and say horrible things and have those rights protected, doesn't mean you should.
10/02/2015 11:58 PM
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