p2pnet - rss feed: ‘Megan Meier’s law’ passed
p2pnet news | P2P:- “Lori Drew, the mother of a former friend of Megan, later described to police how she and others, including then 18-year-old Ashley Grills, had made up the love interest, a 16-year-old Josh Evans - obstensibly to see what the 13-year-old [Megan] Meier might be saying about Drews’ daughter, Sarah.”
A quote from Political State Report, it reads like a bad script.
But it’s real and from all accounts, it led directly to Megan’s death a year ago.
From Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, she hanged herself after she was scorned by ‘Evans,’ the fake MySpace user who’d called her a “cruel” and “bad person”.
Now, “The first move toward reducing the likelihood that it will happen again - in the same small town in any case - was an online harassment ordinance passed Nov. 21 by the Dardenne Prairie Board of Alderman.,” says the story, going on:
It makes online and electronic harassment a misdemeanor, punished by up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. Text messaging is also covered in the new law, which defines ‘cyber-harassment’ as a pattern of conduct and behavior that would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress and would cause parents to fear for the safety of their child.
A separate resolution was also passed during the same meeting. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it ‘[urged] state and federal legislators to pass new laws regulating Internet harassment and stalking.’
St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas is still reviewing the case.
About 150 people attended the Saturday night vigil held in Megan’s memory.
“Just after 6 p.m., candles lit, the group began to walk toward the Drews’ home,” says the St Louis Post-Dispatch, adding:
“They stopped in a yard directly across the street from the Drews’. A microphone was set up. A man was playing a guitar and singing. The embers of a fire glowed in a metal pit.
“Teens and adults alike stepped to the microphone and talked about Megan.
“As the vigil ended, friends hugged the Meiers. And nearly everybody wiped away tears.”
Also See:
Political State Report - The new ‘Megan’s Law’?, November 26, 2007
after she was scorned - MySpace tragedy: girl hangs herself, November 17, 2007
Saturday night vigil - Message from Megan Meier’s mom, Tina, November 24, 2007
St Louis Post-Dispatch - Protest held outside home of family that some blame in suicide, November 25, 2007
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November 26th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I hope that stupid idiot mom that put that girl through hell online, got the message!
Maybe now she realizes she needs to GROW UP and stop acting like a child!
If that girls death did not phase her, I don’t know what will unless someone knocks some sense into that idiot.
November 26th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I know this is all very sad, but I think this law should have been voted down, because it’s not that lady’s fault that Megan actually believed she was talking to someone real, nobody should make those assumptions, until you meet the other party in person; like right now I am exchanging emails with this “lady” I contacted through Craigslist, she sounds (reads) real, but is she? How the hell can I know for sure?, I just cannot; If she sends me to hell, I’m not hanging myself. Proxies are your friends. And no, i am not an asshole, I simply stand by our freedom of expression.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
it’s about time government got around to destroying the internet with “fairness and equality”.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
X, either you are an adult or a more mature young person, but laws exist to protect others, parents are mostly aware, but if there was no need, laws against paedophilia, rape or fraud would not be necessary, we would all behave well or all would be alert and informed.
Cyberspace is becoming a reality, when it is not so, but for many young people this is a spae where they coexist, and they should - must be protected.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I think this law was a good idea because i don’t think these parent’s should get away with this crap. I am a sophmore in MN, and we read this article in our english class. We had a discussion and we came to the conclusion that it does not matter if the parent’s killed her phisically, but it was the mental attitude and acting like a child that made her commit suicide.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:41 am
OMG! this is sick the mother just could’ve went to her house and talked to her about or in that case she mine as well of just killed her instantly then letting her suffer like that.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:29 am
What the hell was the mother trying to prove that required the creation of a fictitious character?
November 29th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Great, now I can’t call someone a utterly worthless moron for saying something I thought was a complete and utter waste of bandwidth and an insult to my intelligence and do whatever I can to make sure they never post such a thing again or if I am an admin on the site, ban them from the site indefinitely so that they never step foot anywhere near my webspace again. Such a thing is illegal now. That’s just great. I understand the circumstances of this case and I feel for Megan Meier and all but I need to harass people so that they do not even try to bother me with their incompetence on the internet and I need to be able to make fun of people when they make fun of me. That should NOT be illegal.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
If I happen to do something that makes a person feel bad, how is that my responsibility? I should be able to ban, kick people repeatedly off of IRC chatrooms or insult people as much I want to on the internet. I should have that freedom.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
A little boy between the ages of 12-14 posted a video on YouTube. He is singing a song about Turducken, which is a novelty dish composed of turkey, duck and chicken meat. The cyber bullies have come out in full force. Some have even threatened him physically. One man even threatened to rape him! The post is called, “Ethan’s Turducken Song.” This little boy was just trying to have fun and ADULTS are ripping him apart. Sounds like Megan’s story doesn’t it?
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
The federal “Violence Against Women Act” has several recent revisions concerning cyber-stalking by an anonymous individual using the internet and it could and SHOULD be used to prosecute Lori Drew’s stalking of Megan Meier.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
On Wednesday, October 21st, city officials wasted no time enacting an ordinance designed to address the public outcry for justice in the Megan Meier tragedy. The six member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.
Does this new law provide any justice for Megan? Does this law provide equitable relief for a future victim?
The Vice rejects the premise of this new law and believes it completely misses the mark. Classifying this case as a harassment issue completely fails to address the most serious aspects of the methods Lori Drew employed to lead this youth to her demise. The Vice disagrees that harassment was even a factor in this case until just a couple of days before Megan’s death.
Considering this case a harassment issue is incorrect because during the 5 weeks Lori Drew baited and groomed her victim, the attention was NOT unwanted attention. Megan participated in the conversations willingly because she was misled, lured, manipulated and exploited without her knowledge.
This law willfully sets a precedent that future child exploiters and predators might use to reclassify their cases as harassment cases. In effect, the law enacted to give Megan justice, may make her even more vulnerable. So long as the child victim doesn’t tell the predator to stop, even a harassment charge may not stick with the right circumstances and a good defender.
Every aspect of this case follows the same procedural requirement used to convict a Child Predator. A child was manipulated by an adult. A child was engaged in sexually explicit conversation (as acknowledged by Lori Drew herself). An adult imposed her will on a child by misleading her, using a profile designed to sexually or intimately attract the 13 year old Megan.
Lori then utilized the power she had gained over this child to cause significant distress and endangerment to that child. She even stipulated to many of these activities in the police report she filed shortly after Megan’s death.
City officials who continue to ignore this viable, documented admission and continue to address this issue as harassment are intentionally burying their heads in the sand, when the solution is staring them right in the face. Why?
There are several other child exploitation laws on the books. To date, none of them have even been considered by City, State and Federal officials in this case. The Vice is outraged that a motion was never even filed, so that the case could at least be argued before a judge or jury.
Danny Vice
http://weeklyvice.blogspot.com
December 5th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Danny Vice,
The perp was a female. Look up the YouTube video “The Gentler Sex Offender” and you’ll see plenty of citations of cases where a female was let off with all kinds of offenses that a male would be promptly locked up and branded for life for perpetrating.
However, this isn’t the same thing as child sexual assault, and attempting to directly link it as such is quite a bad idea. There’s a huge difference between someone who grooms, meets, and physically molests a child, and a woman who toys with a teen’s head over the Internet.
This law is wrong because it makes it illegal to cause emotional distress to someone, and the cause of emotional distress varies extremely greatly from person to person. What I would scoff at and laugh off as pitiful posturing or stupid idle threats might cause another person in the exact same situation with the exact same context to fear for their lives. Essentially, these kinds of laws require that you be charged with a crime for crossing a line that is essentially unknown to you. This case may be an extreme case, as many high-profile child sexual assaults usually are, and once again we see a foolish governmental body legislating based on an extremity rather than a more “typical” incident (most cyberbullying against children and teens is perpetrated by peers and does not typically result in severe self-harm or suicide). The similarities you draw are definitely there, but the differences must be addressed, and the reason that this law is fundamentally moronic needs to be dredged up, rather than simply looking at its effects (which indirectly implies acceptance of the law as valid).
tl;dr: it’s not the same as molestation, and the law is a bad law for the same reason that many newer sex crime laws are: it’s based on reaction to an extreme, not a typicality.