Teen testifies against Lori Drew

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19-year-old Ashley Grills is the girl who actually created the fake MySpace profile of ‘Josh Evans’ that led to the suicide of Megan Meier. She’s been granted immunity by the California grand jury in exchange for her testimony against Lori Drew, the 47-year-old woman believed to be behind the whole nefarious plot against Megan Meier.

Grills admitted for the first time publicly that she created the profile of Josh Evans, and she told Roberts that she wrote the cruel words, “the world would be a better place without you,” that may have pushed Meier over the edge.

Grills said that she was trying to end the “relationship” because she felt that the joke had gone too far.

“I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace,” Grills said.

Or you could have apologized to Megan and told her the truth.

Anyway, it sounds like Lori Drew wanted to take it even further…

“She was wanting to meet him and me and … me and Lori’s daughter were both telling Lori that we thought it was going too far ’cause none of us can meet her, none of us are guys,” Grills said.

“And she [Lori Drew] was like, it’s fine, you know, we can set her up. We can have her go meet him at the mall and go there and just laugh at her, and I thought that was wrong,” Grills continued.

Lori is 47. Megan Meier was 13. I think it goes without saying that this is not the behavior of an adult.

With any luck, the grand jury will hopefully start the process to bring justice for Megan Meier.

Comments

77 responses to “Teen testifies against Lori Drew”

April 1, 2008

Wanda K

Lori Drew, I hope your monstrous self burns in Hell. You are the lowest life form on earth. You and Ashley, fat ass Grills need to take the advice you gave to poor Megan for yourselves. I hope you do. The world would be a LOT better off without you two!

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April 1, 2008

Teresa

Even if she didn’t write the words, that woman knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. She should be held accountable for the life lost. She and her family should be so ashamed that they had anything at all to do with the tragedy. I hope that Lori Drew is tried and found responsible, and I hope that she is given prison time for this crime that she participated in. What kind of parent would encourage this type of “bullying”? I hope they throw the book at her AND that she never has a moment of peace!

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April 1, 2008

Diggy

Ashley Grills did the right thing by coming forward and admitting guilt. Lori still denies! I would love to be a fly on a cloud when she stands before God and tries to explain this one away when she will NEVER take responsibility. A young girl has more soul than Lori will ever have. Ashley has hope for her future. Lori and her family will die miserable human beings (and that noun is generous in the extreme).

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April 1, 2008

super man

you mine as well call yourself terrorist and work for bin laden

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April 1, 2008

Storm Watch

Ashley grills is a disgusting, fat piece of shit and it makes perfect sense why her fat ass would use the internet to bully a poor girl. She obviously has great contempt for herself and her dirty fat body. Ashley Grills is a piece of shit.

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April 2, 2008

S.Ross

Lori go play in traffic take that bitch Ashley with you!!

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April 2, 2008

Lucas Soares

Asheley Grills is as guilty as Lori. I believe they didn’t have the intention of killing Magan, but she died and they have to be punished, by going to prison. But the penalty should be lighter than the penalty given to someone who has intentionally committed a crime.

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April 2, 2008

Laurie

Obviously this woman did not think this through – this is a terrible tragedy for everyone involved.

The families on both sides will suffer. It is definitely worse for the family that lost their daughter. Who would ever think that someone could do something so cruel? The young girl was so impressionable and looking for acceptance, and this woman crushed her. I wonder why she did this? I mean the real reason?

Before we do something like this, or get revenge, or deliberately hurt someone and think it is funny with what seems like a harmless joke, we need to put ourselves in that position first – and try to think about what harm and damage we are causing others before we actually do it.

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April 5, 2008

Justice

Lori Drew is a disgusting piece of shit.

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April 6, 2008

Chuck D.

I do think there’s some remorse from Ashley…given how she recently had to be hospitalized b/c of some case-related emotional breakdown, she @ leat knows what she did was wrong…more than I can say for that bitch Lori.

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April 6, 2008

Mrs Garda

I agree with you chuck. That woman’s in her 40’s. There is no reason on EARTH she should’ve been doing this in the first place. She’s a sociopath, completely without empathy or compassion. She deserves everything she gets. I honestly didn’t think Ashley thought they were going to drive the girl to death. She probably thought “aww we’ll make her cry, haha” or something along those lines, because kids really just don’t think that far ahead. I’m sure now that the poor girl’s dead, Ashley (especially with her hospitilization) realizes what she did was wrong. Lori though. I don’t think she thought it’d kill the girl either, but I don’ tthink she cares either way. Even if she does care, as I stated in the beginning, a 40 year old -woman- has no right picking on a child -ever-.

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April 9, 2008

Jerry

Ashley Grills, despite her behavior is a victim of a sick twisted Lori Drew. Ashley was an employee of Drew, … Drew asked her to set up the Myspace and decieve Megan …. Ashely may have felt like she had to do it to keep her job. And Ashley is just a kid herself.

Lori Drew is a manipulative cold hearted woman. Her husband must be a real wimp of a twerp – you know she must treat him the same way. And to think Lori was smiling and saying hi to her nieghbors while she systematically tried to hurt thier little daughter.

No punishment on earth is good enough for the Drews.

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April 9, 2008

Mrs Garda

God it’s horrible, isn’t it, Jerry? Mrs Drew sealed that baby girl’s fate as if she’d literally walked into her room and strangled her herself. She’s a deplorable monster and I hope something horrid happens to her.

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April 9, 2008

Chuck D.

Well, karma’s already bitten the Drews in the ass…since Megan’s suicide hit the news, they’ve had windows smashed, paintballs shot, phony police calls to their residence, both Lori and her wimpy husband lost their jobs, and their daughter was forced to drop out of school for her own safety.

You know what the worst part is? Amazingly, despite the ongoing campaign of vigilante justice and resulting consequences, it STILL hasn’t dawned on that PoS Lori that what she did was even the slightest bit wrong…about the only thing she cares about is how the Meiers destroyed a Christmas gift (a foosball table) she asked them to hold, then deposited the pieces on their lawn. So yeah, until she shows an iota of remorse, I could care less what the angry mob does to her.

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April 9, 2008

Mrs Garda

You know…I never say this because I’m no advocate for violence in usual situations, but with this, really I’m -glad- the Drews are suffering. Not so much if they showed some remorse, you know? But the way things are…it’s horrible.

I really, really hope one day Mrs Drew grows up. Hopefully sooner instead of later, but the way it’s going, I think she’ll see herself as the victim before she’ll see that poor girl as one.

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April 9, 2008

Chuck D.

Couldn’t agree more, Mrs. G…while I wouldn’t normally condemn vigilante justice, this bitch:

– Pushed an innocent/beautiful/troubled young girl over the edge
– Tore her family apart (her parents are now divorcing, in case you weren’t aware)
– Made her employee a pawn in this twisted scheme, then left her to pick up the pieces (Ashley bears some responsibility, but as you said, I think she genuinely didn’t realize the ultimate consequences her actions would have…more than I can say for Lori)

As I’ve said before, given these circumstances, how do I feel about this ongoing revenge campaign against the Drews? In the immortal words of Jerry Seinfeld, “Eh, that’s a shame.”

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April 9, 2008

Mrs Garda

*Claps* Exactly Chuck, Exactly. While I’m inclined to let Ashley -more- off the hook because she’s a child and I really really doubt she thought this would kill the kiddo, she still bears some blame. At the same time, She’s shown that she regrets deeply doing what she did. Now, I don’t know if that’s because of harrassment, because I really don’t know if Ashley’s had as rough a time of it as Lori Drew, but either way she at least is repentant, and though I believe she deserves some punishment, I agree with the police over giving her immunity in order to get to drew. Shes’ a minor anyway. Anything she has sentanced to her will go away when she hits 18. Drew on the other hand can be -really- punished and for that matter, for the reasons you’ve stated, and more than that, for the pure sociopathic unempathetic attitude she holds, she deserves everything she gets.

I cannot wrap my head around a 40 year old woman who would pull as stunt like this you know. I really can’t. It’s mind boggling. You stop doing this stuff in middle school.

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April 11, 2008

Chuck D.

Thanks, Mrs G…yeah, this woman’s a sociopath, and deserves to have the book thrown @ her. News articles also mentioned she had a history of intervening in squabbles between her daughter and other kids, not a good sign…there’s such a thing as being TOO involved in your kid’s life, as this tragedy proved.

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April 11, 2008

Mrs Garda

Seems like She wanted to be like peter pan eh, Chuck? She doesn’t want to grow up. It’s really sad. Let your kids fight their own battles. They can’t have you behind–or in some cases in front of–them for the rest of their lives.

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April 11, 2008

Chuck D.

Yeah, really…w/e issues Megan was having w/Sarah Drew, I’m sure it didn’t warrant her mom and an employee creating a fake MS to dig up the facts.

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April 11, 2008

Mrs Garda

Oh No, no. I’m more than sure that was just a quickly made excuse to try to justify what was a vicious, calculated attack on that child’s self esteem.

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April 11, 2008

Anon

While it pains me to defend pondscum, Mrs. Garda, I have to take issue with your claim that Lori Drew knowingly sent Megan to her grave. While Lori certainly showed a callous disregard for Megan, it is unreasonable to assume that there was any intent to kill her. It seems likely that there was an intent to do real damage to Megan, but not to kill her.

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April 11, 2008

Mrs Garda

Anon: I certainly didn’t mean that she meant to kill the girl, though maybe I wasn’t clear. I said that it was a vicious, calculated attack on the child’s self esteem and I meant exactly that. Lori Drew meant to wound, and she meant to permenantly wound poor Megan. I don’t think -anyone- thought she’d kill herself, but Mrs Drew doesn’t care that she -did- which (In my opinion only of course) is just as bad as her deciding to kill her right out. Almost a “Well I didn’t expect THAT to happen. Ah well. Now I know.” Type of thing, like a child finding out that using a magnifying glass on ants WILL indeed send them into flames if used just right. Oh well. Just ants. Plenty more of them. Yanno?

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April 11, 2008

Anon

I was responding to your comment that “Mrs Drew sealed that baby girl&rsquos fate as if she&rsquod literally walked into her room and strangled her herself. ” I understand what you meant, but you may wish to choose your words more carefully to send the correct message. I apologize for the nitpicking, but, quite frankly, it’s what I do.

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April 11, 2008

Mrs Garda

Aaaah. Well at least you understand what I meant. ^_^ I’m searching for a better analogy as we speak. Not sure I’ll find one at the moment in my current state, but we’ll see yeah?

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April 15, 2008

SuzieG

I completely understand peoples anger towards these 3 females. However, it pays to remember that what they did in putting Megan down and calling her fat etc… hurt her to the point her self esteem could handle it no more.
We don’t know if Ashley is reading any of these and she is sorry it appears and regrets her foolish decisions.
So calling her nasty names now is only lowering yourselves to the standards she once had and as you can see it only takes a minute for someone to decide enoughs enough.
Do ‘we’ want that on our consciences knowing something we wrote was hurtful to someone else and had the very real potential of ending someone elses life? Then we are no better than Ashley, Lori or Sarah.

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May 15, 2008

Los Angeles lady

Lori Drew is getting what she deserves (ie vigilantism against her and her family). I am sure that the women in prison are not going to appreciate a child killer living among them and Lori will also continue to get what she deserves while she is incarcerated. I cannot believe an adult went to such lengths…it’s really sad and astounding. There are really no words to describe my immense disgust for this “person.”

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May 16, 2008

TimMcManus

If Lori Drew is convicted she will need to be placed in protective custody. She won’t have an unbiased jury at trail because of the national outrage of this case. More than likely she’ll have the book thrown at her by the judge at sentencing so in the meantime she can prepare for becoming someone’s prag in federal prison. Let’s hope her sake her cellmate isn’t the female version of Oz’s Vern Schillinger…

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June 16, 2008

The Entire Country

HATES LORI DREW!!!!

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July 1, 2008

Mike

Where the heck were this girls parents in all this? I am the father of twin girls. This would not have happened in my house. This lady is a pile but seriously where were her parents?

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August 1, 2008

nancy dauer

Obviously, Lori Drew KNEW that what SHE did was wrong!!!!! Why else would she insist on deleting the account after Megan was dead and tell the other kid to “keep your mouth shut?” Sounds like a guilty consciece and that the bitch was looking to save her own “fat ass.” Just because everyday people may break the law and create fake My Space accounts, most don’t have this tragic outcome. She knowingly took a risk and should now pay–she (Lori) is probably NOT the first to be prosecuted/punished for this..it’s just more likely that this case is the most high profile.

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September 9, 2008

Trick

I’m amazed Lori Drew was able to teach a cow to type and create MySpace pages in the first place.

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September 9, 2008

Cheryl

Lori Drew is a nasty piece of shit. I hope that she goes to prison to become a glory hole for all the ladies and their guards. 24 x 7, with nary a moment to clean up every now and then. What a disgusting animal. Lori Drew bears the entire responsibility for what she did. May Lori Drew and her entire family never again have a moment’s peace.

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September 14, 2008

Suzanne

I have been waiting to hear how this case turns out. Does anyone know where it stands right now? I want this precedent set in motion so families can legally charge the group known as &ldquoperverted justice&rdquo with whatever they decide to charge this woman with. Perverted justice has lied and deceived citizens on the internet and has caused quite a few suicides. So maybe there will be help for these families, as well!

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November 12, 2008

Heather

Mike: “Where the heck were this girls parents in all this? I am the father of twin girls. This would not have happened in my house. This lady is a pile but seriously where were her parents?”

Her parents knew about her involvement in myspace. Her mother, in particular, was very cautious about what Megan did and didn’t do on the computer. It’s been reported that her mother introduced herself to “Josh” on the internet several times so he knew she was watching what he was saying.

Megan informed her mother about how people were saying mean things about her, especially Josh. Megan and her mother got into an argument about Megan’s language in some of the responses just a few minutes before she died. There was no way for her mother to know what was about to happen. She probably just thought that Megan needed time to calm down before talking to her again, like most parents would.

And honestly Mike, you may be the best father in the world, but you can’t ever assume that something like this would never happen in your house. You can lay down all the rules you want, ban your children from creating myspace accounts, punish them for breaking the rules. . . and this can still happen. Look after your girls closely and make sure that they know they are beautiful, smart, and loved every single day. It’s really the only thing a parent can do to help their child these days, especially with how cruel people, like Lori Drews, can really be.

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November 14, 2008

kate

Lori Drew and Ashley Grills and Lori Drew’s daughter are all to blame. I’m thrilled to read a comment above, stating that both of the drew parents lost their jobs and theyre reputation is to shit now. Ashley probably endured her large share of harrassment, as well. And they all deserve it, and more! If I could find a listing for their phone number, I would call and harrass them too! They will all answer to God when they die, and he wont be very happy! i hope lori rots in prison and her daughter suffers so much guilt she commits suicide.

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November 14, 2008

GregS

Suzanne, according to the law perverted justice isn’t doing anything illegal. The law says that it’s legal to bait pedophiles by pretending to be underaged(known as pedobaiting http://forum.rorta.net/showthread.php?t=1043 ), regardless of whether or not you actually are. It’s essentially a thought crime, and by definition it’s flawed at the conceptual level and probably was created entirely for emotional reasons and revenge rather than as a rational solution to reduce abuse to children.

Perverted justice is simply doing what the law has allowed them to do, and perhaps they are exploiting the badly written law, but if this trial with Lori Drew as bad of a person as she is, results in an altered law, what will happen is instantly all of us will be criminals.

Why? Because the trial is claiming that it’s illegal to violate the terms/agreement, and how many of you people actually know what that legal nonsense is saying when you agree to register for a website? It opens the door to any website deciding to sue you for violations, including this website.

I honestly think this is an extremely weak case, and while I do not support Lori Drew personally, I feel that trying to redefine the laws to get emotional satisfaction is not the answer. I just don’t think it’s worth destroying the internet over this one trial. I’m sure that Megan’s family members feel like it is worth it, but emotion is not the measure of right and wrong, passion is not the the best way to weigh options and solutions.

Perverted justice as a group is also motivated for emotional reasons. I don’t think their methods actually have much impact on whether or not children are safer. In fact, the methods they are using while legal, also allow for extortion, bribery, and abuses which from a reasonable standpoint may be worse than the actual offense.

Now to the people who are against perverted justice, I can understand your reasoning, but you need to offer some better solutions to this problem. How can we keep children safe?

My best solutions are to segregate the environments so adults and children aren’t hanging out in the same chatrooms and the same sections of social networking sites. I don’t really see how anyone benefits from allowing adults to search for underaged profiles, what kinda adult would be searching for that in the first place? That should be a pedophile flag in the system right there, and secondly parents need to stop letting 13 year olds access the internet like that, it’s not designed for children, and if you have a child you shouldn’t allow them on Myspace period, they have no business there.

In the offline world children aren’t allowed free access to adult spaces, like bars and clubs for example, but online children can access adult spaces, and where are the parents? Parents need to understand the technology well enough to filter their childrens communications completely, or don’t introduce the technology to them at all.

If you can’t spy on your childs communication, then don’t allow them to access it in your sphere of influence. Privacy is only to be allowed after you know your child is not going to commit suicide or meet people from the internet.

I personally favor technological and parental control solutions to these sorts of problems rather than inventing new laws. This trial is interesting because of the impact it will have on the internet, if this case is won, the internet as we know it will be destroyed, and I’d advise each one of you to delete your Myspace and Facebook accounts.

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November 14, 2008

Sandra Madden

As the proverbial “reasonable person” I think pedobaiting is completely correct. It is the process where an adult person pretends to be a child in order to catch a pedophile who is a person pretending to be a child in order to rape a child. The target of pedobaiting is “adult to adult”. The target of what Lori Drew did was adult to child. She didn’t “think” Megan was a child–she KNEW IT. Just as pedophile takes the chance that they will be caught as they deliberately stalk child victims, Lori Drew knew she was taking a chance that her activities in stalking Megan would come to light. Whether Lori Drew is found guilty in court, whether the law has to be made up as we go along or not, Lori Drew will never have a moment’s peace for the rest of her life. I find that to be extremely and satisfyingly appropriate. Imagine having millions of people online who know who you are and they saw what you did. That’s not only justice, that’s poetic justice.

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November 14, 2008

GregS

Sandra,the law cannot be made up as we go along, no matter what the situation is. You are right she is universally known as a bad person and probably is blacklisted.

About the pedobaiting thing, how do you distinguish pedobaiting from entrapment? It’s legal but it’s in the morally grey area, and the law is very black and white. Either a person is a pedophile or they are not, and if the only evidence that they are a pedophile is from perverted justice, thats not reliable enough at least to me.

You are right, Lori Drew knew for a fact that Megan was a child and that is a strong point to make between the difference of pedobaiting and what Lori Drew was doing. I’m assuming Lori Drew knew this girl in real life, or had some prior contact with her in person?

Still even if she knew it was a child, the laws governing this are so poorly written that they don’t even take that into account and the law probably should take into account the amount of contact the individual has had with the person in the real world. I don’t know the detail of this case well enough to know for sure how she knew Megan in real life but I’m assuming she knew Megan in the real world before planning this.

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November 16, 2008

NoDefinitiveSociety

Though Lori Drew most likely didn’t intend for Megan to commit suicide, she still harassed a 13 year old girl over the internet using false identification in order to gain her trust and humiliate her in the end. All for what? Because Megan had a falling out with her daughter? That’s just beyond childish. What would it have gained her in the end? Even now, she doesn’t seem like she has much remorse for the poor girl taking her life because of cyber bullying. In my opinion, that is just sick. I hope she gets declared guilty if she hasn’t been already.

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November 16, 2008

Sandra Madden

Greg, it seems that you believe that the law somehow “protects” pedophiles because we don’t have what you believe should be well-written laws. I submit that it makes no difference. Reasonable people are the jurors who hear the case and that is the outcome by which laws are actually measured. I also submit that it doesn’t matter if a pedophile is handled via the law or not. Many do find that “the law” protects them from justice in their communities about as well as an order of protection actually protects an abuse victim from further abuse or murder. You can’t legislate anything that protects evil pedophiles from the real effects of moral outrage. If you are a champion of the pedophile community then it would be nice of you to warn them to be on their best behavior and stop stalking and raping children. Period. Period. Period.

As for Lori Drew, she’s reaping what she sowed and I’m very happy about that. I have a big evil grin on my face. It represents the big evil grin on the faces of tens of millions of people who hate Lori Drew for what she did to a child who she knew. Lori Drew IS the definition of a pedophile and online stalker. I’m surprised that she wasn’t prosecuted for that. Though I imagine her Josh persona had relatively tame conversations. I am thinking back to my days as a pedophile-baiter in the early days of AOL. Those were some sick bastards who deserve all we can get them on and then some. We had a special account to turn them in as we captured the sick conversations. Trust me, very little actual “baiting” is necessary. They pounce on the flimsiest of information that leads them to suspect they are chatting with a child. Not one has ever asked “how old are you really?” They WANT to chat with children, the younger the bettter.

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November 16, 2008

Skye

I am following this case from NZ … completly sickens me. Would LOVE to rip that womans face off and make her daughter eat it. They deserve alot more than smashed windows …. it has said in almost every comment above but a middle age woman manipulating and bullying a depressed child is fucking well wrong. Nothing more needs to be said.
Furthermore… How the hell is she fit to be a mother if she is encouraging her own 13 year old to participate in this?? Take her kids off her and fist rape the bitch up the ass every day until she dies.

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November 16, 2008

Skye

Woah….also….

I am only 18…saying the teenage employee cannot be held accountable is bullshit. I know right from wrong and have for many years. I would not only stress my concern over this as she did, I would object and tell the family of the young girl involved. I can be a complete bitch and bully the shit out of people sometimes… but not like this. Fucking tossers.

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November 17, 2008

GregS

“Reasonable people are the jurors who hear the case and that is the outcome by which laws are actually measured.”

This is actually only sometimes the case. And this is influenced by the quality of lawyers, just at the OJ Simpson trial. It’s a lot more complicated than you make it seem.

I also submit that it doesn&rsquot matter if a pedophile is handled via the law or not.

Pedophiles have to be handled via the law. We cannot allow ordinary citizens to take the law into their own hands, this is not the wild west.

You can&rsquot legislate anything that protects evil pedophiles from the real effects of moral outrage. If you are a champion of the pedophile community then it would be nice of you to warn them to be on their best behavior and stop stalking and raping children. Period. Period. Period.

You aren’t being reasonable. It’s not about getting revenge to feel better. It’s not about hating pedophiles. It’s about protecting children.
If we keep passing laws designed out of hatred for pedophiles rather than designed to protect children, it’s not going to protect the interests of children, and it’s not going to help create justice. I don’t know what pedophile community you are talking about but just by you’re way of communicating you seem to be responding entirely on emotion.

Do you want to see justice or do you simply hate Lori Drew and not care about justice, the law, reason, or the consequences of this case?
Lori Drew is going to suffer the consequences of being on a black list, she is now famous as being the evil woman who bullied a little girl to death. Nobody is trying to defend her actions.

By the way, while Lori Drew may be a bully, thats not the same legally defined definition as a pedophile. Pedophiles are people who sexually abuse children, I don’t see how sexual abuse has anything to do with this case. Justice is not about hating the enemy. You cannot win a war by hating the enemy. You have to outsmart, outreason, out think the enemy, and you cannot do that if you are going to allow your reasoning ability to shut down.

It’s our inability to create reasonable laws which empowers predators in the first place. Maybe if we could create laws based on accomplishing some strategic goal rather than simply creating a law out of hatred, we’d actually start winning the war against predators.

I want Lori Drew to be punished just like you, but I want her to be punished not based on how I feel about her personally, but because I want to accomplish a set of concrete objectives, and keeping children safe from predators is an objective. However you cannot try and create the law on the fly just to get Lori Drew. We might not be able to convict Lori Drew of any crime here because there is no law making it a crime, beyond harassment, and it’s going to be next to impossible to convict her of that because Megan kept talking to her and didn’t block her or take any actions to end the communication to signal that it was harassment or stalking as you say. Also according to statements, another teen actually is the one who said those hurtful words to Megan, not Lori Drew herself, so what law can you convict Lori Drew under? Are we supposed to make something up to arrest her?

If we have to get her on something, try tax evasion, plant some meth on her and arrest her for that, black list her, make her life hell, but at least get her using laws that currently exist, we cannot just start arresting people for crimes that didn’t exist prior to the arrest and thats what this case is relying on. This case is relying on making an example out of Lori Drew, by convicting her of being a dishonest asshole on the internet, but it’s not currently against the law to be a dishonest asshole on or off the internet and thats what makes this case so difficult.

If Lori Drew were a teacher for example and said hurtful words and gave bad grades which resulted in Megans suicide, do we sue the teacher? the school? This bullying by adults on kids has been going on for generations, it’s not just now that it’s a big deal. Do you know how many minority students in urban schools were bullied by racist school officials, teachers, and people who in general said very similar hurtful things from a position of authority?

So because this case is on the internet we should treat it differently and give Lori Drew the death penalty? Life in prison? I don’t feel sorry for Lori Drew, she gets what she deserves, but before we can charge people with bullying, whether online or offline, we have to actually make bullying a crime, a serial offense, and I’d be glad if we pass anti bullying laws that outlaw bullying in society as a whole, not just on the internet. And perhaps thats where you should direct your anger and resources, maybe you should direct it at the lawmakers who don’t want to pass laws to protect children from bullying.

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November 17, 2008

GregS

Excuse my poor html syntax. The main point of my post is that you cannot win a war by hating the enemy. You cannot stop predators by hating them, you can only stop them when you set a series of goals and objectives, such as to lower the violence against children, or to protect children from bullying, and then deliberately pass laws and EVALUATE the laws to see if they are actually effective.

We have been passing laws and they just aren’t very effective, and if you actually read the laws you’ll see why. There aren’t any effective laws to protect children from bullying, and it takes this case on the internet to finally make us pay attention to bullying? Why don’t we fight just as hard to end bullying in the real world as we do to end it on the internet?

If we make bullying a crime in the REAL world then you can actually start convicting adults who bully children, and once its a crime in the real world you wont need a seperate set of laws online, it will simply be illegal to bully and prey on children period. The reason this case is handled flawed is because they are focusing on the internet angle,and myspace, which really has nothing to do with anything other than these just happened to be the tools Lori Drew decided to use, she could have become this girls pen pal and did it that way, or she could have done this over a telephone.

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November 17, 2008

GregS

Skye it is very wrong, but this has been going on long before Lori Drew and it really has nothing to do with the internet. Adults have been bullying children for a long time now from various positions of authority. Kids have been committing suicide over bullying for a long time now, it’s not like Megan is the first child to be bullied to death.

So what we need to do is pass anti bullying laws that apply to real people in the real world and stop treating this as an internet crime or hacking, which its not. Lori Drew if she knew this girl in person, it should be treated as an in person crime, but I’m not the prosecution and also I’m not a lawmaker.

If an adult bullies a child of course it’s wrong, but adults have been doing this for generations and getting away with it. We had adult cops that used to harass teenagers, we have adult teachers who probably are harassing students as we speak, setting certain kids up to fail, we have adults everywhere in the real world bullying kids, and of course we have kids bullying kids, and there are no laws against it.

There ought to be laws against it, I wish there were laws against it, but there aren’t any and thats the source of the problem. This case should be used as a chance to create some anti bullying laws, maybe something good can come out of this.

Reply
November 17, 2008

GregS

Chuck D. you are correct, Karma is going to come back and haunt Lori Drew, she’s probably blacklisted globally. Shes going to have to live on welfare for the rest of her life, or go to prison, I wouldn’t even hire her to work at Mc Donalds.

Reply
November 19, 2008

Sandra Madden

“Pedophiles have to be handled via the law. We cannot allow ordinary citizens to take the law into their own hands, this is not the wild west.”

Yes, it IS the wild, wild west. Don’t be fooled. If you believe that citizens do not take the law into their own hands, you would be extremely naive. The same that evil people take the innocent into their own hands and naively believe that the law will protect them.

In any case, Lori Drew is not having a very good day, ay? No doubt she’ll enjoy nothing left of her life. The world would be a better place if she wasn’t in it.

&gt^~&lt

Reply
November 19, 2008

Sandra Madden

“If we make bullying a crime in the REAL world then you can actually start convicting adults who bully children”

I understand your confusion, GregS. This case is NOT about bullying. It is about predatory criminal stalking, in my opinion.

When I was a kid I observed a bully attack my best friend one day. She was in tears over it. As it happened, we all walked home from school. I proceeded to “bully” the culprit by stepping on her heels all the way home. Then my friend took over when she realized that the “bully” was only courageous when in a group. Confronted with retribution she scurried home as fast as she could with tears in her eyes. She never bullied my friend again.

You can’t control bullies, but you can serve them with poetic justice and those are the folks who scream the loudest over their “rights”. Bully for them. I don’t care. I don’t care. I just don’t care. If we can play with bullies like Lori Drew in court and cost her time, money, tears, retribution, shame and ridicule, then justice is served.

Laws do not protect anybody. They are for after the fact retribution, period. Reasonable people, i.e., the jury pool, are not fooled.

Reply
November 19, 2008

Los Angeles Lady

Very well stated, Sandra!!

Reply
November 19, 2008

Anon

Consistent retribution can act as a deterrent, and thus serve as protection. If the risk of arrest deters someone from killing, the would-be victim is protected.

And besides, there are many who would argue that retribution is far more entertaining than any true protection can be.

Reply
November 24, 2008

Sandra Madden

And I’m thoroughly entertained by watching Lori Drew squirm. Now just serve me up some tender bites of pedophile plaguing from perverted justice and I’ll be happier still. Those poor perverted pedophiles travelling many hundreds of miles expecting to nibble on the tender hides of children. How anybody could call that “entrapment” is beyond my peeBrain to comprehend.

Reply
November 24, 2008

GregS

Sandra Madden are you advocating that we bring justice to predators the natural way? by hunting them ourselves? While it might feel right to do things this way, this is illegal and the consequences of this could actually backfire in the long term.

I think the way to punish Lori Drew is to blacklist her. It’s not hard, she’s very unpopular, she appears to have no remorse for what she did so making the case for blacklisting should be relatively simple. Yes we can give Megan justice within the delicate lines of the law. And I highly recommend that we do that.

What I do not recommend is that we try to twist the law around, or abuse the system to bring justice. The system is far more important than a few individuals, it’s also a lot harder to build systems than people think, and it’s more important that a system be consistent and logical, even if people like Lori Drew cannot be punished under the law.

So yeah, Lori Drew will pay the consequences for what she did one way or another. We don’t have to be nice to her, we don’t have to like her, we don’t have to hire her, we have the option to discriminate against her and through positive discrimination we can achieve a distributed community controlled form of justice, in the form of banishment, by rejecting her, by ending our friendships with her and isolating her from her support systems so that the only people she has left are her family members and closest friends, and even some of those people might turn against her.

Just don’t break the law.

Reply
November 24, 2008

GregS

Sandra Madden and about the pedophiles, those guys who travel to the house to meet underaged teens for sex are morally wrong and criminally wrong and I’m not disagreeing with that.

I’m disagreeing with the tactics and methods used by perverted justice and the methods of Chris Hansen, which I don’t think actually make teens any after. At best these are scare tactics, but at worst it can be entrapment, and the reason I say that is because we the viewers don’t actually get to read the logs to decide for ourselves what actually was said. We have to take the word of Chris Hansen and Perverted Justice?

It’s the tactics, the methods, it’s not the goal that I’m against. I don’t think anyone is against protecting children from predators. To imply that an individual has to support either the tactics of Perverted Justice or that they are siding with the Pedophiles is extreme on your part and it doesn’t help your cause anymore than PETA and the ALF are helping people who support animal rights.

I’ll agree with you that yes those guys who arrive at the house with condoms and alcohol are criminals and ought to be arrested and locked away. But I don’t think we should rely JUST on Perverted Justice to generate the evidence. I don’t personally trust Perverted Justice, because there is the potential for abuse and corruption when these sorts of tactics are used by people who aren’t trained, and who don’t have very good information on their targets.

It’s one thing if you have a psychological profile of your target, you have training in these areas, you understand the behavior patterns of these individuals, and you personally are held to integrity standards. It’s another for just random people to, through their own means collect information and send it to the police. Are we supposed to believe someone is a pedophile just because Perverted Justice says so? Just on the evidence of some chat logs?

Now, if we can agree to some unified standard of evidence required, and a unified standard as to the methods which will be used to obtain that evidence, then we can have a more formal way of doing things and the evidence will be more likely to hold up in court. An example would be the guy who sends xxx rated pictures of himself to the decoys, and then progresses to call the decoys on the phone and then proceeds to meet them in person. We need a standardized way to collect evidence against these individuals, we also need a way to do behavioral profiling, which to you might not seem necessary but it really helps juries and the general public when we can determine how much of a threat an individual is based on some established threat level system.

I mean even when we talk about fighting terrorists, we don’t tell people to fear everyone that looks muslim, or everyone who is muslim, or everyone who was born in Iraq, we at least have some system of determining how much of a threat a person is, and what kinda terrorist they are and their role. I’m not a big fan of using scare tactics, and just trying to make everyone scared to use the internet. I don’t see how that helps the internet in general, and it certainly doesn’t help the normal people who aren’t predators who just want to be able to use the internet in peace.

Do you see why we need a SYSTEM of justice rather than just doing it in the wild west kinda way?

Reply
November 24, 2008

Sandra Madden

The perverted pedophiles already took the law into their own hands. I read the logs on the Perverted Justice website and having done this type of volunteer activism during the early days of AOL, I know these logs are not faked. They can’t be. One faked log would bring the entire project down. I care very little about this “system of law” that you believe in. I do NOT believe in it. It protects no one. Reality is that parents must protect their own children and any help we get from Perverted Justice is great. You should spend a little time on their website. They’ve “outed” some insane career pedophiles that your precious “system” allows to run free. No more. I just donated and I’m signing up to be a contributing forum member. I’ll be happy to “entrap” as many creeps as possible and having raised teenagers for a living I do have the lingo down pat.

In the meantime, Lori Drew could go free today if the judge makes a bench ruling. That would be a mistake that costs Lori Drew quite a bit. I’d rather see her show some remorse and take responsibility for what she did and tried to cover up. She could be a part of the solution instead of the problem.

In my opinion, Lori Drew IS a perverted pedophile.

Reply
December 1, 2008

RobR

Lori Drew will pay with Karma many times over

Reply
December 2, 2008

GregS

Sandra I agree that parents must protect their children, I just don’t want to risk breaking the law to do it. I’m not claiming that perverted justices laws are fake, I’ve read their website and I think they are trying to do whats right. But you also have to understand that there are criminal elements who are pedobaiting not with the intent of actually capturing pedophile, but to extort and blackmail people. These types are giving perverted justice a bad name because people associate these types of people with the work of perverted justice.

My problem is not with the goals of perverted justice, my problem is with the individuals who don’t actually have any goals behind what they are doing. You have to understand that there are people out there who do fake logs, even if perverted justice is not involved in it, it’s not impossible to fake a log. I believe a lot of the information on the perverted justice site is real, but only because they have some convictions of actual pedophiles proving that.

What I’m trying to say is, I’d rather the people at perverted justice become actual cops rather than do it the way they are doing, because they are losing credibility by doing it this way. It’s a matter of this group managing their public relations, their image, and their credibility, and in specific they need to put in big letters on the front of their site what guidelines they are actually following.

I read the cases and I do see a pattern with them that leans towards justice, but it’s not formal enough so that people can know at a glance what that pattern is. For example when I look at perverted justices logs they do seem to be following the rules to gather evidence, and they do seem to show that most of these people are actual pedophiles. They show the posts on the sick pedo forums from these people, and this increases their credibility. This is unlike how to catch a predator works which I believe has actually hurt their credibility. On to catch a predator the only evidence Chris Hansen offers is his printed log, this requires that the viewers must trust Chris Hansen and his methods completely, like he’s law enforcement, and I think a lot of people just don’t trust what he’s doing because lets be honest, he has made it into a show,turned it into a business and he looks and talks like a slick businessman.

In fact, that show might actually be hurting perverted justice in popularizing the methods, which in my opinion work best when pedos don’t know about it. The show might have intended to have positive effects, but I think that show is partially responsible for some of the criminal elements using these methods to blackmail and extort pedophiles, which is a crime in itself.

And I don’t like pedophiles, they probably deserve to be blackmailed and extorted, but it doesn’t help people trust these methods when they can be so easily abused by people rather than being focused in on accomplishing the goal that we all share, which is keeping children and teenagers safe.

I invite you to think of ways that these methods could be improved upon so that people can not just agree on the goals of perverted justice, but agree on the methods used to accomplish these goals. I think a majority agree on the goals but a majority disagree on the methods. So if you really did work with them or did this kind work, it’s very important that you explain why these methods are successful and why the police and the law as it stands is not enough.

Reply
December 2, 2008

GregS

Sarah, Lori Drew isn’t just a part of the problem, she is the problem. She hasn’t shown any remorse at all. She will face the consequences one way or another.

Reply
December 2, 2008

Garland

I fully agree with posters like GregS &amp Sandra here. Lori NEEDS to be punished for what she did, one way or another. But then there are these idiots that want her to get off just because “she was justified in saying mean, nasty things about megan” “Hey, it’s Freedom Of Speech!”, etc. Bullcrap. I think that there should be a law on cyberbullying. Plus I don’t think that the new law should be overturned at all. Otherwise, this society is so corrupted. We need to teach others on how to treat people with respect, even when it comes to cyberbullying, or we’re sending a bad message that it’s okay for them to do it. Do you know a site that’s called:
http://www.juicycampus.com?

Well, that is certainly ONE example on how rumors, gossiping, blackmailing, cyberbullying, etc. can ruin reputations &amp lives. Here are some sites of which you can follow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuicyCampus http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/arts/gossi… http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080313-thr… http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/17/sunny.juicy/i…

It’s craziness. Pure craziness, &amp this should definitely NOT be tolerated. What happens out in the real world should also apply to the net as well. Plus that site ought to be shut down, period.

Reply
December 2, 2008

Garland

For example of idiots, take a look at this here, &amp look at the user Tomcat26’s posts.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4208

Plus look at this site here. Someone named Tucker for example (Scroll down at the bottom).
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/prosecut…

Take one comment of his, for example.

“Addendum to previous comment:

In addition to parents, we can also make it a criminal offense for anyone to provide access to the I’net for anyone under 18 without explicit, written parental (guardian or court) permission.

That should satisfy the lynch mob and the Constitution.”

Another one from here:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/lori-dre…

“Laws are not enacted to provide vengeance, they are enacted to provide justice.

And, if we are going to prosecute everyone who contributed to the insane girl’s death, we’ll have to prosecute everyone she ever had contact with.

When are her parents going to be prosecuted? They are primarily responsible (if anyone is), so in your lynch mob world, they should be first to pay the price for killing the insane girl.

BTW, the jury had the opportunity to find that Drew was responsible for the insane girl’s death, but they rejected that claim.”

Ridiculous to think that Megan’s parents are responsible for Megan’s death. How low can this corrupted, idiotic society get?

Reply
December 2, 2008

GregS

I disagree Garland, I think when we talk about adults on college campus having a gossip it is protected under free speech. Normally I side with free speech and when it comes to the adults I still do. If you are an adult and someone hurts your feelings you don’t have any excuse, but Megan was a 13 year old child being verbally abused by a nearly 50 year old women, it’s the age difference that makes this case.

I don’t think we need a cyber bullying law to apply to gossip sites. If you are so fragile that you cannot handle gossip on the internet, you wont last long in the real world or in the workplace where gossip is widespread. So no I do not think we should be able to sue over gossip, otherwise everyone will be suing everyone all the time. I also don’t think the answer is to sue when someone hurts your feelings, once again there aren’t enough lawyers, courts, or jails.

While I think Lori Drew should be punished, I don’t believe in the concept of “cyber” this and “cyber” that and “cyber” laws. Either bullying is a crime everywhere, or nowhere, and to only focus on “cyber” makes me think it’s more anti internet than about protecting people from bullying.

Now I do think there should be a law that says if someone makes a death threat against you over the internet it should be treated the same way it’s treated everywhere else, but I don’t think we should have a separate category of laws called “Cyber” laws. It’s wrong to threaten the President, and it’s illegal, we don’t say it’s “Cyber” slander, or “Cyber” threats against the President, if it’s a serious threat it doesn’t matter if its made over the internet, the radio, the phone, the snail mail, voice mail, or through an agent. It’s all the same. I think we should just apply the stalking laws to people like Lori Drew, Lori Drew could have been charged with Stalking and Harassment, but I don’t agree that you can charge someone with bullying just because they are mean and insult another person, even though I would like to, if we were to put that law in action all of us would be outlaws. Admit it, you have verbally bullied people before, nobody is nice 100% of the time, but the difference between people like you and me and people like Lori Drew is that people like Lori Drew don’t feel remorse, regret, or empathy for the person they verbally bully.

Most normal people would be remorseful if they drove a person to suicide verbally. I don’t think Lori Drews case can be applied to gossip sites, or the typical case where someone hurts a persons feeling in an argument and the person they hurt commits suicide, because they aren’t deliberately setting a goal to drive someone to suicide, in fact they might not even know the person is suicidal. So you see these laws wont work well for adults, I’d only support these sorts of laws if it applies to children, in a situation where an adult bullies a child from a fake profile as Lori Drew did, I’d want the law to apply specifically to that and nothing else.

Reply
December 2, 2008

GregS

And I think the law requiring parental permission to give internet access to a minor is a GREAT idea. We do need a law like that because it would empower parents, giving more tools to parents protects children more than anything else, because ultimately it was Megan’s parents responsibility to protect their daughter from predators, because they knew her best. The parents aren’t all to blame because they didn’t have the tools to control their daughters internet access and there are many many reasons for these sorts of problems.

I am of the opinion that Megan Meier should not have been using Myspace at 13, I don’t think those sorts of sites are safe and were not designed for children. I think we could easily filter the internet with a .kids domain and use a filter to restrict access only to sites which end in .kids. This would help parents police the internet themselves so we don’t have to hire endless cops and create draconian censorship type laws. I’m with you on protecting the children, but I wont accept censorship of free speech to do it. I’m not going to give up any adult rights nor should I have to sacrifice freedom for security, and anyone who is willing to give up their free speech for security is an idiot who deserves neither.

Reply
December 2, 2008

GregS

We need to teach others on how to treat people with respect

You cannot teach that through laws. Why don’t we just pass a law making it illegal to be a jerk/assh*le and then charge people when they do it?

Laws have to be based in reason otherwise your laws will just create a situation of witch hunting. I don’t like Lori Drew, she’s a bad person, and she shows no remorse for what she did, but are we supposed to pass laws outlawing being a bad person? I don’t think thats the way to go.

I do think we should punish bad people and reward good people, but you don’t need laws to do that. You blacklist the bad people and you give the promotions to the good people, there I solved that problem. Lori Drew will never work again, and we can give a book deal and a huge promotion to Megan’s parents to help ease the pain.

Reply
December 3, 2008

Garland

Greg, Sorry, but I just can’t condone what people do when it comes to the internet. What we’re doing a sending a bad message to people that it’s okay for them to bully, harass, spreading bad rumors (gossiping), &amp to ruin reputations &amp lives from the internet or real life all because “Hey, it’s freedom of speech &amp we have a right to do whatever we want &amp whatever we say!”. No. It’s not okay. It’s wrong, period. I can’t understand why society is so brain dead &amp tolerates this.

Plus Greg, I’m sick and tired of people saying anything they want to anyone online, and then screaming “freedom of speech.” This was not a case of an article that just offended lots of people. This was deliberate deception and targeting of a minor. It was done under the auspices of an adult who then let other people in on the targeting and abuse, especially her peers. This was not what freedom of speech was meant for. All of people who abuse freedom of speech in this manner should be taken out behind the barn and taught some manners. Their so-called freedom of speech does not allow them to stalk someone online, pretend to be someone else and target them specifically for abuse and humiliation. Humiliation is hard enough for adults to deal with much less a child with emotional problems.

The woman KNEW the kid had problems and she conspired to do this in revenge, and you can’t convince me otherwise. She couldn’t get back at her face to face, so she pretended to be someone else. That kind of statement coming from someone you think is a boy that you believed liked you is an absolute emotional bomb to a 13 year old girl. There is NO excuse for what that woman did to that girl, NO reason good enough, and NO freaking defense! Period. I’m tired of cyber people claiming that the freedom of speech protects their stupidity and verbal attacks on people. There are responsibilities that come with that right to free speech and one of them is not to abuse it. Your rights to free speech don’t over ride everyone else’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anyone who does that kind of crazy stuff online is the lowest form of scum that exists, I don’t care how old they are or what gender that they are. It’s wrong! Period.

There is no flipping “everything’s relative”. It’s wrong. You just don’t do that to people whether you like them or not. It’s wrong. It pisses me off that people think in their tiny freaking minds that it’s somehow OK to say and do those things online, like it doesn’t count. Put someone behind a monitor and give them a keyboard and they lose their ever-loving minds, and suddenly it’s OK to say and do things they wouldn’t dream of saying to someone’s face.

It’s cowardice, and only low down scumbags behave that way. They have no character, and no conscience. It borders on sociopathic behavior as far as I’m concerned. Written words take the place of spoken words online, and can create just as much damage to people of every age. I hate irresponsible people who don’t take responsibility for what their idiotic words might do to other people. Then they shrug and say “it’s not my problem.” Bullying, and emotional terrorism is the same whether it’s written or spoken. Just because you can’t see the other people you’re speaking to does not mean it doesn’t count, it just makes some people feel more free to be cruel. And this is just one case of many I’m sure, it’s just that this one is in the media spotlight. Let this case be a warning to all those there. You want to be evil, and verbally abusive to people online, go out in the woods and yell at a tree, don’t abuse other people with your stupidity. It looks like you might start having to pay a steep price for it.

I’m not being mean here, but it’s the truth. And the truth hurts.

Reply
December 3, 2008

gompertz

Greg, I’m not ganging up on you here, you know how I feel about the “ganging up” thing, right? I do think you didn’t fully address Garland’s concerns when it comes to a site like Juicy Campus. In your answer you mentioned “hurt feelings” and adults should not be able to sue for that. Okay, but it sems that a lot more damage can be done by a site like Juicy Campus. If you look at the articles about the site, some of the students express concern that the things posted there could affect their job search. One female student said that the characterization of her as a “big slut” could hurt her chances to get a job in business, and it might have that effect. I have known cases where people are fired because of rumors, as busy managers don’t want to take the chance that the rumors might be true and they lack the time and resources to investigate. Better safe than sorry, they seem to say.
Gossip and slander have been around since the beginning of the human race, but the Internet adds that dimension of anonymity that encourages it even more. In the olden days you could confront the gossips and defend yourself. Now, here are people, college students, who are shocked to find their pictures on line with grossly distorted portrayals of who they are, and the source is anonymous. While people can sue if they can demonstrate definite harm done to their reputation by definitely identifiable sources, the type of “cyber-slander” on Juicy Campus is often hard to pin down, but the damage is just as real. Maybe an analogy would be the difference between soldiers on a battlefield subjected to an artillery barrage against which they can take cover, and the more dispersed and hard to trace effects of a mustard gas attack wafted on the air.

I find it ironic, too, that this thing’s origins are associated with Duke, and we all remember the recent “Duke rape case”. Those three young men were declared innocent, but how many times has a lie or deception worked?

I do think the issues with Juicy Campus are sufficiently different from the Lori Drew case to make analogies shaky. If we must have analogies, maybe “Othello” would be more suitable. Othello should have been less emotional, more reflective, less suspicious, yes, but the real victim was his innocent wife, and nothing she did could have changed things. Was it wrong to punish Iago because he did not lay his hands on anyone but used Othello’s weakness against him? Juicy Campus seems to thrive on the scheming, malicious, envy-driven people like Iago and they thrive on the innocent Desdemonas.

I wonder, do you think we should do with such people? Do we recognize that someone like Iago would make a good spy or strategist and reward him, and say too bad about poor dumb Desdemona?

Reply
December 4, 2008

Garland

*Sigh*

This knucklehead named “Tomcat26”, still doesn’t get what I’m posting to him. He’s making me angry. You can read all of his posts &amp see for yourself. I go by the name of “Garlandjr”.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4208

It’s possible that he’s trolling this blog looking for attention.

Reply
December 4, 2008

gompertz

Garland, it looks like typical troll behavior. I would ignore it, you can’t talk sense to a troll.

Reply
December 5, 2008

Garland

Not only that, but this is what I said:

This is to all the people who want to blame Tina for her daughter&rsquos suicide. Isn&rsquot this a little harsh? No, not a little, this is ridiculous &amp very laughable. You can blame a lot of people for what happened and the truth is that there may be multiple places where the blame lies. But saying the mother herself is responsible for the death by her actions is just cruel.

What really upsets me about your statements the most is the inference that the mother caused the suicide of her own child. Give me a break! Have you never told your child that they messed up? Parents are criticized for NOT keeping track of their kids online. This mother was upset that the daughter broke the internet rules as well as her telling Megan to log off many times before when she received those hateful comments from Lori. She was being a responsible parent &amp was doing her job like every parent should. I guess the most responsible thing to do if you have kids is throw out the computer.

You can blame the mom for not being &ldquosupportive&rdquo all you want but I challenge anyone with children to tell me how they&rsquove been perfectly supportive with every issue that&rsquos ever bothered their child. If you tell me you&rsquove never said &ldquobuck up!&rdquo when your child has been hurt or never said &ldquoI told you so!&rdquo in some situation, then you&rsquore lying. People ALL say things like this from time to time. Parents aren&rsquot perfect. So don&rsquot dare to blame the mother just because hindsight shows she MIGHT have been able to prevent what happened by being psychic, not to mention perfect and unable to be frustrated or emotional herself. The mother has enough blame from herself, I&rsquom sure, saying the exact same thing. And that&rsquos too bad, because it WASN&rsquoT her fault.

The mother clearly said and showed that she WAS involved with what was going on. She had read the E-mails with her daughter and WAS discussing them. That&rsquos more than most parents even know in these situations. Sadly most only discover what was even going on AFTER their child has taken some regrettable action. So she did right. She simply did not have any clue that her daughter was so disturbed that she was possible of taking things to the extreme that she did. So in my book, the mother did better than 99% of the parents in these situations that I&rsquove read or heard about before because at least she communicated with her daughter and knew what was going on. Again, we can&rsquot be perfect, and we can&rsquot predict the future, especially when dealing with someone who evidently has mental issues we are not aware of or do not know the degree of.

This kind of thing has happened throughout history with teenagers, back before Romeo and Juliet. The message is clear though. Parents simply have to do the best they can. Know what their children are doing and stay involved and communicative with them. That&rsquos all you can do. Also, don&rsquot be hesitant to pull the plug on communications like a computer or even a cell phone if things are getting out of control. Yes, the child probably won&rsquot appreciate that either, but if you feel things are out of control enough to warrant it, wouldn&rsquot you rather be safe than sorry?

Bottom line, STOP attacking the parents for not being perfect and not knowing exactly what would happen. It&rsquos not fair and it makes you look like fools as well. What happened is tragic enough without heaping extra blame in places where it doesn&rsquot belong. In the end, the buck stops with each individual. No matter what, we are all responsible for our OWN actions. People have no idea what it&rsquos like to lose a child due to the intense bullying that she had suffered, among what other incidents that children suffer due to others. And it certainly doesn&rsquot come from their parents. Shame on those of you that are defending Lori&rsquos actions.

While it&rsquos also true that Lori didn&rsquot cause Megan to commit suicide either, She, Ashley Grills, &amp her daughter, Sarah, KNEW what kind of problems that Megan had mentially, &amp decided to act out on it, &amp had shown absolutely no remorse for what they did. THAT&rsquoS why they have been receiving all the public humilation that they&rsquore getting, &amp rightly so. Plus don&rsquot say that Lori isn&rsquot a drama queen, because if she wasn&rsquot, then she would have just marched her butt onto her neighbor&rsquos doorstep, &amp just simply asked her neighbor if Megan was bullying Sarah. Now how hard is that? It&rsquos not. This whole tragedy could have all been avoided if Lori were to simply do that of what I said. I hope you don&rsquot have any kids. And I certainly don&rsquot blame Tina for going after her constantly.

People needs to wake the hell up.

Reply
December 5, 2008

Garland

I agree with you gomp, that he’s certainly most likely doing this for attention. Plus he’s still at it again. Check out his recent posts to mine &amp check out my recent posts to his.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4208 http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4207

Reply
December 6, 2008

gompertz

Garland, sorry I’ve been busy and not able to give your concerns the attention they deserve, but I want to present my opinion on some aspects of this matter, and remember I’m no legal expert.

First, I am happy that Lori Drew was found guilty and I hope the conviction stands even if it doesn’t quite “fit” the legal technicalities. She is a bully who took advantage of a child known to be vulnerable and if they couldn’t find a law to cover that, it means the law and those who make the laws have failed to do their job of protecting society from people like Lori Drew.

People have the right to expect the laws to guarantee our security as well as freedom and to validate our reasonable judgments of what is permissible and what is not. We shouldn’t have to just shrug our shoulders and say “Oh well, there was no law to cover this offense, so let’s just get over it.”

Is rape and murder wrong just because these acts violate a particular law, or is it rather that the laws reflect the fact that rape and murder are wrong? If I cannot quote the exact statutes that forbid rape and murder, does that mean I can’t condemn these things? If I see someone being attacked, do I have to refrain from coming to their aid because I can’t point to a specific law to cover it? What if someone rushes at me with some exotic but dangerous-looking weapon, do I have to assure myself as to the name of that weapon and whether it is mentioned in the statutes before I can oppose the attacker? What if it is one of those curved ceremonial knives used in some Asian countries and it is not mentioned by name? Some purists might say that by opposing an attacker wielding this weapon I am “taking the law into my own hands.” I would hope that judge and jury would agree that it’s just not possible for the statutes to mention every detail explicitly and some things have to be implied.

And so it goes with everything else, not just ceremonial knives. The fact is life is immeasurably complicated and there will always be details not explicitly covered in the books. So even with more anti-bullying laws in place, some legalists will still find Lori Drew innocent because the particular form of bullying was not covered. It’s that kind of tactic that has set many criminals free to commit more crimes, and sometimes you have to be creative, as in this case, to validate the people’s sound moral judgment. Yes, let’s pass more laws but there will always be criminals who will try to evade the law by introducing variations not specifically covered by the laws, no matter how many laws we pass. So prosecutors have to resort to the same tactic of being creative. So I like the idea that, over and above the social ostracism, Lori Drew and any would-be imitators got the message that if you bully a child the representatives of the law will be after you. And it’s okay if we have to stretch the law a bit to get you, the law is strong and flexible enough to withstand a little stretching.

So now we a re all criminals for violating TOS agreements? Really, they need to throw out those things that nobody reads anyway. I’m sure even some lawyers just click “agree” and move on to the good stuff without reading the fine print. So let’s make these TOS terms more simple and readable so they actually mean something to the people they are intended for or get rid of them altogether. You don’t need a TOS to blog here, right? One day the highway department designated a street near my house as “one way.” Since it is a street that people travelled all the time for many years, the sign was unnoticed by many drivers. Soon people just started ignoring the sign and proceeded to use the street as two-way as before. So having the one-way sign became a hazard that just created confusion since some obeyed it and some didn’t. So we told the police, either take the sign down or enforce the law, it doesn’t matter which as long as the law is clear and violation of the law is swiftly and surely dealt with. If obeying a one-way sign is optional why not stop signs and traffic lights too. That would be great for the tow-truck operators and repair stations, wouldn’t it? Same with TOS agreements, make them as clear as a one-way street sign and then enforce them when you have something reasonable to enforce.

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December 6, 2008

gompertz

Garland, whatever you think of what I just said, or whatever anyone says, some people will not be convinced. I think that applies to a certain troll. )

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December 6, 2008

GregS

Garland It’s okay if you believe that, but you are accepting and promoting authoritarianism. This is not a form of government I agree with. We disagree fundamentally, we disagree philosophically, and thats fair. I’ll give you my reasons for disagreeing with your views that people should not be allowed to say anything they want. &ldquoThis was deliberate deception and targeting of a minor. &ldquo I agree that it is wrong to harass, stalk, deceive and bully a minor. I do not think it’s wrong to deceive adults. I don’t owe you or anyone else the truth if you haven’t earned it. If I respect you then you deserve respect, but if I don’t then I shouldn’t be forced to. Consider situations where you have to deal with &ldquobad&rdquo people, or people who have no integrity, do you want to be forced to be truthful to &ldquobad&rdquo dangerous adult individuals? What about in the competitive market place where we compete for profit? Should we be forced to be honest when the only goal in the business world is to win and profit at the expense of your competitors? I agree only when this applies to children. I do not agree when this is applied to adults because deception is necessary in competitive environments.

All of people who abuse freedom of speech in this manner should be taken out behind the barn and taught some manners. So you are saying if you are outsmarted by a con-artist that you should have the right to apply violence to the situation? You are advocating thug-economics? I disagree with applying violence to these situations. If someone beats you in an intellectual battle of wit, then it’s fair and square, you lost, and unless they threatened to hurt you physically, I don’t think it’s very manly to be the one who wants to resort to thuggery in combat of skullduggery. Why not learn to use deception yourself? You don’t like what someone is saying about you? You have a voice, you can say stuff about them that they don’t like. Creating a law to protect yourself from gossip wont work, and hiring some thugs to beat them up wont work. The truth is, there is nothing you can do to win the information war except to offer compelling disinformation of your own, or to call them out on the fact that they are a big liar. But the law cannot and should not be used to enforce integrity standards, thats not the purpose of government, thats the purpose of the church, and if you really want to send messages and teach lessons, use religion and not the legal system.

&ldquo. Their so-called freedom of speech does not allow them to stalk someone online, pretend to be someone else and target them specifically for abuse and humiliation. &ldquo If we are talking about a 40 year old adult doing that to a minor as is the case with Lori Drew, I agree with you completely. But when it’s two adults, if someone commits suicide because of something another adult said to them over the internet, thats adult business as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think it’s the same situation because both of these people are grown up and so the battle of minds is fair. It’s not like one person is a child, it’s not the same as child abuse. Lots of adults are prone to suicide, and if you want to pass laws like this my only option will be to not communicate with anyone deemed suicidal over the internet out of fear that I might get sued someday.

&rdquoThe woman KNEW the kid had problems and she conspired to do this in revenge, and you can&rsquot convince me otherwise.&rdquo I agree with you, I’ve never tried to convince you otherwise. Lori Drew was wrong and everyone agrees on that.

&rdquoI&rsquom tired of cyber people claiming that the freedom of speech protects their stupidity and verbal attacks on people. &ldquo You are an adult, you are not a child. We are not children. I tired of adults trying to have the government treat them as children, if you don’t like what someone has to say about you or whats being said about you, you have the freedom to say whatever you want about them. It’s not the same as a 40 year old woman attacking a 13 year old girl, when it’s two adults freedom of speech absolutely must apply, it’s in the constitution and I’m not supporting changing the constitution to protect adults who have hurt feelings.

&rdquoI don&rsquot care how old they are or what gender that they are. It&rsquos wrong! Period. &ldquo
You obviously have thin skin. It might be wrong but thats life, a lot of things in life are wrong, the entire capitalist system is designed around unfairness, should we outlaw that just so poor people can not be abused? Should we go communist? I don’t agree with you that we should use the government to baby people emotionally. When it’s kids I agree with you because they might not have anyone else to protect them, but if you are an adult you are supposed to protect your own emotions, not rely on the government to protect your feeling.

&rdquoYou just don&rsquot do that to people whether you like them or not. It&rsquos wrong. &ldquo
War is wrong too, but just saying its wrong is not going to end it. As humans we can’t all win, we have to compete for resources, and deception is one of the means in which adults compete with each other, it includes gossip and rumor spreading. To try and outlaw deception and gossip is like trying to outlaw encryption, you wont get very far. It’s also like trying to outlaw the gun, and ban gun because some people are hurt by guns. Yes it’s wrong to bully people, and we both agree on that, but I don’t agree that it’s wrong to lie to people, or wrong to apply deception on people, especially if the person you apply it to is a bully. So in the case of Lori Drew I do think it’s fair to apply deception to her, because shes a bully.

&rdquoWritten words take the place of spoken words online, and can create just as much damage to people of every age. I hate irresponsible people who don&rsquot take responsibility for what their idiotic words might do to other people. &ldquo Words don’t make people suicidal, people who are suicidal have a mental disorder to begin with. Outlawing the words is not going to treat mental illness anymore than outlawing guns treats violent crime. Why don’t you focus on helping people who are mentally ill rather than try to censor free speech or ban guns? Emotional terrorism is always going to be a fact of life, it’s not something the law can solve, you cannot use the law to make people nicer. You can try to, but I just see it as a waste of time. Theres always going to be mean cruel people, you can try using the law to fight jerks but I just disagree with your strategy.

Here is my prediction of what will happen if you outlaw free speech, what you’ll do is you’ll drive the gossip underground. Now you wont be able to know who said what about you, because the gossip will become stealthy and invisible. People will also apply encryption to their communication so that you cannot prove in court what words were said, once again making it more difficult. Finally if people want to hurt you with words, and you outlaw the words over the net, they’ll resort to writing you hateful letters and sending it to your door, you wont be able to trace where the mail was sent from because unlike the internet, there need not be a return address attached. Then theres the phone calls in the middle of the night which you might receive, how are you going to know who called? And finally if all of this fails and you do somehow put a satelite up to watch everything everyone does, they’ll just speak in code and insult you in front of your face, or gossip about you in front of your face, only they’ll use all the politically correct nice sounding speech to do it. And I don’t see how this makes things any better.

An example is like how today, people don’t use the N word or any of those sorts of words anymore, but has this stopped racist people from insulting and humiliating the people they don’t like, directly in their faces, using their coded politically correct speech? It’s okay if we disagree, I don’t think you have bad intentions, and despite what you might be feeling, I don’t think it’s right to bully anyone, exceptions being for people who are bullies themselves like Lori Drew.

gompertz before there were sites like Juicy Campus, just being rumored to be a homosexual, or just being rumored to be jewish, or just being a racial minority, or just being rumored to be something other than Christian would keep you from getting a job. Discrimination is not new and it’s not only taking place on sites like Juicy Campus. Myspace is being used to get people hired and fired. Blackmail is common, but so is discrimination, and it’s not going to end if we just ban Myspace, or Juicy Campus, or try and pretend like by getting rid of these sites that all the people who discriminate will stop doing it, it’s very na&iumlve to think that this problem has anything to do with the internet when gossip has been going on since before there was an internet. Gossip started in churches, the Calvinists invented gossip as a way to control the behavior of the members of their church. The church leaders would force the members of the church to report on the sins of other members, this resulted in a culture where if a church membered was imply rumored to be a homosexual they’d be discriminated against by the entire church, this could be millions of people. It was common for the press of this time to bluntly say who the homosexual was, but even if the press didn’t out the homosexual, the church members all knew through the grapevine gossip system. The gossip system also is how the church would know who was an alcoholic, and of course we know about the witch trials and the result of that, all which started through gossip. And even in the 1900s, you have the era where everyone was trying to figure out who the communists were, and if you were even rumored to be a communist the FBI and others would investigate you, you’d be blacklisted, and treated as someone not to be trusted or hired.

What I’m saying is that removing Juicy Campus is not the answer. Getting rid of MySpace is not the answer. We could pass anti discrimination laws so that information on the internet cannot be used to hire or fire a person, but to outlaw gossip on the internet, I mean if we can’t do it offline, I just think it’s futile to even try it online. The internet doesn’t add anonymity either, because if someone wanted to start a rumor about you, they could send an anonymous letter to your boss with some fake photoshopped pictures and spread the rumor that you are a homosexual that way.

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December 6, 2008

GregS

Is rape and murder wrong just because these acts violate a particular law, or is it rather that the laws reflect the fact that rape and murder are wrong?

Murder is wrong because it’s illegal. The only crime that seems to be univerally wrong is rape, because torture is recognized as wrong anywhere you go and even in times of war torture is against the rules/laws of war.

Murder is not wrong, it depends on the context and situation. Murdering Hitler certainly wasn’t wrong. Aren’t we glad we drove that mad man to commit suicide? Murdering terrorists isn’t wrong, they want to kill us all. Murdering people who want to murder you or people you care about is absolutely right, it’s only wrong if you murder innocent people and this is why not all murderers are wrong.

The law isn’t about right and wrong. The law is designed to prevent a state of nature. If you start twisting the laws out of context then you weaken the power of the law because people will begin to respect the legal system a bit less each time you do that. This is like when the President decides to ignore the law because he’s the President, it weakens the power of the congress when he does that.

I know this is a very strict legal/philosophy argument and I can understand your views and feelings on this. I just want you to know that not everyone who takes a pro law view is immoral or taking that view simply to be a “troll”, its a legit view.

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December 6, 2008

GregS

Gomp my basic stance and I think the stances of many other philosophers and lawyers is that we should get Lori Drew using legal means, but not using the law itself. Yes we should punish people who bully children, but there are ways to do this which don’t require stretching/weakening the law.

And I advocate we bring justice to Lori Drew using extralegal means, we just need to think outside the box bit. The law isn’t the only way we have to punish bad people, and to believe it is our only option is very naive. We can punish Lori Drew in any ways that your brain can think of, as far as I’m concerned Lori Drew is now an enemy of civil society, Lori Drew is fair game.

If you can deprive her of property or injury her in any way, you now have the moral justification to do so. If you enjoy hurting people, she is on that short list of people you can hurt and be rewarded for doing it. You don’t need the law to get personal revenge, I’m sure any one of us would be willing to punish her from whatever position or advantage we have over her.

She will be fired from her job, she will be poor for the rest of her life, she will lose all her friends, the only people who will care about her is her family. She is going to die old and lonely, and that is justice.

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December 6, 2008

gompertz

Greg, the “troll” reference was highly specific and not intended as a general indictment of anyone’s views on this or any other matter.

Maybe the use of the word “murder” comes down to a play on words, but I would say that kill Hitler or terrorists who are trying to kill you would not be something I would call murder. There is killing that is necessary to prevent greater evil, as in a just war against an aggressor. Still, even in a just war there are rules of warfare that set limits to what is lawful, and a combatant can be charged with murder if he kills someone, even an aggressor in a way that violates those rules.
True, purpose of the law is to prevent a “state of nature” in spite of what Rousseau’s followers may think. But underlying the law is a concept of right and wrong that derives from reason, and that reason is not necessarily enshrined in the prevailing legal system or the existing government, at least in my view. I don’t know if you studied Hegel at all in philosophy, the vogue of Hegel studies has long passed for everyone except a few Marxists. But Hegel spoke a lot about reason and believed it was manifested in the existing government, which in his case meant the Prussian State. Apologists for both Soviet Communism and Nazism could use Hegel as a justification for totalitarian government. I only mention this because it is one prominent example of how the concept of reason needs to be clearly defined to prevent misuse in the service of the prevailing orthodoxy. Isn’t it possible that reason may be better served through a movement that rebels against the existing political system? The thinkers who inspired the American Revolution thought so. And all those Chinese rebellions against those who violated the “Mandate of Heaven” were justified by an appeal to reason in a form that I think John Locke would have appreciated. I know from the thoughts you have expressed in the past that you find a lot of things wrong with prevailing political and social conditions. As for some hints you gave about how to change the present system, I got the idea that you sometimes favored forms of grassroots movements , perhaps based in martial arts and eastern philosophy. However that may be, I think that what we are opposing is an irrational hegemony that uses the language of “reason” to maintain domination of society. So the advocates of reason would have to work outside the system to change it, and that may make them look unreasonable to those who, like the Hegelians of the past, identify reason with the prevailing unreasonable system. What I suggested in the Lori Drew case was that the use of laws in new ways can be a way of using reason to oppose the unreason of a legal system that has not lived up to its promise. In no way am I saying that what the prosecutors did in this case should serve as a model of how laws should be applied. But I do suggest that because the law had to be stretched to get the result of making Lori Drew answerable before the court it should serve as a wakeup call that much more needs to be done to make the legal system more responsive to actual social conditions.

As for the concept of deception in general, I guess I am inclined to agree with Garland, so far as I understand the views you both express in this blog. So here is what you say: “I do not think it’s wrong to deceive adults. I don’t owe you or anyone else the truth if you haven’t earned it.” Well, in some cases that’s true. If you practice deception in a game of chess or cards, fine. And if you lost all your money in a game of three card monty, don’t come crying to me. With identity theft we can take reasonable precautions. But con men have ingenious ways of stealing your identity that you can’t always defend against. What if someone makes out a change of address form in your name and it takes you several days to figure out that there is a reason you haven’t received any mail the last few days. Meanwhile your information has been diverted. Since I agree with John Locke on the connection between property rights and freedom, I think those who steal your identity are infringing on your freedom because your identity is your property. Not to mention your wealth which is now at the disposal of the thief. In my view, I have earned the right to be free of the kind of deception that steals my property because I have earned my property. While I must take reasonable precautions, con men will find ways to get my property that are very creative I can’t anticipate everything even if I were totally paranoid. In my own case, I not only shred every bit of mail addressed to me, every credit card offer, anything at all with my name on it. Then I distribute the fragments among no less than ten different trash bags and remove them one by one at designated time intervals. Some may say that I am exercising an unusual degree of care. Still, I think a determined identity thief would find a way no matter how extreme my precautions. So I rely on the police to exercise the level of vigilance needed to protect my property, including my identity. And police power involves the potential for using force, so I condone, in some cases, the use of force against those who would use deception to deprive me of my property. So I guess that makes me more of a conservative than a libertarian and people can have different views and still agree in important ways.

As for gossip sites, I agree that shutting them down does not solve anything. Where they harm someone’s career because bosses are afraid of hiring someone whose reputation has been smeared by something like Juicy Campus, I agree the answer is to change the attitude of the employer. Take the case of the girl who was called a “big slut” by anonymous slanderers. You can’t stop the slanderers, even without the Internet. So, social attitudes must change. If I were a prospective employer, I might know that the person I am interviewing for this job was called a “big slut” on the Internet. And I would say, so what? What if this person (whom presumably I don’t know) actually has certain character traits that make that description apt. Would that interfere with her ability to do the job? It would be something like the accusations concerning Victoria Lindsay on the other blog. I would ask myself, what if these accusations are true? Would this affect my views on that case? It shouldn’t.

Take your example of using the N word, yes a person could use that word or use code but the real problem is the underlying attitudes. The N word itself is derived from a very ordinary Latin word meaning black, and its bad connotation is based on history and social conditions. So you attack the social conditions rather than the word or the gossip. So in general I agree that gossip itself is not the problem. If someone gossips about me, my attitude is that you are free to believe it or not and if you believe it that’s your problem.

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December 6, 2008

GregS

“much more needs to be done to make the legal system more responsive to actual social conditions.”

I agree with this. I just don’t think we should let our emotions create the laws as we keep doing when we react to these sorts of cases. We have to make laws based on the consequences, and while it’s say that this girl committed suicide, to ban freedom of speech would be to do exactly what we accuse China of doing when China bans websites which promote suicide cults, or when China cracks down on political sites which go against the party line. I think we have to apply the scientific method when creating laws and not make a new law out of pain, anger, fear, because that leads to stuff like the drug laws, the patriot act, and the current set of ridiculous internet laws which aren’t working. Had we created reasonable laws in the first place these situations wouldn’t be allowed to happen, or if they did happen we at least woudn’t be asking ourselves who is to blame and what the punishment should be, because the law would be clear about that.

“But con men have ingenious ways of stealing your identity that you can&rsquot always defend against. What if someone makes out a change of address form in your name and it takes you several days to figure out that there is a reason you haven&rsquot received any mail the last few days. “

You are clearly well read, I’m guessing you’ve read Sun Tzu’s book the art of war? Deception is essential to victory in any conflict. But there are rules even among con artists, and the main rule is to never deceive an honest man. I don’t apply deception on people who approach me honestly, who have honest intentions, good intentions, etc But if they are dishonest, and approach me in a dishonest way, they are fair game. It is ethical to rob a thief. It’s even more ethical to rob a rich thief. It’s not ethical to rob an honest person who worked to earn their money. Some con artists understand this, and do have ethics.

The reason I’m not against the use of deception is because deception is used by both the good and the bad. Just like how you have good people who can conduct sensitive investigations through social engineering, and sometimes this social engineering uncovers more serious crimes and evil, or in the case where you have really bad people in the world, and you cannot outlaw deception because deception is a requirement for dealing with bad people in the world, you’d even teach your teenager stuff like “never tell strangers your real name, age, and location on the internet”, or “don’t tell the truth to strangers”, it’s very much the same thing. When I was growing up I was told not to talk to strangers at all, but that doesn’t really work, so I settled on lying to them as the best way to deal with strangers. And it’s more necessary than ever.

But this does not mean I lied with the intent to drive people to suicide. So to outlaw deception is to attempt to outlaw all lying, good or bad, and that’s not going to make people safer because it means young people will be even more vulnerable because they wont be able to lie to the bully, so now they have to tell the bully the truth? Deception is a weapon for truth and justice as well, thats all I can tell you, and I don’t like having to apply deception but I’m going to be honest enough to admit that I apply it routinely.

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December 6, 2008

gompertz

Greg, I just now saw you last post. Gee, now after reading that, I kind of feel sorry for her. lol

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