Your Blog is a Weapon? House Bill suggests Hurting Feelings illegal

Journal-Post
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Law prof Eugene Volokh blogs about a U.S. House of Representatives bill proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others that could make it a federal felony to use your blog, social media like MySpace and Facebook, or any other web media “To Cause Substantial Emotional Distress Through “Severe, Repeated, and Hostile” Speech.” Oh lordy, there goes 4chan.

Here’s the relevant text:
Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….

["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …

["Electronic means"] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.

Sources: BoingBoing.net, Volokh.com

Here’s the bill in its full context.

——————————————————————-

Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (Introduced in House)
HR 1966 IH

111th CONGRESS
1st Session

H. R. 1966
To amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to cyberbullying.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 2, 2009

Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California (for herself, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. YARMUTH, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Mrs. CAPPS, Mr. BISHOP of New York, Mr. BRALEY of Iowa, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. HARE, Mr. HIGGINS, Mr. CLAY, Mr. SARBANES, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. COURTNEY, and Mr. KIRK) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL
To amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to cyberbullying.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act’.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:
(1) Four out of five of United States children aged 2 to 17 live in a home where either they or their parents access the Internet.
(2) Youth who create Internet content and use social networking sites are more likely to be targets of cyberbullying.
(3) Electronic communications provide anonymity to the perpetrator and the potential for widespread public distribution, potentially making them severely dangerous and cruel to youth.
(4) Online victimizations are associated with emotional distress and other psychological problems, including depression.
(5) Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide.
(6) Sixty percent of mental health professionals who responded to the Survey of Internet Mental Health Issues report having treated at least one patient with a problematic Internet experience in the previous five years; 54 percent of these clients were 18 years of age or younger.

SEC. 3. CYBERBULLYING.


(a) In General- Chapter 41 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
Sec. 881. Cyberbullying

(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
(b) As used in this section–
(1) the term ‘communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
(2) the term `electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.’.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 41 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
881. Cyberbullying.’.

more cyber laws to protect people from cyber bullying are needed i'm not sure i'm in agreement with all this but something shoulod be done to keep people who know you from coming online just to cause embarressment and stress to another

I had a crazy chick calling my town

These websites have the responsibility to create policy designed to protect people against this type of crap, allowing government to regulate speech is a extremely slippery slope and it will not end well.

Do we really need more laws to handle this situation? It seems to me it is the responsibility of the website and/or the parents to handle these situations.

agreed

The Einstein/Gene Simmons almagation cracks me up!

adults are being imature its not just kids coming online and making comments to hurt people should be easier for people to file charges on

Filing charges for words?

Words can't hurt you unless you let them.

I agree with Thomas and War on this. can't be hurt by a blog if you don't go into their profile to read them. and just report them to the site if it's bad

wors are jsut words...but online stalking can be quite tormenting to say the least.

I think this is the law trying to keep up with new technology. Is it badly written? Yeah looks like it.

If any cares to review our history or the history of any society with laws they will see that laws follow new technology. Often in ways that seem embarrassingly ill conceived, badly written, limited or over broad in scope and so on.

It is the nature of the law.

Law is after all always evolving.

It is one of the things that makes law so beautiful and intellectually satisfying.

Laws are not black and white. They live. They are forged. They evolve.

Laws can only try to anticipate future circumstances. They cannot be perfect instruments.

The forging of law only starts with legislators and administrators. These instruments are then handed to lawyers, prosecutors and judges and....

BEFORE YOU START YOUR RANT...

to jurors....to you and I.

Anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of history must surely understand this.

When you have an adult woman who can knowingly and with malice convince a young girl to suicide and find there is no charge to bring against her because there is no law that addresses what she has done....well...some legislation is sure to arise.

Is this a poor piece of legislation? Maybe...I would like to read it and not what you've posted.

Should something be done? Ask the friends and family of that girl, or the girl who killed herself after being sexually assaulted by someone who tormented her about the assault...

I totally agree with war on this one.

Many of us disagree on here. Some few take it personally and at times will respond with comment to anothers character. Suppose that rather than a "moderator" giving you a warning or short suspention from the site it was left up to the government......

Are we willing to give them that much power over our lives BECAUSE SOMEONES FEELINGS ARE HURT? It is a 1st amendment right, and we want to let them take it away?

NOT ME!

THEY ARE SIMPLY CRIMINALIZING THE GENERAL PUBLIC FOR BEING HUMAN!

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1966

is the bill...just as War posted it

Megain Meier was from St. Louis. She committed suicide at 13 years old.

Wiki:

"Her suicide was attributed to cyber-bullying through the social networking website MySpace. The account through which the bullying took place purportedly belonged to a 16-year-old male named "Josh Evans." However, Lori Drew, the mother of a former friend of Meier, later admitted creating the MySpace account with her daughter and Ashley Grills, Lori Drew's 18 year old employee. Several people contributed to running the faked account, including Drew.

Witnesses testified that the women intended to use Meier’s e-mails with "Josh" to get information about her and later humiliate her, in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Drew's daughter.

A federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew on May 15, 2008, on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, and one count of criminal conspiracy. Drew was found guilty on three lesser charges (reduced from felonies to misdemeanors by the jury) on November 26, 2008. The jury was deadlocked on the fourth felony charge of criminal conspiracy.

The case has caused several jurisdictions to consider legislation prohibiting harassment over the Internet."


There needs to be internet laws to protect the children from cyber bullies and predators and protect others from stalkers. I think slander is a problem with the teenagers too.

Right now it's difficult to charge anybody with an on-line crime.

The technical equipment and programs that can be used to get inside a persons computer and invade their privacy and perhaps destroy their life as well as causing emotinal damege is unreal.

Maybe, perhaps do away with these sorts of spy programs. that Im sure for a chunk of change any average Joe can own...let alone what the govermnet already has.

But as this will never happen. and laws well are made to be broken and cyber laws are probably very difficult to enforce.

log on and take the risk...or log off

I'm sorry, but aren't we talking about a parents responsibility here? Have we gotten so lax in raising our children, monitoring their activities that we now think the government should do it for us?

I raised 6 children, 3 of which were adopted/fostered. I monitored their internet activities, talked to them, got involved in their lives. What has parenting become?

I'm raising a child. I am extremely involved with my child's life. I talk with them extensively everyday. I have child controls on their account. When I am in the shower, cooking dinner, doing laundry, or sleeping, I can't see what they are doing on the computer. I can't see what they are doing on the computer at their friend's houses either.

You read about Megan and think about a parent's responsibility? It happened in my city. We look at the mother of a former friend(an adult!) that created the MySpace account just to pretend to be a boy to hurt Megan.

There needs to be ways to charge people like that.

I can tell what my son does online and we communicate very well. there are harassment, stalking amd slander laws already. not to mention....the sites have a report button or contact info

BRAVO Rose! That's what parenting is!