Lori Drew, Murderer - MySpace Suicide Trial Begins

A Missouri woman knew her 13-year-old neighbor was depressed and suicidal when she sent cruel Internet messages to the teenager, her former assistant testified. The girl killed herself after being told the world would be better off without her.

Ashley Grills, 20, told jurors Thursday she helped Lori Drew set up a fake MySpace profile of a 16-year-old boy to lure Megan Meier into an online relationship. Testifying for the prosecution under a grant of immunity, Grills also said she sent the last message from the fictitious "Josh Evans" to Megan in October 2006 on the day the girl hanged herself.

Megan Meier (left)/ Ashley Grills (right)
When she learned of Megan's death, Grills said Drew told her, "`We could have pushed her overboard because she was suicidal and depressed.'"

Testimony was to resume Friday in the case against Drew, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without authorization. Each count carries a potential sentence of five years in prison.

Prosecutors say Drew, 49, her then-13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and Grills created the MySpace alias in September 2006 to befriend Megan to find out if she was spreading rumors about Sarah.

The case is believed to be the nation's first cyberbullying trial. Its results could set a legal precedent for dealing with the issue of online harassment.

Defense attorney Dean Steward told jurors that Drew did not violate the Computer Use and Fraud Act — used in the past to address computer hacking — and reminded them that she was not facing charges dealing with the suicide. Steward has repeatedly asked U.S. District Judge George Wu to exclude testimony about Megan's suicide and twice sought a mistrial.

Grills, who helped Drew with her coupon magazine business, testified that she told Drew they might get in trouble for the scheme, but that Drew replied, "It was fine and people do it all the time."

Grills said Drew thought the MySpace account was a funny idea and was present about half of the time when Grills and Sarah sent messages to Megan.

Grills said she remembered at least one time when Drew sat down and typed messages on the computer. She also testified that Drew wanted to print the conversations between "Josh" and Megan, lure the teen to a mall and reveal who the fake boy really was.

To finally end the hoax, Grills said she devised a scenario in which "Josh" would move away so Megan would lose interest in him. When Megan persisted, the tactics changed.

"We decided to be mean to her so she would leave him alone," Grills said.
She testified that she sent the final message to Megan saying the world would be better off without her. Prosecutors did not ask if Drew was in the room when that message was sent, but Grills said she believed the message contributed to her death.

Grills said that a short time after finding out that Megan committed suicide, Drew and her husband ordered her to close the MySpace account.

The case is being prosecuted in Los Angeles because MySpace computer servers are based in the area.

ORIGINAL

THE MEGAN MEIER FOUNDATION

CLICK HERE TO DISCUSS THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

RELATED POSTS:

WEB HOAX LED GIRL TO KILL HERSELF

MYSPACE HOAX VICTIMS' FAMILY SEEKS JUSTICE

PUBLIC OUTCRY ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY EOPC RUNS THIS SITE

EOPC ATTACKED ON TV OVER MEGAN MEIER CASE

JUSTICE FOR MEGAN MEIER

SUPPORT FOR OUR STAND ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

MEDIA PEES ON MEGAN AND TELLS BLOGGERS ITS RAIN

THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

NO APOLOGY, EVEN IN DEATH, FROM MEGAN'S 'MURDERER'

LORI DREW: PREDATOR OR INTERNET MARTYR?

LORI DREW: HAPPY; MEGAN MEIER: DEAD

MYSPACE SUICIDE CASE: NOT OVER

MYSPACE SUICIDE CASE - SOME TRUTH AT LAST

LORI DREW - FINALLY INDICTED

Internet 'Sex Gang' Off to Jail

Two brothers who led an internet sex gang which made millions by exploiting trafficked women have been jailed.
The gang, which smuggled hundreds of Asian women into Britain to work as prostitutes, made at least £3.2m during its five-year span.

The women were charged up to £30,000 by the gang to repay their travel "debts".

Bordee Pitayatankul, 33, from Surrey, was jailed for 15 months. His brother Pongpoj, 31, from Paddington, was given 18 months at Southwark Crown Court.

Seven other members of the gang were also jailed.

It cannot be right in this day and age that women coming to this country should be, in effect, sold off like slaves

Gang members admitted to various offences including conspiring to launder money and plotting to control prostitution between 1 January 2005 and 21 April 2008.

Up to 70 women - some as young as 18 - worked from at least 20 brothels across London, including Bayswater, Kensington and Paddington, often going with dozens of customers a week to raise the money they were told they owed the gang.

The Oriental Gems website set up by the gang featured the women accompanied by a photo gallery showing them naked or semi-naked.

It also listed their sexual specialities with prices ranging from £150 for one hour to £1,500 for an overnight stay.

Passing sentence, Judge Christopher Hardy said: "It cannot be right in this day and age that women coming to this country should be, in effect, sold off like slaves to work in this or any other trade for free until their debt is expunged.

"Oriental Gems was exploiting on a grand scale both in the number of females on its books, or, more accurately, its website and the turnover in cash generated."

Police estimate that the business was making a "conservative" £800,000 a year at one stage, with the gang pocketing a minimum of £3.2m.

Although officers have seized £179,000 they are yet to trace huge "assets" thought to be hidden abroad.

The judge said authorities should decide whether those convicted should be deported.

Confiscation hearings will be held next year.

SOURCE

QUOTE FROM RELATED ARTICLE:

I have used prostitutes several times, usually from websites, as otherwise I would not have had sex for years.

These girls are all far more gorgeous (and youthful) than any woman I could go out with and offer a stupendous sexual experience - with none of the payback that I have had with girlfriends in the past.

Men Who Sleep with Prostitutes


Readers, does/ did your Cyberpath see you this way? As free sex? Was he someone like Yidwithlid who saw prostitutes on his lunch hours and tried to further supplement his marriage with online sex with real (and vulnerable) women?

Or Dan Jacoby who turned his online 'support group' female friends into free porn shows and emotional toys to feed his out of control libido?

Or John Gash who used the net to find women all over the world for a free place to stay and free sex anywhere he went - while lying about love to every one of them.


Online you are NOTHING BUT AN OBJECT TO THESE MEN. And for many: a way to supplement a huge internet porn & sex habit. And you can be conveniently dumped with a click of a mouse!

Mississippi Hospice Director Goes to Trial for Cyberstalking & Threats

Sound familiar? Exposed medical director then CYBERSTALKS & THREATENS the people who turned him in!! Sounds like Yidwithlid, Jacoby to name a few. Attack those who tell the truth. It's almost a fait-accompli that a guilty party will attack those who tell the truth about them! At least this guy's being brought trial over these cyberthreats, though of course, he has a lame 'excuse.' - Fighter

Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.
~ Whittaker Chambers

Esther Lee Evans was suffering from diabetes and breathing problems before she died in a north Mississippi hospice in 2006, and her family had no reason to think her death was anything but natural.

So her daughters were stunned when authorities told them they were investigating Evans’ death and numerous others at the Sanctuary Hospice House in Tupelo.

“It was like somebody playing a bad prank on you,” said Evans’ daughter, Rebecca Dillard. “It was unbelievable. It just tore us apart.”

The hospice’s clinical director — charged with 11 counts of administering narcotics without a license — had been scheduled for trial Monday in Lee County Circuit Court, but a judge postponed it until next year.

Dr. Paul White, the facility’s medical director, and Marilyn Lehman, the clinical director, were charged in a 33-count indictment in April. White has pleaded guilty.

Lehman’s trial was postponed until February because her lawyer, Ronald Michael, had a scheduling conflict. Michael did not respond to messages this week, but has said Lehman is innocent.

Authorities, however, say the doctor allowed Lehman to determine doses and administer narcotics and then backdated the orders she had written.

Evans, 88, was admitted to the hospice in September 2006 suffering from diabetes and smoking related breathing problems. She had not been in the facility long when a nurse gave her medication to “help her relax,” Dillard said. The next day she couldn’t function. In a few days, she was dead.

The hospice’s attorney has repeatedly said that Evans’ death is not surprising or suspicious because she was terminally ill just like other hospice patients. The attorney, L.F. “Sandy” Sams, is emphatic that hospice employees did not hasten patients’ deaths.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was not convinced.

Hood, whose office handled the investigation, has said some patients were “prematurely dying” because they were given such massive doses of morphine that “it was like a poison on the body.”

Hood would not comment this week because of the pending trial. He has told The Associated Press in the past that a grand jury was presented with several options, including that the hospice deaths were deliberate. They settled on misdemeanor charges of neglect, practicing medicine without a license and aiding and abetting.

It’s not clear if White will testify against his former employee. He struck a deal with prosecutors in June and pleaded guilty to six counts of aiding and abetting the practice of medicine without a license and one felony count of cyberstalking on the day his trial was to begin. He was sentenced to two years of probation and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

The cyberstalking charge was for sending obscene computer messages to people he thought caused the investigation, and included a threat to “disembowel” the facility’s former chaplain.

He blamed the messages on sleeping pills and alcohol.

Still, the relatives of some people who died at the hospice are angry that Lehman and White were not charged with more serious crimes. Some of them believe White and Lehman are directly responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. That allegation has been repeated in at least one federal lawsuit.

“This has devastated us. It has torn our family apart,” Dillard said. “You just stop and think if it was your mother or your dad. How you would feel? Do you understand what I’m saying. It’s just like a horror story that came off television or something.”

Other people who lost loved ones in the facility were angry, too, but for different reasons.

Relatives of several people whose loved ones were named as victims in the indictment were outraged, saying the hospice provided excellent care. And accusations of euthanasia polarized the community.

The nonprofit hospice opened in 2005 as a pilot project to provide affordable care to rural areas and was intended as a model for other communities. Millions have been donated to the facility and some of the most prominent people in north Mississippi have worked on its behalf.

Dozens of people packed the courtroom for White’s trial, with several people standing because they refused to sit among the families of the alleged victims.

Story of Internet Invasion of Privacy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

ALERT: GARETH (GARY) JOHN DAVIES

Gareth (Gary) John Davies
Age: 43-44

British Citizen but possesses an Indiana Drivers License.
CHECK HIM OUT ON INDIANA'S MOST WANTED

ONLINE ACTIVITIES: Gary usually hangs out on Pogo and other multi player card and cribbage type sites and meets people there.

This British man is currently known to be in the Montreal, Canada area. (as of Nov. 2008)

He has an expired U.S. visitor's visa from 5 years ago. He is a compulsive liar (possible Psychopath) and trolls for women in the online dating and other sites. He speaks with a British accent.

He has a warrants for domestic abuse, identity theft and is being looked for in Illinois, Indiana, Arizona and Europe as well.

Gary is a bigamist with a wife in Germany, a wife in England, and who knows how many in the United States. He is a Contract Tile and Granite floor type worker.

Because of his theft of one of his victim's Social Security number, he was able to get contract jobs laying tile.

Within 2 months of meeting a woman in Arizona, he had asked her to marry him, persuaded her to buy him a truck and then he went off to Vegas with stolen credit cards he applied for online in her name, and gambled a hefty 10 grand worth of money away. As well as purchasing a 2000 bracelet for another woman while in Vegas.

He has tons of tattoos over his whole body, has very rotten teeth and he is great at telling lies!

Gary has caused so much trouble. One victim is now fighting with the I.R.S. over income he made using her Social Security number. He also is very violent and controlling. He likes to say he was in the S.A.S. (special forces in Britain) and tells stories of killing an Irish Man and jumping from planes as a parachute person.

WOMEN BEWARE!

He can be charming as hell and can tell lies with the best of them. People all over the States have small claim suits against him for tile and granite jobs he was paid on that weren't completed.

He likes Ford Mustangs, the Taz cartoon Character, playing games online, Iron Maiden (he also says he was a body guard for the lead singer at one time) he drinks, smokes, and is horrible in bed.

Please help spread the word on this sociopath. He is ruining lives across North America and needs to be stopped!

Submitted by one of our readers

Man Arrested on Suspicion of Cyberstalking

A 39-year old Michigan man has been arrested on suspicion of stalking a local woman he met on line.

Ventura County sheriff's deputies say George Costales had been sending the woman unwanted emails for the past year.

Investigators say the woman had blocked Costales from her MySpace account "at least five different times." Then last week, deputies say Costales announced he was selling his business and moving to California to be with her, "because he loved her."

When Costales arrived at the woman's front door her boyfriend recognized him from "photos he had posted online."

Investigators said they used the Internet to lure Costales back to the woman's house, where he was arrested on suspicion of felony stalking.

Costales is being held at Ventura County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Professor Killed When RCMP Ignored Reports of Online Threats

The RCMP apologized to the family of John McKendy on Thursday after admitting it had been warned by a relative three days prior to his murder that his son-in-law was a threat.

Assistant Commissioner Darrell LaFosse, the RCMP's commander of J Division in New Brunswick, Canada told a news conference that an independent review will be launched of the force's handling of the case that led to the slaying of the popular 59-year-old university professor.

A spokesman for the force repeatedly told reporters over the past week that family members hadn't approached the Mounties before the murder with concerns over anyone's safety.

"I have since realized that this is not the case," LaFosse said.

"I have personally apologized to the family on behalf of the RCMP in New Brunswick and I am here today to publicly offer my apology for us saying they did not raise concerns. They did," said LaFosse.

"We were investigating those concerns. Any perception they did not make us aware that there were concerns is false. I offer my apology to them for us saying otherwise."

The assistant commissioner said the force received a complaint from an undisclosed family member on Oct. 27, three days before McKendy was killed in his Douglas home.

The complaint concerned threatening emails and other communication from Nicholas Wade Baker, McKendy's 27-year-old son-in-law, to an undisclosed member of the family.

Police believe McKendy was killed by Baker, who was found dead in a rental car outside a Moncton hotel on Saturday.

McKendy's daughter Laura, who was married to Baker, was also injured in the attack.

News of the emails surfaced Monday when one of McKendy's colleagues at St. Thomas University in Fredericton told reporters about them.

Sociology professor Sylvia Hale, a friend of McKendy's who also teaches at St. Thomas University, said earlier this week the McKendy family had received threatening emails from Baker leading up to the murder and had alerted the RCMP.

LaFosse said the warning from the family member was relayed to an investigator but "was not immediately placed on the RCMP file into the investigation."

"The RCMP media person was unaware of this additional information at the time he gave the interviews," LaFosse said.

Insp. Mike O'Malley, District 2 commanding officer, said it was felt at the time the complaint was made that there was not sufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal investigation.

"Nevertheless, the family's concerns were noted and were added to supplement the ongoing investigation," he said.

Police had been seeking Baker since Oct. 3 on charges of fraud, vehicle theft, and credit card theft.

The stolen vehicle and credit card belonged to Michael McKendy, John's brother. The vehicle was later recovered in Bangor, Maine.

Michael McKendy declined comment on the latest developments Thursday, saying: "We may or may not comment in the future."

John McKendy was a Quaker, and is being remembered as a tireless advocate of social justice and non-violence. A memorial service was held at a Fredericton church Wednesday.

The RCMP issued a formal apology to the family for creating the perception "they did not bring forward concerns to the police."

LaFosse said, in addition to the apology, the entire file on Baker leading up to the murder would also be reviewed to see if it was properly handled by police. An RCMP officer from Prince Edward Island will head the investigation.

Several unanswered questions remain, such as how Baker managed to cross back into Canada despite an alert issued to police agencies and border officials that he was wanted in connection with the stolen vehicle and credit card.

O'Malley said they believed Baker was somewhere in the southern United States, far from the McKendy family, when the email threats were reported. Police said the card was used in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Hale said Thursday she was pleased the RCMP apologized to the family and would review the case.

But she said the police should have taken the email threats more seriously, and the standard protocol for dealing with situations of domestic violence must also be reassessed.

She said the police's response in this case is part of "a very widespread pattern of police non-response to these types of situations."

"The reality is that there was a plethora of emails in the last few weeks that showed very significant harassment," she said.

"By just not treating it serious and not responding, they just didn't take it seriously enough.

"What you want them to do is learn from it and say, 'This was a totally inadequate response to this family's situation.'"‚"

LaFosse said the review would begin shortly and the findings would be made public.

ARTICLE

Internet Harrasser Identified in Federal Lawsuit

Two female students at Yale Law School who say anonymous, defamatory comments were made about them on the Internet identified one of the defendants yesterday in their federal lawsuit.


The women filed new documents in US District Court naming Mathew C. Ryan of Austin, Texas. Through subpoenas to Internet service providers, the women have learned the identities of several other defendants but are trying to resolve their claims against those people before deciding whether to name them, according to court papers.

The move threatens to expose law students and

renews debate about whether anonymous Internet scribes should be identified - and held legally responsible - for malicious postings.

The case is not unprecedented, but it is a reminder that anonymous postings on the freewheeling Internet can be traced, legal analysts say.

"A lot of people don't really think about that," said Daniel Solove, a professor at George Washington University Law School. "I do think it's going to have an effect on what people say. It's one of the most prominent cases of its type."

The women's lawsuit, filed last year, charges that they were defamed by repeated postings they considered sexually harassing and threatening.

The postings were made to AutoAdmit, an Internet discussion board about colleges and law schools that draws 800,000 to 1 million visitors per month, according to court papers.

The women say Ryan made sexually charged slurs about them on the Web, including a false claim that one of the them had a sexually transmitted disease. The lawsuit also says Ryan encouraged further attacks on the other woman and used anti-Semitic language.

A telephone message and e-mail seeking comment were left for Ryan yesterday.

Ryan attended the University of Texas, according to Mark Lemley, attorney for the Yale students. Most of the other defendants are law students, he said.

Posts by other defendants included remarks about one plaintiff's breasts and a claim that women with the same first names "should be raped." Some postings discussed the women's family backgrounds and supposed sexual exploits while invoking racially and sexually charged slurs.

Some people who posted the Web items threatened to rape one of the women and attempted to start rumors that one of the women had died or committed suicide, according to the lawsuit.

The anonymous posters also started a website devoted to "rating" female law students from around the country. Some participants in the contest sent photos of one of the women without her permission, according to the lawsuit.

The judge overseeing the women's lawsuit has agreed to let them proceed under pseudonyms because of their fears of further harassment. No trial date has been set.

The lawsuit sparked a countersuit from a University of Pennsylvania law graduate who lost a lucrative job offer after he was linked to websites that crudely discussed the female law students.

Anthony Ciolli's libel lawsuit charges that the Yale students sued him although they knew he did not control the message boards at either AutoAdmit.com, where he was an editor, or at a now-defunct site that ranked the looks of top women law students.

The women dropped Ciolli as a defendant in November.

In sworn affidavits, the women say the stress caused their work to suffer at school and on the job and one took a leave of absence from school.

Their classmates and job supervisors were aware of the salacious postings, they said.


The person accused of writing the rape comment fought a subpoena to have his Internet provider disclose his identity. In a motion filed under his online name, "John Doe 21," he argued that the rape remark did not specifically harm or threaten either woman since millions of women share their first names.

He calls the online postings "unsavory but legally innocuous" - and argues that his free-speech rights outweigh the women's right to seek redress.

"Few courts have considered this question, but it is becoming a crucial one, particularly in light of the increasing number of cases where those who have been criticized on the Internet seek to use the machinery of the courts to unmask, intimidate, and silence their online critics," he wrote earlier this year.
A judge, however, ruled in June that the women had shown enough evidence to support a libel case.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE

NOTE: Please be aware if you enter “Matthew C. Ryan” and “Austin, Texas” into Google, links to Matthew C. Ryan and his firm come up first. This is NOT the same Matthew C. Ryan mentioned in this article. They are two separate and different persons.

Online Divorcee Jailed After Murdering Virtual Husband

(just when you thought you'd heard it all! - Fighter)

A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sappporo, where the man lives, the official said.

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world. In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life," another virtual interactive world.

ARTICLE

Teacher Fired for Bad Behavior on MySpace

by J. Neuberger

It's not just students who can get into difficulty for school-related blogging.

In a recent case, a federal court rejected a challenge brought by a non-tenured teacher when the public school at which he taught decided not to renew his contract. The school had accused the teacher of overly familiar contacts with students via his MySpace page that were deemed "disruptive to school activities."

Spanierman v. Hughes
In Spanierman v. Hughes, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69569 (D. Conn. Sept. 16, 2008), Jeffrey Spanierman, a teacher at Emmett O'Brien High School in Ansonia, Connecticut, created a MySpace page, ostensibly "to communicate with students about homework, to learn more about the students so he could relate to them better, and to conduct casual, non-school related discussions."

One of Spanierman's school colleagues became concerned about the page, which she said contained, among other things, pictures of naked men with "inappropriate comments" underneath them. She was also concerned about the nature of the personal conversations that the teacher was having with the students, and she convinced Spanierman to remove the page, which she considered "disruptive to students."

Spanierman subsequently created a new MySpace page, however, that included similar content and similar personal communications with students. When the colleague learned of the new page, she reported it to the school administration, which placed Spanierman on administrative leave and ultimately declined to renew his teaching contract for the following year. After hearings that he attended with his union representative and later with his attorneys, he received a letter stating that he had "exercised poor judgment as a teacher."

Legal Issues
The discipline of a teacher for conduct outside the classroom raises a number of legal issues, depending upon the circumstances: Is the school public or private? Did the teacher have a contract with the school that gives the teacher rights with respect to job termination? Are there state statutes that impose standards on the teacher, or obligations on the school with respect to teacher discipline? Did the conduct involve expression that may be protected by the First Amendment? Did the conduct have a connection to the school environment?

Spanierman was employed by a public school, consequently, the school's ability to take disciplinary action was limited by both the federal and state constitutions, in particular the First Amendment and the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Spanierman claimed that both his "procedural" and his "substantive" due process rights were violated.

As a non-tenured teacher, Spanierman was more vulnerable to the school's evaluation of his conduct than a tenured teacher might have been.

The nature of the "procedure" to which an individual is entitled under the due process clause depends upon the nature of the right the individual is claiming. The minimum procedure to which an individual is usually entitled is notice and an opportunity to be heard. Spanierman based his procedural due process claim on the Connecticut Teacher Tenure Act, which he claimed gave him certain procedural rights, i.e., a period of notice and a hearing, and termination only for just cause. The court found that Spanierman had received notice and a hearing, but that neither the Connecticut Statute nor the teacher's union-negotiated agreement required a showing of just cause for a decision not to renew a non-tenured teacher's contract.

A claim of substantive due process focuses on the nature of the action taken by government rather than the procedure by which it is undertaken, i.e., whether the governmental action is arbitrary or without justification. The court also rejected Spanierman's substantive due process claim that the public school's action was arbitrary, egregious and outrageous, again relying on Spanierman's non-tenured status, and the fact that non-renewal of a non-tenured teacher's contract was the type of event specifically anticipated in the union-negotiated employment agreement.
Selective Prosecution?

Apparently, Spanierman was not the only teacher in the school with a MySpace page. Accordingly, he made a "selective prosecution" argument, pointing to two other teachers at his school who also had MySpace pages but who had not been disciplined. Spanierman argued that he had been treated differently than his colleagues in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection clause. The court dismissed that claim on purely legal and on factual grounds, i.e., that Spanierman failed to show that the other teachers had contact with students via their MySpace pages. Consequently, the court concluded, the situations of the other teachers were not analogous to Spanierman's (they were not "similarly situated") and therefore he had not been treated differently in comparison to them.

Spanierman's free speech claim was rejected as well. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that both students and teachers retain free speech rights in the school environment, those rights are not unrestricted. See, for example, Morse v. Frederick, 127 S. Ct. 2618 (2007), the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case, where the U.S. Supreme Court famously upheld the discipline of a student for unfurling a banner containing a pro-drug message at a school-sponsored event, on the grounds that the banner violated a school policy against the display of material advertising or promoting the use of illegal drugs.
Disruptive to School Activities

The school district judged that Spanierman's behavior on his MySpace page was "likely to disrupt school activities." It is on this point that the court drilled down to Spanierman's contacts with his students. Excerpts of a number of exchanges with students were included in the opinion. And while to some these exchanges may seem innocuous, the court concluded as follows:

In the court's view, it was not unreasonable for the Defendants to find that the Plaintiff's conduct on MySpace was disruptive to school activities. The above examples of the online exchanges the Plaintiff had with students show a potentially unprofessional rapport with students, and the court can see how a school's administration would disapprove of, and find disruptive, a teacher's discussion with a student about "getting any" (presumably sex), or a threat made to a student (albeit a facetious one) about detention.

Moreover, there is evidence of complaints about the Plaintiff's MySpace activities. For example, in her affidavit, Ford states that Emmett O'Brien students informed her of the Plaintiff's MySpace conduct, which made some of them "uncomfortable."...It is reasonable for the Defendants to expect the Plaintiff, a teacher with supervisory authority over students, to maintain a professional, respectful association with those students. This does not mean that the Plaintiff could not be friendly or humorous; however, upon review of the record, it appears that the Plaintiff would communicate with students as if he were their peer, not their teacher. Such conduct could very well disrupt the learning atmosphere of a school, which sufficiently outweighs the value of Plaintiff's MySpace speech.

Nothing New?
It's possible to view the Spanierman case as a cautionary tale on using new forms of communication in the educational environment. Spanierman said he intended to use his MySpace page to better relate to his students; indeed the case demonstrates that such a page can facilitate easy communication between teachers and students. But it is that easy familiarity that, in the view of the school district, drew Spanierman over the line between acceptable discourse and inappropriate communications. The severity of the punishment may also reflect an institutional discomfort with a new means of student-teacher communication that is outside the channels customarily controlled by the school district.

And, of course, the Spanierman case could also be viewed as a simple case of inappropriate communications with students, regardless of the medium involved. Although reasonable minds may differ on whether Spanierman's communications warranted the discipline he received, the court ruled that, under the circumstances, it was the school district's call to make.

It's Not the First, and It Won't Be the Last
This is not the first case in which a teacher, or an aspiring teacher, was discharged or disciplined for conduct involving a MySpace page. In another recent case, the so-called "drunken pirate" case, a teacher in training was denied a teaching degree just prior to her graduation when officials at her teaching school found a photo on her MySpace page showing her in a pirate hat, drinking alcohol. In Snyder v. Millersville University, filed in federal court in Pennsylvania (the case documents are available here), there was apparently no contact with students, and it is disputed whether any students at the school ever saw the photo or the MySpace page. The school district contends that Snyder's conduct as a student teacher was unprofessional in ways unrelated to her MySpace page.

The Snyder case is also complicated by the question of whether the aspiring teacher should be treated under the legal standards applicable to student conduct or the standard applicable to teacher conduct. Snyder v. Millersville appears to be heading for trial. It will be interesting to see if the result in the case differs from that in Spanierman.

The Bottom Line
Both the Spanierman and Snyder cases are a subset of a larger category of disputes that involve posting in online forums, blogs and social networking sites. Regardless of the rights implicated, these cases remind us to be mindful of the ramifications that may flow from online personal expression that is readily accessible to students, co-workers, and employers.

Jeffrey D. Neuburger is a partner in the New York office of Proskauer Rose LLP, and co-chair of the Technology, Media and Communications Practice Group. His practice focuses on technology and media-related business transactions and counseling of clients in the utilization of new media. He is an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law teaching E-Commerce Law.

FULL CREDIT - HERE

Thank you to the tipster who sent this to us!

Man Stabs Wife to Death Over Facebook Posting

A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.

Wayne Forrester, 34, told police he was devastated that his wife Emma, also 34, had changed her online profile to "single" days after he had moved out.
The Old Bailey heard Forrester drove to her home in Croydon, south London, and attacked the mother-of-two.

He stabbed her with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver on 18 February.

Forrester, who pleaded guilty to murder, was ordered to serve a minimum term of 14 years.

Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, told him:

"You committed a terrible act. There is no possible excuse or justification.

"This is a tragic killing and what you have done has caused untold anguish."

Forrester, an HGV driver, was drunk and high on cocaine when he attacked the mother of two in the early hours as she slept.

He beat her, tore out clumps of her hair, and repeatedly stabbed her in the head and neck.

Neighbours were woken up by her screams. They found him sitting outside the house covered in blood and called the police.

The court heard Forrester thought his wife, a payroll administrator, was having an affair and had threatened to kill her.

The couple, who had been together for 15 years, had a "volatile" marriage, jurors were told.

'Devastated and humiliated'
The day before the murder, he called her parents and complained about his wife's Facebook entry which he said "made her look like a fool", the court heard.

In a statement to police Forrester said:

"Emma and I had just split up. She forced me out.

"She then posted messages on an internet website telling everyone she had left me and was looking to meet other men.

"I loved Emma and felt totally devastated and humiliated about what she had done to me."

In a victim impact statement, Mrs Forrester's sister Liza Rothery said the murder had had a "devastating" impact on her and parents Frances and Robert.

Miss Rothery added: "What on earth could Emma have done to result in such a brutal, callous attack on a defenseless woman?"

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Stabbed to Death by Fellow Online Gamer?

By Andrew Levy

Online murder: Matthew Pyke could have been killed by a fellow gamer
A computer gaming fan found stabbed to death in his home may have been killed by a fellow gamer he fell out with in an online forum, it has emerged.

The blood-stained body of Matthew Pyke, 20, is understood to have been found by his girlfriend, Joanna Witton.

The couple ran a website called Wars Central where fans of Advance Wars, a computer game for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS in which armies of cartoon characters battle against each other, discuss strategies.

One of the theories being pursued by officers is that a member might have taken revenge on Mr Pyke following a dispute in cyberspace.

An anonymous comment posted on the site suggested other members suspected one of their own of the brutal murder.

'I think I speak on behalf of those of us which do know a fair bit about what happened not to press us with questions,' the author wrote.

'We may know a lot of what was going on prior to the killing but I, for one, am not going to say any more.'

Another member, using the pseudonym The Evil One, paid tribute to Mr Pyke as 'witty, intelligent, furiously protective of the site, the forum and its members'.

Advance Wars is a popular series of games where the object is to defeat the enemy army by either capturing their headquarters or destroying all of their units.

Mr Pyke's website offered strategy guides for the series of games as well as an internet forum where members could chat to each other and share tips on playing the game.
Wars Central

Wars Central, the website devoted to the Advance Wars computer game, run by Matthew Pyke and his girlfriend Joanna Witton.

An entry on the site from August 16 by JoJo, believed to be Joanna Witton, mentions they were having internet connection problems which had prevented information being uploaded onto the site.

Mr Pyke's body was found on Friday evening in the flat above The Orange Tree, a popular student pub in the centre of Nottingham.

There were no signs of a break-in at the Nottingham flat the students shared and police believe he may have known his killer.

He is understood to have been about to start a new degree course at Nottingham Trent University after failing to complete a physics course he joined in 2006.

Detectives examined his computer and discovered he was a keen video gamer who went under the name 'Shade' on the Central Wars site and had published science fiction stories on the internet.

Forensics officers are still examining the flat.
Mr Pyke moved to Nottingham from his home town of Stowmarket, Suffolk, two years ago.

His parents William, 52, and Kim, 49, were too upset to comment yesterday. Police said they were 'devastated' by his death.

The couple left a tribute on his Facebook website saying: 'Darling Matthew. We love you so much and miss you.

'You were a truly good, sensitive person. Your smile will live on in our hearts.'

Chiraag Suchak, who was in the student's class at Combs Middle School in Stowmarket, said they used to play on a PlayStation games console every weekend.

'He is someone that would never, ever provoke anyone, so I have no idea who would do this,' he said.

Ian Crissell, the school's head teacher, described him as a conscientious pupil who had been liked by all the members of staff.

'It is no surprise he went on to further education. He had worked hard in order to get himself into that situation,' he said.

A police spokesman yesterday said a number of lines of inquiry were being pursued including 'computer-based inquiries'.

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Heydon, of Nottinghamshire Police, asked any member of public who had seen a 'bladed weapon, possibly blood-stained', to come forward.

He also said he wanted to hear from anyone who saw someone in the area wearing bloodstained clothes - although it is possible the killer would have had to change after the frenzied attack and may have dumped what they were wearing.

Mr Heydon added: 'Matthew was a young man with his whole life ahead of him and we are doing everything we can to catch the person responsible for his murder.'

SOURCE

Lori Drew (MySpace Suicide Perpetrator) Tries To Get Case Dismissed... AGAIN

A federal judge has tentatively rejected two motions to dismiss charges against a woman in a MySpace hoax that allegedly led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide.

During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said he intends to take more time to consider a third motion to dismiss the case against Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Mo. She is accused of helping create a false-identity account on the social networking site and harassing her young neighbor with cruel messages.

The girl subsequently hanged herself in 2006.

Drew has pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles.

A defense attorney previously argued that prosecutors are bending a cyber crime statute to prosecute his client on charges of conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.

Wu set an Oct. 7 trial date.

SOURCE

Husband Seeks Divorce Over Online Affair

(February, 1996) BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey (AP) -- A man filing for divorce accused his wife of carrying on a "virtual" affair via computer with a cybersex partner who called himself "The Weasel."

Diane Goydan's relationship with the man apparently never was consummated, but her husband, John Goydan of Bridgewater, claimed the pair had planned a real tryst this weekend at a New Hampshire bed and breakfast.

Goydan filed divorce papers January 23 that included dozens of e-mail exchanges -- some sexually explicit -- between his wife and a married man she met on America Online. The man, whose on-line name was The Weasel, was identified in court papers only as Ray from North Carolina.

In a November 23 message, The Weasel wrote: "I gotta tell you that I am one happy guy now and so much at peace again anticipating us. I love you dearly. XXOOXX."

Goydan is now seeking custody of the couple's two children, ages 3 and 7.

Goydan's lawyer, Richard Hurley, said Mrs. Goydan apparently believed the e-mail messages could not be retrieved, but her husband was able to pull them off the computer and store them on a disk.

That raises some privacy concerns, such as what rights spouses have to each other's communications, said David Banisar, spokesman for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

"If it's a shared computer, then the spouse has equal rights to get on it and share what's on it," Banisar said. But if the husband gained access to her e-mail on line, that could violate her privacy rights, similar to a husband tapping his wife's telephone. "It's still pretty undefined in the law," Banisar said.

The divorce papers do not say exactly how Goydan retrieved the messages. Goydan began saving his wife's e-mail every day after surprising her as she was printing out something on the computer when he came home from work early. When Goydan later switched on the computer, it told him there was something waiting to be printed, and he discovered a message to his wife from The Weasel.

The lawsuit claims Mrs. Goydan promised that day to end [Internet Affair] the relationship but later that night sent The Weasel a message that they had been caught. Weeks later, she messaged: "I just have to learn to be more careful. ... I want so badly to be with you that I am willing to chance it."

Reached by telephone at home, Mrs. Goydan said, "You're kidding me" and hung up.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

TO ALL OUR READERS

As you can see -- we have a new design. However, it needs a lot of work so please bear with us over the next couple weeks as we tweak things.

The blog was looking messy and jumbled... as our site grew the design tried to grow with it. Finally we chose to upgrade.

We hope to make it cleaner and more accessible. We still have LOADS of links to put back up so if you don't see what you want -- come back in a couple days! We are working hard to get back to normal.

Keep reading -- we will continue our consistent updating of posts!

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E-mail threat leads to cyberstalking charge

A Wilmington, North Carolina man faces a charge of cyberstalking after a Gastonia man told police he e-mailed death threats.

Keith Bailey, 39, told Gastonia Police that Melvin Franklin Douglas Lutz, 38, sent him threatening messages.

Bailey gave Gastonia Police an e-mail message sent May 24, 2007, where Lutz writes that Bailey had messed up their business and lied about raising profits.

"I sold my home out of desperation because of my legal responsibilities. You used that money to buy a motorcycle...," Lutz wrote via e-mail.

"This is a declaration of war. I am going (to do) everything I know to destroy your life both metaphorically (sic) and in reality. Every word out of your mouth is a lie, the world will be a much better place once I put you 6 feet under."

Bailey responded to his message with an e-mail of his own.

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't talk about you, think about you or do anything to you," Bailey wrote. "I have my own problems to deal with thanks to trying to help you and I don't have time to "(expletive) up" anything you're doing. I haven't a clue what you're doing, planning to do or have don't and don't want to know unless I have to."

Lutz faces a charge of cyberstalking and is in Gaston County Jail under a $1,000 secured bond.

CyberStalking Case Urges Lawmakers to Make New Laws

By JOSEPH SLACIAN

Emily Jones received a startling call from her pastor in March.

The pastor, who was taking a new position out of state, was adding members of his congregation to his Facebook account to keep in touch with after the move. He found a Facebook page - an Internet socializing network - that purportedly belonged to Jones.

He called her after viewing the page, Jones said, because “he was concerned I had fallen away from my Christian walk.”

The site, in Jones' words, contained “the worst smut, X-rated material you could imagine.”

Ryan Brown, a sound technician at Jones' church, had created Facebook pages for Jones and her younger sister, Haley Flanagan, each containing obscene material about the two of them.

Brown admitted making the pages to Wabash police and was charged with two counts of stalking and two counts of harassment. He plead guilty to the harassment charges on Wednesday in Wabash County Superior Court.

“That's just a slap on the wrist,” the girls' mother, Cindy Flanagan, said of the probable sentence provided for in current law during a Plain Dealer interview before the hearing in Wabash Superior Court. “If he would have to file as an Internet predator or a sex offender, they could take the Internet away from him for two years.”

Jones, married and the mother of two young children, said, “Harassment to me is when someone says, ‘Hey, pretty girl,' and you feel uncomfortable. This is worse than harassment.”

Cindy Flanagan quickly added, “This is molestation.”

But, as the Flanagans and Joneses learned in the six months since the pages were discovered, Indiana doesn't have laws to punish the type of cyber-stalking the two young ladies have been subjected to for two years.

The family, with the help of State Rep. Bill Ruppel, Attorney General Steve Carter, Mayor Bob Vanlandingham and others, are trying to get laws enacted in Indiana against cyber-stalking. They said they are ready to go as far as testifying before the Indiana Legislature to make their case for tougher measures.

“It's not going to help our case currently,” Jones said, “but the next time someone does it, and if they get caught, they could be punished as a sex offender. It definitely is a sex crime.”

Facebook is an Internet social network popular among teens and young adults as a way to interact with people around the world on the computer. (The company closed the fake pages after being notified by authorities.)

Because the site was seen worldwide, the sisters fear for their safety.

The sisters have taken self defense courses, and other measures to protect themselves.

What makes it even more disgusting, Jones said, is to think of the number of men around the world who have conversations over the computer with Brown, thinking they were actually talking to one of the sisters.

“It scares you,” she said. “These people have been having ‘relations' with us for two years. They know where we live. Our safety is definitely a concern.”
Coming forward has taken a lot of courage.

“It's scary to come forward,” Jones said. “But, if someone does it again, we need to have laws in place so they can be punished.”

ORIGINAL

Meeting with Women from Internet Turns Into a Death Trap

A man was shot and killed early 8/24/08 after being lured into a building in Brooklyn, N.Y. Police say officers found Daniel Brandt, 24, on the fourth floor of a building on West 33rd Street in Coney Island early this morning.

According to police, Brandt believed he was meeting a woman he had been communicating with over the Internet. Instead, he ran into two armed men who robbed and then shot him.

Brandt was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.

As of Sunday evening no arrests had been made, and the investigation continues.

ORIGINAL

U.S. Congress has Web Privacy in Their Sites

Here are some things Internet users can discover about Kiyoshi Martinez, a 24-year-old man from Mokena, Ill., from some of his recent posts online. He watched “The Colbert Report” on Tuesday night, he likes the musician Lenlow and he received bottles of olive oil and vinegar for his birthday. Mr. Martinez has Facebook and LinkedIn pages, a Twitter account and a Web site that includes his résumé.

So it is surprising to learn that Mr. Martinez, an aide in the Illinois Senate, is also vigilant about his privacy online.

“I’m pretty aware of the fact that ANYTHING you do on the Internet pretty much should just be considered public,” Mr. Martinez said. While he knows that companies are collecting his data and often tracking his online habits so they can show him more relevant ads, he said, he would like to see more transparency “about what the company intends to do with your data and your information.”

“Like all privacy matters, it’s something that people need to be informed on,” Mr. Martinez said.

Those same questions of data collection and privacy policies are attracting the attention of Congress, too. There is no broad privacy legislation governing advertising on the Internet. And even some in the government admit that they do not have a clear grasp of what companies are able to do with the wealth of data now available to them.

“That is why Congress, at this point, is wanting to gather a lot more information, because no one knows,” said Steven A. Hetcher, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. “That information is incredibly valuable; it’s the new frontier of advertising.”

Beyond the data question, there are issues of how companies should tell browsers that their information is being tracked, which area of law covers this and what — if anything — proper regulation would look like.

On Aug. 1, four top members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters ordering 33 cable and Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Comcast and Cox Communications, to provide details about their privacy standards. That followed House and Senate hearings last month about privacy and behavioral targeting, in which advertisers show ads to consumers based on their travels around the Web. If an advertiser knows that Mr. Martinez watches “The Colbert Report,” for example, it might show him an ad for “The Daily Show.”

As advertisers become more sophisticated about behavioral targeting, and online privacy standards become increasingly varied, regulators and privacy advocates are becoming concerned. A few companies have taken precautionary measures to try to fend off criticism; in the last few days, for instance, both Yahoo and Google have made it easier for people to opt out of targeted ads on their sites. But that may not be enough.

“Some type of omnibus electronic privacy legislation is needed,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, “regardless of the particular technologies or companies involved.”

He and the other members of the House expect to receive responses from all of the companies by early this week. With the responses to the House letters, “we can understand exactly what each sector of the communications industry is technically capable of doing, and how they use the information once they do get access to it.”

One of the controversial new behavioral-targeting technologies is called deep packet inspection, and a company that does it — NebuAd — was a focus of the July Congressional hearings.

In NebuAd’s version of deep packet inspection, a hardware device is put into an Internet service provider’s network that can track where users are going online. NebuAd looks for categories that the user will be interested in. If the device notes that a user is browsing or searching for sites about German automobiles, it can deliver an ad about German automobiles later that day, even when the user is on a site about pets.

NebuAd’s chief executive, Bob Dykes, who testified at the hearings last month, said his company protects privacy.

“We don’t have any raw data on the identifiable individual,” Mr. Dykes said in an interview last month. “Everything is anonymous.”

He said NebuAd took several steps to ensure that the information could not be traced back to an individual or an Internet protocol address. The company avoids sensitive categories, he said; someone making a search about H.I.V., for example, would not see related ads. And NebuAd cannot gain access to secure sites.

Mr. Dykes came under scrutiny at the hearings for NebuAd’s technology and for how the company notified consumers.

The ways that some Internet service providers told consumers about their tracking were vague or too subtle, some privacy advocates and congressmen said.

NebuAd lost several customers this summer amid all the scrutiny, including CenturyTel, Charter Communications, WideOpenWest Holdings and Embarq.

“We will not be using this technology again until such time as all the privacy concerns have been addressed,” said Charles Fleckenstein, an Embarq spokesman.

Mr. Dykes said, “We are perfectly O.K. for some of our partners to wait until we have a better, more informed education of the public and folks in Washington before they resume their rollout.”

The NebuAd controversy illustrates the difficulty of regulation in online advertising, when new ways of tracking users arise regularly and companies have different ways of handling data.

The Federal Trade Commission has made some tentative steps toward standards, including a December proposal on behavioral-advertising practices. The proposal suggested that companies provide a clear notice to consumers that lets them opt out of tracking, notify consumers if the company changes the way it uses the data and use reasonable security measures. It also sought comment on several matters.

But Lydia B. Parnes, the director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, has said she supports industry self-regulation, saying that it isn’t yet clear that the consumer is being harmed and that regulations might be too specific to current technologies. Laws have been made on slices of the privacy pie, including data about finances or children. But complying with various pieces of legislation is difficult, companies said.

“Compliance is becoming very complex and not very clear in terms of what applies to a new and emerging business model,” said Mike Hintze, the associate general counsel at Microsoft. “From the company’s perspective of trying to comply with these laws, we thought a comprehensive federal privacy law made a lot of sense.”

There is some industry support for a comprehensive law, but any wide-ranging law would require some legal wrangling.

“They’re raising these bigger-picture questions, and those questions are inherently intertwined not just with privacy laws, but also with contract law, computer-intrusion law, consumer-fraud law,” said Andrea M. Matwyshyn, an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

“When legislators are trying to regulate in this area, they’re always caught a little bit between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “You don’t want to adopt a technology-specific standard that’s destined to fail as technology advances faster than the law can ever hope to embody. At the same time, you need to allow adequate specificity in the law to allow companies to comply with it and allow consumers to know what their rights are.”

Some advertising industry groups say self-regulation is enough. The most prominent programs are the Online Privacy Alliance and the Network Advertising Initiative. Both ask members to follow principles on notifying consumers and avoiding personally identifiable information.

Regulation is “certainly going to have unintended consequences and unintended impact,” said Mike Zaneis, the vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a coalition of online advertisers.

Some civil liberties groups disagreed.

“There’s a self-regulatory program out there which hasn’t been very effective,” said Alissa Cooper, the chief computer scientist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. She said her organization was concerned about NebuAd’s technology. As for general federal privacy legislation, she said, the center supports it but thinks more information is needed about data-handling.

The letter from the House committee, she said, was “a really welcome development in the absence of any kind of regulation.”

“The companies don’t feel the need to explain everything they’re doing,” she said, “so a little bit of pressure from Congress or the F.T.C. can go a long way.”

As government representatives think about legislation, they are also trying to gauge how aware and concerned consumers are about online privacy. A recent study of about 1,000 Internet users asked them if they agreed with the statement that they were comfortable with advertisers’ using their browsing history to decide what ads to show them. Thirty-nine percent strongly disagreed; only 6 percent strongly agreed. The study was conducted by TNS Global, a research firm, and TRUSTe, an online privacy network.

Is privacy a concern for younger consumers, who are splashing personal details all over MySpace? The sparse data available suggest that it is. A study last year of 2,274 British adults showed that people ages 18 to 24 considered privacy tied with “avoiding hate and offense” as the most important consideration in digital technologies. For older people, privacy was second to “avoiding hate and offense.” The study was conducted by YouGov, a British research firm.

“People my age — in their 20s or in their 30s — a lot of them are very clued up on protecting privacy on the Internet,” said Ben Saxon, 23, a student in Cambridge, England. He has started a Facebook group objecting to Phorm, a NebuAd-like company that is working in Britain and is starting to court the United States market.

Still, he said, “I don’t think complete privacy on the Internet is actually possible anymore.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE