Re: Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web Site?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2 () bobf frankston com]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 11:16 AM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Cc: 'Paul Levy'
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:     Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web Site?

IANAL!!!

Remember that the legal system is not science – not even rocket engineering. It’s based on proof by example and accrues 
bad examples. For example (using proof by example myself) product liability is more about finding deep pockets to right 
wrongs than any large sense of “justice”. Thus we get results that depend on who you harm rather than what you did. 
It’s sort of a lottery system.

As advocates lawyers are not supposed to worry about the damage done by establishing precedents – they are answerable 
to their current clients. In this case we want to satisfy the public’s desire for some sort of justice. This is a 
result that has as much to do with the victim’s instability as the not-unusual behavior of a bully and we want to 
assign moral blame. It’s useful to read Lakoff’s Moral Politics to better appreciate this motivation and how it plays 
out.

With enough laws and enough determination we can find a law to fit the presumed crime and then grease the process with 
legislation to generalize our naïve sense of right and wrong. Unfortunately precedents take on a life of their own as 
with the 1927 decision establishing the FRC. Unlike science we have great difficulty in questioning givens even when we 
know they are premised on what we’ve come to recognize are false premises.

US has remnants of the First Amendment and one day we may recognize that speech through the air is the same as speech 
over the air and over the net. But when the First Amendment meets Moral Court we have to worry.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 09:11
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web Site?





________________________________________

From: Paul Levy [plevy () citizen org]

Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:20 AM

To: David Farber

Subject: [IP] Re:  Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web Site?



There is an excellent article on the underlying situation in today’s

Post, including some useful details that have not been mentioned in

previous posts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/01/09/ST2008010903418.html?hpid=features1&hpv=local.



It turns out that the family that created the false identity (according

to them, to try to worm out of the victim whether she was spreading

false rumors about their daughter’s sexual orientation) was shunned by

the community, strangers drive by their house and yell "murderer", their

business failed, their daughter is too shaken out to go back to school.

And there does seem to be lots of blame to go around for the series of

events that led to the victim’s suicide.



Wholly apart from the free speech ramifications of criminal prosecution

of a Missourian who created a false MySpace identity, and I certainly

agree with the concerns expressed by Lauren Weinstein and others in that

regard, the underlying facts leave one wondering what the real need for

a criminal sanctions is.  Both the “punishment” (in terms of the

social consequences for the potential defendants) and “deterrence”

(if you do this you too could have your lives ruined by the

community’s reaction) objectives seem to have been served here.  Of

course, one of the reasons for these consequences is the outraged

reactions of their neighbors and, eventually, of the many in the

Internet community.  If "cyberbullying" is subject to criminal

prosecution, is the community response also criminal?  Where does it

end?



One other question that ought to be raised about the criminal

investigation. The local federal prosecutors passed on the case, but it

is the LA federal prosecutors who are now pursuing the possible theory

that a crime is committed at MySpace’s offices when someone creates a

false MySpace identity.  If a possible consequence of registering with

MySpace is facing possible criminal prosecution in California (and

having to hire a criminal lawyer in Los Angeles to deal with that

prospect), who can afford to use MySpace?



Paul Alan Levy

Public Citizen Litigation Group

1600 - 20th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20009

(202) 588-1000

http://www.citizen.org/litigation



> > > David Farber <dave () farber net> 1/10/2008 5:17:08 AM >>>



________________________________________

From: Brock N. Meeks [bmeeks () cox net]

Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 1:04 AM

To: David Farber; patrick () ianai net

Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  VERY TRUE Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a

Web Site?



Patrick writes: "There is also no law against yelling "fire" _outside_

a

crowded  place." Actually, there is no law stopping you from yelling

"FIRE"

in a crowded place either.



During many panels on free speech, to make a point, I've suddenly

jumped

from my seat, pointed at the back of the room and yelled "Fire!!" at

the top

of my voice.



And then I sat down without a word, the audience looked bewildered and

probably a little embarrassed for me.  I just waited for the audience

to

absorb the object lesson.



The legal ramifications kick in only if a riot or stampede ensued after

I

shouted fire.



And some have argued that yelling "fire" when the person knows there to

be

no fire with the sole intent to create a riot is an issue of fraud, not

free

speech.





On 1/9/08 11:38 AM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:



>

>

> Begin forwarded message:

>

> From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>

> Date: January 9, 2008 11:04:49 AM EST

> To: dave () farber net

> Cc: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>, Andrew Burnette

<acb () acb net

> > , Frode Hegland <frode () hyperwords net>

> Subject: Re: [IP] VERY TRUE Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web

> Site?

>

> On Jan 9, 2008, at 3:58 AM, David Farber wrote:

>

> > ________________________________________

> > From: Frode Hegland [frode () hyperwords net]

> > Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 3:45 AM

> > To: David Farber; acb () acb net

> > Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  Can You Go to Prison for Lying to a Web

Site?

> >

> > Yes.

> >

> > The sooner we realize that the internet is not some separate,

> > parallel, 'second life' but a communications media part of our

> > 'real' world, the better we will all be.

>

> One of us is confused.

>

> If I walked up to you and said "I'm a dog", no prosecutor in the

> country would dream of prosecuting me for fraud.  It is not fraud

"in

> real life", has never been fraud, and should not be fraud on the

> Internet.

>

> There is also no law against yelling "fire" _outside_ a crowded

> place.  And last time I checked, my e-mail inbox was not crowded.

> (Well, not in that way. :)

>

> Yes, the Internet is just another means of communication.

Different,

> not better or worse.  Stop trying to make words somehow magically

> different just because they are in an e-mail.

>

> Putting this into perspective of the current thread, if I go to a

bar

> and tell the lady on the next bar stool I am a CEO or Astronaut or

> whatever, and she finds out the next morning I lied, no prosecutor

in

> the country would dream of prosecuting me for fraud.

>

> And if she asked to go home with me because I am an astronaut, but

> instead of accepting her offer I stood up on the bar and screamed to

> her entire collection of friends assembled: "The world would be a

> better place without you!", again, no one would dream of prosecuting

> me for fraud, harassment, or anything else.  Even if she went into

the

> toilet and hung herself.

>

> Nor should they.





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