Missouri Continues Arresting Cyberbullies: Don't Be An Online Jerk In Missouri

from the free-speech? dept

As tends to happen, it appears that Missouri has decided to overcompensate for the mess with the whole Lori Drew/Megan Meier tragedy. After realizing that Lori Drew hadn't committed any actual crime, Missouri passed a new law making it a potential felony for being a jerk online. And, of course, with that new law in place, Missouri prosecutors have wasted little time in filing charges against all sorts of people. The latest involves the arrest of a teenager for creating a mean website about another student. Now, I'm not condoning the behavior of this student, which does seem despicable -- but arresting the kid seems really extreme. Aren't there less draconian methods for dealing with this sort of thing? Kids can be mean and, yes, they do stupid things at times -- but arresting kids every time they're a jerk online is going to lead to a pretty busy judicial system.

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Missouri: Text Messaging While Driving Is Fine, As Long As You're Over 21

from the disparate-impact dept

Laws that ban individual activities -- like cell phone use -- while driving are often little more than political hype. Singling out specific activities for bans doesn't do much to address the root problem of unsafe driving, which remains the issue regardless of its cause, while also generating the implication that if a specific action while driving hasn't been banned, it's okay and safe. Nevertheless, plenty of states have moved forward with laws banning talking on cell phones while driving, and more recently, texting. Next, they'll have to ban using the mobile web, or IM, or playing Tetris on your phone while driving, since they've left these (and plenty of other activities) out, but we digress... In any case, Missouri's legislature has taken the silliness one step further by banning texting while driving, but only for drivers under the age of 21. If you accept the supposed need for these sorts of laws, how could you argue they should only apply to those under 21? What happens on a person's 21st birthday that suddenly makes texting while driving acceptable and safe? Answers in the comments, please...

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Missouri Prosecutors Going Overboard In Bringing Cyberbullying Cases

from the shiny-new-tool dept

While Lori Drew was eventually convicted under computer hacking laws, originally prosecutors in Missouri refused to charge her, noting that it was pretty clear she had not broken any laws in Missouri. Not surprisingly, the emotionally-tinged case meant that politicians had to rush into the void, hastily passing a law to make it illegal to be a jerk online. Of course, prosecutors couldn't go back and retroactively charge Drew, but they apparently haven't wasted much time in making use of the new law, charging at least seven people under the new law for a variety of "cyber" harassment attacks, mostly involving annoying someone with text messages. Of course, as some are noting this is a waste of taxpayer money, burdening the court system with annoyances that should be settled informally among people. Have we really reached a point in society that people have to run to court every time someone acts like a jerk towards them?

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Missouri Makes Online Harassment A Felony

from the laws-passed-out-of-emotion dept

Laws passed as an emotional reaction to a tragic situation are almost always bad laws. The state of Missouri has signed into law a bill to make online harassment a felony. This is in response, of course, to the infamous "Lori Drew/Megan Meier" case that has received so much attention. Of course, when you look at the facts of the case, it's not even clear if this law would have mattered. Drew didn't set up the MySpace account to harass Meier, but to find out what she was saying about her daughter. The "harassing" messages were actually sent by another teen, and weren't meant as harassment either, but as an (extremely misguided) attempt to get Meier to stop contacting the "fake" person. It's certainly understandable that people feel that something should be done, since a young girl ended up killing herself, but rushing into laws won't necessarily fix the situation at all. Also, it needs to be asked: if the same set of facts existed, but the boy who made Meier angry was real instead of fake -- would he also have been guilty under this law? If so, a lot of angry messages between kids having silly school spats are going to be court material.

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Two States, Two Very Different Approaches To VoIP Regulation

from the quacks-like-a-duck dept

For many years, states have been trying to tax VoIP providers as if they were telcos. From the states' perspective, they were using a "quacks like a duck" test, whereby any phone service that acted like a traditional phone service should get taxed like a traditional phone service. Since states rely on tax dollars so much, this feeling was reinforced as people started ditching landline phone service for VoIP providers. However, there are a few problems with this. The reason that telcos are taxed is because of the structure of the telephone system, and the fact that the government more or less handed over rights of way and control of the system to private companies. VoIP providers, however, have the calls travel over the internet, changing the nature of the equation, and meaning that most of the reasons for taxing telcos shouldn't apply. Shouldn't, except for politicians who can't see beyond the money. Yet, taxing VoIP is a doubly bad idea, because VoIP is still an emerging service that is rapidly changing -- offering new services and opportunities that weren't possible on landline offerings. Putting a tax on it could kill a lot of that innovation. Too many states don't see that.

Jeff Pulver is showing the contrast between two states in dealing with VoIP regulatory issues. New Jersey has passed a law saying that it will not regulate VoIP, noting "The proliferation of new technologies and applications and the growth in the number of providers developing and offering innovative services using Internet Protocol is due in large part to a light regulatory touch, including freedom from traditional telephone regulation that these new technologies and services and the companies that offer them have enjoyed in New Jersey.... These economic benefits, including consumer choice, new jobs, and significant capital investment, will be jeopardized and competition minimized by the imposition of traditional State entry and rate regulation on Voice over Internet Protocol service and Internet protocol-enabled service."

Unfortunately, Missouri isn't quite so enlightened. Despite various rulings saying that VoIP should not be taxed, Missouri is trying to bend the rules to make at least some VoIP offerings (mainly those provided by cable companies) classified as telco services that need to be taxed. As Jeff notes, if this works, then expect other states to follow suit and create loopholes for taxing VoIP providers... and then watch as all VoIP related innovation happens elsewhere.

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