Who is Megan Meier and why do we need yet another law on the books to help prosecute a bully?

Megan Meier was the 13-year old who killed herself after an online “relationship” via Facebook went south.  She never knew that the relationship wasn’t with an “attractive” boy, but with a friend’s mother and others who had set out to deliberately humiliate her.  That friend’s mother, one Lori Drew, was indicted by a federal grand jury a year ago on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, and one count of criminal conspiracy.  She was found guilty on three lesser charges (reduced from felonies to misdemeanors by the jury) late last November. (The jury was deadlocked on the fourth felony charge of criminal conspiracy.)

One thing that often goes unmentioned is that Megan Meier had a long history of mental illness.  She had been treated by a psychiatrist since the 3rd grade and took a variety of medications, including antidepressants, Ritalin, and antipsychotics.  Megan wasn’t exactly your typical teenager and while my heart breaks for her and her family, in my opinion she was not one who should have been allowed to roam virtual society’s wilderness unsupervised, nor one with whom “faceless” relationships should have been encouraged.

But in yet another example of expecting everyone except those actually responsible to take responsibility, H. R. 1966 was introduced in the House last month.  Playing on our sympathies by calling it the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act”, sponsor Linda Sanches (D-CA) and her cohorts feel that we need to legislate morality by spelling out the need to go after anyone 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”.  The “electronic means” include “email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.”  The punishment is a fine and/or up to 2 years in prison.

Why?  According to H.R. 1966:

(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.

The internet has become a fact of life.  A recent fact of life.  But what is also a fact of life yet by no means recent is that it is a parent’s responsibility to protect their children.  No responsible parent would drop their child off in a strange city and leave them to wander around at will – alone – yet every day parents let their children sit in front of a computer and wander the vast wastelands of the internet, allow them to join sites like Facebook and other social networking sites, and find it amusing when they make what are little more than imaginary friends.  I’ve personally been online a long time and have seen countless adults  scammed by pathetic losers who find their social courage in anonymity.  Children have far less savvy and have far thinner skins to protect them from idiots.  But they are supposed to have their parents to protect them.  A job which isn’t particularly difficult when going onto the internet is a voluntary activity and that protection is as simple as turning the “ON/OFF” switch to the “OFF” position.

There are already laws on the books by which those who prey on others, both online and off, may be prosecuted.  We don’t need more and we certainly don’t need one that aims at such a broad target for nowhere is it specified that its protections are intended to cover solely those under the age of 18.  Meaning that anyone with a differing opinion may be cited using this legislation, which should be of particularly concern to people who blog.

“First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.”  (Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, 2002)