Bills to thwart cyber-bullying proposed

Seen on Second City Cop, this post about a proposed Kentucky statute to "make anonymous posting online illegal." Here is a link to the Lexington, Kentucky TV station report cited by SCC.

Closer to home, bills are pending in the Illinois legislature which would amend the Harassing and Obscene Communications Act, 720 ILCS 135/1 et seq., to criminalize "cyber-bullying."

The perils of cyber-bullying were burned into the national consciousness last year when the circumstances of the October 2006 suicide of a 13-year old Missouri girl, Megan Meier, became headline news. Megan allegedly had a falling out with a neighbor girl -- so the girl's mother, Lori Drew, and an 18-year old employee of the mother created a fictional boy on MySpace to find out whether Megan was saying mean things about her former friend. At first the "boy" was attentive and flattering -- but then "he" turned on Megan, culminating in a message, shortly before she killed herself, that world would be better off without her. (Adding insult to the Meier family's tragedy, it has now been reported that no charges would be filed against the Internet trolls posing as Lori Drew, who were responsible for the recent "Megan Had It Coming" blog.)

The Chicago Tribune reports today, in a story by Jeffrey Meitrodt and Ashley Wiehle, about a bill proposed by State Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago). Here is a link to Silverstein's bill, SB2426.

Silverstein's bill would criminalize the "[m]aking [of] a harassing statement for the purpose of alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing a specific person on at least 2 separate occasions; or [the creation and maintenance of] an Internet website or webpage, which is accessible to one or more third parties for a period of at least 24 hours, and which contains harassing statements made for the purpose of alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing a specific person."

Another bill, introduced by Sen. Linda Holmes (D-Plainfield), would amend the Harassing and Obscene Communications Act to criminalize "[e]ngaging in a course of conduct that consists of contact by a person at least 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense in which the course of conduct demonstrates a knowing disregard for the health, safety, and welfare of the contacted person." Holmes' bill is SB2855. (There may be others in the hopper; these were the ones I found this morning.)

Each of these proposals, including possibly even the Kentucky bill to ban anonymity on line, springs from a laudable purpose. As the father of five, all of whom are now in their teens or 20's, I can testify from experience to how vicious kids can get while hiding behind a computer keyboard.

However, criminalizing a statement that is "alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing" to a specific person creates a whole different set of problems: Some people get alarmed more easily than others. In recognizing a new tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, the Illinois Supreme Court nevertheless warned, in Knierim v. Izzo, 22 Ill.2d 73, 174 N.E.2d 157, 164 (1961), "the law should aim to toughen the psyche of the citizen rather than pamper it." Surely that cautionary statement should apply with at least equal force when criminal sanctions are involved.

Some objective standard must be fashioned to determine when obnoxious, insulting, mean-spirited (but still free) speech crosses the line into "cyber-bullying" that can be the subject of constitutional police action. This will not be an easy task.