Good point. That's the main reason I'm following this: i want to know the particulars, how the law applies, and what the resolution will be. Last thing we need is a bunch of kids trying to claim right of privacy on the Internet just because their parents ticked them off (though I acknowledge it may be more than that here). Heck, if I'd tried something like this back in the day...well, I wouldn't be here to type this e-mail! :)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tracy Curtis" <tlcurti...@gmail.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 2:06:41 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Teen Sues Mother for Facebook Harassment I think the criminal thing may be analogous to the way domestic violence laws have evolved. It used to be that the person being hurt had to press charges. Now, if there's evidence, the state must bring charges. I don't know how much of a choice they would have if she pretended to be him. On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: Same here. That's the only thing I can see that would possibly warrant criminal charges. Still, I wonder if the law couldn't have tried to get them to settle this out of court? Maybe have everyone sit down and talk it out? The kid is obviously angry, and maybe with good reason. But I hate to see him taking his mom to court like this. She might even be "wrong" in a way, but criminal? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tracy Curtis" < tlcurti...@gmail.com > To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 1:12:35 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Teen Sues Mother for Facebook Harassment I don't really know. I was speculating about the fraud part. I imagine that's why she can be charged. I read somewhere that she posted pretending to be him. On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: I agree, the family dynamic is a big issue. Can a parent be charged if that parent were to hack into the underage child's account? In this case the dude left his computer logged in to Facebook. What if his mother had intentionally gone looking for a password, found it, and then accessed his account? Is that illegal? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tracy Curtis" < tlcurti...@gmail.com > To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 12:00:59 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Teen Sues Mother for Facebook Harassment Keith, I was also wondering about this case. My very uninformed guess is that she posted something while pretending to be him. Perhaps that along with the hacking can be construed as fraud. People can be charged with that no matter what their relationships with the people they attack. But it also seems that this family's situation is worse than the average one in which a parent might monitor the kids' online activity. She seemed to have little opportunity to reach him in person. And if his tales about driving 95 mph are correct, the grandparents' influence isn't keeping him in line. Maybe these charges will get him the kind of attention that will lead him to take better care of himself. On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 10:26 AM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: Interesting. I am a very liberal person, and certainly had major battles with my parents as I was growing up. I am a big fan of letting children grow and learn and stretch as much as possible, without constraining them more than necessary. Give them as much freedom as possible, I say. Still, I also believe that children are children, and subject to their parents' rules in the main. As much as I rebelled against my folks, i don't like seeing kids turn into arrogant little snots. So my gut reaction at first was to upset that a teen could take his mom to court for this. But the one thing that bothers me is not knowing exactly what the mother did that convinced the authorities to charge her. Frankly, her reading his Facebook account, even changing his password--that doesn't upset me as much if, as she said, she was alarmed at him revealing doing dangerous and irresponsible things. The advancement of technology and the growth of social networking, along with the associated change in mores, doesn't allow a minor to do anything he wants. The tech may change, but in one way this is no different than my parents telling me when to turn off the TV, picking up the extension when I was on the phone trying to talk to a girl and embarrassing me, or "overhearing" conversations with friends. And if stuff like Facebook did exist when I was a teen, you can be guaran-damn-teed that there'd be *no* way I'd have been allowed to make it private, lock my parents out, or not include them among my friends so they could read what I was posting. I'm assuming--even hoping--that the obviously dysfunctional nature of the family can lead one to assume the mother went way way over the line here. He doesn't seem close to his parents, they say the divorce was messy, and he only sees his mother every now and then. Did she make fun of her son in Facebook? Did she insult his friends? Did she make up lies and attribute them to him? Must have been something extreme for the law to get involved. At least, I hope, 'cause the last thing we need is for kids to start thinking they have the right to privacy when their under eighteen, just because they can now create password-protected social networking accounts. I wanna follow this one just to make sure Arkansas isn't setting a troubling precedent, but given that state's social leanings, I can't believe they'd be on the liberal side of privacy law interpretations for kids... **************************************************************************************** http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1264604/Boy-sues-mother-Facebook-harassment-argues-parental-duty.html Boy, 16, sues his mother for harassing him on Facebook as she argues it's her 'parental duty' By Paul Thompson Last updated at 8:13 AM on 9th April 2010 g 'It's just like going through his bedroom... it's my duty': Denise New, who is being sued by her son Lane for going through his Facebook page A teenager has taken his mother to court for logging on to his Facebook page and reading about his private life. Denise New has been charged with harassment after her 16-year-old son, Lane, said he wanted criminal charges filed against his mother for her 'snooping'. The teenager claims his mother changed his password on his Facebook account after he accidentally left his computer on. He also said she posted slanderous comments and changed the password to his email so he can no longer receive updates to his page. The teenager, who lives with his grandmother following his parents' messy divorce, made a complaint with prosecutors in Arkansas after the incident last month. Prosecutors agreed with the teenager and charged Mrs New under the state's harassment laws. The high tech family row began after Lane accidentally left his computer on while visiting his mother at her home in the town of Arkadelphia. The 42-year-old became concerned about several entries, including one in which he son wrote about driving home at 95mph after an argument with his girlfriend. She also read some other postings, which bothered her so much she decided to change the password barring her son's access to the account. Mrs New said she was simply performing her parental duties, and looking at the Facebook page, was the same as going through his bedroom. fc Right to privacy? Lane claims his mother had slandered him She said: 'You're within your legal rights to monitor your child and to have a conversation with your child on Facebook whether it's his account, or your account or whoever's account. 'I read things on his Facebook about how he had gone to Hot Springs one night and was driving 95 m.p.h. home because he was upset with a girl and it was his friend that called me and told me about all this. 'That prompted me to even actually start really going through his Facebook to see what was going on.' Her son disagreed with his mother's views and has asked not to have further contact with her. In his criminal complaint, he wrote: 'Denise first hacked my Facebook and changed my password. She also changed the password to my e-mail so I could not change it. She posted things that involve slander and personal facts about my life.' State prosecutor Todd Turner refused to comment on the case but cited Arkansas harassment laws that 'a person commits the offence if he engages in conduct or repeatedly commits acts that alarm or seriously annoy another person.' Mrs New, who has visitation rights to her son while her parents have custodial rights, plans to contest the charge when she appears in court next month. She said: 'I'm going to fight it. If I have to go even higher up, I'm going to. I'm not gonna let this rest. I think this could be a precedent-setting moment for parents.
