Ethical & Legal Issues
Spring-2013-ITS-20000
Spring-2013-ITS-20000
· Read the Case study 3-Cyberbullying on page
378 of "Ethics In Information Technology" 4e. Answer the three questions on pages 380-381. Each question shouldn't be longer than a page and please keep it professional
looking, no MLA or APA required. (Same case study starts on pg. 321 in Third
Edition)
· Due Date: April 16, 2013 11:59:00 PM EDT
1) Do you believe that knowingly violating the terms of a
Web site’s service agreement should be punishable as a serious crime, with
potential penalties of substantial fines and jail time? Why or why not?
If the terms of the Web site’s service agreement protect
itself and its users from crimes, than there is a moral and ethical precedent
to enforce the laws subject when violating the service agreement. Informing
users of terms and conditions is a fair usage of warning measures to the
community that uses the website, enforcing those laws despite any service
agreement is the responsibility of regional laws, which are partaken by users
and law enforcement entities. The site may have a legal obligation to the
country in which is resides and/or is accessed by, to display the service
agreement, and equally may be a requirement to protect its commercial
interests, as in, certain legal actions cannot be taken without prior warning
of a Web site’s service agreement.
2) Imagine that you are the defense council for Lori Drew.
Present your strongest argument for why your defendant should not be convicted
for violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Now imagine that you are the
prosecutor. Present your strongest argument for why Drew should be convicted.
Which argument do you believe is stronger?
Defense: Lori felt adamant about her opinions, enough to
share them, yes they were shared anonymously, but the false profile that she
created is no different than the average user, which she herself is one, making
her fully qualified to voice those opinions in that manner, free speech does
not require a lack of anonymity.
Prosecution: Ms. Drew knowing of her intentions had no right
to provide false information to the website in this case, providing a perfect
example of identity theft, misleading the public, as well as misleading the
victim with harassment, slander, intimidation, and forethought malice, which
resulted in the death of an innocent girl.
The stronger argument I believe belongs to the defense, not
merely because I wrote it, but for the legitimacy of free speech principles,
and that the CFAA was not broken in this case. The prosecution has a far
stretch to make in order to reach either, equivocation for false identities
being fatal, and or, to make the cyber bullying actions of Lori Drew sway the
emotional sentiment of the jury to sway the verdict in differentiated CFAA
parameters.
3) Do you think that Lori Drew was responsible for Megan’s
death? Do you think that justice was served in this case? Should new laws be
created to address similar future cases?
I don’t have the maternal instinct that I believe is a
qualifier to this case. I guessing, I think that suicide is a crime because of
the killer, which in this case is the victim and not quite the harassers. The
timeline puts Lori’s actions near the death and could be the outlier that
pushed Megan ‘over the line’, but I like to believe that Megan’s excuse for
suicide could have been personal.
I think that justice was served in this case, a particular
amount of attention was shed to this case amongst the fanfare, the harassers
did not gain immunity by means of mistrial or double jeopardy laws (in regards
to harassment, stalking, intimidation, slander charges). I reckon to remember
that after this actual case that new cyber bullying laws were enacted, which
expanded current laws of the civil justice code to amend new penalties for
existing offenses to include Internet communications, around the globe.
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