In 2006, a 13 year old girl named Megan Meier killed herself after a spout of bullying on Myspace (you can find the whole story in detail on Wikipedia). Now Megan is being invoked in a new bill from the US House of Representatives. The so-called “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act” is unfortunately bound to go awry in its current form, most notably due to the section stating that it should be a felony “to cause a substantial emotional distress through severe, repeated, and hostile speech.” This ridiculous bill, being spearheaded by Representative Linda T. Sanchez of California, is in all likelihood a simple grab for voter support.
Online or off, a US citizen has his first amendment right to freedom of speech. Creating a law which says otherwise is a bad idea from both a civil rights standpoint and from a logistics standpoint. The civil rights matter argues itself: who is to decide what constitutes causing enough of a threshold of emotional distress to deem someone a felon? What’s more important is what will happen if this law is passed. The ACLU or some other group will challenge it in court, and the law will be deemed unconstitutional rather quickly. Then, to cover the legal costs involved, the government will have to cut funding from various programs. How do I know all this? Because it’s all been done before! Both Michigan and Illinois tried to have laws prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors, and in both cases the laws were deemed unconstitutional (see here for Michigan and here for Illinois).
Unfortunately, the money to pay for the legal proceedings comes right from the tax payers rather than the politicians who passed the law. The politicians should have to pay: anyone who seeks to pass laws so obviously unconstitutional is doing so either out of gross incompetence or in an attempt to garner public favor for an upcoming election. The laws against violent video games were passed during Jack Thompson’s violent video game campaign and the whole Hot Coffee fiasco; it was just pandering on the part of some sleazy politicians at the expense of the citizens. So if you’re a Californian (especially one in the 39th district), give Ms. Sanchez a call. Let her know that if she won’t use her power properly, you will take it away from her.
