Neighbor Indicted in MySpace Sucide Hoax
by Scott Michels and Mary Fulginiti
May 15, 2008

Lori Drew Faces Federal Charges for Alleged Online Hoax That Led to Girl’s Suicide

A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday on federal charges for allegedly perpetrating an online hoax that led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

Lori Drew was indicted by a grand jury in Los Angeles for her role in allegedly creating a fake MySpace page, in the name of “Josh Evans,” that was used to contact Megan Meier.

Meier committed suicide in October 2006 and her parents have said their daughter’s death was the result of the rapid decline of her online relationship with “Josh,” whom she believed to be a 16-year-old boy who first flattered the self-conscious girl and then taunted her.

She hanged herself an hour after Josh allegedly said he no longer wanted to be her friend and told her the world would be a better place without her, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Drew, 49, knew the Meiers and lived down the street from them for years. She was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on Megan. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison. (more…)

Editor’s note: For the official press release, visit Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund Web site.

Federal Charges Against Steven Kurtz Dismissed
by Jeff Woodard, Executive Producer
WGRZ.com
April 21, 2008, updated April 22, 2008

The indictment charging UB professor Steve Kurtz with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud, has been thrown out.

Judge Richard Arcara dismissed the charges in federal court Monday.

FBI agents in Haz-Mat suits went into Kurtz’s Buffalo home in May, 2004. Kurtz had called 911 after finding his wife unresponsive. It turned out that Hope Kurtz had died of natural causes.

But once police entered Kurtz’s home, they found biological samples inside. The F.B.I. was called and a huge investigation followed.

Kurtz told authorities that he used the samples as part of his performance art that deals with bio-technology.

After a lengthy investigation, Kurtz was charged not with bio-terrorism, but with fraudulently obtaining two of the samples that were in his home.

The following is an interview Kurtz conducted with Channel 2’s Scott Brown in 2007, when the indictment was still in place: (more…)

NBC ‘Predator’ lawsuit: journalism on trial
by Douglas Lee
Special to the First Amendment Center Online
March 4, 2008

Yes, it’s only a ruling on a motion to dismiss. And, yes, in such a ruling, the plaintiff’s allegations are presumed to be true. And, yes, it’s only the ruling of a trial judge, not a ruling of an appellate court establishing new precedent.

So, yes, many reasons exist to minimize the importance of the recent ruling in Conradt v. NBC Universal, Inc. At the same time, many reasons exist for NBC to be concerned.

In Conradt, Patricia Conradt is suing NBC for the network’s role in her brother’s suicide. Conradt claims NBC, in an effort to create a sensational arrest for “Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator,” recklessly orchestrated a police action that caused her brother to take his life.

On Feb. 26, 2008, Denny Chin, a U.S. district judge sitting in the Southern District of New York, held that Conradt’s case could proceed. While he dismissed seven of Conradt’s claims, Chin ruled that the most serious of her allegations — that NBC had violated her brother’s civil rights and had intentionally caused him emotional distress — warranted a jury trial. “[A] reasonable jury,” Chin wrote, “could find that NBC crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement.” (more…)

Update: October 11, 2007 — Buffalo, NY - Today in Federal District Court, Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, under tremendous pressure, pled guilty to lesser charges rather than facing a prolonged trial for federal charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” in a surreal post-PATRIOT Act legal case that has attracted worldwide attention.

Dr. Ferrell’s colleague Dr. Steven Kurtz, founder of the internationally acclaimed art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, was illegally detained and accused of “bioterrorism” by the U.S. government in 2004 stemming from his acquisition from Dr. Ferrell of harmless bacteria used in several of Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects. After a costly investigation lasting several months and failing to provide any evidence of “bioterrorism,” the Department of Justice instead brought charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” against Kurtz and Ferrell. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum penalty for these charges has increased from 5 years to 20. (more…)

Editor’s word to the wise: Massachusetts has a law against hoax devices: M.G.L. Chapter 266: Section 102A1/2. (a) Whoever possesses, transports, uses or places or causes another to knowingly or unknowingly possess, transport, use or place any hoax device or hoax substance with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or group of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Read more here.

In the news today:

MIT student arrested at Logan in bomb scare
by Anna Badkhen, Michael Levenson, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe
September 21, 2007

Star Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device today at Logan International Airport for wearing a sweatshirt that had a circuit board affixed to the front with green LED lights and wires running to a 9-volt battery.

An MIT student wearing a device on her chest that included lights and wires was arrested at gunpoint at Logan International Airport this morning after authorities thought the contraption was a bomb strapped to her body. (more…)

In 1993, Joey Skaggs created the world’s first sexual virtual reality company, SEXONIX to market an apparatus that offered not only safe sex in the era of AIDS, but also offered a new dawn of hope for the impotent and handicapped. As Skaggs noted, “Let there be no doubt, SEXONIX offers pleasure of a different order of magnitude. By translating individual fantasies into a stunning approximation of reality, we enable our clients to experience sublime pinnacles of delight that most people only dream of.”

Unfortunately for SEXONIX, Canadian customs agents confiscated all of the hardware and software, valued at over $300,000, at the Canadian border as it was enroute to the Metro Toronto Christmas Gift and Invention Show, on the grounds that SEXONIX was morally offensive to the Canadian people. Thus ensued a long legal battle to retrieve the confiscated property.

Fast forward to 2007 and a story of not-so-epic proportions, but that might actually be true, is unfolding in the virtual world of Second Life.

Entrepreneur Kevin Alderman’s company, Eros LLC, created SexGen Platinum, software that, according to AP, “animates amorous avatars in erotic positions… [It] has gotten so popular that he’s now had to hire lawyers to track down the flesh-and-blood person behind the online identity, or avatar, that he says illegally copied and sold it…

“Catherine Smith, director of marketing for ‘Second Life’ creator Linden Lab, said she knew of no other real-world legal fight between two avatars.”

Here’s the AP Story, and a Reuters Story with a slightly different angle.

Soliciting Sex Draws Fowl Sentence for 3
July 26, 2007

Painesville, Ohio (AP) — A judge known for giving unusual sentences has ordered three men who pleaded guilty to soliciting sex to take turns dressing in a bright yellow chicken costume.

Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti agreed to suspend a 30-day jail sentence if they wear the costume between 4 and 7 p.m. Friday outside the court while carrying a sign that reads “No Chicken Ranch in Painesville.”

The sign and costume refer to the “World Famous Chicken Ranch,” a prostitution house in Nevada where sex-for-money is legal.

Daniel Chapdelaine, 40, of Perry Township; Martin Soto, 44, of Ashtabula; and Fabian Rodriguez-Ramirez, 29, of Painesville, solicited sex from an undercover Painesville police officer earlier this summer. (more…)

Under Spanish law, anybody who insults the royal family can face up to two years in prison.

Spain in uproar after royal sex cartoon banned
New Zealand Herald
July 22, 2007

Madrid - Spanish media poured scorn at a judge’s decision to pull a satirical magazine that published a cartoon of the heir to the throne having sex, saying it trampled freedom of expression in a first world democracy.

On Friday, Juan del Olmo ordered police to round up copies of El Jueves, whose front page carried a drawing of Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife and commenting on a government plan to give parents 2,500 euros ($NZ4423.99) for each child born.

(more…)

By Sheldon Rampton, PR Watch, June 25, 2007 about artist-activist Steve Kurtz:

I happened to meet Steve Kurtz in December 2002 at a “World Information Organization” conference in Amsterdam, where we were both speakers. Kurtz spoke on the topic of The Spectre of Intellectual Property Rights and described his work as a performance art provocateur. To challenge corporate control of biotechnology, for example, his Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) produced an exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. called Molecular Invasion. It consisted of a “live public experiment” that attempted to “reverse engineer genetically modified cash crops” by developing a chemical that can be applied to the Monsanto company’s genetically-engineered Roundup Ready crops to make them vulnerable again to “the crippling effects of RoundUp herbicide.” Another CAE project, Free Range Grain, consisted of a mobile lab that invited the public to test foods for genetic modification. Another, more whimsical project that Kurtz showcased at the conference in Amsterdam was called Cult of the New Eve (CONE). It consisted of a mock religion that practiced “molecular cannibalism” by inviting people to eat bread and drink beer containing human DNA.

At the end of the conference, I had dinner with Steve Kurtz and some of the other participants. He told some funny stories, and I told a few myself. Neither of us knew at the time that his life was soon to take a strange turn that would lead to the FBI accusing him of terrorism. (more…)

The NYPD decided not to appeal a judge’s decision that the NYPD should declassify its surveillance documents from the 2004 RNC, so it has set up a special NYPD RNC Documents website with the documents. Of course, you have to scroll down to the very bottom for a zip file of the 600 pages of documents. And what’s above the documents is the NYPD’s rather thorough explanation/ defense justifying why it did such extensive surveillance of disparate groups and people, listing various terror incidents between 2001 and the convention as well as other incidents of protest. Here is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s statement:

“I think a close examination of the documents is going to show that the New York City Police Department did an outstanding job in protecting the City during the Republican National Convention. People wanted to come here and shut down the City, to replicate what happened in Seattle, Montreal and Genoa. We simply didn’t let that happen, and I think it’ll just underscore the outstanding work of the men and women of the Department. In terms of gathering information, the vast majority of information that was gathered was open-source information. It was gathered from the Internet; these groups that were coming here were advertising what they were going to do — bragging about what they were going to do. It wasn’t particularly difficult to get the vast majority of this information.”

Good to know that the NYPD is watching all of us, including MSNBC and the Sierra Club. The NY Times has all the documents plus highlights which people and/or groups were mentioned in the documents. Here are but a few:

ACT UP, Sierra Club, City Council members (Charles Barron, David Weprin, Bill Perkins), Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Johnny Cash Bloc, MSNBC, A31 Coalition, NYCLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Stuyvesant High School Students, Westboro Baptist Church, Indymedia, Democratic National Committee, Coalition of Fire and Police Unions, Grandmothers Against War, Falun Gong, Arab Muslim American Foundation, Time’s Up, Billionaires For Bush, United for Peace and Justice, The Surveillance Camera Players, ACLU, Hip Hop Summit Action Network, The Federation of East Village Artists, Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York

The NYCLU’s executive director Donna Lieberman said, “These documents paint a picture of a surveillance program that was broad, clumsy, and often unlawful. The NYPD failed to differentiate between unlawful behavior and behavior that is not only lawful but should in fact be cherished and protected. Today the public can finally bear witness to that failure.” The NYCLU also offers an index of the groups monitored as well as the documents released yesterday, plus others previously released.

And City Councilman Charles Barron told the NY Times’ Sewell Chan, “First of all, I’m going to be getting some legal advice. I’m not going to let this go. This is ridiculous that you would spy on democratic, legal, political activity. This smacks of former fascism. It certainly is selective spying. It is absurd that people in this city can’t exercise their constitutional right to protest without being spied on by the police.”

Photograph by ireallylovecake on Flickr

   Originally by Jen Chung from Gothamist on May 17, 2007