How to Avoid Being Prosecuted

Pretty Lady simply loathes arguments about Legal Precedents, and Infringement of Liberties, and the Coming Totalitarian World. Portentious columns like this one really get her dander up:

Drew's actions have been called "cyberbullying," "cyberbaiting," and other such techno-neologisms, an indication of their awful novelty. Prosecutors in her state have tried and failed to find any laws that she may have violated, another sign that we're wandering, here, into an unchartered social realm.

If Drew really did what officials say she did, it seems obvious she should be punished for it, somehow. (Drew has repeatedly denied that she created the account, but has acknowledged having access to it.)

It's this impulse that federal prosecutors in Southern California were acting upon when they charged Drew this week with various computer security crimes. The prosecutors are on the side of right -- unfortunately, in their zeal to punish Drew, they've stretched the law too far, and in the process, they've endangered us all.

These people all have hold of the wrong end of the stick. This is not about New Crimes, or New Punishments, or Civil Liberties. This is, very simply, about either having the decency to own up to one's actions, or not.

Because Pretty Lady is quite, quite sure that if this alleged cyberbully had gone to the parents of this unfortunate child and apologized, she would not be in court today.

An apology is not tantamount to a confession of murder. It is merely a recognition of common humanity; that we all make mistakes, we all give in to destructive impulses, and we all undergo tragic losses. If this lady's next-door neighbor's daughter had died in an automobile accident, surely she would have offered her condolences; why then did she withhold them in this case?

Statistics more than suggest that medical doctors who are sued for malpractice are not necessarily the incompetent ones; they are the cold, arrogant ones who will never admit to making a mistake. We do not leverage the power of the court system in order to redress honest errors; we do so because we feel that our basic humanity has been mowed down by an indifferent force.