In their eagerness to visit justice on a 49-year-old woman involved in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide tragedy, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are resorting to a novel and dangerous interpretation of a decades-old computer crime law -- potentially making a felon out of anybody who violates the terms of service of any website, experts say.

Lori Drew is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act "This is a novel and extreme reading of what [the law] prohibits," says Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "To say that you're violating a criminal law by registering to speak under a false name is highly problematic. It's probably an unconstitutional reading of the statute."

"Empowering terms of use to be key pieces of evidence in criminal matters -- when terms of use are generally thought of by the people who are entering into them as purely contract or civil maters -- is something that should be done carefully," says Andrea Matwyshyn, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School. "I think you're going to have strong disagreement as to whether this is an advisable course to take."

...In a statement, MySpace says it supports the prosecution. "MySpace does not tolerate cyberbullying and is cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney in this matter," a company spokeswoman said. The company declined to say what the precedent would mean for otherwise innocent users who, for example, misstate their age or ZIP code when setting up their MySpace profiles.

"Theoretically, it applies to any use of a service in violation of the terms of service," says EFF's Granick, who says the impact of the Drew prosecution could be far-reaching.

By way of example, Granick notes that some terms-of-use contracts prohibit users from making negative comments about the company. "If you write on a blog something disparaging about that company, are you in violation of criminal law?"

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O'Brien called a news conference in Los Angeles to announce the grand jury indictment against Drew: one count of conspiracy and three counts of illegally accessing MySpace computers "that she used to inflict emotional distress on a child."

Prosecutors were able to file the charges in Los Angeles because the MySpace social networking site has its headquarters in the area. The key allegation: Drew helped create a fake MySpace profile and used it to harass Megan.

Dean Steward, one of Drew's attorneys, called the charges "creative," and vowed to try to get the case thrown out.

"How do you take these facts and jam it into the statute that they've apparently jammed it into?" he said.

He also said that he would challenge the venue.

"Why is this in Los Angeles?" he said. "How is it that the local prosecutor and the U.S. attorney (in St. Louis) looked at it and found no crime?"

[I]n interviews with The Times, several members of the disbanded unit challenged that explanation, saying the move was intended to punish lawyers for a perceived failure to produce and for bad-mouthing their boss, U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien.
The lawyers described a meeting last week in which an angry O'Brien derided attorneys in the office for working too few hours, filing too few cases and for speaking ill of him to subordinates.

They said O'Brien also threatened to tarnish their reputations if they challenged the official explanation for the unit's dismantling in conversations with reporters. Members of the unit contacted by The Times either spoke on the condition that they not be named or declined to comment. Several said they wanted to talk about the situation but feared reprisals if they did so.