You may have heard that the woman who (apparently) used MySpace to abuse a teenage girl, who in turn killed herself, has been charged by a Los Angeles court with a cybercrime. From what I gather, the local officials where she lives, in Missouri, wanted to charge her, but couldn't find her guilty of any of the statutes on the books. MySpace is based in Beverly Hills, though, and so the LA people thought they could use that as a reason for charging her. I don't agree. I think that's reaching. (See here for more on this whole fandango.)
On the other hand, I think that she should be held accountable, which is to say that what she did should be adjudicated and evaluated. But on what charge?
In the military, there's a concept known as 'conduct unbecoming an officer', which we would sometimes call 'you didn't do anything we can charge you with, but we believe you should have been chargeable, so we're charging you with this'. Hence, my suggestion. She ought to be chargeable under the concept of 'conduct unbecoming a human being', for generally acting in a way that a decent person would not act.
Is that too radical or narrow-minded of me?
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