I want to give you a mini-profile of the business women involved in the site. Ten women create the core of Technically Women. When I looked at their About page, the first thing I noticed was that each woman gave her Twitter info first in her profile. Not a job title, not a URL to her business site: a Twitter link. I find that a fascinating clue to what this powerhouse group of women will do to market themselves and their website.

Let's take a quick look at each of the women who make up Technically Women.

First is Cathy Brooks (@CathyBrooks). Cathy runs a site called Other Than That. She's a journalist who writes in places like Bitch Buzz and The Huffington Post. She's worked with Guidewire Group and helped develop the LeWeb3 Conference.

Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) is a Twitter maven who I've written about before and who may already be familiar to BlogHer readers. Her business site is Pistachio Consulting. She's been writing a book called Twitter for Dummies, which looks like it might be ready just about the time BlogHer09 convenes in Chicago. Laura will be speaking at BlogHer09 on a panel called Advanced Social Media, Syndication and Stats.

Maggie Fox (@MaggieFox) is an expert in big business, with experience in working with corporate-sized clients. Her own business, Social Media Group is a large company. She's the CEO and founder. Her past positions include working for New Sun Creative and in broadcasting.

Rachel Happe (@rhappe) moves in the world of enterprise social networking and enterprise software applications. She co-founded a business called The Community Roundtable and writes at The Social Organization. The Social Organization has a backlog of great posts that prompted me to subscribe to the feed for more of what Rachel has to say.

Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) writes for ZDNet's Social Business Blog and is a co-host of Quick-n-Dirty on Blog Talk Radio. Her blog is Media Phyter. I subscribed to this blog, too. I cannot resist a technology blogger, especially one who will tattoo her blog name on the back of her neck.

Adele McAlear (@AdeleMcAlear) runs McAlear Marketing and a blog called Marketing Monster. Adele was a co-founder of Digital Eve way back in 2000. Digital Eve was a early site bring women together around the topic of technology. It offers support and education and has real-world chapters in locations around the world.

Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) comes from re: The Auditors about the accounting industry. Francine is a blogger at The Huffington Post. She's writing a book about the Big 4 audit firms which is tentatively titled The Button-Down Mafia - How the Big 4 Audit Firms Run A Racket on Investors. Francine is the President of McKenna Partners LLC.

Anne Kathrine Petterøe (@yojibee) comes from a background in web design. Her blog is Yojibee, which she tells us is pronounced yo-j-ee-bee. Anne's interests include her work for SAP and the Adobe SAP Alliance.

Marilyn Pratt (@MarilynPratt) also worked for SAP in the SAP Developer Network. Her background is in theater and acting; she once lived in a kibbutz. She blogs at A time to mourn a time to rejoice.... and Greenshow.me.

This brings us near the end of the alphabet and to the final name as a founder of Technically Women.

Susan Scrupski (@ITSinsider) is founder of SoCo Partners, a firm that helps companies with socio-collaborative engagement or adopting social media strategies for business. Susan blogs at IT Insider, where she coins words like "collaborosphere" to explain what her work and interests are all about.

Technically Women is three months old. To date, there are 9 posts on the site. In spite of this modest beginnning, I have high hopes that the women involved will provide interested readers like myself a steady stream of leadership and information. Here's to you, Technically Women, may you grow and prosper.

--
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Imagine a world where a site's terms of service were enforceable by law. A world where my convenient lie about my age amounted to “unauthorized access” of MySpace servers under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act—which was created in 1986 to deal with computer hackers. Under this act, the infraction could make me a felon.

It almost happened.

The case that would have set the precedent was that of United States v. Lori Drew, otherwise known as the case of the MySpace Mom.

REFRESHER

Lori Drew, a Missouri mother to a teenaged daughter, was concerned about alleged rumors being spread by Megan Meiers, a friend with whom her daughter had had a falling out. She, her daughter and an employee of hers, Ashley Grills, created a MySpace account for a fictitious boy named “Josh Evans” and used it to befriend Meiers, allegedly for the purpose of getting information from her regarding Drew's daughter. The messages, which began as friendly, quickly became cruel to Meiers, eventually leading the girl, who had been diagnosed with depression, to commit suicide.

The county prosecutor, Jack Banas, who reviewed the case, declined to press charges. According to Banas, there was no evidence that Drew had the criminal intent to harass or stalk Megan; more importantly, her behavior didn't violate any Missouri law. The same conclusion was reached by the local federal prosecutor. The result from the public and media was outrage, eventually leading California-based attorney Thomas O'Brien to step in, claiming that California had jurisdiction in the case on the grounds that MySpace's servers were located in Beverly Hills.

Early last year, a federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The charge of “accessing protected computers” was related to Drew's breach of MySpace terms by creating a fictitious profile. In November, Drew was convicted of three counts of accessing protected computers, but the jury acquitted her on three felony charges and a count of conspiracy.

The case had the blogosphere holding their breath until Thursday, when US District Judge George Wu, who had delayed Drew's sentencing in May of this year to review the testimony of prosecution witnesses, overruled the jury and directed acquittal of all charges.

UR DOIN IT RONG

There is no question that what Drew did is shameful—even criminal. Cyberbullying is a very real, very malevolent form of abuse. The problem here is that there are no real laws in place to prosecute people who engage in this kind of harassment online.

The case against Drew did not fail because she is not guilty—it failed because it relied so heavily on the notion that violating MySpace’s terms of service was tantamount to computer hacking and thus a breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which charges anyone who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains... information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication”).

This precedent, while helpful in punishing Lori Drew for her reprehensible behavior, spells disaster for everyone else using sites without adhering to their respective terms of service.

“It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime,” said Wu. “And therefore it criminalizes what would be a breach of contract.”

Wu's take echoes what many critics of the case have been saying for months, among them the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Heritage Foundation.

In an amicus brief filed by the EFF in conjunction with the Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen and 14 law professors, the implications to the free speech of US citizens using the web was highlighted.

The brief had other examples of criminal misconduct under this definition: a married person using the services of Match.com could be prosecuted by using the site for breach of their terms, which state that all users must be single or separated to use the site; a minor under the age of 18 using Google could also be prosecuted for violating the search engine's terms of service; and anyone who prefers to keep their identity anonymous to exercise their First Amendment right of free speech while using sites that require they submit “truthful and accurate” information about their persons to do so, as well.

Andrew Grossman, senior legal policy Analyst in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, authored a memorandum calling it “overcriminalization,” adding that per MySpace's terms of service, which also state that content which “provides any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses” is also a violation. That means that sending your friend a message with your phone number or even sharing a link to this article—under the precedent set by this case—would have been a breach of agreement and a criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Grossman elaborates on the complexity of emotions surrounding the issue:

It is a legal cliché that “Hard cases make bad law”—that is, that courts are too often tempted by emotional facts and sympathetic parties to render decisions with­out thinking about the law they are making and its effect on future cases. The same could be said of the recent development of the criminal law: Legislators, prosecutors, and the public seem to believe that every bad act done is a legal wrong, punishable just as traditional crimes like murder and theft and rape are punished.

But too often they overlook the far greater differ­ences between traditional crimes and these new offenses. Pushing the criminal law beyond its histori­cal bounds carries consequences that may not be apparent when the public mood is hot and vengeful, and only later is the result apparent: bad law. This pat­tern is repeated nearly every time that Congress passes a narrow law to target some unlikely, newsworthy wrong or slight deviation from productive behavior.

The case of housewife Lori Drew fits the pattern perfectly. Drew was indicted under a federal anti- computer hacking statute for impersonating a young man on MySpace to gain the trust of an emotionally troubled teen, Megan Meier, who killed herself after the cruel joke spun out of control. The case contains all the hallmarks of overcriminalization and illustrates all of its common consequences:

• The decline of mens rea (guilty mind) requirements as a protection against unfair criminal liability;
• The arbitrary nature of modern criminal offenses that provide citizens with no notice that their conduct may be illegal;
• Extremely broad liability that threatens to make millions of honest citizens criminals;
• Politics and public opinion trumping ordinary prosecutorial discretion and traditional notions of justice; and
• The threat to liberty, the rule of law, and our civil society.

Drew's conduct was irresponsible, but it was not criminal. It may deserve social sanction, already dispensed in great quantity, and perhaps civil liability to Megan Meier's parents. But if Drew is convicted under criminal law, virtually every Internet user will face the consequences.

Growing up, my father taught me to read all the fine print—always. And I do, whether it's a social networking site or the terms of my insurance, I read. I don't always follow the terms (as in the case of my age on MySpace), but I read—at least while signing up. But how many sites regularly update their terms? In this ever-changing world, is it fair to expect everyone to read everything always? Even I don't have the time to keep up—and I try. Is it fair to make it punishable by law?

“That the L.A. prosecutors were more 'creative' in charging than their Missouri counterparts is no answer, for the principal purpose of the criminal law is voluntary deterrence, which is built atop certainty,” says Grossman. “That such creativity in charging is possible speaks to the great overbreadth of the criminal law in general and the vagueness of the statute in particular. A criminal charge that comes as a surprise simply demonstrates that the law is unclear, has provided insufficient notice, and has failed in its purpose... such prosecutions decrease respect for the law across the board. As Professor John Coffee has explained, 'The criminal law is obeyed not simply because there is a legal threat underlying it, but because the public perceives its norms to be legitimate and deserving of compliance.'”

Yes, bullying is a major problem, both for children and adults and yes, the web, like any tool, has made it easier to be made a target. But it seems to me that this is not the way to go about creating a safer, happy environment for everyone. I am in accord with Grossman: whatever laws are put in place to protect citizens from this sort of reprehensible behavior must be known and understood as such, and not come at the expense of individual freedom.

MALWEBOLENCE

“Though there is some question about Drew's involvement in the meanest messages sent to Meier, even in the kindest light, her actions were irresponsible and deserve social, and perhaps civil legal, sanction,” Grossman writes in his brief. “That does not mean, however, that she did anything that is or should be a crime. In the harshest light, the accusations against her do not rise to that level. If all of the allegations against her are true, she treated a vulnerable teenage girl with cruelty and a malign heart. But kindness and compassion are not things that our society enforces by law, nor could it do so.”

Even so, Missouri and other states have introduced legislation to criminalize what the National Crime Prevention Council and lawmakers call “cyberbullying”or use of the “Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person.” These bills, unfortunately, are murky at best and subject to enough legal interpretation to make them difficult to stand First Amendment scrutiny.

For now, it seems we're on our own to educate our children about how to handle bullies in the playground and in the comfort of our own homes and to inculcate in them a sense of decency and decorum in communicating their negative feelings toward one another in a manner that is conducive to resolution and not abuse.

As it stands, that may not be a bad thing. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Sources: Wired, Ars Technica, and Wikipedia.

AROUND THE WEB

In the excellent piece by fellow contributing editor Nordette Adams explores the deeper lessons we can take from this: "The problem is perhaps that well-centered adults are in short supply and that our children are often too much like us, too self-centered, too vindictive, and too scared to accept themselves with love."

Shannon Lowe reports on Lori Drew's indictment on four counts, focusing on the public response to Drew's involvement in Meiers' death.

In Megan Meier’s Tragic Death – Charge Lori Drew with Child Abuse, Karoli elaborates on what Drew should have been charged with: child abuse.

Internet cruelty is a topic I feel passionately about. In Trolls and LOLz, I talk about the effect of cyberbullying on some of the brightest minds in blogging today. Later, in All The Rage Online, I elaborate on the horrifying but very real aspect of online life that I like to call “malwebolence.”

The common misconception about conservatives is that we're not "pro-environment," which couldn't be further from the truth. I come from a farming family who steadfastly believe that what you take from the earth you return. I was raised knowing that it's a responsibility of humanity - even laid forth in Genesis - to be a good steward of the environment. This, perhaps is my biggest criticism of cap-and-trade (also Greenpeace's - I cannot believe they and I are agreeing on an issue, even in part), aside from my other concern: massive job loss.

This legislation, as explained by President Obama, proposes to curb carbon emissions and reduce energy usage by increasing the price of energy as the motivation to use less. There are several things wrong with this proposal, things which make it impossible for me to support:

1) The legislation approaches the problem of carbon emissions completely wrong. Back in the 90s, my uncle was one of several lobbyists who worked to push forth legislation that provided tax incentives to farmers who used organic means of cultivation. Instead of penalizing farmers, who were already struggling as it was, they would be rewarded for using less chemicals on the land. The plan worked - and has worked in states where implemented. Positive reinforcement works time and time again.

2) There are currently no incentives for businesses to reduce emissions, just penalties. This in turn positions the legislation and the party supporting it as being hostile to business, even if they really aren't. The bill also has no guarantees that these businesses won't simply relocate or ship jobs overseas as a way to get around purchasing credits or paying penalties; there is no guarantee that they won't emit less if they relocate - but it is certain that they won't curb their emissions if they do.

3) The bill proposes to shift dependence from coal - a resource of which we have an abundance, says the U.S. Department of Energy, which is why the energy bills of the United States are so much lower compared to other parts of the world - to energies which are not yet capable of sustaining the market demand, explained Dan Kish, Senior Vice-President for Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, on my radio show last week. It costs more to produce less energy with regards to win and solar. The mistake made by some against conservatives is that by stating this, we're speaking against wind and solar power which is factually incorrect. I would love to have various forms of energy. I would love to have a decreased dependence on foreign countries for oil, et al., I would love to create more jobs in the green industry- but not at the sake of denying scientific fact where energy is concerned. We are not yet at that point to make a major shift.

4) According to Kish, we have already cut emissions by 70-75% without this exponentially-increased governmental oversight. More can be done, sure, but we're working off the false premise that changes are not already underway. Instead of cracking down on companies and risking job losses with no environmental benefit, why not craft a bill to reward them for reductions? Kish and others have also noted that our newer coal plants burn incredibly cleaner than older plants; why not retrofit older plants and make them more efficent? The cost to do this would seem to be less than the proposed cost incurred by this legislation. Says Ben Lieberman, Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation:

For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000.

But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600.

Of course, by giving incentives to instead of penalizing businesses, the government would greatly reduce the billions its expected to rake in from this legislation to offset stimulus spending.

5) I am open to all theories, so long as they are founded in fact and not politics, i.e. the EPA report that was suppressed. Such controversy should not exist when undertaking the biggest tax in American history based on the findings of such reports. Pat Austin, of So It Goes in Shreveport, discusses the suppressed EPA report:

The fact that the EPA suppressed a 98 page report by EPA senior research analyst Alan Carlin, some assume under pressure by the Obama administration, that draws serious questions about climate change.

6) I do not want elected officials - from EITHER party - who would stand to benefit from the passage of this or any legislation involved with getting it to a vote, i.e. Nancy Pelosi and Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan.

7) The estimated job loss as a result of cap-and-trade is projected at 81,000 machinery jobs alone; by 2035 there will be 263,000 fewer machinery jobs. That's just in that particular industry. The ratio of jobs created with Waxman - Markey is grossly disproportionate to the amount of jobs which will be lost. It's analogous to saying that we need another hurricane to roar through the Florida panhandle in order to create some construction jobs. Well, sure, we'll have some construction jobs, but what of the other sectors? They will be ravaged. For further insight, listen to Warren Buffett give testament to this, or these Missouri small business owners whose jaws hit the floor when they realized what would happen to their energy bills under cap-and-trade. Austin also notes:

The Heritage Foundation predicts that this bill will "destroy 1,145,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 2,479,000 jobs."

What happenes when you increase the cost of doing business? The price
of the product increases. Benefits are cut and jobs are lost as companies shift to reign in spiked costs. You discover that your dollar doesn't stretch as far as it once did. The effects are widespread. 

8) There's more in Waxman - Markey than most people realize. Pundit and Pundette examines how this bill attempts to micromanage citizens via a post from Austin:

And how will this bill affect you? It has regulations on every single aspect of your daily life. There are light bulb restrictions (no more than 60 watts in your candelabra); in fact there's a whole section that deals with lamps. If you decide to build a new home, it must meet new and specific energy requirements. If you decide to sell your existing home, a federal inspector must inspect your home, determine it's energy rating, and if your home is found to be unacceptable then you must retrofit and make changes before you will be able to sell.

There's an entire section on planting trees including guidelines on "scientific based measurements outlining the species and minimum distance required between trees planted...in addition to the minimum required distance to be maintained between such trees and building foundations, air conditioning units, driveways and walkways...". Do we really need the federal government telling us where we can plant trees?

There's a section dealing with outdoor lighting in which you are given instructions about landscape lights, lights in your swimming pool, lights on artwork and other architectural lighting. The federal government is going to tell you what wattage that light can be and how many you can have. In some cases the lights must be capable of producing two different light levels (100 and 60 watt).

There are new government regulations for water dispensers, hot tubs and other appliances. They're going to regulate water usage, and regulate wood stoves. Any wood stove that does not meet regulation must be "destroyed and recycled."

9) This bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent years because it's the biggest tax hike in the country and congress, breaking all promises, again, didn't even read it. A 300-page addendum was dumped on their desks the night before the vote. Kim Priestap takes issue with how the bill isn't even technically a bill yet:

This is unbelievable. The House voted on a bill that is not even a bill yet. It’s still in the development stages.

This is why I and so many are against the Waxman - Markey cap-and-trade bill. There is a better way to go about it that puts the environment and jobs first, politics second, all without further tanking our economy. The results are too important with which to trifle. Whoever does it? BRAVO.