The city law passed after a 13-year-old girl committed suicide after receiving harrassing messages on a social networking website.

In this girl’s case, the facts appear that the perpetrator was pretending to be a boy, befriended her, then turned on her.  The facts also appear the harassment was done by a mother of an associate of the girl who died. 

There are limits to free speech on the Internet and harassment can take many forms such as online bullying, anonymously posting information on forums and even posting sexual inuendos on popular boards.

The harassment can occur in many ways, and cities and states can create all forms of legislation, but, due to a variety of legal reasons, the only way this type of harmful behavior will stop is when the federal government gets involved.  However, the federal government needs more legal authority to deal with these types of behaviors when the activity is really and obviously criminal in nature.    

Yes, there will always be the argument of “free speech versus harassment”, but after a while, when the victim is a private citizen or wants to be left alone, one can see and smell harassment.  It has a foul online odor and it looks horrible.

The court would ultimately decide the issue as each matter would be one that is case by case in nature.  Cities and states can pass ordinances and laws which can be helpful, but, the behavior is nationally endemic as sometimes requires a federal response.

In addition, there are often jurisdiction issue which legally mandates federal engagement.

While legislating the Internet is always a dangerous endeavor and online harassment and abuse instead should be handled with technology remedies in almost all cases, sometimes the results can be very unfortunate unless the feds get involved.  There are more incidents of online harassment and when the case is very clear, the federal action becomes the only game in town.