Accused arsonists revel in wackiness
- From: "Jack Bauers Spunky Sidekick Ian J. Ball" <ienjball@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 12 Mar 2006 16:38:38 -0800
Cyberspace postings highlight students' false sense of security
Seemingly private exchanges give peek into minds, lives of accused
arsonists
Sunday, March 12, 2006
GREG GARRISON
News staff writer
The three college students accused of setting fire to nine Alabama
churches left a computer chat room trail that was a window into their
personalities.
Within hours after Ben Moseley, 19; Russell DeBusk, 19; and Matthew
Cloyd, 20, were arrested Wednesday on arson charges, reporters were
mining their personal postings on the Facebook Web site. All three had
registered for the site when they were Birmingham-Southern College
students; Cloyd later transferred to UAB.
The students didn't talk directly about the fires, but bragged about
excessive drinking and partying in messages rife with obscene language.
In one of the few posts not full of obscenity, Cloyd wrote on Nov. 28:
"Moseley/Monday night/Case of Beer/Powerful Rifle/Lots of Ammo/Green
4Runner/2 complete idiots/1 pack of camel lights/0 law enforcement
officers/33 dead innocent whitetailed deer/insanely high speeds+"
BSC President David Pollick said he's concerned that so many students
inhabit a cyberspace world in which peers celebrate wild antics under
the illusion they are anonymous and isolated, possibly endangering
their futures.
Illusion of anonymity
"That's a bizarre phenomenon," Pollick said. "It seems to be giving
people a license in words and deeds. It gives one a sense of anonymity,
of isolation. That's an illusion. They do that without regard that
they're creating a living vitae for themselves. They wrote their own
letter of reference."
Internet experts agree.
"A lot of kids don't understand that anybody who wants to - police,
parents, employers - can see what they're writing," said attorney Parry
Aftab, executive director of the nonprofit WiredSafety.org, which
offers tips on Internet safety.
She said personal pages, even old postings kept in archives, can be
used in background checks when teenagers apply for colleges and
scholarships, or when students leave college and apply for jobs. Some
firms hired to run background checks on applicants already use them.
School administrators monitor them. Police can find evidence of crimes.
"We now have law enforcement who are using Facebook postings to
prosecute students," Aftab said. "Schools have prevented kids from
enrolling or expelled students because of postings. It can prevent them
from getting jobs because of their postings.
"You are dealing with kids in college who are bright enough to know the
difference, but they don't get it," Aftab said. "If they are in a
computer room typing things in with their friends, they think those are
the only kids who are going to see it. It's open to tens of millions of
people."
False sense of security
In theory, Facebook users from one college cannot view users from
another college unless they are linked as friends and have a valid
college e-mail address to sign up. But people often steal or borrow
what they need to get online.
"Anybody can get on there," Aftab said. "It's not as hard as they
think. It doesn't take much."
Social networking Web sites such as MySpace, Xanga, Bebo, Friendster,
LiveJournal and Facebook allow individuals to chat and design their own
profile pages with photo galleries, graphics, sound and video clips,
profiles and journal entries. They are popular with students but also
attract many adults.
Tom Wheelock, headmaster of the Altamont School, sent a letter to
parents in December warning them about children posting too much
information about themselves on MySpace.com.
"It was a heads-up to parents," Wheelock said. "It's out there and our
kids are participating."
Most kids do it innocently, he said.
"They mean no harm," he said. "They want to be accepted by their peers.
They're not trying to harm themselves and others."
Dan Bowman, a counselor for Personal Relationships Inc. who has led
seminars on Internet safety at area churches, said most parents he
counsels are shocked when they see their kids' profiles on Facebook.
"I've had parents cry, reading that their kids had sex or did drugs,"
Bowman said. "It's like a competition to see how wild they are. They
feel comfortable saying provocative things. It provides a forum for
deviant behavior."
Facebook, founded in 2004, is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and has
several million registered college student users. Faculty and alumni of
schools can register and it has recently expanded to high schools. For
college sites, a school e-mail address is required to join and to post
interests, background, contact information and pictures.
"Facebook's pretty good at policing their site, but it's almost
impossible when you've got millions of students," said Aftab, who has
worked with Facebook and other Web sites on security issues.
Efforts to reach Facebook spokesman Chris Hughes for comment were
unsuccessful.
Pollick said he's troubled by the cyberspace culture that seems to
obsess the current generation of college students. "It's
mind-boggling," Pollick said. "This is part of the climate in which we
educate."
The behavior glamorized on the Web site may have created such an
approving atmosphere of risk-taking and prank-pulling that it could
promote not only uncivil but illegal acts, Pollick suggested.
"What is it that would make somebody think that would be acceptable
behavior?" Pollick said of torching rural churches. "You look at their
families, their life patterns, there would be nothing to indicate this
type of action, this type of blindness. The parents are sitting there
wondering how this could happen."
Moral quagmire
The cyberchats may betray a glimpse of students wallowing in a moral
quagmire.
"Knowing young people, one thing led to another, it totally went
overboard, way beyond any sense of moral responsibility," said the Rev.
Duane Schliep, pastor of Rehobeth Baptist Church in Bibb County, which
was burned to the ground Feb. 3.
"Students today have created a gray world between what is clearly wrong
and clearly right," Pollick said. "How does that become rampant burning
of churches? I don't have an answer for that. I don't think anybody
does. We are recognizing our own limitations."
Schliep said learning the identity of the fire suspects has been both a
relief and a burden for his congregation. "It was total surprise," he
said. "I wasn't thinking anything about college students. It definitely
was not a prank from my point of view."
Natalie Davis, a BSC political science professor, taught a class in the
fall on media and politics in which she encouraged students to post
remarks on blogspot.com. The online conversations with outsiders turned
off-color and inappropriate at times.
"The truth is they do not think before they write," Davis said. "This
stuff doesn't go away. It's going to be there forever and you have to
live with it."
Davis said that in addition to goading pranksters, the possibility
looms of slander or libel resulting in damaged reputations and
lawsuits. Normal kids can go beyond acceptable boundaries when immersed
in a chat room atmosphere, she said.
"The power of sitting in front of a computer and typing away is where
it all begins," Davis said. "I don't think you have to be nutty to go
over the line."
For concerned school administrators and parents, education may be the
only answer, she said.
"It's one more thing we have to understand better," Davis said. "We
need to talk to students about responsibility. This will follow you
wherever you go."
E-mail: ggarrison@xxxxxxxxxxxx
© 2006 The Birmingham News
© 2006 al.com All Rights Reserved.
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