But even in civil court, the outcome of a case depends largely on the charges filed. In the case of libel, the accused can use the defense that the hurtful statements are true -- leaving the unsavory possibility that a savvy defense team could set out to prove that a student really was the biggest ho in the Interschool system, or the blow job queen of Chappaqua.

But in the case of simple name-calling, it may be difficult to divine the nature of the slur. Says the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cohn: "So and so is the biggest ho? What does that mean? The law doesn't deal well with parsing student slang."

"Can you imagine," asks Peacefire.org's Hazelton, "what would happen if an adult woman tried to have a guy arrested for calling her a slut? Just because a girl is a student at a ritzy school, it doesn't give her more rights. There are limits to what you can say, but they shouldn't have additional restrictions on what you can say on a message board until you are 18."

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Of course, the webmaster of any site can remove posts at any time. Hiestand explains: "If you as a webmaster have not played a role in creating or encouraging the posts, the law will probably protect you in a civil or criminal suit. But it does present an ethical question. If someone is slandering another person on your message board, it's probably your moral responsibility as a webmaster to remove that stuff."

The Student Press Law Center bills itself as a resource for students who are being censored for producing alternative journalism online, and Hiestand says that each time a student gets in the news for doing something stupid online, it makes him furious. "The Chappaqua case, the kid with the morphing Hitler head, these are the kinds of cases that make the news. Most students aren't out there doing those things. It makes our job defending serious student journalists much more difficult."

It may seem callous to suggest that the best recourse for a kid being brutally harassed by another kid online is to simply repeat the playground mantra "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." But strangely enough, the Newby case also demonstrates the way that kids will come together to defend another kid against harassment.

Immediately after MOO BITCH started his or her postings on the Lake Highlands message board, other posters jumped in. The next post immediately following MOO BITCH's debut was: "my god, what is wrong with you?? that is so horrible! i would say the same about you but i cant be that mean, i hope you get a lot of crap for this because it that is awful."

Over the next few weeks, people dropped by the message board to attack MOO BITCH and defend Newby. MOO BITCH was scolded for remaining anonymous while Newby's defenders signed their names. Her boyfriend, Chris, posted a long message to the board, saying, among other things, "I love you so much Lauren"; "I've never been happier in my life"; and "To Austin and Kevin and everyone that has had so little of a life to revolve it around slamming the person I love, please don't ever talk to me again." The other posters met his entrance with applause; one wrote back: "Chris, I just gained so much respect for you. I wish there were more guys like you."

Finally, after the attack on her house, Newby herself started a thread titled "This ends now." She detailed the vandalism that had occurred and asked posters to contact her with any information that she could pass on to the police.

There is nothing comforting in watching teens use new technology to engage in the same old immature and vicious behavior. And the fact that the First Amendment protects a kid's right to flame another kid on the Internet is hardly a consolation to the kid being flamed. The bottom line may be that to find oneself on a list of school sluts or fatties constitutes involuntary tutoring in constitutional law -- the message board attack as a particularly hellacious lesson in finding out what it means to live, and play with computers, in a democracy.

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