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After a delay several weeks ago due to severe weather, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed Senate Bill 818 into law yesterday in the neighborhood where once Megan Meier lived. 

Cyberbullying is no longer tolerated in the great state of Missouri.   The act amends the existing harassment laws and now includes electronic harassment.

The new law also requires Missouri school boards to implement a written policy requiring the administration to report crimes of harassment and stalking to law enforcement officials if the incidents occur on school grounds.  Electronic harassment is included.

Megan's mother, Tina Meier, was present at the signing and has been instrumental in getting this bill passed.  Congrats, Tina!

27 men from the Quebec area were arrested in a two-year international investigation by authorities.

According to officials, a German Internet Service Provider owner alerted police after he discovered some people were exchanging child pornography on his Internet forums.  During the investigation, almost 1 million child porn items were exchanged.  One victim was allegedly an infant just a few months old.

The men are between 19 and 68 years-of-age and are facing a variety of charges including accessing, production and possessing material related to child pornography.

Michigan Representative David Law introduced a bill last week that will require Michigan schools to teach Internet safety to elementary through high school students.

If passed, it will be up to the individual school districts to implement the specifics. Unfortunately, there is no funding for the program.   Internet safety should be required in all schools.

Tallahassee school administrators recently completed a Internet safety training seminar from iSafe, a leader in online safety education.  The Florida principals and vice principals attended the four-hour seminar from the online safety organization.

As someone who is certified by iSafe, this is a great first step!

Lori Drew, the alleged mother who took part in the Megan Meier cyberbullying case, plead not guilty in a federal court room today.

According to the Associated Press, Drew plead not guilty to charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress and is free on $20,000 bond. Her trial is scheduled for July 29th.

In a press release yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the world's largest Internet Service Providers, will work together to shut down online child pornography. 

Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon will target online pornography in 2 ways;  They will "eliminate access to child porn newsgroups" and will purge child porn websites from their servers.  Newsgroups are online bulletin boards where people can download and upload files, images, etc.  

An undercover investigation revealed 88 different newsgroups had more than 11000 sexual images involving prepubescent children, children being raped and children in sexual activities with animals.   The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, will assist in identifying child porn websites.