*****
“Mr. Parker, honestly speaking, when I started this conversation, I wasn’t expecting to hear such an interpretation of the circumstances of your first case; you surprised me indeed!” Mr. Johnson said. “As I understand, this was all followed by a trial?”
“You are right, but everything turned out to be more complicated than it seemed at first glance. Having a person who was ready to plead guilty was something the investigators quite welcomed on the whole, taking into account their lack of evidence. But special agent Clark Atwood did not believe my story, and only the pressure from the prosecutor finally made him bring the case before the court with me in the dock. That happened several months later.
As I expected, the punishment wasn’t particularly severe – hours of community service and prohibition to use the Internet. I remember the words of the Judge: “It is the duty of every court while administer justice to isolate people whose behavior is a threat to the society. This measure serves to achieve several purposes: reformation and rehabilitation, punishment and instruction to other civilians. This measure serves to achieve several purposes: reformation and rehabilitation, punishment and instruction to other civilians. You, Simon Parker, standing in front of me now, are not dangerous for citizens around you. But an electronic device, which could allow you to use the Internet, turns into the terrible weapon in your skillful hands and makes you dangerous. Because of this, I have resolved that you are must be isolated from the Internet. For this I hereby deprive you of a legal possibility to use any electronic device which operates on a processor. This will be both punishment and a severe lesson on the importance of abiding by the social rules for you and for anyone who might be inspired to follow your example and enter the criminal path. Moreover, your social networking accounts will be deleted because everybody must know – using the Internet with criminal motives may result in one’s total deprivation of the right to use the World Wide Web!”
“And what about Alberta?”the attorney asked me.
“I found her, but not because of the steps I had taken to do so. I met her in a least expected place, just where I was bound to do my penitentiary community service – the clinic treating social networking addiction. She began to attend it for counselling when I had already worked at that clinic for several months. We almost instantly started dating.”
“But if she had a problem like that, why didn’t you succeed in finding her on social networking sites?”
“Because when I tried to find her, she wasn’t already there. At that time she had no accounts.”
“And how was that possible?”
“Her parents prohibited her from everything to do with social networking. They appeared to be such paranoiacs,” I explained, “that it took her ages to convince them to allow her to even register. And her desire to find me was a major catalyst in opposition her parents. But she got herself an account right on that day when, according to the judgment of the court, my accounts were deleted. Then her parents forced her to attend a counselor in order to “adjust” her perception of social networking in the way they needed.”
“That means that because of her parents you were both unable to find each other, but, on the other hand, it was because of them that you finally met?” the lawyer smiled.
“That’s right!” I smiled in return.