The records surrounding 47-year-old Lori Drew’s cyberbullying of Megan Meier on MySpace, which eventually led to the young girl’s suicide, have purportedly been subpoenaed as part of an effort to determine whether Internet fraud was involved.

The LA Times reports that a grand jury has begun issuing subpoenas to establish whether Lori Drew defrauded MySpace by creating providing false information when creating the account she used to pose as “Josh”, a supposedly 13-year-old boy who first wooed then dumped Megan online.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, however, are exploring the possibility of charging Drew with defrauding the MySpace social networking website by allegedly creating the false account, according to the sources, who insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The sources said prosecutors are looking at federal wire fraud and cyber fraud statutes as they consider the case. Prosecutors believe they have jurisdiction because MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills, the sources said.

Prosecutors have declined to comment on the subpoenas which came as a surprise to Megan’s mother, Tina Meier. “We’ve been begging for someone — anyone — to pick up this case,” she told the LA Times. “If the Drews can be charged — and even get the chance to be convicted — it would be a day I could be happy with.”

Lori Drew maintains that she is neither responsible for Megan’s suicide nor the author of the message which prompted the girl to take her own life. She contends that she is, in fact, a victim of online harassment now and has been petitioning Google to shut down a blog entitled “Megan Had It Coming” which claims to be authored by Lori Drew.

Missouri officials did not file charges against Drew over the matter claiming that, although offensive, it violated no laws.

The FBI is compiling the world’s largest repository of fingerprint, face, iris and palm scans, purportedly as part of its effort to help catch criminals and terrorists. The project, which carries a $1 billion price tag, will allow law enforcement worldwide to more readily identify and, presumably, apprehend bad guys.

But they’re not the only ones who’ll have access to the data.

At an employer’s request, the FBI will retain employee fingerprints and notify the employer if a worker has an encounter with law enforcement. As Wired points out, that’s the kind of service you’d expect from a private company, not from a tax-funded agency. Not even the courts or police bother to notify employers if their workers are charged with criminal activity, and yet the FBI is offering to perform this service regardless of whether someone’s been charged, much less convicted.

There’s no need to fear, says Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. The FBI has “strict laws” regulating those who can access information stored in the system and, in case that’s not enough, they audit agencies with access every three years. Meanwhile, individuals can ask for copies of what’s in the system.

But what if the information in the system is not accurate? Well, the last time anyone raised that challenge it involved the National Crime Information Center database, which the FBI said was exempt from the Privacy Act’s accuracy requirements.

Pardon me while I go dust off my brown coat.

Japanese prison inmates aren’t happy. Believe it or not, they’re complaining about too much rice and noodles and not enough bread. But that’s not the end of their list of grievances:

Japanese prisoners dislike their unstylish pajamas, feel their cells are too small and want better meals, a government survey has found.

See, that is the difference between Japanese prisons and those here in the U.S. where our inmates all complain about being in jail because they’re innocent.

Three years ago, Indonesia was hit by a devastating tsunami. Since then, a strange ripple effect has continued to work its way through the country as more women than men have begun filing for divorce.

Three-to-one, as a matter of fact, and both divorce lawyers and jurists alike are hard-pressed to explain it. One clerk attributes it to the number of quickie marriages that occurred in the tsunami’s wake.

“After the tsunami we had many newcomers in Aceh. Some married local women but then decided to return to their places of origin and a divorce is needed,” she said.

“Also, some couples tried to get their spouses to their hometown, but there were also problems there and so they had to end their marriage.”

Other reasons cited in the increased filings include men failing to support their families following the tragedy and, of course, polygamy. Oddly enough, though, the women filing for divorce come from all walks of life, from highly educated to the illiterate poor.

All of which makes me wonder if the post-tsunami divorce rates aren’t an Indonesian version of the advertising campaign thought up by a group of female divorce lawyers in Chicago which sparked outrage with their billboard ad reading “Life is short. Get a divorce.”