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MySpace, U.S. Address Sex Offenders Online
TitusC3v5 writes "According to BBC News, MySpace is attempting to block sex offenders by way a custom database that utilizes state sex offender registries. Sentinel Safe will let MySpace search US state and federal databases to seek out and delete MySpace profiles of registered sex offenders." From the article: "The company said the new service will be the first national database that brings together about 46 US state sex offender registers ... It will be available in the next 30 days. MySpace has not released information on its plans for tackling sex offenders using the service in other countries." This is on the heels of proposed legislation that would require sex offenders to keep their email on file. The addresses would presumably be used to restrict former criminals from accessing online community sites, but in an the era of easily obtainable email addresses it's hard to see how this would be effective.
Is this yet another case of clueless people trying to create rules for systems that they have no idea of how it functions?
While the intent is good, I'm rather suspect of people who think this is full-proof, and look forward (mockingly) to the future when people think their kids are safe from predators because MySpace is tracking KNOWN sex offenders by their REGISTERED email addresses.
Wow, why don't we just do this with terrorists? Then we'd know where they are and what they are doing all the time, just have to log onto the gov. website to find out....
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To promote easy identification of sex offenders, a new bill requires "registration of the logo and design of the hat worn by the offender." Mention was not made in the bill of what happens if the offender changes hats.
Holy hell, how far can they take this false sense of security crap? If you want your kids to be safe, teach them what things to do are stupid, and how to recognize danger signals (online and offline). Then, you could, you know, always supervise them until you're reasonably sure that they've indeed gotten the point.
Or we could try tracking people by their email address. I'm sure that'll work great. imasexoffender@example.com will never think of registering 15yroldmale@example.com too!
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
I think we are in the process of creating a bunch of second class citizens with sex offender registration laws. People can become sex offenders for a wide variety of reasons, but everybody treats all sex offenders as if each and every single one were an evil predator lurking and waiting for even a glimmer of a chance to prey on a child.
For people convicted of kidnapping children and coercing them into child porn, this might very well be reasonable. But for the 25 yr old convicted of statutory rape of the 17yr old, this is quite questionable. Or the father who molests his daughter (and has never touched another child), or any number of other situations that are significantly milder.
Most people who have to register do not deserve to be treated the same as the worst of the class.
I'm waiting for the laws that strip custody of children from registered sex offenders or prohibit them from participating in school events with their children, or any number of other laws passed by well-meaning people that create a large class (probably nearly a million people in the US) of people who are denied some fairly basic things for no particularly good reason.
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Actually, it may be a set in the wrong direction. After everyone realizes "Hey, they can just go get a free yahoo address and work around this system.", the idiots will try and force EVERYONE to register their email address and all companies that provide email address's will have to remove any address that is not associated with a real life person. This could be the beginning of the end of the anonymous internet and the beginning of a time in which if you have someone's email, you know their name, street address, date of birth, etc. This could be the beginning of a stalkers dream.
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Why? I think it just allows parents to feel complacent.
The first and last line of defense is giving a crap about what your kid is doing online. Period. End. Of. Story. There is no magical fairy dust fix that is going to make that any less the case, so why bother?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If you believe it is appropriate for the government to permanently the restrict the activities of anyone, whatever they've done, merely out of concern for what they might do, you are part of the problem. Life is dangerous and it's not the government's job to protect you from it. Deal.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
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I agree. The measures in place to stop terrorists travelling presume that they will travel with valid papers and real names. The end result being everyone else gets inconvenienced and it doesn't work on the people it's meant to hit. Just the same as with drm.
This is for one reason only, to give them plausible deniability if someone gets attacked and initial contact is traced to their service.
We have a problem in england at the moment of sex offenders who are being traced/monitored dissapearing from view because they don't play nice. By problems I mean murders and assaults.
Parent really deserves to be modded up for that insightful comment.
Also, I'm not siding with the sex offenders but comon. Either they are guilty enough to still be in jail or they should be allowed to use internet communication websites freely. Maybe instead of banning sex offenders we should ban or force monitoring on minors that use those services. Some other kind of limitation would work the same too.
If they served their time they should be free. If they should not be free there is a problem with sentencing of the criminals and not how websites are monitored.
Why not just link to the DHS terrorist database and prevent them from registering as well?
And, while we're at it, why not extend this to anyone who has ever, in their entire life, done something wrong. Contact the school board! (Given the antagonistic nature toward students, I'm sure most school boards would be more than willing to provide a list of names of "troublemakers").
The notion of a convict settling his debt to society with prison time is quickly becoming antiquated. How long before "Once a criminal, always a criminal" becomes the slogan of law enforcement? How long before forgiveness is a de facto criminal act?
I understand the intentions are good. But people do change. And some "sex offenders" are little more than drunks who got convicted of public urination, or streaking, etc...
And of course, *no one* would think of registering with a fake name. NEVER!
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Perhaps because these lists don't really differentiate between the two. For all we know all those really bad sex offenders could be in gaol and it's only the "18 year olds that have sex with their 17 year old girlfriends".
None of that really matters to the linch mob though.
I am not a sex offender, nor do I have inklings that would lead me to become one, but I also don't register my MySpace under my real name simply because I don't want people to be able to search for me.
It's not going to do any good to prevent people from registering under alternate e-mail addresses and psuedonyms to get on the site.
The libertarian in me also doesn't believe in sex-offender registries or blacklists such as this one -- the person most likely already went to prison and has a record that will follow them the rest of their life, why not give them a legitimate chance to actually be rehabilitated? Surely the stigmatization of being labeled and tracked the rest of their lives can't help them recover and not re-offend, after all. And if they do it again, well, lock them up for longer or forever.
Would someone explain to me why a married couple having sex in a public place should be banned from living close to a school? Someone tell me why a person who repeatedly walks home drunk from a bar and stops to urinate in an alley shouldn't be allowed on MySpace. Why does the drunken frat kid who streaked across campus a few times deserve to be labeled a threat to society?
There is a huge an ever-growing number of "offenses" that gets someone put on sex "offender" lists. The fact that they often get lumped together is pure bullshit.
I am not talking about 18 year olds that have sex with their 17 year old girlfriends, I am talking the 30 year olds having sex with 13 year olds, 40 year olds that rape 8 year olds, and so on.
The main problem with the currently-fashionable "sex offender registries" is that they do not discriminate. As you have shown, we realize there is a continuum: 18 vs. 17 yro statutory cases are at one end, and serial pedophiles are on the other end. But laws like the one just passed here in California this November stamp them all with the big "Pervert" stamp.
It is ridiculous to make a law saying that a 45 year old man, for instance, who was convicted more than two decades ago of having consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, cannot live within a half-mile of an elementary school. And if that man doesn't re-register EVERY YEAR within one week of his birthday, or within one week of a move, a WARRANT goes out for his arrest, and it's a FELONY!
No, I'm not a 45 year old sex offender. I just think we need to be a bit more granular. If he's a serial pedophile, lock him in a treatment program. If he had the wrong kind of sex as a teenager 20 years ago, and has paid his restitution to society, let him go. And don't keep hassling him with punitive registries and requirements that weren't even laws when the crime was committed!
Where would our civilization be without second class citizens?
How else would we have been able to make some of the steps forward in medicine, were it not for some of the work done on "disposable" people?
How else would we have had such a burgeoning entertainment industry, had it not been for laws that deprived actors and actresses from burial in sacred ground?
Who else can be used for a way to see how far a government can go before the first-class citizens decide that enough is enough?
Of course, sometimes a government can overplay its hand. When people find out that convicted sex offenders are not allowed in public hurricane shelters, but have to report to the local jail (and give 24 hours advance notice, even!), there might be a feeling that things might have gone too far.
But then again, when we're "thinking of the children," we don't have to do a whole lot more thinking, do we?
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It isn't, if this is "sex offenders" and not "child abusers".
Laws are brought in "for the sake of the children", but cover a far wide variety of crimes, including even consensual and victimless crimes (and it's not just the US - see my sig for an example where soon looking at a picture will alone be a sex crime in the UK, even though the act itself was not a crime).
When asked what MySpace would do if a sex offender simply signed up with a fake name, the MySpace spokesman paused, blinked a few times, and replied 'these go to eleven.'
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If a sex offender ( or any other criminal for that matter ) has served his ( or her ) time, i dont see why he ( or she ) should be restricted from online activites. They already have to register with the state, they already are restricted in where they can go physically, and they have lost several of their rights ( like ever being president or working for the government ) so who cares if they cruse some lame 'community site' to kill off boredom?
What ever happend to 'serving your time and paying your debt to society for your mistake'. When did that become a life long repayment?
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For crying out loud... "sex offender" is not a synonym for "fucking children."
It means everything from peeing on a bush outside to having consensual sex with a consenting partner of reasonable age who decided later to use it against you to having taken completely innocent photos of your own kid. And it does include people who prey on children, I'll grant you, but the point is the brush is now too broad because legislators are idiots; if they go with the email thing you'll have learned nothing useful except how to jitter and freak out about a bunch of people who are likely to be absolutely zero threat to you and any children, anywhere.
Control your legislators, people. Come on. And think!
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They're not having sex without our permission, they're raping each other.
They're not a militia, they're terrorists.
They're not a government, they're a regime.
They're not citizens defending their homes, they're enemy combatants.
It's not a sovereign nation, it's a rogue country.
It's not a protest, it's a tax evasion.
You're not a public urinator when drunk coming home from a bar, you're a sex offender.
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Ugh. Make it stop. :(
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First, let me say that I agree with your sentiment completely; however, the reasoning (sophist, in my view) put forward by the USSC was that "registration" isn't punishment, it is a "legitimate state function" where the state "has an interest", and therefore, not being punishment it is no problem to apply it to someone after sentencing.
The very idea that registration is "not punishment" strikes me as the very worst kind of operating under false colors. The consequences of registration itself are so far-reaching, so severe, and so unavoidable by the registrant that I am left drop-jawed by the "argument" that it isn't punishment. And that is without the later additions; the national registry, the limits on where and how registered people can live, the inclusion in credit reports and job evaluations, and now, apparently, their online activities. I find the entire thing to be amazing on the one hand, and terrifying on the other. For I take to heart that whole bit about "first they came for..."
Someone is wandering around slashdot with a signature that says something along the lines of "the root passwords to the constitution are terrorism and child pornography"; I think that goes right to the heart of the matter.
Another issue that is relevant is that this is not the only area in which the interpretation of the constitution is absurdly out of whack; it is almost the style of the USSC to interpret it in a wacky, "you must be out of your bloody mind" mode. The interstate commerce clause has also been subject to some amazingly circuitous (to be kind) reasoning in both its intent and application.
For the most part (with the notable exception of the 13th amendment's direct authorization of slavery) the constitution is an amazingly prescient and rock-solid foundation for a government. It is really too bad that it isn't used that way.
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