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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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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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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.
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!
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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The plague could strike your family.
Osama Bin Laden wants to kill you.
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Criminals, birth control, and science are bad. Evolution is unholy.
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Ugh. Make it stop. :(
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