Slashdot Mirror
Sex Offenders to Register Emails in Virginia
Isaac Bowman writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Virgina has a proposed law that would require sex offenders to register their email and IM screen names in an attempt to monitor and control their presence on social networking sites like MySpace."
because registering a new email address and IM account is so hard. Better still, get an .i2p email address.
'cause, like, that'd work.
...their gmail account and icq uin with the state, and then use their yahoo email and yahoo messenger for "other" things?
There is such a large difficulty in getting new email addresses, nobody could concieve of a situation where not all would be registered! All this does is create yet another charge to lay on someone you want to imprison. The problem with this is that if they are grooming children/formenting terrah on yr kids/whatever, you already have appropriate charges. If they are not, it isn't an issue.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
...more than half the slashdot-population can find themself in the name "Virgina" (even when it's mentioned twice in the post), but I sincerely request the editors lay down their powdery-pipes and at least provide the decency to call the region "Virginia".
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Our lawmakers are idiots.
Either the sex offender has served his time, or he hasn't. If you're worried about their recidivism rate, UP THE TIME SPENT OUT OF SOCIETY, DO NOT SEND THEM BACK OUT THERE IF WE'RE SO SURE THEY'RE JUST GOING TO REPEAT OFFEND.
Seems simple, so why do these guys make it so complex?
Even if there were a way to ensure that all sex offender's screen names were recorded, this would only apply to people on the sex offenders' register, and doesn't account for the numbers of people allowed access to these sites who haven't been, and possibly won't be, caught.
This sounds like some grand standing of a politician passing useless law to "protect kids". Anyone with a passing knowledge of the internet knows this is useless.
Not only anyone can get any screen name and email address anyway they want it. Next thing you know, people will be setting up the "virtual neighborhood" off shore.
This is one of those feel good law with some truthiness in mix!
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
...of places where politicians have no clue about computing.
officials would turn them over to MySpace. The company, using new software, would then block anyone using that e-mail address from entering the site ...
They mean new software like:
if (user == sex-offender)
then (drop)
else (proceed)
Won't they just, er, get another account? It's like CAN-SPAM deja vu. Must be election time.
Ugh, it has to be mentioned I suppose.......they do still have rights. And I suppose some of them really do get reformed in prison. I'm not saying they should get rights of privacy (or at the risk of flamebait, the right to life after the undoubtful conviction), but in America, I suppose they deserve some?
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
My understanding is that sex offenders on social networking sites isn't a big issue compared to sex offenses that never involved the Internet in the first place.
How is a sex offender defined? I'm thinking there could be a whole range of sex offenses, from minor infractions to major ones.
If anything, if someone commits a major sex offense, then the judge in his or her right mind should consider removing Internet privledges. Wouldn't that stop the potential of the sex offender luring any more persons?
As a reminder, there are plenty of jurisdictions in which urinating in a back alley when no public toilet is available constitutes a "sex offense", and sufficies to have one placed on "sex offender" lists.
Furthermore, making out in a car in a quasi-public place can likewise be considered a "sex offense", if I'm not mistaken, though in practice, the cops tend to crack down only on gay couples doing this. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Sex offenders just ain't what they used to be.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
sex_offender937123@hotmail.com
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
This is basically as I've said elsewhere...
I'm not a sex offender and don't want to support those in particular, but juridically, I think these questions still need to be asked:
- Why only sex offenders? Are other criminals not as dangerous? Do these not use e-mail?
- What happened to jail penalties clearing them of their crime after it's over? Or do I misunderstand part of their intent?
- How is this legislation going to be enforced? Will a sex offender willing to abuse kids be willing to register the mail address used for this?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Statistically, sex offenders have a very high commit-it-again rate.
Complete BS. http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060516_predat or_panic.html
For what we know, sex offenders are like other offenders ; many are just your once-in-a-lifetime (because they had oppotunity or whatever) type, a few are true maniacs in the medical meaning of the word. While the first type desserve a sentence, and don't need more attention than anybody else afterward, and probably less than a DIU convict, the latter type are mentaly ill persons, and they need constant medical attention instead of jail ; and they should be held in hospital until proven safe for release. Jail only prevent them from accessing adequate cure for their condition. The social pressure for a trial is in fact at the root of their early release (because neither a judge nor a jury is a qualified MD). This is medieval justice at its near best, if you don't count capital punishment.
In religious freakout society, sex is taboo (still), so goes overreaction about it. Contrived motions to stop something from happening, usually cause greater harm as a whole, then positively contributing something positive to the society. IMO.
2c
I hope you are being sarcastic. If our society deemed that serving prison time paid for crimes, then nobody would ever be asked "Have you ever committed a crime?" on job applications and no ex-con would have to register for previous crimes.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
This is an ill-thought-through measure designed only to court acceptance from the public. Now that it's no longer politically acceptable to go after witches, blacks, jews or gypsies, sexual offenders are the current untermenschen -- somebody to whom everybody else can feel superior; and against whom no measure is unjustifiable, irrespective of whether or not it would ever be workable in practice and/or the extent of collateral damage it would create.
Have you ever received junk mail addressed to a former occupant of your home?
Have you ever been refused credit because of a bad debt run up by a former occupant of your home?
I can answer yes to both questions. I've even received late-night faxes from abroad on my voice line, because my phone number used to be a fax number (the telco had run out of never-before-used numbers and so had to give me a recycled one; it had been out of service for over a year, but that didn't help against some overseas scumsucker with an out-of-date phone book).
Now think of the way that information tends to hang around on the internet: somebody sees an interesting story, makes a copy of it on their website, the original goes away but the copy persists. Also, "sexual offences" cover a broad gamut. Legally there is no distinction between someone who has non-penetrative sex with a 15 year, 364 day old girl who managed to get into an over-18s bar; and someone who participated in gang-rape of a pre-school child. Being caught taking a leak in the street (in times when councils are closing public toilets, and bars and restaurants are erecting bogus "toilets are for customers' use only" signs [they're bogus because entering the premises for the purpose of using the toilet makes you automatically a customer]) is also deemed a sexual offence.
Still think all this tracking of sexual offenders is a good idea? I know exactly why this man did what he did.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
...are that they're hard-coded to reproduce. And when that basic instinct goes wrong, it's bloody hard to reverse. If some guy wants children/animals/his sister/whatever else badly enough, no amount of jail time is going to change him. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution, except, perhaps, counselling to try to sort out the root of their sexual preference and perhaps help them to move on to more mainstream preferences. But then again, isn't this how we used to look at anyone who wasn't perfectly straight?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The reason this law will be useful is it can't be effectively enforced. Are you going to require that convicted sexual predators are monitored 24/7?
No, of course not.
If thats the case why have this silly rule? It would take me, as others have said, 30 seconds to create a new anonymous email account.
You're still missing it. There's nothing that will guarantee that you catch all pedophiles. It's a way of lowering the standard of evidence against a known pedophile. Let's say you get a transcript of a guy in a chat room talking to a kid, and he's careful enough not to say anything blatantly incriminating. But let's say it's a chat room the FBI does happen to be monitoring. If it's enough to raise their suspicion, but not enough to actually bring a case, they can trace the IP and see who the owner of the account is. If it's a pedophile using an unregistered email account, they can now press charges where they couldn't before.
This also does nothing to protect against those who have not yet been convicted of sexual abuse. If the illusion of security is all you want, enjoy your dream world, but that will just make you less safe.
Using that tired logic, we shouldn't have police either, because they won't catch every crime. Wouldn't want you to live in a dream world, right? This isn't meant to completely solve the problem. I'd say no law has completely solved any problem. It's really just another tool for law enforement to be able to more easily bring charges against recidivist but clever pedophiles. Just like tax evasion did with Capone.
Wait, so in this carefully-constructed example of yours, what the guy actually do wrong?
This isn't being put in place to monitor chat rooms. It may be used for this and may be effective, but I doubt it. As long as using that registered email won't prevent them from entering said chat room, they have no reason to not use the registered email. Unless they start flagging convicted sexual predators while they are online it won't do anything. But doing this would be no different than making them wear a scarlet letter in public.
This law, at least as it is being marketed, is just being put in place to prevent sexual predators from getting accounts on myspace. In this respect it is useless.
As to your second point, its not that the law won't protect against any sexual predators, its the fact that it is easy enough to get around that it will only restrict the rights of the "minor" offenders who are reformed, or who were wrongly convicted, or that sort of thing, but does absolutely nothing to restrict the ability for those that are dangerous to strike again, or to strike in the first place. In fact, if it gives a false sense of complacency, it makes it easier for them.
Clones are people two.
Probably easier than proving intent of kidfuckery.
Good thing everyone on the sex offender list participates in kidfuckery, and not getting drunk and pissing in a bush or mooning your principal, or various other "sexual" offenses.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
About as useful as the No-Fly list.
... it's exactly as useful as the No-Fly List. Which does its job admirably.
Yep
It's just that its job isn't what you think it is. The No-Fly List doesn't really have anything to do with keeping terrorists off of planes, because as you pointed out, even the most retarded Al Qaeda operative is probably going to think of using a false name. What it does do, is create a (arguably false) sense of security in the general populace, and make them think that their government is "doing something." This is its function, its raison d'être, just like most of the other post-9/11 government "security" measures.
This registry is exactly the same thing. Nobody in their right mind can possibly believe that it's actually going to do anything to save children; it's a trivial requirement, one that if you're already OK with doing something illegal (like propositioning children), you're not going to have any trouble avoiding. But it's going to make a nice talking point for a few politicos, and help to create that 'warm, fuzzy feeling' in the hearts of the voters who are too stupid to see through it -- which is basically most of them, I've come to believe.
When you see a government program that's failing horribly but yet still allowed to continue year after year, chances are it's not really failing; it's doing exactly what somebody wants it to do.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It also gives providers and hosts (like MySpace) the ability to potentially subscribe to a list (a la Do Not Call) and keep them out.
This would just be a "scarlet letter" like program online for people convicted of sexual crimes (remember that these lists don't just include pedophiles, or even violent crimes). Removing a person's ability to live because they were formerly convicted of a crime and have served their sentence is unconstitutional.
It does keep pedos from striking again, in that it lowers the burden of evidence for law enforcement. But it doesn't do it in an effective way. It would take a pedophile that intends to strike again less than an hour to find out enough information about someone through a myspace account to cause harm. On the other hand, all those people blacklisted in the previous section would be unable to do things most people normally can (send email, use IM, share information with their friends on social sites like myspace, etc.) Setting up laws like this only serve to punish the "innocent" while allowing the guilty free reign.
Yes, it is an extra conviction law enforcement can use, but the costs, both in liberties and actual money, are too great.
What needs to happen are intelligent laws and accurate punishments for these convicts, not weak, easily circumvented laws like this. If the courts were better able to determine and punish convicts that are likely to strike again, that would do a much better job of protecting people than this stopgap.
Clones are people two.
I would really like to know the underlying issue that is driving this legislation. Not withstanding the numerous mechanisms around this law (as stated in previous posts), I don't think the Attorney General has thoroughly researched this issue. How do they intend on enforcing this law? This law (not unlike the majority of laws passed) is based upon good intention, but is destined for a miserable failure if the appropriate resources are not allocated to enforce it. The reasonable expectation of the public would be that registered Sex Offenders could not use a registered email/IM Screen Name in the commission of an offense. Does Virginia have the resources and budget to sustain this expectation? Unfortunately, this is becoming fairly common with proposed legislation. The individual (or group of individuals) proposes legislation based on a good idea, but with no feasible way of enforcement/support. If the legislation is rejected, the individual (or group) points the finger at the opposition (and in this case) could state that he/she doesn't want to protect the children. It's been a few years since I opted to leave the law enforcement field in pursuit of a paycheck, but I can't see how things have changed too much in my 5 year absence.
"Does this wine taste funny to you?" -- Socrates
urrently, sex offenders in many states have to disclose publically their actual physical address, including Virginia.
True, but this information is not allowed to be used to keep an offender from using public facilities.
Your argument seems to be that if we can't completely solve a problem, don't do anything about it at all!
No, if you read my arguement, you will see that it is that this solution doesn't fix the problem any better than adding duct tape to a leaking dam will fix the dam. My arguement is that it will restrict the rights of too many people and do too little to actually solve the problem for a total net loss in effectiveness.
Not the case. They would probably be prevented from using sites that are extremely kid-friendly.
You mean kid friendly sites like Yahoo? Or kid friendly messaging systems like AOL? And where do you draw the line of kid friendliness? Most of the sites pedophiles seem to be cruising are used by anyone (claiming to be) 13 to who knows how old.
I'm not seeing much monetary costs, since we're not talking about a monitoring system, just a database.
Here is a link to the current budget for MS's current sex offender registry maintenance budget. It costs them nearly 4 million dollars a year to make sure it is up to date. And that is for one maybe two addresses per offender. Imagine if they also had to maintain an untold number of emails as well. A database does no good if it is not maintained. It will quickly become just a random bunch of data that is unreliable. At the very least you will have to pay for the servers to maintain it, technicians to keep it running, developers to create interfaces for it, and bandwidth so it is accessible. Not to mention security measures to keep the wrong people from accessing the data and all sorts of other things.
As for liberties, the right to live without big brother watching you evaporated when they molested a kid. Same for the ability to interact with kids in the future.
Since when do sex offender registries only hold lists of pedophiles, any sex offender gets added to it. This would include pedophiles, yes, but also statitory rape convicts (22 yo has sex with a consenting 17 yo without his knowledge, wrong but not pedophelia, at least not intentionally) and other rape convictions (guy gets a girl drunk and takes advantage of her, still wrong, but still not pedophelia). These people don't have the same rate of repeat that pedophiles do, but they lose all the same rights.
Like I said in a previous post, there needs to be legal reforms, but this is the wrong way to do it. There needs to be better ways to try and sentence these people before you try and remove all their rights. This is the very reason there is an amendment protecting people from cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately, in these cases, it is more often ignored.
Clones are people two.
I have a child and family who have been victims of violent sex crimes. I also believe the AC above in that some of the predators committed crimes that could be thought of as worse than murder. Has everyone convicted of a "sex crime" committed worse than murder? Of course not. Those convicted of heinous crimes should be punished accordingly. The rest should be treated as the rest of America's criminals and not with some special distinction because the crime involved genitalia. Too many stupid laws are being written by pandering politicians because it's easy to claim they are "protecting our children". Violent crime is violent crime regardless of the motivation.
If you believe that sexual predators are more dangerous than other criminals, the length of imprisonment should reflect that. Permanent tracking and ridicule seems to be counter-productive to rehabilitation but if that is what the community wants to do, include it in the sentences at conviction. Below is an excerpt from the NY Times in 2001:
The RIAA and the honorable senator from Utah predict that everyone on
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
I know a guy that's on the sex offender list for having sex with a 17 year-old. He was an 18 year-old at the time. I don't know who complained to the cops, but once the complaint was filed, he was duly busted and it went to court. They was no "she looked over 18" defense. That would have been laughed out of court. I don't remeber his sentence, but I know he landed on the sex offender list.
They got married when it all blew over. They are living quietly and have two kids. But their neighbors would love to get them out of the neighborhood because he is still on the sex offender list. I know of one house sale that fell through because the prospective buyer didn't want his daughter living near a registered sex offender.
Also, the sex offender list is polluted with domestic violence cases. Those guys don't belong on the list.