Slashdot Mirror
UK Propose Registering Screen Names with Police
Oxygen99 writes "In a series of kneejerk suggestions following this online rape plot, the UK Home Secretary, Dr John Reid has suggested that offenders on the Sex Offenders Register should register their online identities with the police. According to a home office spokesman this means that offenders, 'online identities would be treated in exactly the same way as their real name'. So, just how misguided is this and who's going to be the first to tell him?"
Umm. Yay?
I'm not saying the intent is bad. But it's an enormous waste of money in my opinion.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
So who is going to be the first person to explain how free email web sites such as yahoo, hotmail, etc and new screen names can be gotten anonymously (for the most part) and can change daily, hourly or however fast you want to fill out the forms?
What kind of spam you will get after registering.
my name is M0lester... not MOlester
The original generic sig.
To make sure sex offenders do not have computers, or access to computers?
When I first saw this story, I thought the intention was that *everyone* register their screen names -- an unpardonable invasion of privacy, and clearly unenforcable, yet something I could imagine an Internet-ignorant politician might just propose.
But it turns out that it only applies to people on the Sex Offenders Register, which isn't quite as bad. There's some precedent for "you break the law once, you sacrifice some of your rights".
So I no longer see it as such a terrible invasion of privacy. But it does seem about as unworkable as asking burglars, upon release from prison, to call the local police station with a time and address before attempting any further burglaries.
because I NEVER use an alternate handle, and being the LAW ABIDING citizen that I am, I ALWAYS tell the cops everything I'm doing!
"We think people rightly feel that once they buy something, it stays bought," --Suw Charman, Open Rights Grp
Having kids, I don't think this is misguided...
If you don't see anything wrong with it, then I think that your having kids was misguided....
The real litigious bastards...
John Reid is a bloody idiot, and he is subordinate to the tabloids. He pumps out hair-brained schemes like this, that are frankly embarassing.
We need to find a way to stop politicians (and tabloids) interfering with this country, because in general the UK functions very well without their accursed meddling!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Then you haven't considered the practical questions of how it could be implemented. Screen names are self-chosen, and typically numerous. There is no universal respository of screen names that is shared by the whole of the internet. HappyMonkeyPooFace on slashdot may be a totally different person than HappyMonkeyPooFace on MySpace.
Am I supposed to check some registry somewhere before I pick my screen name, just in case some rapist has already used it somewhere else? How will the authorities know who they are monitoring?
A screen name simply can't be used for identification purposes of this sort -- it is nothing more than a self-chosen highly context sensitive nickname.
Please, explain to me how you would implement such a proposal.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Having kids, I don't think this is misguided...
That's because you're assuming you're not ever going to be in that database or one like it.
Why would this be a bad thing? I doubt that it is even possible, but the anonymity of the internet is basically the only thing that takes away its credibility. Internet security would be much easier, and internet commerce could become even more accepted and prevelant.
You cannot just say whatever you want in a newspaper or in a public forum without people knowing who you are. Why should you be able to do it on the internet?
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Is anyone else starting to confuse the UK and China? B/c there "legal" systems are starting to look awfully similar.
>HappyMonkeyPooFace on slashdot may be a totally different person than HappyMonkeyPooFace on MySpace. Well, maybe you could register both the screenname AND the site where it's used. That should make for a unique combination, wouldn't you say?
I am an attorney and I work in the law enforcement area. The value of a law like this is not actually to track the offenders. It's real value is to use as an additional charge once a violator has been caught. It keep the real habitual offenders in jail longer and makes plea bargaining result in longer terms. I'm not saying it's a good plan - just that the fact that offenders won't register is not really a flaw in the plan.
of the internet
we're all witnessing how the birth of a powerful new medium is changing human society
the first big impact of course is the absolute nullification of copyright laws: if you can point and click and disseminate millions of copies of books/ movies/ music with zero effort, copyright is for all practical purposes a dead concept
the second big impact is the new mercuriality of identity. you don't know who someone is, where they are from, their sex, how old they are, etc., and yet you can form lasting bonds with such people on line. of course this bs about registering online ids is bullshit: the person who proposes the idea is using pre-internet thinking about the solidity of someone's identity. on the internet, identity is as interchangeable as ties on a tie rack. much like some still cling to the newly antiquated notion of copyright law, some people still cling to the idea that people's identities are solid online
all sort of implications in human social contact, all revolving around the idea of trust, will be affected. from online banking, dating, online gaming, etc
i think it will eventually change human identity itself. i see in a few years the emergence of people who identify with their online identities more than their real life identities
all sorts of psychological and social consequences will result when personal identity itself is smudged by the internet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think that increased information gathering by the UK authorities is much of a problem, given that their actual will and ability to punish/discourage/reform criminals are pretty well zero anyway. What are they going to do to anyone they catch? 'Interview them under caution'? I don't see much point in prosecuting them for rape, given the conviction rate and sentences involved.
The thing is that UK police have so little power, compared to most countries, to prevent or punish crime that when it wants to look like it's taking crime seriously the government tends to do it by increasing their power to survey the populace in general.
Actual public order (I only know London, maybe the rest of the UK is like a Beatrix Potter book or something) is maintained primarily by ever-increasing use of gated communities, as near as I can tell. Of course, not everyone gets to live entirely in a gated community. This is how come regular as clockwork the local kids sweep by the cafe round the corner and take the chairs and knock stuff over and there isn't a thing you can do except find where they threw the chairs, and replace the broken stuff. It's a totally bizarre system (and it sucks if you are running a Korean cafe in what is now no longer a Korean area) but I hesitate to conclude that it doesn't work. As cities go, people rarely get shot, or beaten senseless in a police station, or seriously maimed provided they avoid obvious trouble.
So, sure, they have a lot of cameras and databases compared to the law enforcement of other nations. But the whole system is checked-and-balanced by a mix of denial and apathy to the point where I really don't see that it makes any difference.
Or to put it another way, I'd rather the UK police knew EVERYTHING about me than have the French police know ANYTHING about me
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
(i.e., people who would want to hide their identities for the wrong reasons) then this would make sense. But they're not.
Detterance seems like the right approach here: there's no way to prevent people from misbehaving, but you can make it costly.
So let's say: go ahead and choose any screen name you want. If you use a fictitious screen name in a way related to a crime,
then some extra penalty gets added in, no questions asked, no appeal.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
"Yes, officer, my screen name is 'Optix.'"
*goes home*
www.yahoo.com
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
You miss part of the point of laws like this. This adds to the number of crimes they've committed when they're caught after the fact. So on a second rape, for example, they'll add all of the unregistered screen names to the list of crimes, to make sure they go away for that much longer.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Oh... sorry... we were looking for 1HotLuv99874... We didn't realize you were 1HotLuv9874. Our bad...
Yeah.. uh... just contact city services to fix the door for you...
I think the House of Lords should be replaced by the editorial board of the Sun, and the House of Commons should be replaced by the editorial board of the Mirror.
So we(or ie they, the UK) are giving up liberty for either reasons of:
1. Terrorism
2. Sex Offenders
So that's it, huh? One is getting to be annoying, the other is 100% laughable. Call me closed-minded, but we're paying waaay too much attention to "sex offenders", especially when being considered a sex offender is so broad, taking a leak at 3am in public when drunk would get you on the list.
We need that V guy sooner than later.
Way to go Britain. We all will follow you. You lead the way.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Of course this approach in unworkable as unverified online accounts are as easy to get as air, but suffering the lack of logic has never been a problem for a government...
Not to incite a flamewar, and I know the recidivism rate among sex offenders is high, but supposing a previously convicted offender has done his/her time and paid his/her dues, and is behaving appropriately, at what point do they deserve to NOT be treated like a criminal?
Following them around and requiring them to "register" everything, everywhere for the rest of their lives seems wrong. The mantra "Think of the Children" should have some limits...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I was told I need to register my username? It's spelled N-A-M-B-L-A. What? It's taken? Damn ....
Bark less. Wag more.
If that was really the intent of the proposal, wouldn't it be easier to, I don't know, increase the punishment for the crimes he has already committed.
Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
The key word you're missing in your oft wrongly quoted cliche is "essential". With out that very important key word (and good ol Ben was a smart man, who chose his words carefully) that same argument could be used against EVERYTHING.
Prisons?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Federal Government?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Local government?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Contract law?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Health laws?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Emmisions regulations?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Gun control?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
Kyoto?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
The US Constitution?
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Thoroughly debunked (even shows why it's bad) at http://nsona.blogspot.com/ (No Sex Offenders Need Apply).
I am ok with scum like these enjoying a subset of our rights as a result of this.
/sarcasm
Because once a con, always a con, right? Why bother let this "scum" out of jail at all? I mean, they're just going to offend again - so let's make sure all their neighbors know what they did, let's make sure they'll never be able to get a decent job, oh and lets take away their right to change email adresses once in a while without notifying the authorities...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In unrelated news, can we get a summary slightly more neutral than "just how misguided is this"?
For all we know the moon may be as conscious as a poet or a realtor, and extremely weary of its monotonous round. - HLM
The real problems to be concerned about are:
Nope, under this proposal, everybody would forfeit their online freedom. The spectre of rapists is only dangled in front of the voting populace to conveniently switch off their brains. Fortunately, sometimes sanity prevails in the end.
Or maybe you're committing the slippery slope fallacy.
This isn't really a YRO issue. Felons having reduced rights is a long-standing tradition, and I for one wouldn't care to give it up. There are some obivous attack avenues we need to watch (like making sure that laws don't get written that make everyone felons; this is not an exhaustive list), but the principle is sound.
In a US context, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the low bar of "sex offender", but all in all, this isn't much different than the other things sex offenders are already obligated to do, and it's already the offender's responsibility to do things like update their address, so even complaints that this isn't perfectly enforceable are pretty silly.
Besides, when did perfect enforceability become some sort of golden standard for the viability of a law? Can you draw a distinction between this unenforceable law, and the even-more unenforceable laws against murder?
(And how many people complaining about how this isn't perfectly enforceable would turn right around and bitch even louder if laws actually were perfectly enforceable? Nigh unto 100%, I'd guess.)
And from a related article here:
This guy sounds a lot like Stone Phillips (without the newscrew, of course). So . . . is this guy really a vigilante, or is he just a perv who got cold feet?
That still doesn't get you anything. Because HappyMonkeyPooFace on slashdot could have a hundred other logins on slashdot as well. Bottom line is that there is no one-to-one relationship between people and screen names. No matter how many screen names you register as belonging to John Q. Sexoffender, he can always get another one that isn't registered, and how are you gonna know?
In other words, this plan boils down to, "Hey everybody on the internet, if you are a predator, please let us know before you rape our children, K?"
The whole suggestion depends on the voluntary self-identification of sex offenders, and if we could count on that, we wouldn't NEED any system at all. The only thing such a policy could possibly do is provide additionaly criminal penalties that can be tacked on once an offender is caught, which is ridiculous because the penalties for their actual crime should be enough to keep them locked up forever.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
The point of the law (like most laws) is not to prevent the crime in the first place, but for establishing reason to punish after the crime has been comitted. Consider:
Joe Rapist is convicted, jailed and then released on parole.
As part of his release, he is required to register with the sex offender database, check in with his parole officer and register his online identities.
Now instead, Joe Rapist goes and rapes Mary Sue Victim.
With the laws in place, now Joe Rapist faces charges not only for the rape, but for failure to register with the database (twice) and failure to check in with his parole officer. All of a sudden, the prosecution can paint him as a severe danger to society has he clearly has no respect for any of the laws of the land, regardless of how small.
It's all ammunition to use against repeat offenders.
I don't suggest that the law is a good one or well thought out, but comments like yours miss the point entirely and actualy just fuel the false sense of security such a law would provide by framing the argument around security rather than punishment.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
So how do you stop people just instantly registering a new e-mail address with hotmail, GMail, Yahoo mail, 10-Minute Mail, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc?
See the problem yet?
And for usernames, how many times have you tried to sign up to a site to be met with: "Username 'm0le5ter69' already in use, please choose another"? So what chance is there of having a register with "their" username on it? Even if the paedophile plays along and reports every online account he sets up, they could well wind up with hundreds of usernames associated with each person. That's a lot of overhead when searching or cross-referencing and a lot of false positives when looking for those usernames on the net.
The only way this could work even in theory would be for there to be some kind of mandatory, permanent, unchangeable net-identity infrastructure which could be tagged to forum postings, e-mails and social networking sites. But there isn't. And if there were, how are you going to possibly enforce it and what makes you think that it's worth losing the anonymity of the net for something so infrequent and unlikely as a kid getting abducted?
And with all due respect to your children, I'm not (and I suspect everyone else isn't) giving up my cherished net anonymity on the merest off-chance that it might reduce the chance of a child being groomed for abuse on-line because their parents haven't done a good enough job of teaching them proper, safe online behaviour.
I don't think anyone's against the idea of making paedophiles easier to track or bar from sites frequented by minors, and everyone wants kids to be able to play safely. But if the only way to do it is to make every human being on the net trackable in the same way, you can fuck right off.
Not aimed at you personally, but in general:
Your "right" to leave your kids unsupervised and have nothing bad happen to them does not trump my right to privacy.
Or, more generally:
Don't infringe my rights because you can't be bothered to perform your duties.
End of argument.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
An interesting perspective on it. One would also imagine that the good press such a law would generate for the politician proposing it would also be a factor.
This is an idea that's quite far-fetched, but someday might just work:
Force everyone to lie about their personal information on the Internet. It's certainly easier than the current model, in which children are told not to tell anything about themselves. Then the criminals wouldn't know who to target, since they're not the only ones lying their asses off.
Ok, this probably won't work, but if this would be what schools and parents would teach their children to do for decades to come, it could be feasible.
I think you're right. I was thinking about some of my online gaming friends. They are without real names, genders, or physical bodies-- to me-- but they /are/ a collection of ideas, opinions, emotions, and interactions.
Those aren't the only things that count, but we are rapidly seeing the changes that prove those characteristics are the only requirements for discourse. I don't need my online friend's visage to miss discourse with him when he's gone. Reminds me of online funerals for deceased-in-Real-Life gamers.
[Error 407: No signature found]
What really bugs me is that of the three men they arrested, one of them, David Beavan, was a vigilante trying to stop child abuse who told the police about the plot.
Being a vigilante can be rather dangerous.
This man was also sentanced to 8 years for conspiracy to commit rape.
You need to be an undercover police office to get a "get out of jail free card" when it comes to conspiring with criminals.
have no problem with them arresting him for some other charge- what he was doing was questionable, and I'm sure violates laws about entrapment, child porn distribution, etc. I think it's pretty clear, though, that he wasn't going to rape little girls like the others were planning to.
Obviously the jury were not convinced.
Ah but you see, that really should be the crux of this argument, shouldn't it? After a law such as this is passed, how then do we 'protect the children' except to monitor all Internet activity. Perhaps not in a 24/7 capacity but if we can stipulate that due to this law we might need to monitor some subnet for a little while just to make sure that certain offenders were not using unknown names, well, it's all in the name of protecting society.
I don't think any of us have much sympathy for sex offenders but surely something like this can be put aside for more effective techniques that are less prone to abuse.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
You make this sound like a bad thing. I mean, if we are talking a convicted sex offender, should a longer 2nd stay in prison be a good idea?
I agree with the unenforceable aspect of this law more than anything though. I just don't see how this could be done. Perhaps monitoring all internet activity off their computer? Got me.
Actually, exactly what does anyone see as a fully negative effect of this? Didn't Slashdot recently cover a case of a rapist that got away with it because the law didn't explicitly name instant messaging in the communication? Maybe I am missing something.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
...they are still reading your comments on /.
"What really bugs me is that of the three men they arrested, one of them, David Beavan, was a vigilante trying to stop child abuse who told the police about the plot. This man was also sentanced to 8 years for conspiracy to commit rape. I have no problem with them arresting him for some other charge- what he was doing was questionable, and I'm sure violates laws about entrapment, child porn distribution, etc. I think it's pretty clear, though, that he wasn't going to rape little girls like the others were planning to."
... very shocking." i.e. Beavan had them on his home PC - not at all compatible with being a mere vigilante trying to set up others. For this reason, Beavan got ELEVEN years, and the others eight. He was a paedo who lost his nerve and went to the police. Best to RTFCT (Read The (ahem)*Factual* Court Transcript)......
No that's not correct. That is what his defence was. However the police and jury didn't believe him, rather probably not least because as the judge said ""All three of you were found to be in possession of very many photographs of children, some of them
Gun control?
Of course, the second amendment is useful too, so that we can defend the first, if needed ;-)
Another poster pointed out that erstwhile "maverick" McCain has sponsored a similar bill in the US Congress. My question is, do these bills have any regulations regarding the release of this information to the general public? Or will they tacitly authorize spammers, script-kiddies and soccer-moms to go whole-hog on this particular group of untouchables?
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
...if they can't even keep track of where registered sex offenders live?
... says Mister Anonymous Coward.
Don't worry, his name will be on the register soon.
Twice.
So, we're talking about a law that, applied to ordinary citizens, would be considered unjust. And we even admit that it will have no value if applied only to sex-offenders. But that's okay, because it's really just a way to punish them, and they deserve to be punished more. Always more. They can never be punished enough. This is how we justify it?
If the punishment for their actual crime is not sufficient, why do we not just increase the punishment? Why create all sorts of imaginary pseudo-crimes to heap onto them? How is this justice?
I keep hearing about all these hoops sex offenders go through, but what about other criminals? Yeah, sex offenders are bad people, but do murderers have to register? Are they put on a neighborhood watch list and have to go around announcing themselves to their neighbors? Why are sex offenders treated so harshly after prison? I'm not trying to troll or anything, I am really wondering why they are the targets so much. Are they the most likely group to repeat their crimes? What about drug dealers or carjackers? Bank robbers?
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
This is is a result of what "Yes Minister" (a BBC TV comedy and book) called the politicians' syllogism:
We must to something.
This is something.
Therefore we must to this.
Huh? It says people on the sex offenders register, not all UK citizens. Believe it or not, only a very small fraction of 1% of UK citizens is on the sex offenders register.
The issue of the feasability of any such proposal is another thing entirely.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Think about all of the mistaken identities. Especially when many people on different services can share the same nicknames. I can't even count how many times I've tried to register one of my less geeky nicknames on a service and been told it's already taken.
One day some perv will go missing from his parole program and you'll have police on your doorstep asking you to prove your identity because suddenly by virtue of this name registration there is reasonable doubt that you are who you claim to be.
Papers please!
However, if the offense did take place with a strong link to the internet, or was otherwise significantly computer-based, then preventing access to computers and the internet - as is often the punishment for people convicted of things covered by the Computer Misuse Act, etc. - would be justifiable for a period of time.
Several posters have fundamentally rather missed the point. The Sex Offenders Register creates an ongoing supervisory framework for convicted sex offenders for a number of years. No-one is suggesting this because they naively believe that registered sex offenders could not create alternative online ID's. The point is firstly that it will create an obligation on them which is testable by pulling ISP / IRC / Messenger / Whatever records to see if they have used ID's other than those declared *for any purpose whatsoever*. If they have and they are on notice of the stipulations, there is a justifiable presumption and a case in fact that they have broken the conditions of their parole and can be returned to jail.
This isn't supposed to be a magic lantern that will suddenly turn up sex offenders using declared ID's to do things they shouldn't (and which they are already prohibited from) - that would be incredibly stupid although it may happen occasionally. There is an element of uncontrollable compulsion in many sex offenders and this would give them another mental prompt everytime they log in with an ID that is registered that they are being watched, but more so that if they are thinking about creating an ID which is not declared, that they better think hard about doing so because the penalties are there. It is probably easier for some to be mentally warned off at this earlier point than to freely allow convicted sex offenders to keep on creating new ID's and possibly give in to compulsion that "they'll never find out this was me" when they've got into a conversation with someone which has progressed to a dangerous stage. Combine it with a keystroke logger and perhaps you'll be heading off *some* trouble.
This is about behavioural control more than anything and talking about aliaising and all that is really rather irrelevant. It's an incremental improvement, not a panacea, but it does have some value.
You can volunteer your personal information right now, just fill in the form below:
Firstname:
Lastname:
Address:
Home phone:
Mobile:
SSN:
Employer.
Thanks.
If the punishment for their actual crime is not sufficient, why do we not just increase the punishment?
Isn't that exactly what this is doing? They are increasing the punishment, but instead of making it a longer jail sentence, they are allowing the convict to live relatively free, with some restrictions, including registering as a sex offender. This is part of the punishment for the crime, just like mandatory reporting for parole.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
I'm sorry, but I disagree with standard slashthink in this regard. I think the anonymity of the internet is its greatest weakness, not strength. I'm a huge believer in freedom of speech - that is, you have the right to say what you want, and no government should take that from you. However, that doesn't mean you have the right to hide. They are different concepts altogether.
I think the internet would be a far better place if people who spoke up did so under their real identity.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
I know! Inform them by email and REQUIRE a receipt! So that they know that we know that they know...
OK, what if direct enforcement isn't the idea? Maybe the idea is that if they find a registered person using a false identity (easier to detect), then it's clear that they're up to no good?
His level of involvement in the scheme, whether or not he took a leadership role, his prior convictions.
the authorities do not spend much time online.
What I would like to know is how registering their names would help prevent a crime from occurring? I read the article, and it just seems like there would be a million loopholes around this. Not every teen spends time on Myspace. Check out deviantart.com, for example. And how about online gaming? This just seems more like a way for law enforcement to cover their asses.
Best "String" Ever!
Interestingly, a good reading of constitutional history (and indeed even the language of the amendments) suggestst that they did not believe that any one right was more important than another, but that all rights were inailiable to the people. Every amendment speaks of the right of the people as a pre-existing element and then outlines what the government can NOT do with that right. Interestingly, the fears of the founders came to pass as people think of the bill of rights as an ennumeration of rights, rather than a restriction on the actions of the government. Indeed, the very wording "bill of rights" is a misnomer.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
We can't implement the required infrastructure for a technological police state, and just blithely assume that it's only going to ever be used for people guilty of one crime, the one we hate. If you set up an extensive network of databases, alerts, bulletins, registries, proxies, etc etc etc for "sex offenders" you risk its misuse in the future just as with any system. In this case the risk of misuse is extreme. It would be the simplest thing in the world, once all these systems are implemented and in place, to cleverly redefine "sex offender" to enable their use for terrorizing e.g. tax cheats. These are dangerous tools to be handing any government.
Message to Home Secretary: you do not have to emulate China's civil rights policy to achieve their economic success.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
We could make sure sex offenders do not have genitalia, or access to genitalia.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Really, I have friends in the UK who are on the register for sex offenses, primarily for downloading indecent images of children. Okay, it's stupid to download such images because of the legal penalties, but does that make you a child molester? No, of course it doesn't, especially when you consider that downloading simple naturist photographs, which I avoid for legal reasons only, can be considered "child pornography" in many Western jurisdictions.
For the record, I would be happy to watch a torture of the people who attempted to plot the rape of those young girls, but I would be extremely angry if my friends who dowloaded illegal images were forced to register their internet IDs as if they were child molesters. They wanted a way to relieve their urges without harming children, but simply weren't sensible enough to consider the consequences. That makes them naive, but not evil.
Then you should consider people who have taken a piss at the side of the road. They could be on the sex offenders' register and they'd be forced to register their name on this "Internet registry". What are they going to do, take a piss in MySpace?
Anyone who is unable to see the difference between paedophilia, sex offenses and child molestation needs to buy a dictionary.
John Reid is trying to look stronger because he has been exposed as a weak, spineless politician.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
[tinfoilhat]Yes, it's unenforceable. Yes, they know it's unenforceable.Yes, they will use it's enforceability to justify new draconian controls on the internet (like DRM, but more evil and less greedy). Think of the children!![/tinfoilhat]
More laws and restrictions are proposed being placed upon sex offenders? How shocking.
Are the the US and UK only capable of passing laws that pile more restrictions and harsher punishments on sex offenders?
It's become such an easy gimmick for politicians and legislators. In the US at least, politicians can sit on their hands and do nothing for years on end as long as they push forward a few new anti-sex-offender laws right before election, and the public applauds. The laws don't even have to be effective, or even enforceable. If the public hears about any single sex-crime in a nation of 300 million people, then there is a cry for harsher punishments, more restrictions, more databases, more cops posing as 14 year old girls online, more internet surveillance, more ex post facto laws, and less freedom for us all.
Many of the laws are shamefully overbroad. Keeping some guy who got caught peeing in the bushes or leering after a 16 year old girl from living within city limits does nothing to protect the community. Effectively ending some college students life because he downloaded some naked picture of a child off of Kazaa isn't helping.
There are millions of children in the US who are without healthcare or living in severe poverty. Yet everyone is much more concerned about those scary child predators lurking on Myspace. The 24/7 attention each sexual-related case receives in the media make sex-offenses seem like a huge problem, but is it really worth all of the panic and expenditure of law enforcement resources?
Sex-offenses have turned out to be the perfect tool to distract the public from any other issues. It's just so easy to beat up on a group that no one is willing to defend.
Your right, I don't see ridiculous addendums to such a serious crime definition to be added.
/do/ see where you are going. This is one of the few cases where I would find it no-questions-acceptable for something like this. If it were something with a wishy-washy, changes-with-the-month description like "terrorism", then yes, I would have problems. This is one where the risk would be low, and to be honest, it's one where it's worth the risk.
However at the same time I
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
If I were a sex offender and this law got passed, I know exactly what I'd be tempted to do... sign-up for ~50 new screen names a day. Basically, (Number of sex offenders in the UK) X (Average number of new screen names per person) = A LOT of paperwork for the police. So much, in fact, I doubt they'd have the ability to do anything else. Which would lead to either this law getting changed/removed or an automated system. If it's the latter then there should be enough white noise & overlap (ilikekids in chatroom A & ilikekids in chatroom B) that it would render the list nearly useless.
"Optix", eh? A peeping tom? Got binoculars and telescopes in each room? PERVERT!
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
.. you realize that people are put on the register for being caught peeing in public (and someone might have seen a sex organ, hence sexual offender). They've polluted the database with trivial shit. Way to go.
What ever happened to prisons being about rehabilitation?
Once you serve your term, assuming the prison system works, aren't you meant to be a free person like any other?
Why is there a class of criminal who is sent to prison as a punishment, that is then released to be further punished?
What is wrong with putting the blame at least partially on the prison system that turns out people likely to re-offend?
Also, I wonder what categorises someone as a sex offender. It would obviously include the falsely accused. Also I'm guessing it would include cases of statutory rape, such as a case where sex is had between an 18 year old guy and his 17 year old girlfriend.
In many countries, sex can be had (with some conditions applied) from as early as 10.
What disgustingly backward country would have laws like that, you ask? Well, Australia for one. Sex is mostly unrestricted by the age of 16, anyway.
I can't believe that someone could do something legal in Australia that would not just get them sent to jail in the U.S., but have then tagged as some sort of scum for life.
Sure, real rapists, sexual molesters etc. are bad people, but people seem to love throwing around terms like "sexual offenders" that include some pretty petty offences.
I'm gonna need a spec.
i got no time to rtfct, but perhaps you can asnewr this simple question: were ANY of these men "sex offenders" before this? Would ANY of them have been on this "list of sex offender email addresses" BEFORE this conspiracy? Could this new registration law in any way have prevented this conspiracy of rape from fomenting?
[rapeman69] /nick iLikeBoys23
* rapeman69 is now known as iLikeBoys23
I'm sorry, but i don't see the point, maybe the British government should spend some time on IRC.
Part of the punishment for sex offenders is that they must live the rest of their life with the constant reminder of what they've done, and with the rest of the world knowing what they've done. The internet being anonymous allows them to escape that punishment so the idea is that they must suffer their punishment even while online.
Not that I agree with it due to it's potential to spill over onto the rest of us, nevermind the feasibility of enforcing such a system, but there is a valid reason for proposing such a "punishment"
Collector's Edition
The quote you are using can not be directly attributed to Ben Franklin - but is instead a paraphrasing from a book he edited. It seems that one of the verified and original qoutes is "Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARAY SAFETY, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY." {I used the caps in the same positions as shown in the original document} Information on this quote can be found at http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader $605
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Pedophiles in particular and Sex Offenders in General have the highest rate of recidivism (relapse).
And yes I would be happier that they stay in prison than be anywhere near to our kids.
This is really not about one's online rights. Its about the rights of a person who has left that choice to the courts the moment they made a decision to become a sex predator.
Rapid Nirvana
Good for the Brits for trying to make the web safe for everyone.
So how is that working out in China? Or Saudi Arabia?
Might I point out the definition of a sex crime is quite different depending on the jurisdiction and that everyone is not "everyone".
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
What's next? I'll have to register at the laundromat when I go to get the blood out of my clown suit?
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Think of the children moral panic yes?
Yes.
It's real value is to use as an additional charge once a violator has been caught. It keep the real habitual offenders in jail longer
And that, I submit, is a flaw in the legal system. If you want violators to spend more time for a second or Nth offense, craft the punishment for the specific laws they commit in that fashion. Don't invent new excuses to keep them in jail longer. Creating a NEW law solely for the purposes of entrapping people who violate other laws is unjust by nature, even if it generates a socially useful result.
I am against the concept of laws which can only be broken during the act of breaking a different law, or are only enforced after the fact. Charge the violator with aggravating circumstances for the more serious crime.
Isn't that exactly what this is doing?
Nope. As the GP said, they're creating a crime they intend to enforce when they have a bias against the perpetrator. Otherwise, "it's too much trouble to enforce".
And just for drill... how do you prove that you have NOT got a hidden hotmail account somewhere?
I fear this is the end of my "SexualPredator1973" screen name...
I have to agree...I don't see a registered murderer list or registered carjacker or registered accounting fraud, and on a purely selfish level I'm much more concerned about living next to/working with/hiring all of the above.
Recently, BBC News reported that someone on the Sex Offenders Registra had gone missing because he first listed his address as "a tent" and later changed it to "woods".
Another report mentioned that a women who asked for information from the police on a man she was in a relationship with was not told of his prior serious sex offences because he changed his name (by deed poll) to "Jay Powers".
People often try to make out that Americans are dumb, but if you are looking for institutional stupidity then the UK is the place to do it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
As a matter of fact, if I found out that AIM, MSN, Google, Yahoo! would capitulate to authorities and turn over information on me based solely on some suspicion that they might need access to my IM logs, I'd re-register at all of them with completely bogus information and single use mail accounts.
i hate to break it to you but they probablly would.
a raid on a datacenter is going to be far far more trouble for them than just handing over the data requested.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
As little as 200 years ago, sex between young teenagers was perfectly normal. Sex between 18+ year old men and girls as young as 13 and 14 was perfectly acceptable. The age of 16/18 that is used for statutory rape is completely arbitrary, contradicts normal human developmental behavior, and could change at any time. Non-consensual sex should be the only legal definition of rape. Statutory rape is a contradiction in terms and a legal fiction used to punish people for being human.
May not be the best solution, but it is a step in the right direction maybe.
Sex offenders here in the States are required to register where they live.
Some states require that they inform their employer.
If they do require this registry it may stop one rape.
The issue I have with it...
there are multiple people out there in the www that have the same screen name.
The only way I think this would work is the have the Government assign a screen name and
not allow anybody to select one.
Ok you can slap me for that comment, it was a BAD idea.
Another thing is each government body declares what a sex offender is.
Some states require registration for having sex in any position other than missionary.
Some only when violence or a child is involved.
First thing they need to do is standardize what an offense is.
There is a registered offender here in my town. His offense, sex with a minor.
His actual crime, He married a 17 year old girl, he was 17, he turned 18, she was still 17, her dad had him arrested for it. He is now branded for life as a sex offender for screwing his wife.
The need to fix what they have before they load it with more broken data
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
Because, you say that everyone would lose their online freedom. This isn't true with the present proposal unless everyone is a registered sex offender. I have hard time believing that this is the case, so combined with the comment about this is to get people to switch off their brains, I concluded that you're saying that you expect it to become generally required.
If this isn't what you meant, then I'm sorry I misinterpreted; but in that case you'll have to explain why a sex offender having to register his screen name makes ME lose MY online freedom.
With the obvious exception of murder, victims of all those offenses can be indemnified for their loss. I agree that a public database of murderers should be available. I'm guessing the sex offenders database was more readily approved due to a higher proportion of repeat sex offenders than repeat murderers. I haven't actually heard of a reformed pedophile.
IANAL, IANAussie, but the age of consent in Australia seems to be 16, higher in some areas. In South Australia a defense can be made (by trial) if both parties were 16 at the time of the offense.
u stralia_and_Oceania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_A
Where did you get 10 from?
No, that's not the point.
The point is that John Reid's department has been shown over and over in the last few months to be incompetent. Only yesterday there were headlines about "this country has the worse crime in Europe". So now the minister has to be seen to be doing something. It really doesn't matter what: he just wants some publicity.
i have no interest whatsoever
some guy in nyc wanted to meet up, he pressed me on the issue a number of times. i totally blew him off
just this november of 2006, rusty was in nyc and wanted to meet, i blew him off too
i genuinely have no interest in knowing anything about the real lives of people i meet on the internet, and i have a good reason for this: i change my behavior on the internet, i let another side of personality exist here. i get to be someone else. it is freeing, liberating, exiciting to express new things in new ways that i can't offline, i get to experiment with aspects of my personality safely online without any worry for blowback
i don't ever want to suffer the consequences of my action on the net. what i do here, stays here, good or bad. it's a simple discipline, a compartmentalization of my life
there is a firewall between my life here, and my life offline. i'm different people, and i want it to stay that way. in fact, if someone came up to me offline and said "hey circletimessquare!" i'd probably freak out
now who's to say your attitude is better, socially or psychologically, than mine, or even more common?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This oubviously came to police attention prior to the act. Could they not have simply then set a trap and caught them in the act (of course, before anyone actually got raped)? That would give them even more justifiable reason to lock them up for longer, less wriggle room for legal defense, and would result in a better overall benefit to society IMHO.
This can totally work even without unique id's. Why... 1. Non-Compliance: Goes to intent... For law enforcement, allows additional investigation of an individual if they are found to be using a non-registered id. Perhaps help in getting a warrent or charges to stick. In a case, this could make the difference between identifying a trolling predator or someone that made a bad in the moment decision. 2. Compliance: Goes to affirmation of community standards. A predator in a weak momement might be reminded by myspace that they can not use that id on myspace etc... They could also potentially enjoy restricted service, such as they can't make friends under 18. Remember, a "don't walk on the greass" sign doesn' keep you off the grass, it reminds you of the standards. 3. An unique arguement against this in the nsona is that this would create private marketing lists for pedophiles. Great. Law enforcement can put in dummy addresses and monitor spam putting those other fucks in jail too. Of course, who would want to share an ID with a known predator? but this isn't much of an arguement as many people already have the same NAMES as predators.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Should the little old lady who was picked up for "sodomy" (which in many parts of the world can still mean performing oral sex on your spouse) have to tell some sex offender database that they are signing up with their bank's Web site under a particular username? Can you imagine the resulting abuse of that information?
I live in a state in the U.S. where a teacher went to jail because she had an affair with a student of hers who was underage. When she got out of jail, they got married (he was now of age). Should she continue to have to publicly disclose everything she does because the person she fell in love with happened to be a year too young? That seems like a failure of the punishment meeting the crime, and a burden to the system and to her that has no benefit to society. It also puts her in the position of being harrassed for the rest of her life with no chance of reprieve.
No, this is not the way to solve the problems that people are concerned about.
That's because you're assuming you're not ever going to be in that database or one like it. Depends what sense he means "having" in. If he means it in the sense of "Billie Piper? I've had 'er..." he really should seek help, and perhaps he recognises that he is evil, and wants to be stopped.
On the other hand I really pity CowboyNeal if this legislation comes in...
"By the way - to those who worry about it infringing on your freedom - unless you're a convicted pedophile, molester, etc, it hardly seems to apply to you."
;)
And if it does, I dare say we have a right to complain.
So... anyone have a hot daughter?
It's different in different states.
In some, at least when I last checked, you could do it from the age of 10 as long as the person you're doing it with is within 2 years of age. Then there's some age at which you can have sex with anyone that is not in a position of authority over you. I think that is 16.
I'm gonna need a spec.
Maybe everyone in the World should locate every paedophile who hasn't committed an offense, that disgusting and perverted 18 year old who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, that dangerous predator who took a piss near a public place, then imprison them for life. If people are still angry, they could imprison these perverts' families too!
Don't worry, I'm sure that society can find something else to worry about!
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
What noone seems to have pointed out yet is that if they are caught breaking this proposed law by the police, they can be punished - without having to prove intent to molest etc.
Except, how are they going to catch them breaking it? This is nothing but an invitation to let the police construct some sort of invasive monitoring scheme, once they find out that it's unenforceable given the infrastructure presently in use.
Once unenforceable laws get passed, it's rare for the politicians to just give up and admit they did something dumb; inevitably, they attempt to patch things up with more laws, and try to bring reality around to the point where the original law is enforceable.
In this case, it'll probably go something like, after it's clear that sex offenders are getting away with registering for free email addresses, requiring that free email services collect the real names of users, so that they can be checked against the sex offender database. And when it becomes apparent that sex offenders are just using false names, then require the email providers to collect some sort of secret unique identifier (whatever the UK equivalent of an SSN is). And when that fails, it'll be requiring them to send a postcard via mail to your address of record, that you have to sign and return, etc.
Creating unenforceable laws, just to make law enforcement's job easier, is an inherently bad idea. If you don't create laws that are enforceable in reality, then the alternative is to create a reality that's easily enforceable by the laws that have been created -- and personally, I would rather make the police do some extra work, than starting to put society over the authorities' collective knee, in order to make their job easier.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Don't know about easier, but maybe it'd be better to make sure they don't have access to children?
If the end is not practically achievable, it doesn't matter whether it's "better" or not.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Two things:
1. Someone investigating pedophiles will pick up a lot of child porn. Certainly police investigating a child porn ring will have to trade and download files to get in. That doesn't make his story less credible.
2. Even if he was a pedophile who chickened out and talked to the police, that means that he was unwilling to go through with his plan- i.e. he's less dangerous than the rest of them. Furthermore, by co-operating with the police he should get a reduced sentence.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I think the idea of making some kind of "national sex offender chatroom registry" is pretty silly. But it seems to me that a registered sex offender who, upon getting out of jail, signs up for an online chat service with the same online ID as the one he was using when he committed his original offenses should probably be seen as being in violation of the terms of his probation. Police might want to have a record of what those original IDs were, in that case. For that matter, maybe it's appropriate for someone who uses chatrooms to groom children for abuse to be barred from using any chat service again for (at minimum) a long, long time? These would be decisions for judges to make.
Breakfast served all day!
I'd argue it's not even that. It's for when you know/suspect they've been naughty but can't prove it, so you create ever simpler-to-prove offences.
1) We know it'll be completely unenforcible for the purposes of actually being useful. On the other hand, it'll be easy to prove for the purposes of throwing the book at someone that an individual prosecutor takes a dislike to. This is not what we have laws for.
2) Sadly, the actual text from the radio report this morning isn't on the website, but it was something along the lines of "Politicians, parents and teachers are increasing worried". Notice, it doesn't say "teenagers" or "children", i.e. the people actually affected. This is for one reason - these people are not technologically illiterate and KNOW that the internet itself is not a risk and aren't worrying about it. The problme is with kids who don't know enough about the real world not to meet, in real life, people who they meet on the internet.
3) If they're worried about kids giving out their personal information and allowing themselves to be tracked down with it, a far better approach would be to have a quiet word with Myspace & Facebook and the like and ask them what on earth they were thinking when they included address and telephone number fields on their profile pages in the first place. If you don't give someone a box labelled "mobile phone number" they probably won't put one in.
FGD 135
On the other side of the pond, ex-felons can't buy guns & have to do some paperwork to get their voting rights re-established... That's pretty much it. Everything else is social stigma.
It's a lot more than that. They are effectively barred from any 'positions of trust' for the remainder of their lives, unless their record is expunged, which is unusual. This pretty much takes them out of any government or civil-service position (including the military), out of jury duty, and out of most teaching positions in public schools. This is just the stuff that they're barred from by law.
By that "social stigma," they're basically unemployable in all but the most menial jobs, and even in those they're basically un-advanceable. I don't think you can even get a fast-food job with a felony on your record, because they're suspicious that you'll start stealing from the till.
Effectively, they're the modern version of "untouchables"; they become members of a permanent underclass unfit for legitimate occupations. I don't have a whole lot of pity for them, frankly, but it's not hard to see why the recidivism rate is so high. But that creates a feedback cycle; the public expects ex-cons to fall back into crime, thus they're not trusted, thus they can't find legitimate occupations, and thus they do exactly what's expected of them.
Short of 'rebooting' the system by summarily executing anyone with a felony conviction, or other similarly drastic methods, I don't think there's any easy way to break that cycle.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What about the poor pedo who goes for HotLuv1949 when he meant to go for HotLuv1994... Sorry I think I may be slightly twisted...
By the way - here's the link to a story on Chris Morris's BrassEye special on PEDOGEDDON. The show was released during a UK-wide paedophile media-witchhunt, shortly after a Paediatrician in Newport had her house vandalised by idiots. Dirty Paedo.
The only way the cops could catch them "in the act" would be to stake out the intended victim 24/7 until they attacked her. This risks exposing the police tail, with two possible results: the would-be rapist(s) fleeing and no charges at all being possible, or a vioent confrontation with the cops.
What's more, it essentially uses the intended victim as bait. If you tell her then you're telling a woman "hey, someone wants to rape you, we want to follow you around so we can arrest him when he tries it". That in itself is psychologically damaging.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
This is simple...you just haven't heard the new govt. sponsored part of all this yet.
First, you will have to register with the Govnernment, all of us, not just the convicted....this will make it easier to track all potential criminals too.
YOu will not be allowed to log onto an internet connected computer without this govt. issued/registered logon identity.
This way, you can't get away with anything...and a wonderful side benefit...ALL your interactions, transactions will be monitored, and safely stored in a govt. data repository. In case there is need for future you against you.
Heck, I'm sure with wonderful data mining....and even a little creative associations, we can safely predict not only your future predilection to sexual crimes, but, also to potential terrorist activities.
Of course...I'm being a little sarcastic here, but, not totally. This would be about the only way to track and enforce this...I just hope this method isn't seriously put forth by our leaders.
It seems pretty clear already they don't like the thought of anonymity online....even for the innocent citizen out there doing nothing wrong...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
But, once a prisoner is finished with parole...or finishes their entire sentence in jail, they are free, and then no longer have to report to a parole officer.
Are you saying they should only have to register online names till they are off parole?
I don't think the article was saying this.
I really hate arguing points like this, because I am NOT on the side of the offender, but, if a person has served their entire sentence. Are they not supposed to once again be truly free men/women? I don't think it is right that they keep getting punished once they serve their time...at least that's not how the system was set up.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
So it's not quite as bad. However, even with the restricted correct version, it's not all peachy either. Indeed, contrarily to popular belief, sex offender lists are not only composed of dangerous rapists.
In some jurisdictions, pissing in public can get you on such a list. Or looking at porn featuring actors pretending to be less than 18. Or divorcing from a particularly nasty wife (if she can convince your kids to lie about you). Or, heck, reporting that your wallet was stolen at night in a certain park if the thief happens to be less than 18 year old (Yes, I've heard about such a case from Turkey...).
I've got no problems with offenders lists as long as they only put people on it who committed a real, proven, violent crime. Not just people who offended some prudish religious' nut sensibility.
Oops, sorry, I did indeed draw the wrong conclusion from the Slashdot headline, which seemed to imply a universal requirement.
/. headlines. More often than not they are at least sensationalist, and often flat out wrong. Heck, it's not uncommon for the summaries to be wrong...
Don't ever draw conclusions from
However, even with the restricted correct version, it's not all peachy either. Indeed, contrarily to popular belief, sex offender lists are not only composed of dangerous rapists.
Agreed, though in some sense that's a separate issue. Because of this, I am against these registry things and the punitive aspects of them. However, if this issue could be fixed, this law would be a good idea I think, despite the almost unenforcability of it.
but, if a person has served their entire sentence.
This becomes part of the sentence. That's all.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
What puzzles me, is that this proposed law is supposed to be a reaction to the rape plot.
But this rape plot was not interupted by feasless defender, but obviously one of the protagonist actually found that the initial fantasy got out of hand and called the police.
The three plotter also swapped photos, it would certainly be interesting to understand exactly how they got them.
As there is a difference between forcing, coercing or luring a minor to submit to any kind of pornographic action, and retransmitting photos.
Even if both are illegal and wrong.
Actually it would be very interesting to follow up on this case, there is a distinct possibility that the "ringleader" is actually "rather" inocent,
it could be that he started with a perverted fantasy, and suddenly found out that "real bad guy" are out there, and maybe he really actually helped the
police to put away one or two "real baddies".
In wich case the proposed legislation would actually be a case of making sure that sex offenders do not use the internet to communicate, and stay under the radar for years.
That is scary.
In a separate case we could also suggest that all farmers should register as "potential sex offender" and need a special "on line identity" and have restricted travel rights (remember the Canadian Serial Killer they got recently with 30+ bodies on his hands ?, it MUST have something to do with the internet!)
By the way - to those who worry about it infringing on your freedom - unless you're a convicted pedophile, molester, etc, it hardly seems to apply to you.
Freedoms that only apply to people that have not yet had a problem with the law. Ahh, yes, we do have a class system, don't we?
If it doesn't affect you, you have no right to complain. Oh, and if it does affect you, why, we've taken away your right to vote, so you have no ability to complain. (Admittedly, this is a US answer for a UK proposed law. Yes, I understand that the situations are not exactly equivalent.) Yeah, that's a great way to make laws.
Oh, and one other thing.
Because sometimes pedophiles get off on technicalities.
The general reason that bad guys get off on a technicality is that the cops broke the law. Or, more politely stated, the cops did not follow proper procedure in the investigation and/or arrest of the accused perpetrator. 50 years ago in the US, the phrase "got off on a technicality" just as often meant "the judge threw out the confession the cops beat out of the scum". But we don't prosecute cops, because, after all, they're just good people doing a dirty job. You can trust them, right? All of recorded history showing how people abuse power is no reason not to trust people in power, right?
Yes, I understand that most cops really do start out as good people. I'm really curious how long it takes to develop the "us versus them" attitudes that cops are so known for. As a cop, almost all you deal with are cops and criminals. Oh, and "ordinary citizens" that are hindering an investigation by insisting on their rights, which should be illegal so they might as well be criminals too. I really do understand how cops get how they are. This is part of why most laws proposed by cops are bad ideas. A police state always sounds like a good idea to the police, even the good police. Because that's how they see the world.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
Ever look at a porn site which did not have full and correctly formed declarations of the ages of all the people involved? You're a sex offender.
Ever receive a spam mail that included underage porn? You're a sex offender just by receiving that mail.
This applies to you. "Sex offender" does not mean a mass-murderer, it means pretty much anybody that a prosecutor decides to chase. It's one of those "selective enforcement" laws.
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
-- Charles Babbage
-- Stephen.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea to track convicted rapists online
You misspelled "sex offenders"...
It's called a Sting Operation, as opposed to entrapment, which your idea is. Basically, if a police officer sends me child porn I didn't ask for, the cop is the criminal. If I ask an undercover cop for child porn, and he sends me child porn and I get busted, I'm the criminal, not the police officer. Undercover police officers are authorized to commit crimes to bring criminals to justice.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
but trust me, if I catch you....you won't have to worry about a trial or registering as a sex offender.
While I am serious about the above, I also know that my daughter is smart and aware enough not to let anyone touch her without her permission, and not to give strangers her personal info.
I try to be aware of my daughter's on-line habits and be a responsible parent. It's not easy, but I make sure that my daughter can talk to me if she needs to.
That said, I believe that 'sex crimes' punishment is way out of line with the crime. You can kill someone, serve your time, and get on with your life. Rape someone, or god forbid, have consensual sex with a minor and you will be punished till the day you die.
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Exactly.
Also, the proposal says something about setting up a flag so that moderators or something can tell when someone on the list enters a chatroom or something. This will work as well as having a no fly list has worked in the USA. It won't in other words.
I wank in the shower.
Sex Offenders in General
That's a pretty large group there. The 18 year old kid that slept with his 17 year old girlfriend? Sex Offender. The schoolteacher that accidentally showed some porn during class on an infected machine? Sex Offender. The kid that bought pornography while under age? Sex Offender... get the point?
My argument isn't that REAL sex offenders do tend to continue in their ways - the majority do. It's that the "sex offender" brush is very large - too large, in my opinion - especially considering that Jane Q Public won't care if the next door neighbor is a multiple rapist or some dude whose kid got hold of his porn videos and showed them to his friends - one of whom complained. There is a LOT of stigma attached to the label "sex offender". I'd like to think it's being applied to the right people.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Okay, after reading most of the posts I think almost everyone is missing the obvious.
If you are a registered sex offender here is a logical flow that would work
1. Welcome to MySexOffender, please log-in
2. Thank you for logging in child molester, you are currently registered on the following sites and services with the following names (Slashdot, MySpace, Yahoo, MSN, etc etc etc with some multiple entries and different userids at all of them)
3. You have selected to add a new entry, please enter the URL or information on the site or service and your user name
4. (enters www.somesite.com and RegisteredPredator1234 userid)
5. Thank you for updating your information. You are now cleared to use this service. Remember, any time you register for a new online site or service you must immediately register with MySexOffender and failure to do so is a violation of (blah blah legalese)
Now, yes they can just get a userid and not register it, but if they don't and later that userid is correctly associated with the individual then they can be arrested and charged under the law this falls under. Same type of thing for parole violations, failing to update addresses, etc. Scott free until caught, but once caught no excuse will get you out of it.
YouStockIt - Education through Unorthodox Methods
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3672591.stm
From the same Govt who argued that most people weren't necessarily entitled to passports and that we should just trust they won't use their totalitarian laws for totalitarian means.
http://www.waronfreedom.net/
Why would they stake out the victim? Why not stake out the offenders - they're already half staked out anyway. The offenders may not even have had a specific victim in mind and be working it as a "crime of opportunity". You've probably already got half a dozen organisations passively tracking your movements to varying degrees without your knowing about it. As long as the cops aren't completely incompetent they could do it without the offenders noticing or risking public safety. Hell, even catching the guys physically meeting at whatever pre-defined place they discussed before the act would be enough to prove intent, no physical bait required. But I'd hate to see us start down the slippery slope where someone getting a decade in the gulag just for talking shite. The appropriate response to "Dude, I just f***ed your sister" is a smack in the head, not a decade in jail.
If the cops can't handle that situation, then give them the money, technology, training and manpower they need. Creating hundreds of new crimes year after year (many of which seem aimed more at diminishing civil liberties than protecting the public) and expecting the existing resources to handle the increased workload is the wrong way to go about it. I'd rather my taxes paid for another cop than another politician.
Convicts are already proven guilty. Why should convicted murderers be given a license to buy a gun?
The whole problem is, if they did it once, if they crossed that boundery once, what stops them from doing it twice? If they lacked self control the first time, why do you believe they'd suddenly have self control?
All of their activities around children should forever be monitored.
So, essentially a life sentence? Geez...there are people that literally take another person's life....gone, done, not breathing anymore, dirt nap city.....that don't get life sentences.
While sex crimes are bad...the victim is left alive to breathe another day....I hardly think the penalty should be a lifetime one in most cases....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Perhaps this is intended, as so many laws are, as a way to pile further punishment on criminals who have already been caught. "Not only were you caught trying to solicit sex from a minor, you were also using an unregistered screen name, Mr. Pedophile." Kind of like charging someone caught with cannabis with possession of "paraphernalia" because he also had rolling papers (not to mention intent to distribute because he had plastic bags in his kitchen.) On second thought, it's probably just more pointless, unenforceable legislation intended to evoke an emotional response from the voting public.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
The example of pedophilia was used, not because of any supposed criminality, but for the very reason that it is a condition and not itself a crime (activity). The point being that pedophile sex offenders are likely to repeat their crime, this because they are pedophiles, not because they are sex offenders. Thus my use of the term.
Your arguments are all anecdotal and cannot be proven.
actually your post does not in any way answer what I asked. I didn't say "what value does this have in regards to registered offenders" (which is all you answered) but what value does it have when a good many - if not MOST - cases like this involve people who are NOT already in the system. "Megan" (of Megan's law) for example, was killed by a man who was NOT in the system and, therefore, the law named for her really would not have, in any way, helped prevent her meeeting exactly the same fate.
Were any of these men registered sex offenders? ANY of them? If not, then this law would have absolutely no value in preventing it - nor from preventing exactly the same thing from happening again.
Given that this is supposededly a site frequented by people who have an understanding of the Internet beyond "click the big 'E' to see the intarwebs", can we please lose this silly term?
I haven't had 'screen names' since the Amiga days, when it referred to, well, screens, due to the possibility of having multiple overlapping screen or virtual displays at different resolutions, colour depths etc that you could slide up and down behind each other. (Copper tricks like that were cool. I miss the Amiga.)
I have no idea why AOL originally pulled this term out of their collective arses - where exactly is this screen I'm supposed to be naming? What's displayed on it? - but let's not keep propagating it...