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MySpace Agrees to Share Sex Offender Data

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the not-so-anonymous dept.

mikesd81 writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that MySpace will be providing a number of state attorney generals with data on registered sex offenders who use their site. Attorney generals from eight states demanded last week that the company provide data on how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live. MySpace obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., which the company partnered with in December to build a database with information on sex offenders. Attorneys general in North Carolina, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania asked for the Sentinel data last week."

9 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Call me an idiot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... but do regular people actually sign up with their real name / information, and even if they do, is it likely that sex offenders do too?

    1. Re:Call me an idiot... by Deagol · · Score: 4, Interesting
      On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, right?

      Given the broad range of things that gets you the tag "sex offender" (and a lovely scarlet "S" in the bargain), the whole sex offender registry thing is kinda silly. I mean, if you got a citation for pissing in the bushes at your local park, and got into your state's sex offender registry, would *you* really take the restrictions seriously? I sure as hell wouldn't. And I imagine that "real" sex offenders wouldn't either -- at least the ones who are total morons, anyway.

      --
      Method of processing duck feet
    2. Re:Call me an idiot... by daeg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here in Florida, most communities are enacting completely unconstitutional laws barring exactly where "sex offenders" can live. In one community in the Tampa Bay area, they set the distance limit to something like 2,500 feet from *any* bus stop, church, school, library, etc. There were a few small areas in the town left over, which the city promptly added school bus stops despite there being no demand for them, effectively chasing out every sex offender, regardless of actual offense.

      It is a scarlet letter. It isn't like the Puritan punishments meant to shame someone in front of their community to deter crime. In fact it does the opposite by creating lists of names, addresses, and photos of free offenders (as in, not in prison). It's a political tool, plain and simple, and it's only a matter of time before it is struck as unconstitutional and, hopefully, some "offenders" will have a free shot at the governments that put them on the list.

      And before you mod me as a troll or other nonsense, I'm not advocating any sort of behavior. Child molesters, for instance, are in a separate class as mere sex offenders.

      Maybe if we freed the ridiculous number of jailings of petty criminals we'd have room for those that actually deserve--and need--the confinement of prison.

    3. Re:Call me an idiot... by boingo82 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Actually, in a fairly recent Utah case, a 12 year old boy and a 13 year old girl had consentual (not legally consentual, but both of them did it deliberately) sex, and the girl became pregnant.

      They were BOTH charged with "Sexual abuse of a child". Both are considered simultaneous victims and perpetrators.

      --
      As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
    4. Re:Call me an idiot... by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The best one I've heard is getting charged with having sex with a minor, even when you yourself are a minor. I remember a story a few months back when a couple of 16?17?whatver year olds were charge on child pornography laws for sending pictures of themselves to eachother. I've also heard of people being charged for having sex with someone the same age as them because the laws were written such that it didn't matter how old the offender was, so a 15 year old having sex with another 15 year old was charged with having sex with a minor even though they themselves were a minor.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:Call me an idiot... by daeg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I put "sex offender" in quotes for that exact reason. There are many things that can get someone on that list, many of them completely petty. I think very few people want to be lenient on child predators or offenders, on the contrary, they need serious help from the government.

      There is one awesome case in Florida. I can't find the links at the moment, but it was a high school couple, one over 18, one slightly under. They someone got caught swapping naked pics of themselves through their cell phone. Neither wanted to charge the other, but both got charged with possessing/distributing child pornography. So two lives are in effect ruined because they were horny and stupid.

      False charges like your example are devestating not only emotionally and financially, but they ruin lives. Our country has long abandoned the innocent-until-proven-guilty. Sure, you can be found innocent (different than not guilty!) at trial but still be held as guilty in the realm of public opinion.

    6. Re:Call me an idiot... by D-Cypell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      MHO the real aim of the list is to make the term "sex offender" meaningless.

      I read a quote here once, one that was so thought-provoking that I posted it onto my blog. Now it seems relevant again so I thought I would paste it back... what goes around, comes around right?

      Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

      - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957.

    7. Re:Call me an idiot... by aussie_a · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here in Florida, most communities are enacting completely unconstitutional laws barring exactly where "sex offenders" can live. Isn't any restriction unconstitutional? The constitution allows for criminals serving a sentence to have their freedoms restricted, but why are people who have served their time still having those freedoms restricted?
  2. Validity Of "Sex Offender" by nick_davison · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Up until the last couple of years, consensual homosexual acts have been able to put you on the sex offenders register in many states. Sex with a consenting partner, in a park, after midnight, when all children should long since be in bed - you're a sex offender. Oral sex in Utah? Mississippi's ludicrous "sex with a minor unless you can prove she was not of previously virtuous character.."? They all merit a place on the list.

    I don't dispute that identifying those who prey on children may have its merits. Given the sex offender registry is a great way of stitching red letters on the chests of anyone that offends good conservative taste, that is hardly its sole effect.

    Given how open to abuse the system is, how long before the MPAA figures, "Hey, there's hardcore porn on them there torrents. I wonder if we could get anyone that uses them labeled a sex offender, destroy their lives, and kill off torrents that way, without worrying about trying to prove actual piracy."?

    I've never got caught having sex in public nor getting a blowjob in Utah. I also happen to be straight. Still, even if I had been caught for any of those acts, it's absolutely none of their business whether I use MySpace.

    Mind you, I also grew up in England where, after the Daily Mail posted a list of 1,000 sex offenders, including some errors, a paediatrician got their house burned down. Dirty paediatricians! I hate the way they look at and touch children!