Sex Offender E-Mail Registry Signed Into Law

As noted in Wired yesterday, tragedy in chaos writes, "Senator and Presidential-hopeful John McCain has managed to get a new bill signed into law, in the hope of ridding online social networks of the sexual predation of children. The 'Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008,' as it is called, calls for a database to be made in which all registered sexual offenders must also register their e-mail addresses so that MySpace, Facebook, etc. can run current and hopeful users through it, and eliminate access to the offenders. Though a noble goal, this is not very well thought out in methodology. They are asking known criminals to be honest, and are expecting them not to utilize any of the free and readily available e-mail services that exist so as to circumvent the system. There is also a potential for the crafty sex offender to possibly cause false positives by just registering an address that does not belong to them, thereby drawing in innocent bystanders."

Comments

Yes this makes perfect sense

[pwnies]

As the honest ones who never meant any harm will stay honest, and will be flagged as outcasts. The ones who do mean harm though, will just ignore the request to be honest and register a gmail account.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[GrumblyStuff]

I see it as a way to tack on more charges in the future. He didn't register?! That makes him a CRIMINAL!

And it's computer related so there goes all your electronics.

Anyway, god forbid they keep dangerous people in jail. I mean, that's what it's for, right? If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, god forbid they keep dangerous people in jail. I mean, that's what it's for, right? If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

So you are saying there's no recourse? Why don't you just kill them then, because that would save a lot of resources and time instead of keeping "dangerous" people indefinitely.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[zappepcs]

A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

Answer: Because without a group of people to vilify there is no easy way to sway the mindset of the public at large. If it were not for sex offenders, it might well be that we'd be protecting the children from godless atheists or some other group. Democrats perhaps? The USA system of democracy has been tortured into a shape that requires a evil-doers in order to function. We HAVE to be at war against something or nobody will vote.

Sad but true.... According to Palin, we're engaged in an economic war right now also. Not sure when that was declared or even if the McCain campaign has spoken with her about this new war, but she has announced it. Beheading of Wall street types who don't own at least 3 cars is to begin next week.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[spud603]

Anyway, god forbid they keep dangerous people in jail. I mean, that's what it's for, right?

You make it sound like a foregone conclusion that prison is nothing more than a way to cordon off undesirables. It may well be, but that's by no means the generally accepted fact.
For the idealists out there, prison is supposed to rehabilitative. For the Machiavellians it's a political tool of disenfranchisement.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[poetmatt]

clearly that will do plenty. Meanwhile, maybe someone can register bush's private email addresses as sex offenders? Multiple times even?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[boxxertrumps]

If it were not for sex offenders, it might well be that we'd be protecting the children from godless atheists...

For that, I thank them regularly for their service to society.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[GrumblyStuff]

I don't know. I thought justice was more than punishment and retribution and revenge and vengeance. ...but of course, we'd have a lot more resources without the war on drugs.

The point I'm trying to make is that jail is the stated place for dangerous people, right? Where they can be kept, supervised, and (in theory) made into a productive member of society? They were held, judged unfit to be free with the rest of us, and um... released before they were deemed safe to the population?

I'm just a stickler for definitions and people holding true to doing what they say. If jail is for dangerous people, then keep dangerous people in jail. If jail is for rehabilitation, then people to be released from jail should meet whatever criteria is set and be considered free thereafter.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[street struttin']

What if you don't know how many cars you own?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[0100010001010011]

And what about those that didn't really do any harm? Not everyone on the sex offenders list is a 30 year old guy that molested some sweet young 12 year old.

18 year old and his 17 year old girlfriend with over zealous parents.
Urination in public while drunk (or sober).
Changing clothes (not underwear) out in "public". This hits close to home because at Rugby tournaments we don't get locker rooms. You pull up and change in the parking lot. I've heard of people that got railroaded because the park was X yards from a school. And not even underwear. Just shorts/ shirts. The shit you would expect to see at a beach.

Is there anyone in a America that isn't a criminal in some way?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[mishehu]

I've heard that in some regions of the USA you can be labeled a sex offender for doing any of the following:
1. Peeing in a public alleyway.
2. Have sex in the backseat of your car with your significant other.
3. Be in possession of pictures of your girlfriend's boobs, when both of you are say, 16 years old.
It seems that Americans have a terrible hangup about sex. You would get the impression that we don't have sex unless it's through a sheet with a hole in it, and not without scrubbing down as if we're surgeons going in to operate... And teenagers are not allowed to have any sex whatsoever. They can't even play doctor. (Not to mention that for most of the history of humanity, people started having sex as soon as the parts were fully functional...)

That being said, EXACTLY how is this legislation supposed to improve the Internet and not just ruin the lives of people undeserving such punishment and waste a crapload of taxpayer dollars?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[nine-times]

A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

Er... because they have rights?

I mean, yes, perhaps we could re-evaluate particular statutes, but criminals can't be held in jail for longer than their prison sentence. Often, it's hard to just lock someone up and throw away the key because of protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".

Of course, it depends (at least somewhat) on what you consider to be a "sex offender". I was reading a story earlier today about a teenage girl who might be forced to register as a sex offender for distributing nude pictures of herself.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[Kleen13]

The problem with sex offenders is that no matter what kind of rehab/psych treatments the offender gets, they do not change their sexual preferences. As a father, I'm torn. I'd like nothing better for the skinners of the world to be locked up forever or put in general population and let the other convicts take care of the problem to protect children like mine. On the flip side, they have their rights as well. (Flame-bait disclaimer: to have a sexual preference, not break the law and abuse children) From what I understand, most of these predators are born with their preferences and develop them throughout adolescence. You might as well ask me to stop being heterosexual, or a homosexual to just stop being gay. I don't think a registry is going to work. There is simply no reasonable way to insulate these people from those they prey on. It's all just political posturing anyway. I wonder what else ended up on that bill.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[narrowhouse]

If what you say were true then this would just be a convenient excuse for getting rid of free and essentially anonymous email services... hey, wait a second.

Seriously, even if McCain is clueless enough not think of the dozens of gaping holes in this Law (I don't know if he is or not) you can bet there are a ton of neo-fascists who are drooling over the possibilities created by this legislative stupidity. "But we have to be able to track everyone on the internets to be sure that the sex offenders are registering their email addresses."
"Anonymous email isn't necessary if you aren't breaking the law." Just like Free Speech isn't necessary if you never say anything that upsets anyone. Yeah it is a conspiracy theory but it sounds pretty plausible doesn't it?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[icebrain]

Well, there's also the problem that stupid little things (like pissing against a building, or taking naked photos of [i]yourself[/i] under 18) can earn you the "sex offender" label for life. I agree, the dangerous ones should be in prison, but the label is carried too far to the extreme in many cases.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[Sabby]

Add to that list:

4. Have sex at an age of 18 when your partner is under the age of consent, but not signifigantly younger than you. (You're newly 18, partner is one month from 16 here in the state of Michigan. Friend's nephew learned that one the hard way.)

5. Skinny dipping in a secluded area when someone happens by.

6. Homosexual sex with a consenting partner in some states.

This is just a case of politicians trying their best to look good and gather votes by engaging in a crusade against Bad People(tm). So, we end up with zero-tolerance laws.

No one wants to vote against them because their opponents will then say "Politician Blahblah is soft on sex offenders."

This is not a US phenomenon, it's a democratic phenomenon. We just happen to have sex as our particular hangup... other countries have harmless weapons as their hangup.

"We must ban crossbows. I once heard a crossbow was used in a crime in a little known area, one time. So, there's no reason you should need one. I propose a ban."

(Never mind that I can use a pencil to do harm to another person, and thus use the threat of that harm to commit the same crime. Or even just my fists.)

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[ameyer17]

6. Homosexual sex with a consenting partner in some states.

Not so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[PitaBred]

I hate jacking a high-up post, but it needs to be said that both McCain AND OBAMA were co-sponsors of this bill. "tragedy in chaos" is a hypocritical jackass, and this article's blurb needs amended.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[PopeRatzo]

I have already been protecting my children from Democrats.

It doesn't matter, they'll still grow up to hate you. And maybe they'll grow up like another child of a good, strong Republican, Ronald Reagan, and be a homosexual ballet dancer.

That's what's known as "justice".

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[dgatwood]

Agreed. More to the point, I suspect if you really went down the rolls, you'd find that a large percentage of the sex offenders out there are guys who did something with a high school girl when they were in their 20s and got caught. You can't tell me that most of them are "dangerous" or deserve to be treated as second class citizens for the rest of their lives. (Until they mature, perhaps, but....)

Sex offender registry laws should be reserved for the extreme cases---cases of rape in which neither party was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs (or in which the injured party was unknowingly/unwillingly subjected to drugs with intent to rape), cases in which someone over... let's say 21 intentionally and knowingly engages in or attempts to engage in sexual contact with someone under... let's say 12, etc. That gives a wide enough safety margin that it weeds out everyone but the people who truly are a danger to society.

Without such limits, you're just ruining the lives a bunch of otherwise normal people who did stupid things when they were in high school or college. That doesn't make much sense to me (or, frankly, to anyone with half a brain). If anything, this is why laws that don't give judges any leeway in sentencing are universally bad. They create an environment in which a judge is forced to give a punishment even if the circumstances clearly do not warranty that punishment. Unfortunately, without those laws, we get problems on the other side---idiot judges who keep letting out repeat offenders who progressively work their way up to heinous crimes. I don't know what the solution is except perhaps to pass laws that would require all criminal sentencing to occur by a vote of... say seven judges who are all required to read the complete decision of the presiding judge prior to enacting sentencing (with harsh criminal penalties for any judge who regularly fails to read the decisions before voting).

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[bugs2squash]

I consider myself an idealist. I want a prison system that...

1) Renders capital punishment un-necessary. We're not a small island nation, we truly can afford to lock up the heinous forever and we can achieve it.

2) Treats rehabilitation as second only in priority to containment for prisoners who are physically dangerous. They should not be released at all unless we can be reasonably certain that they are no longer a threat.

3) Does not double as a housing project for lots of non-physically-dangerous offenders. Let them go, employ them in something productive, do whatever, but don't feed them three squares a day while they're sat on their ass doing nothing but learning how to be better criminals from the other cons.

decades of "get tough" cheap politics have done little to make people safer, have run up huge bills, and fucked-up a lot of people.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The problem with sex offenders is that no matter what kind of rehab/psych treatments the offender gets, they do not change their sexual preferences. As a father, I'm torn. I'd like nothing better for the skinners of the world to be locked up forever or put in general population and let the other convicts take care of the problem to protect children like mine.

If your kids are being diddled, chances are it's someone you know - the stereotypical pedo in a van is exceedingly rare, and your kids aren't that sexy.

That said, this is a SO registry, not a pedo registry, so I don't see what help it is barring someone who mooned the wrong guy from myspace is going to do.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[westlake]

A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?
Answer: Because without a group of people to vilify there is no easy way to sway the mindset of the public at large
.

Have you ever taken a look at your county's registry of sex offenders?

It tends to strip away any illusions you might have about how these men came to make the list.

It wasn't for pissing in the park:

From upstate New York:

Victims: Females Ages 1, 4, 7, and 10
Attempted sexual intercourse
MoreThanOnce Deviate Sexual Intercourse
MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
MoreThanOnce Promoting/Possessing Sexual Performance by a Child
Force used: Threat
Computer used: Yes
Pornography involved: Yes

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[BakaHoushi]

While I like your idea of judges voting, I think you're missing the most basic point.

No matter how well you word a law, no matter how thorough you are to close up the loopholes and no matter how specific you make it, some idiot, somewhere, will screw it up. It's a law of nature. Innocents will be hurt and the guilty will get away.

It's just a matter of being careful enough in your wording to make these instances as rare as you can.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[Dhalka226]

Well, you're correct that if somebody is attracted to children they will likely always be attracted to children.

At the same time, recidivism rates for sex offenders is relatively low compared to many other types of crime, particularly violent crime. They may always be attracted to children, but that doesn't mean they can't be helped to control their urges or find alternate, more accepted mediums to dispense with them. There is quite a bit of porn out there, for example, claiming that the girls are children (usually 16). They very often look it, but I suspect that's not true most of the time. Obviously I have no idea if that helps, in the long run. I know doing nothing doesn't help either though.

My main problem with all this sex offender stuff is like somebody said earlier: If they're so dangerous and can't be rehabilitated, just execute them or lock them up forever and be done with it. The idea that somebody can do their time and even not have any period of probation yet be subject for the rest of their lives to tracking (registries, etc) and humiliation/ostrasization/threats/physical harm/etc (being required to tell their neighbors if they move in, "no sex offender" housing zones) is not only repugnant to me, it seems to all but guarantee we turn them into criminals again in one way or another. These laws also seem to be all about that. Nobody who knows anything expects that this bill will ACTUALLY protect children from all but the stupidest of predators, but it's another thing for cops to be able to put a big-bad-predator back in jail. Regardless of whether or not he really did anything.

Let's just find some internal consistency. If being a sex offender is something that makes your life forfeit, then do that. If not, let's stop passing these idiotic laws so DAs can become politicians and politicians can claim to be tough on crime and protecting your children.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[CheeseTroll]

The ones in pieces around your front yard don't count.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[atraintocry]

While we're at it, maybe "rehab" shouldn't be a euphemism for the prison industry getting cheap forced labor out of inmates.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[ssstraub]

I took your challenger and looked up my county's registry of sex offenders and here's the first one I found (entirely at random) and it looks quite a bit like "pissing in the park" to me:

Appearance White Male; age 36; 5 ft. 7 in. tall; 145 pounds; Brown hair; Brown eyes

Sex Offender Registration Offenses:

Failure to Register as a Sex Offender 01/22/2007

Indecent Exposure 08/15/2005

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[LihTox]

1. The plural of anecdote isn't data. I'll believe that there are some nasty guys on sex offender lists, but I suspect there are also kids who had sex with their childhood sweetheart when they were underage, urinated in the park, etc.

2. If we want to keep track of nasty people after they've been in jail, why is this list restricted to SEX offenders? Is a murderer who's released after 20 years less of a danger to his community than a rapist?

3. No bones about it, these restrictions we place on sex offenders after they've served ARE punishment: they restrict their freedom, their ability to live where they want, work where they want, maybe even work at all. Is it fair to add to the sentence of criminals after the fact? Or would you sacrifice freedom for security at all costs?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[H310iSe]

Is our current system one which reforms? I agree with the OP we should reintroduce corporal punishments & shamings IF we continue with our current system. If we did effective reform in the penal system then I'd feel otherwise. As it stands, people find future time a bit abstract, I'm not sure people really know what 10 years in jail is (either those threatened with it or those who assign the penalties (lawmakers, the body politic) but they have a more concrete idea about what getting your palm horribly burned is. Maybe punishments would be more fair (both less and more harsh depending on the crime, I think some crimes are horribly overpunished and others underpunished) if the punishment was something people more accurately understood.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[jtn]

Why would anyone engage in sexual activity before marriage is completely beyond me. Non of these issues would happen if people just behave.

Uhh... you're aware that this idea is a relatively recent phenomenon, correct? In all of human history, the concepts of "sex" and "marriage" had only a casual relationship to each other.

Are you seriously linking pre-marital sex to things such as sexual abuse? I would love to see your research on the subject.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[TheLink]

Yep sex offenders could be high school kids _consensually_ having sex with each other.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia

"and later being offered and receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl" = "aggravated child molestation" = mandatory 10 year jail sentence.

Imagine if your friend got jailed for 10 years because you voluntarily initiated sex with him. Talk about mentally scarred for life, and so who was doing the scarring - your friend? No. The State.

Then there are cases of high school kids sending naked pictures of themselves to others... Kids do that sort of stuff. They're silly, but they never expect that the State might jail them in order to "protect them".

Who needs protection like that? The State ends up being one more threat to your children's safety - if not a bigger threat.

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[dgatwood]

"better 1,000 guilty go free than one innocent suffer wrongfully"

I very much agree with that sentiment in principle. In practice, though, the second one person dies because a judge was too lax on a convicted felon, the reactionaries come out of the woodwork and laws get passed. Maybe we just need a law that says that no law shall be passed in anger---a statutory waiting period before passing a law stemming from or named after the victim of a crime.... :-)

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[aldousd666]

Why the hell not? They get cheap free meals out of it. What the hell is wrong with having them work while they sit and ponder their predicament?

Re:Yes this makes perfect sense

[AK Marc]

The problem with sex offenders is that no matter what kind of rehab/psych treatments the offender gets, they do not change their sexual preferences.

The problem is that most people on the sex offender list aren't interested in sex with under-aged people or non-consentual sex of any kind. You can get on for having pics of yourself from under 18, or peed in an alley where you thought no one could see, there are cases of people getting on the list for being under age and having sex with someone else under age (some laws make it illegal for the male, no matter what their age), prostitution (consensual adult sex gets you on the sex offender list???), and such. With all the ways to get on that are not related to sex, or are related to sex, but include someone having sex with someone their own age when both agree to it, then you have a broken list. To claim that they will "re offend" is absurd when they never harmed anyone in the first place.

As a father, I'm torn.

Why? There are about 10 cases per year of a complete stranger kidnapping a child, sexaully abusing them, then killing them. That's 10. You are more likely to accidentally stab yourself to death, yet I don't know many people who run around screaming about that. If your child is molested, chances are you did it. If you didn't, then a family member or friend you let into the house did. Strangers that abduct, abuse, release offend at somewhere around 100 per year. The numbers for that one aren't kept. The number of abducted children is in the thousands (3000 to 20000 depending on the numbers you look at). Much more than half of the reported missing children were taken by a known family member with custodial rights (read that as, messy breakup/divorce and the kids are kept from one parent by the other). The others are almost all other family members taking the children. A minority are friends or acquaintences taking the children.

But the parents panic about the random strangers coming by and stealing their children. It just doesn't happen. It happens so little that when it does, nearly every case confirmed of it makes it on the news.

From what I understand, most of these predators are born with their preferences and develop them throughout adolescence.

We are second only to China for number of incarcerated people (as a percent of population). We don't have more predators. We aren't better at catching them. We are better at making up things that we then falsly associate with predators and throw them all in jail. It would be better to have *no* protections from predators than what we have in place now. Now, we make violent criminals out of alley-peers because they have to become that in prison or die, and when they get out, they can't get jobs or live in nice places. We invent criminals to further along our prison industry. That you buy into the panic only shows how effective the PR campaign is.

They should make a new domain

[BlowHole666]

They should make a new domain for sex offender e-mail addresses. Make every sex offender get an e-mail address at this domain and restrict their access to other free e-mail services. The domain can be called. hotmail.com

Re:They should make a new domain

[moderatorrater]

They should make a new domain for sex offender e-mail addresses...The domain can be called. hotmail.com

That sounds more like a domain for their targets.

Newest craze

[Rinisari]

"Your new account could not be created because your email address is on the US Federal Sex Offender List."

YOU GOT SEXROLL'D!

Re:Newest craze

[DaFallus]

$1 to whoever gets McCain's email added. $100 to whoever adds all of Congress!

KID SPA 2008?

[kinthalas]

Seriously? Anyone else think that's a bad name?

this legislation isn't really bad...

[MrCawfee]

... it's just stupid.

Myspace: Sorry, you can't create an account, you are a pervert.
Pervert: hmmmm, Eureka! I've Got It!
Hotmail: here, have an email account.
Myspace: I see you aren't a pervert now, welcome!

Poor arguments against it

[nsayer]

They are asking known criminals to be honest, and are expecting them not to utilize any of the free and readily available e-mail services that exist so as to circumvent the system.

Gun laws do not prevent felons from using guns to commit crimes. They do, however, mean that felons who use guns to commit further crimes get to stay in prison for much longer because of having violated those gun laws in addition to whatever crime they committed with the gun. That's what this law is about. It won't keep some perv from using mailnator to set up a myspace page, but if they get caught trolling myspace with it, the fact that they didn't register their e-mail address means that they get a longer prison sentence. That's the whole point.

There is also a potential for the crafty sex offender to possibly cause false positives by just registering an address that does not belong to them, thereby drawing in innocent bystanders.

1. Cui bono? Why would they bother to do this, except just to be a dick?

2. I rather suspect that the penalty for supplying false information will be comparably stiff to not supplying it at all, which would seem to be sufficient deterrent.

Re:Poor arguments against it

[lupis42]

But let me tell you, it would be far more hilarious to register Sarah Palin's yahoo account than to hack it.

Re:Poor arguments against it

[ScrewMaster]

2. I rather suspect that the penalty for supplying false information will be comparably stiff to not supplying it at all, which would seem to be sufficient deterrent.

You have much in common with our elected officials. They make assumptions about the laws they sign, and don't bother to read them either. As for me, I rather suspect that you will change your tune in a hurry if your name appears in the list (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you aren't already a sex offender.)

Re:Poor arguments against it

[Drakin020]

Gun laws do not prevent felons from using guns to commit crimes. They do, however, mean that felons who use guns to commit further crimes get to stay in prison for much longer because of having violated those gun laws in addition to whatever crime they committed with the gun. That's what this law is about. It won't keep some perv from using mailnator to set up a myspace page, but if they get caught trolling myspace with it, the fact that they didn't register their e-mail address means that they get a longer prison sentence. That's the whole point.

Then why not just make the sentence more harsh for second time offenders rather than create another law to increase the time in jail?

Re:Poor arguments against it

[boxxertrumps]

Because that's exactly what they would expect!

Re:Poor arguments against it

[nsayer]

Create enough false positives, and there could be enough public outcry to get the law repealed, or at least neutered.

If this law is implemented properly (yes, I know. Let's just say it is for the sake of argument), then our troll would have to appear before a police officer (or equivalent), identify themselves properly, and declare under penalty of perjury that the e-mail address they are registering is theirs.

Still think sufficient numbers of convicted sex offenders would be willing to commit a felony in a context where they'd be pretty easy to identify just as an act of civil disobedience?

Of course, if this isn't the procedure they set up, then of course it will be abused. And shame on them, if so. But that's not an argument against the law per se.

Re:Poor arguments against it

[narrowhouse]

If you want sex offenders to serve more time, increase the time sex offenders serve. Sentencing "enhancements" are legislative tricks to make it look like a politician is tough on crime. Every law that gives police an excuse to pull over your car fall in this same category. Want an argument against it? It is lazy, it is intellectually dishonest, and it is political showboating to pass a law that you don't think can or should be enforced properly just because it may come in handy as an excuse to increase jail time or authorize a search warrant, etc.

Why should using a gun increase the amount of time someone serves for a felony? If there is a problem with felons not serving enough time pass a law that allows sentences to be longer. Anything else will lead to inconsistent enforcement and sentencing for "equal" crimes. I don't care if someone killed a mother of 3 with a fork or an AK-47 and neither should you, the crime speaks for itself.

God help anyone wrongly convicted

[davinc]

Can't imagine spending my life with that albatross around my neck when I wasn't the one to shoot it.

Re:A good first step

[Anonymous Coward]

haha, yes, and any steps taken to curb terrorism are the right ones.

Re:I have no problem with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I read it this way:

Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008

KidSpa: Where the pedos go

Real purpose /= stated purpose

[ichbineinneuben]

Once again the politicians, with solemn faces, intone "Save the Children!" and pass a law the only demonstrable purpose of which is to make them look caring to constituents too ignorant to see it's flaws.

I hope the USA government has a lot of disk space

[Palinchron]

As the owner of a domain, I possess a countably infinite number of email addresses. All of them are mine, and I can use them when I feel like it. If I ever were to appear on this list, I suspect the USA government will run out of disk space before I run out of email addresses.

The same holds for anyone with a gmail account, by the way, with the *+username@gmail.com addressing scheme and all.

The only use for this law is to stack charges

[Halo-]

I would be surprised if this law prevented even a single case of contact between a known offender and a child.

The only thing it will ever be used for is to tack another charge onto the sentences of repeat offenders if they are found to have not registered. (Which is a good thing, but is a side-effect...)

The same result could be obtained by simply increasing the punishment for sexual offenses. This would cost less are possibly deter more (since it could be across the board, and not just for reoffenders who got caught and then discovered to be in non-compliance) Of course, it wouldn't allow MySpace to slap a happy "sex-offender free zone!" sticker on their website, and wouldn't let McCain play the "See, I know about the Internet... kinda... and I protect children! Yea me!" card.

I suppose it will also be fun to see how this is spun as a groundbreaking wonderful thing in tonight's debate.

Re:The only use for this law is to stack charges

[fastest fascist]

The only thing it will ever be used for is to tack another charge onto the sentences of repeat offenders if they are found to have not registered. (Which is a good thing, but is a side-effect...)

A good thing? Really? I'd prefer a legal system that doesn't play shenanigans to add years to convicts' sentences, whatever the crime. If you want harder sentences for an offence, make the sentences harder, don't corrupt the legal process with this kind of crap.

Re:The only use for this law is to stack charges

[pavon]

The same result could be obtained by simply increasing the punishment for sexual offenses.

No, because if you did that you could only punish people who committed sex offenses after the law was passed. Why settle for that when you can pass laws that continually to tack on additional punishments to people who have already paid their debt to society? People who have committed a crime in the past don't deserve to have any sort of freedom.

Tagging

[VE3OGG]

Someone please tag this 'youhavegottobekiddingme'!

Do these politicians even run this drivel past their kids. Surely a 10 year old could point out the flaws in these bills...

not really expecting criminals to be honest

[roc97007]

IANAL, but the idea with these kind of laws is usually to create a lesser charge that can be used as leverage to prevent a greater crime for occurring. In this case, a sex offender can be taken offline for having their email address on a kid's forum, without having to wait for them to start a relationship with a minor. It's important to be very cautious about these kinds of laws, but in this case, I have to cautiously agree.

Too late

[philspear]

Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008

So... when did the "Getting rid of the sexual predators and deviants already on the internet act" get passed?

Seriously?

[jlarocco]

This can't be real, can it? Did he threaten to clog their tubes if they didn't comply?

Sigh.

Re:A good first step

[interstellar_donkey]

Yes, and the best way to do this is to place a blanket law over all sex offenders that makes it impossible to do normal things on the Internet, like starting a myspace page.

Despite what you think, not all registered sex offenders are evil people. A 19 year old kid can go out and get drunk with his buddies and moon people out of a moving car window, get caught and convicted of indecent exposure (a little girl said she saw the guys butt!) and has to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, despite being no threat whatsoever to children.

I'm not trying to defend child molesters here; that is probably one of the worst crimes imaginable. I'm just saying that just because you're a registered sex offender, it does not always mean you're a kiddy porn hungry pervert.

Perhaps a better law would be one that provides funding to help teach kids on the Internet about sexual predators and give them the information they need to avoid them.

Re:flaws maybe

[X0563511]

One would also hope that there was a way to reliably be removed from said list, by proving who you are with said address.

Re:We CAN'T really be this stupid...

[interstellar_donkey]

Maybe. Perhaps a followup law could be that all spammers would have to register their email addresses, so we'd be protected from getting friend requests from women who want to show us their naughty web-cams.

That'd be just as effective, right?

Hey editors: This isn't McCain's bill!

[Ortega-Starfire]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-431

Sponsor: Sen. Charles Schumer [D-NY]

Co-Sponsors:
Cosponsors [as of 2008-10-15]
Sen. Ted Stevens [R-AK]
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]
Sen. John Kerry [D-MA]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]
Sen. Hillary Clinton [D-NY]
Sen. Barack Obama [D-IL]
Sen. Jon Kyl [R-AZ]
Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I-CT]
Sen. Olympia Snowe [R-ME]
Sen. Michael Crapo [R-ID]
Sen. Arlen Specter [R-PA]
Sen. Tim Johnson [D-SD]
Sen. Mary Landrieu [D-LA]
Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Sen. Charles Grassley [R-IA]
Sen. Kay Hutchison [R-TX]
Sen. John Cornyn [R-TX]
Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT]
Sen. David Vitter [R-LA]
Sen. Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]

Any reason you feel like mentioning McCain but not Hillary, or the fact that they were merely co-sponsors? Or the fact that the vote was in fact, unanimous?

Re:Hey editors: This isn't McCain's bill!

[JeanPaulBob]

Any reason you feel like mentioning McCain but not Hillary, or the fact that they were merely co-sponsors? Or the fact that the vote was in fact, unanimous?

Well... Wired says that McCain wrote the bill. That's why the editors mentioned McCain.

But your link throws that into question. There's no indication at the govtrack site that McCain had anything to do with writing it--Schumer is the main sponsor, and McCain shows up in a list of co-sponsors along with Obama.

Also, Schumer said in his speech that he authored the bill, and doesn't mention McCain.

So... I call Shenanigans on Wired.

Re:Hey editors: This isn't McCain's bill!

[DerekLyons]

Any reason you feel like mentioning McCain but not Hillary, or the fact that they were merely co-sponsors? Or the fact that the vote was in fact, unanimous?

It's called smear tactics and political bias when done why the Right. It's called 'oops we did that? so sorry' when done by the Left.

Don't you mean selectively enforceable?

[ODiV]

Now they have more to charge someone with!

Re:A good first step

[nine-times]

Perhaps a better law would be one that provides funding to help teach kids on the Internet about sexual predators and give them the information they need to avoid them.

Of course, if you suggest that law, your political opponents might make ads accusing you of wanting to teach kindergardeners about sex.

Re:A good first step

[interstellar_donkey]

Good thing I'm not a politician. Because honestly, if the government doesn't teach our kindergartners about sex, who will? Sexual predators, that's who. Sad, sad state of affairs.

Re:A good first step

[nine-times]

Well, I was somewhat making a joke. In case you don't know, McCain ran an ad against Obama regarding this exact issue.

In short, Obama supported a bill which provided "age appropriate sex education", which for young kids meant teaching them to avoid predators. McCain put out ads that tried to make it seem like Obama just wants to teach little kids about sex.

ACRONYMS == BAD

[RyoShin]

As a general rule, any act that has a "cute" or "fancy" nickname is instantly a very bad one, passed only to increase one's chances of re-election or up the approval rating. They likely spend more time thinking of the bill's acronym rather than the actual bill.

This act is no different. "Ah, but what's KIDSP?" you ask. I wondered that myself, and then I saw it:

Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008
KIDS' Predators Act (Apostrophe mine)

Aw, how cute. I bet they spent an hour trying to figure out how to get the apostrophe in there.

Remember, folks: A->B does not mean that !A->!B. An act can still be bad without a nice acronym, but the congresscritters make it easier to spot bad bills by adding them in.

The point is...

[C10H14N2]

To create an ever expanding list of things that are not criminal unless you've already committed a crime.

So, you're out from something that got you on the sex offender list. You've served five years and have no inclination toward recidivism. You accidentally send an email to your mom from a friend's account extolling the virtues of Rhubarb and suddenly you're hit with twenty-years' backup time, plus a new charge adding an additional ten years for using an unregistered email address.

A friend of mine didn't get the notice a court fee didn't post and his license was suspended. So, driving four miles per hour under the limit, he got stopped and they informed him of the suspension. Welcome to fifteen years backup plus another one... for a paperwork mistake.

These laws aren't meant to keep people who truly are dangerous off the streets. They're designed to hold a de facto life sentence over anyone convicted of any crime and ensure that Corrections Corp. of America experiences perpetual "market expansion."

Re:The point is...

[atraintocry]

Cynicism is cool and all, but there's nothing impossible about doing something illegal, getting caught, and deciding upon being released from jail that you won't do it again. I know more than one person who's followed that pattern.

Put another way: I don't see any hard evidence for the idea that people are intrinsically "good people" or "evil people". I do see evidence for the idea that people screw up, and not everyone is rich enough to shield themselves from the consequences of that.

Re:The point is...

[Reziac]

I've noticed a huge increase in the "we'll get you one way or another" type of laws ever since private industry got hold of the prison system. D'ya think there just might be some lobbying and conflict of interest there, hmmmm??

Example: CA Prop 6, on this November's ballot, would make it a felony to fail to register with police if you're a gang member. (For this post, we'll ignore the fact that it's unconstitutional as it violates the right of freedom of assembly.) Now, what good is such a law? It means that if you get picked up on suspicion, but there is NO EVIDENCE that you committed a crime, they can still get you if you're an "unregistered" gang member.

An existing law makes it a felony to "injure" or "interfere with" a police dog "in pursuit of its duty". So if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, a cop sics his dog on you, and you quite reasonably defend yourself against that dog (who clearly wants to rip your arm off) by giving the dog a swift kick, you've just committed a felony, EVEN THO UNTIL THAT MOMENT YOU HAD COMMITTED NO CRIME.

Recent laws are full of crap like that. Cue Ayn Rand....

The REALITY on the ground

[ihtarlik]

Speaking as someone who has years of experience dealing with "the sex offender issue," I can tell you that this law (like many others proposed at the state level) will be counterproductive. Some states and the Federal Government currently have the ability to keep dangerous individuals locked up indefinitely. It's called civil commitment.

Recently, in Missouri, several state senators have begun speaking up about more intelligent legislation regarding sex offenders. The unintended consequence of having harsher laws is that they further remove an individual from society. It is that removal and isolation that prompts them to delve deeper into deviancy.

We need laws that allow for tracking, but that do not create further punishment where no more criminal acts are involved. Also, about 4-5% of "sex offenders" are the really heinous ones we hear about on the news. The other 95% are unlikely to commit another sex crime.

For more accurate information, see the article "Misunderstood Crimes" by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld, featured in Scientific American Mind, April/May 2008, page 78-9.

Historical Machiavelli a bit different

[zooblethorpe]

The real irony in many ways is that Niccolò Macchiavelli was actually very much a republican (as in, one who favors the republic as a form of governance :), but one who understood that the republic can falter. The New Yorker posted an interesting (and long) look at his life last month, which is worth the read for anyone interested. Machiavelli's possibly most well-known work, Il Principe , can indeed come across as archetypically "machiavellian" (as we use the term today), but reading it more closely brings to light advice to would-be rulers that they cannot be callous, ruthless bastards and expect to hold onto their jobs for very long. Some choice quotes, courtesy the linked article:

A prince must have the people on his side, otherwise he will not have support in adverse times.

A prince need not worry unduly about conspiracies when the people are well disposed toward him. But if they are his enemies and hate him, he must fear everything and everybody.

The best fortress for the prince is to be loved by his people.

Ultimately, the current strategy in the US of criminalizing broad swaths of otherwise harmless behaviour and locking up everyone who disagrees with the movers and shakers is pretty far from Machiavelli's advice to would-be rulers, given the mounting discontent this generates. Machiavelli actually comes across a bit as an old-school Taoist (in terms of Lao-zi, not Zhuang-zi) -- keep the people fat, happy, and dumb, and they will be easy to rule. Pissing them off and depriving them of common liberties left and right just isn't a smart move.

Cheers,

Re:Historical Machiavelli a bit different

[xenocide2]

"The Prince" was spectacularly bad advice. Anyone following it would surely disgrace not only themselves in the end, but also their families for generations to come. Families like the Medicci. His advice is basically: arm the citizens, emulate the tyrant son of the Pope, Cesare Borgia, and to appoint people who opposed you as advisors. This is a recipe for failure, amusingly justified throughout the book.

Under no circumstance does "The Prince" advocate keeping the people fat, happy and dumb. He advocates cultivating fear, since no action can be undertaken to be loved. He says it's better to be a miser than give to the people and risk being hated. He doesn't say much about keeping the people dumb, other than to say that deceiving them is okay. The quotes you offer are missing the context that basically, a prince has little control over making things "best" so here's a different method that's good enough. They're also subject to the wishes of translators, who perhaps bring in a small portion of their own bias to the work.

Machiavelli is a guy who wished to see the states of Italy returned to their former Roman republican glory. But the Prince was either a weapon to trick the Princes, or a satire that few people have the experience to recognize. You have no need to cite the least democratic writing to demonstrate his affinity -- he's written a massive volume on republics!

Re:A good first step

[nine-times]

Ah. Haven't we reached a sad state of affairs? Neither of our jokes were funny.

that's true of a lot of things, though

[Trepidity]

The sort of person who has demonstrated at least once that they're willing to assault someone with a deadly weapon not in self defense is a violent sort of person who could well do it again. Yet, assault with a deadly weapon isn't an automatic life sentence without parole, and so some potentially dangerous people are released, and yes, some of these people subsequently assault another person. We make tradeoffs between protecting society and locking everyone up all the time.

My, how puritanical and irrational that entry is.

[plasmacutter]

Let's examine the last part of this shall we?

Force used: Threat
Computer used: Yes
Pornography involved: Yes

What is so special about computers and pornography?

How about we also include other entries to vilify baselessly through connection with child abuse.

Public roads used: yes

Oh you use the interstate? *whisper*it's probably one of those perverts, you know the ones, get steph up to her room*whisper*

Late Model Automobile used: yes
Briefcase used: Yes
Designer Suit used: yes
Perscription eyeglasses used: yes

Now instead of vilifying computer geeks, suddenly every corporate executive, doctor, and lawyer will be eyed as a potential threat to the innocence of your child.

For another, quite realistic example:
Cross used: Yes
Collar used: Yes
Communion wafers used: Yes

There's a name for this

[(Score.5, Interestin]

In game theory this is sometimes referred to as the "asking the drunk whether he's drunk" strategy. It works about as well as could be expected.

Jail people for thought crime?

[TheLink]

"The problem with sex offenders is that no matter what kind of rehab/psych treatments the offender gets, they do not change their sexual preferences"

1) Not all sex offenders are what you are thinking of (others have pointed it out)

2) So but do they reoffend? This is a nerd site, let's have some evidence.

Not a reliable source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender#Recidivism_rates

But even if they reoffend, robbers and violent people reoffend too (arguably at higher rates), they're not locked up forever.

You still give them another chance. Even if they keep doing it again.

I'd rather live in a society that's civilized enough to give people another chance, rather than lock them up forever, or execute them.

If rehabilitation doesn't work (maybe the rehab methods are broken? Fix them then) and they keep proving themselves dangerous then lock them up longer (you don't have to torture them - just lock them up), rather than put them on stupid lists.

3) So what if they don't change their sexual preferences?

The last I checked not every guy rapes girls they are attracted to, not every guy has consensual sex with another man's wife/girlfriend just because they are attracted to each other.

What are you going to do? Jail them for thought crime?

They're already jailing people for possessing child porn.

In some places adultery is illegal (I'm sure that includes parts of the USA), so maybe they should start jailing people for having movies of that AND get turned on by watching it.

Maybe they'll jail you one day and put you on a sex offender list because you were undressing a woman with your eyes, against her will.

Or jail and list your son because he had this silly app on his phone that fakes "undressing a woman" given a photo.

Re:McCain is Computer illiterate

[geekgirlandrea]

Yeah, but they haven't figured out how to let someone without a brain use a computer yet. McCain will have to wait a bit longer.

Well Gee Willikers more, FEARMONGERING FOOLS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey folks, you know what's really funny? Is that a 12 people can be convinced that someone is guilty of a sex offense simply on the basis of an accusation. Why do I say this? Oh gee, could that really happen? YES! It happened to me and yes I am "registered".

I dated a girl for a few weeks and dumped her for a girl who used to be her best friend. To make a long story short, the girl was so jealous and pissed off about the whole thing first she tried to ruin the relationship. When that didn't work, she went to the to the cops and told them some fucked up cock and bull story and claimed that I tried to rape her when she was wasted (a year prior to her report of the alleged crime!!!). When they asked her about her "delay" she said she was "confused" because "we were friends".

Well my friends (as that cock sucker McCain likes to say), that's all it took. From the word go, the cops and the court treated me like a drooling pervert who was hiding in the bushes ready to jump on prepubescent children (though the alleged "victim" was of consensual age).

I didn't have a chance in hell of being found innocent despite the fact that I truly was. I was simply railroaded. I was charged in late 1999, went to trial (while on bond) in 2000, found guilty, spent 18 months of a 3 year mandatory miniumum (out of a possible 15 year maximum) and my conviction was overturned pending further investigation and I was released from prison. I then spent 22 months on GPS monitored house arrest. The courts found unfavorably in my appellate matter (because they didn't want to set a precedent to actually give a defendant accused of a sexual crime his due process rights and presumed innocence)and sent me back to prison and I ended up doing 2 more years. As a result of the so called "justice" system I lost a promising career as a network administrator and IT project manager.

When I was paroled from prison I was barred from computer use and could not have an verbal or physical contact with children and not allowed to use a computer for 2 years despite the fact the allegation involved neither a child or a computer.

All of you motherfuckers who have this "hang em high" mentality are the same type of mental midgets who sent this innocent man to prison. I lost EVERYTHING I ever worked for and I'll never get it back, and it's all because fools like McCain and all of these other sensless idiots are so god damn gung ho to "hang em high" with no facts to support their agendas. The truth of the matter is, NONE of these laws against "sex offenders" work. If someone has made up their mind that they want to act out criminally no law is going to stop them from doing it.

I am sick the fuck to death of these idiots in congress and the "justice" system coming up with more and more ways to effectively change the sentence I was already given and DONE serving (FOR A CRIME THAT NEVER OCCURRED IN THE FIRST PLACE).

The lawmakers and "justice" system continuously look for new ways to disenfranchise those who are registered. And believe me my friends, these actions do not foster warm fuzzy feelings in a "registered" individual. These actions push these people further to the fringes of society and make them more crazy than they'd ever be if they were just left alone. What incentive is there for these individuals to change or seek help when society sends them the message that they are worthless outcasts, and 3rd class citizens with no rights? Or continuously diminishing rights?

The bottom line is, if these motherfuckers are so dangerous, why in the fuck would you ever let them out of jail or prison in the first fucking place?!?!?!?! If these bastards really want to do something about REAL sex offenders (who's crimes can actually be PROVEN FACTUALLY) why don't they INCREASE the penalties to keep them off the streets (instead of coming up with USELESS garbage legislation like this).

Signed,

"Registered and Fed Up"