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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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?

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: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: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.

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: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

[nine-times]

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

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