Slashdot Mirror
Sex Offenders Must Hand Over Online Passwords
mytrip writes "Privacy advocates are questioning an aggressive Georgia law set to take effect Thursday that would require sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses. Georgia joins a small band of states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track Internet addresses of sex offenders, but it is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16,000 offenders to turn in their passwords as well."
Yay Big Brother!
Seriously, if these people have done their time, leave them the fuck alone.
There is a war going on for your mind.
'Cause everyone knows that an adult who would abuse sexually abuse or rape someone is otherwise a perfectly law abiding citizen and wouldn't even THINK of using an anonymous account or a proxy.
As for the non violent offenders that no one is really worried about, well, too bad - they should have waited until her 18th birthday.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
...and you are better off swimming across the Rio Grande in the wrong direction than complying with this. This almost makes the county that makes you live under a bridge look sane by comparison.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
...this won't work? Or is that redundant because this is slashdot, and people here aren't idiots? I mean seriously, do these bureaucrats ACTUALLY believe sex offenders won't just make more accounts, or are they pretending to do something important(tm)?
I wonder how many accounts they will get named "Anonymous"...
Because no one would ever log into a website with a known sex offender's password and make incriminating posts in order to have said offender sent back to prison. Seriously, what will be the penalty when (not if) this happens?
My first reaction was that this is a grievous and unnecessary violation of privacy that would lead to nothing more than snooping by bored civil servants.
But FTFA:
"Staton said although the measure may violate the privacy of sex offenders, the need to protect children "outweighs a lot of the rights of these individuals."
So it's alright then...
I dreamed of Freud: What does this mean?
That's chunkylover53@aol.com. All one word. @ AOL.com.
As a Georgia resident, my opinion on this is that if they're still dangerous we should keep them in jail. This half-assed stuff just weakens civil liberties for law abiding citizens.
This is my sig, there are many like it, but this one is mine...
It's going to be hard to fight this sort of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" type of thing. I mean, what are you? A pedophile? After all, only sex offenders that haven't yet been busted would object, right? So which is it? Little boys or little girls?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Three words: I can't remember.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Remember what "Sex Offenders" means.
It means people who raped others, or abused others.
It means people who were accused of rape or abuse and couldn't defend themselves.
It means 23-year-olds who were caught sleeping with their 17-year-old boyfriend or girlfriend.
It means 18-year-olds who were caught sleeping with their 17-year-old boyfriend or girlfriend.
It means 17-year-olds who took photographs of themselves naked, to send to their 17-year-old boyfriend or girlfriend.
It means 17-year-olds whose 17-year-old boyfriend or girlfriend, unasked, took pictures of themselves naked and sent them.
It means people who were driving cross-country late at night, couldn't find a public bathroom, stopped off behind a bush at 3am in the morning, and were arrested for "public indecency".
Fall into any of the above categories? You're already shunned for life, and now, you'll have to turn over all the keys to your privacy to a bunch of government workers. But don't worry, I'm sure the well-paid honorable government employees wouldn't dream of breaching the privacy of a bunch of sex offenders.
That could never happen.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
What is the point of this? If the sex-offenders have already been caught and tried, then what does this prove? If they have already been sentenced, then any incriminating evidence is merely extra. If they haven't been tried, then can't they plead the "5th"? Finally, if this is to deter them from doing heinous acts in the future, then what is to stop them from opening another account?
To me, this smacks of government types trying to set a legal precedent for taking over peoples passwords, online identities, etc. Because it is the evil sex offenders, the public won't care. Then later the government can say: "But there is a precedent for taking passwords; its been done for a long time." Then the public shrugs and figures that if it has been going on for a while, then it can't be all that bad. And another personal liberty is thus erased.
Unity in Diversity
i think this violates the 5th amendment in my view, cause you are givin' up information stored in your head up to be used against you.
From the article:
The Internet isn't safe for children. That's why parents should do their job and know what their kids are doing online not using the government to create a nanny-state.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Didn't a federal court in Vermont recently rule that even child pornographers didn't have to turn over their passwords on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves?
I don't remember my passwords. I just use biometrics. Does that mean if I was a sex offender in Georgia I'd have to hand over my finger? Talk about illegal search and seizure.
The only way to make passwords more secure is to use other more personal mechanisms to identify yourself. Too bad politicians don't have foresight.
The set of paedophiles also includes orifiers of the CIA, the FBI, the police, court judges and city councillors.
This law, which gives those paedophiles the legal power to use another paedophile's account anywhere, anytime is a paedophile's dream come true.
Blancmange
Now I'm from Georgia and I have to say my response to this is:
Sixteen frikkin' thousand!?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
You do realize that the output of a biometric scanner is a data file, right? It can be copied and presented to a machine that expects to be talking to a biometric scanner, but is actually talking to your computer pretending to be a biometric scanner and feeding it the same file.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Who - the children? Dont you think they have suffered enough allready!
they turn over their passwords, and then change them before the feds can log on and read their data?
It would be better to just get a warrant for the web sites to turn over records of the sex offender's accounts, as well as constitutional as well.
Much as I hate sex offenders, they still have constitutional rights like any other group. If you want to monitor them online, you need a warrant. If not then anything you get from them turning over their passwords cannot be used in court against them, and they will walk free.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
A while back, when California instituted gun registration, the courts eventually ruled that felons (and others who could not legally own guns) did not have to comply since it would be an admission of guilt. Law abiding citizens, however, were still required to register their guns. Within a few years, no doubt we'll see law-abiding people forced to turn over their passwords while criminals are protected.
It's only a matter of time.. until this spreads to other types of offenders: Drug offenders will likely be the next target. That includes low level drug offenders, caught with small amounts of cannabis.
In some places, you could even get a drug offense for having your medications outside of the prescription bottle..
And don't think it will stop there..
-Myke
This may be more academic than anything else.
But, if you were to access an account with someone else's credentials, are you bound to the Terms of Service for that site?
What if the TOS states that only the person who signed up is allowed access to the site? What if the TOS states that you are not allowed to share or grant access to others? Is the State allowed to break these rules? Should they be allowed? I know if I ran a site, I would not want people who did not agree to my TOS to use my site. Of course, if I ran a site that allowed user logins, perhaps I might add: "Unless it is to undermine the exploitation of children" or an "I reserve the right to cooperate with authorities".
cecil.staton@senate.ga.gov
To the Schmoe Known As Cecil Staton,
Please keep in mind I write this as a former victim of sexual abuse. The internet is NOT child friendly and I for one, do not want a child friendly internet. If you want a child friendly internet, purchase your child a computer with a locked case and connect it to the internet through another computer that you run a set of white listed sites on. Keep your Big Brother schemes to yourself. Seriously, the government is already able to tap all of our emails, our phones, our bank accounts, etc for up to 4 months with no oversight what so ever due to the latest version of the FISA bill and the completely misnamed 'Patriot Act'. Our forefathers would be rolling over in their graves if they knew how fast some of you 'representatives' insist on annihilating our rights. Someone screams 'For the children' and every lawmaker who doesn't have balls larger than a pea suddenly bitches out faster than a 18 year old skinny white boy in maximum security shower. You disgust me.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXX X. XXXX, an Arizonan who will NEVER move to your state.....
If they're already a sex offender , then they've already been convicted, and presumably done whatever time/penance for their "crimes", right?
What if they just say "No." when asked for their passwords? What can happen? Is it a crime to deny someone the right to violate your rights now? Remember, criminals have rights, just like the rest of us. You can't just slap some "rider" on their crime and force compliance.
And more importantly, what would handing over those passwords do to protect the rights and privacy of those who have been "offended"?
If someone has already done their time and chooses to go online and join some knitting mailing lists or decides to take up scrapbooking (let's not forget that women are an equal, if not larger percentage of sex offenders, caught and convicted, not just men), does some government lackey then log into their email account "just to make sure" there's nothing incriminating in there? Do they log into all of the systems they have access to? I just don't see the point.
Nothing good can come of this.
Do the government lackeys change the password, locking out the original owner? Do they send emails on their behalf? I don't see the point of asking for this information, since it can provide ABSOLUTELY zero additional security to the "offended", nor can it stop a determined prior offender from creating a new identity and account.
This does nothing, except further erode our existing privacy and rights and sets a precedent that is impossible to undo, once ingrained. The government has proven themselves time and time again to be incapable of properly handling data in a secure way (losing emails, warrantless searches and wiretapping, etc.) that handing them this information would be downright stupid.
Seriously, " Just Say No ", and let them slap you with contempt or a fine, then fight that in court, instead of setting a precedent that erodes all of our rights; those who are not being convicted of any crimes.
I have access to systems that requires password access to, that I will NEVER give access to anyone from any government, especially if they say I "have to" give them the password. (But I've already made this clear before).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal
No, I be new here!
I got some bad grammar
1) Hand over passwords
2) Commit illegal online acts
3) Cite inevitable failure of state security audit as proof that your username/password can no longer be uniquely tied to you
4) Reasonable doubt acquittal
...and you are better off swimming across the Rio Grande in the wrong direction than complying with this. This almost makes the county that makes you live under a bridge look sane by comparison.
Actually, Mexican law is pretty easy on getting into it. From the American border, you just need about 25Â last time I lived 30 mins from the border for college. Even if the price doubled, 50Â to get into the country? What a steal!
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It's meant to be an excuse to toss people into jail when they slip up. It'll either be unenforced but used to toss someone in jail when the prosecutor has a bug up his ass over someone otherwise innocent, or be unevenly punished across racial/class/whatever strata.
Nearly the entirety of US law is built for this purpose.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
First problem: the fifth amendment. Second problem: ex post facto. This is imposing a new punishment after the crime was committed, so it can't apply to any current sex offenders.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The reasoning behind letting people out of prison is that they are sufficiently rehabilitated to once again live in society. When a prisoner walks out the doors, society's responsibility is to allow him a chance to reintegrate. You don't do that by alienating him and strapping a giant red warning light onto his back. That creates recidivism.
Someone hack his password and post it on line.
Have gnu, will travel.
Officials seem to be overlooking one issue with more and more laws demanding gathering of more and more data. The more you have, the harder it gets to find the important stuff, and filter it out from the mass of completely innocent stuff. In theory it must be a great response barked out like a trained dog to any problem "how do we address issue ...... ?" "sir, gather more data sir!!!".
It's gonna be even more useless the more proprietary formats and platforms are used in gathering it. The success of Microsoft's army of lobbyists (among others) who peddle constantly changing closed source formats will actually work against the effectiveness of law enforcement. All it will do it fill up hard drives with very little real effect.
How many seized PC's are stacked up in evidence rooms around the world waiting to be forensically gone over? More are seized every day. This is needed, but the only way it can be done with any degree of effectiveness is to carefully aim your net, not just grab everything that moves in the hope that some day your staff will stumble onto something important, after months and months of nothing.
In this case, it's usernames and passwords, but we all know it's impossible to create a new account on websites right? Maybe the authorities are planning on patenting the "create new account" function on websites since they clearly haven't noticed it's already in widespread use.
If your PC is legally allowed to be examined with no notice under some punishment handed down by the court, then anyone with an ounce of sense would use something like a live CD with an encrypted USB pendrive for stored data.
I don't like the big brother mentality that virtually every government around the world seem to be heading towards to some degree, but even with the most rabid of lobby groups and agenda setters, it's not as efficient as it's made out to be. It would seriously helped if governments got people who at least know what electricity is to work out laws that affect IT. It seems most of our politicians may still think that's a little candle inside that bulb which mysteriously lights itself when you flick the switch.....judging by the insane and completely unworkable ideas they try to push out.
THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-Martin NiemÃller
Does this mean that sex offenders can't go to school?
great someone is thinking:
"start with a group/groups that everyone hate(s)" http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Image:Martin-Niemoeller.jpg pasted from that link They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Dont Judge The situation by the Misfortunate. Goga.
If they started MySpace or FaceBook groups called "I'm a sex offender, get me out of here" as an amnesty of sorts. Who knows, you could do a webcam stream on ustream of the contestants eating bugs in a prison cell with an online poll of whether they should be rewarded with a kick in the spuds, or the star prize....castration by snake bite.
The problem is that we usually give people _huge_ sentences, then suspend 80% of the time so we can hold it over them when they get out, add about half that again in probation. Then, while on probation, if you fark up _anything_ they haul you back in, threaten to give you all your backup time, which they might, then tag on some additional time and probation for your violation.
In effect, once you become a felon, you are probably going to drop dead before you truly have "served your time."
"start with a group/groups that everyone hate(s)"
they started with the Muslims, remember??? !!!
Dont Judge The situation by the Misfortunate. Goga.
Why do they need their passwords to track them? This makes me much less confident in the abilities of the trackers to do their jobs. What can they do with a password that they can't do without?
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
It is a State that meets the very definition of evil. I can tell true stories that would horrify even the most conservative/protective of individuals elsewhere. I believe the only way to save the State Of Georgia is too nuke it from orbit. I guess I had better wait for Georgia to charge me with making Criminal Threats for the above statement in 3.2.1. Georgia makes the old Soviet Union look like a Free and Democratic society.
Your neighbour can use this lie because there ARE actually people to whom it happened.
"It wasn't me your honor. It must have been that government official to whom I gave my password."
Any sex offender convicted of an offense against anyone in my family would be donating their private parts permanently. So I'd say they are getting a good deal.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I happen to work in GA. One of my coworkers is a registered sex offender. I was tipped off about it by an ex-employee who had gotten canned and was upset that he'd gotten fired when the company allowed a sex offender to stay.
So I confirmed the info. My coworker is indeed on the GBI registry and he knows that I know. It's not something that impacts his work here in any way and I frankly don't worry about it.
The company we work for does a lot of work that involves trade secrets and confidential information, which we have promised to our clients that we will protect. We have a legal obligation to do so. We also have internet access at work and it's sort of integrated into the services we provide.
My question is: does my co-worker now have to hand over his work passwords to the state?
And if so, and the state decides to go snooping around my company's network..... I cannot imagine a good outcome. Everything from our confidential data exposed to state workers who haven't signed our privacy agreements, or client data accessed and downloaded on a non-secure PC used for who knows what, to pages printed out and passed around a state office. We don't know who those state workers are and dammit we are not going to allow them to touch our data or our client's data.
There is absolutely NO way we can allow the state to have that kind of access without a warrant, and it had better be a federal warrant. If my coworker hands over his work passwords, the company will fire him, which will immediately screw all of our clients and throw the place into turmoil that it will probably never recover from. The company -already eyeing closing this office- will take this as a good time to close the GA office and put another 60 people out of work and off the tax rolls.
And what will ruining one man's life gain the state or anyone else? Not a damn thing.
I'm not going tell my coworker. If he doesn't know, he won't be forced to comply and I won't be forced to
Just getting arrested doesn't mean he has to be on the sex offender list - he had to also get charged by the wrong DA and sentenced by the wrong judge. And all this time he hasn't written to the governor for a pardon?
Sex offenders don't generally get pardons, no matter how silly the offense is. The reason is that no politician wants to be the one who has attack ads about them pardoning sex offenders.
If they surrender their screen name and their password, can someone else log in and pretend to be them while saying doing whatever? It seems like an unethical person could log in as one of these people and get them into a lot of trouble.
I see a huge problem with this. Lets say you are chatting online with one of these mild sex offenders who just pissed off the wrong cop. Lets also say these chats are saved online so they can be viewed later by you or the sex offender. If the sex offender has to give up your password he is not only surrendering his privacy but yours as well because the government will be able to see your conversation with him. This seems like a bad invasion of privacy for you especially because you did nothing but chat with a sex offender.
What's to prevent this sort of thing from being extended beyond sex offenders to include other types of crime, such as gangs, drugs, theft, etc? Before you know it, anybody convicted of anything is required to hand over everything. And then you accidentally cross the street when it says, "Don't Walk" and you're toast.
http://www.gnupg.org/
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
for "Anonymous/password1". Time for all the breast-feeding pics posting moms on Facebook to give up their dirty accounts.
Seriously, soon the catch-all term will be "moral offenders" and half of you foul-mouth slashdotters will have to give up your late-night pissing passion. What do you think our "legislators" do all day while their aids and lobbyist write and broker all the laws? How about "hmmm how can I appear tough on crime, create jobs (busywork), and squeeze more contribution from various groups?" Somebody's got to create a new system to track and maintain this secret info. Like the billion dollar data mining projects that has kept us safe and the wrong people from boarding planes (riiight). I'm sure a few db vendors and contractors are happy to hear the news. Surely none of those people ever abuse their security privileges to surf porn with company equipment.
12345
I believe the point of the whole idea is that the monitoring/tracking is part of their sentence.
No. Otherwise the judge would apply it at sentencing, and it would not automatically apply to everyone. You could make it part of the terms of parole, but that is not what we are talking about here.
If a cop gets mad because someone urinates in public view and arrests that person, I want to be able to do the same. i.e. if I catch a cop/a law enforcement agent/their family members in the act then I can register a case against them.
If they allow this, they might as well also put a video camera and microphone around the guy's neck and record his interactions for the rest of his life.
But why is it a sex offense if the people peeing in bushes are actually concealing their genitals from view?
It's _peeing_. What's wrong with the people who came up with such laws? What kind of perverts are they?
If the pee touches property they don't own, fine them for littering or illegal dumping of waste.
Say I wear adult diapers, and somehow people find out that I'm peeing, does that mean I could be considered a sex offender too?
So what's the difference if I hide my genitals using bushes and pee, and people spot me doing it but not my "privates"?
Heck, IMO those who peek at (or even expose) people who try to conceal their peeing, are more likely to be sex offenders than those doing the peeing.
It's like the McCarthy era in a way. No-one opposed his witchhunts lest they be labeled a communist themselves. It doesn't matter how intrusive, unconstitutional, or unethical a law against a sex offender is. It'll almost always pass, lest people start to whisper...
Any politician who doesn't support harsh punishment has practically guaranteed themselves a tremendous loss come election time at the minimum, if not an outright recall.
"He's not in favor of non-sedated castration for sex offenders! I'll bet he reads kiddie porn..."
Why hold "sex offense" out as something special? Why not start tracking thieves and murderers as well? I'm assuming information about criminal records is part of the public record anyway, so why do they need special lists and measures for one particular group of convicts and not others? I don't want thieves and murderers in my home or in my neighborhood any more than I want sex offenders. Hey, we could even take the whole criminal record and put it up on Google maps. "Search for: Rapists -children -dogs in 97006" Why not? If they feel a PARTICULAR case calls for further monitoring, they should make it explicitly part of the sentence. Otherwise, best not to apply blanket rules. Soon, they'll be wanting the passwords of drug dealers, "domestic terrorists" and the like.
I see fourth amendment tag, but no fifth amendment? I must've spoken so much about the 4th amendment you guys got that stuck in your head and forgot all about good ol' #5.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yet another way in which this may turn out to be unconstitutional:
The theory behind this is undoubtedly to give the state access to records to see whether the offender is reoffending.
This is a violation of the Fifth Amendment--specifically, it is mandating that the person provide evidence of his guilt.
The legal theory isn't even novel. In Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 85 (1968), the Supreme Court held that requiring a convicted felon to register his short-barreled shotgun was unconstitutional, as it was illegal for him to possess the firearm in the first place. Requiring him to register therefore required him to confess to a crime. (Note that this is also why gun registration doesn't work: it only applies to the law-abiding, because the Court says it can't apply to criminals.) In the language of the Court:
We hold that a proper claim of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under sec.5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under sec.5851
The same principle would likely apply here: if the State tried to prosecute an offender using evidence gleaned from a mandatory disclosure, the precedent in Haynes would render it inadmissible, and probably render the charge of not disclosing the information unconstitutional.
Every now and again, the Supreme Court hits one out of the park.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
At the risk of getting modded down, try browsing your local online sex offender registry and check out the convictions.
The great majority of sex offenders' crimes aren't one-time mistakes; sex offender registries are made up (almost) entirely of people who demonstrate a pattern of behavior over time. Crimes that involve forced sex are categorically different than property crimes. People don't commit sex crimes to make a profit.
There are exceptions, and just as there are innocent people convicted for other crimes, that is a problem that needs to be addressed if there is to be justice. Similarly, if sex offender registries encompass too many crimes that shouldn't be included such as peeing in public or a 17 & 16 year old couple having sex, then that in itself is a different problem and should be addressed differently.
The answer is to focus this approach more narrowly, not eliminate the idea of guarding against recidivism for an entire group who is very likely to reoffend.
In some states, if you are caught streaking and it "is possible" that a child saw you, it is grounds to be labeled a sex offender. Makes me wonder how far will we go to stop undesirable behavior?
I would too, btw. I'ld stick my cock so far up and let loose my sack'o urine. I wouldn't even cum inside her because my cum doesn't deserve such a fate.
I know someone that had an older girlfriend in highschool. She was 22, he was 16. They were both put on the Sex Offender registry, her for pederasty. I'm sure it doesn't help that he was 15 when he fucked a 28 year-old lady, but if you had a strong look at him when he was 15 he had a full-time job working cows in the country. He grew-up fast when he hit the age of 13 at a life-changing event of when his mom died. Ever since his mom died, I almost can swear he wanted to be the best guy any man can be in addition to fsck.btrfs any lady that he thought was fuxable. My hat is off to him. I am still a virgin to this day and his behavior is the reason I'm looking for a wife; he renewed my faith that there are good and great women out there that are looking for someone to live with, regardless of sex and such. He's not a swinger for women, he was just there for them at the right time ;-).
you probably have balls the size of everest, to be defending tagging people who are pissing drunk in public as sex offenders, then forcing them to reveal their online passwords.
if you are doing that, as i thought, get the F#CK out of my planet.
and yes, this planet belongs to me, and people like me - the people who uphold REASON.
Read radical news here
If providing your encryption key is protected by the fifth amendment, then how in the world can your password be any different?
Just because you have been labeled a "sex offender" doesn't mean you lose your constitutional rights.
I've observed that in authoritarian power structures, those in power tend to create a second-class of citizens in order to keep their influence among others with power or wealth. "Yes, your life sucks under my boot-heel, but at least you're not a {second-class citizen}, and I'm just the guy to keep them in line." It's a very popular refrain among those aspiring to be attorney general: "Lookit me! I put away those icky sex offenders, and now you and your kids can rest easy. I'm not soft on crime like that (sneer) public defender." Sometimes it's malicious, and sometimes it's done as a consequence of good intentions.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
She was accused of distributing pedo porn, and it had nothing to do with the age of the person who received the image, just that she sent a naked picture of a minor (herself!).
Of course any sane judge would have thrown a division by zero error, but obviously many US judges simply have such very faulty hardware that ECC fails.
Nice job. For once, I can resist the need to jump in and argue with the guy on the bad guy's side.
You surrender your right to be treated like a human being the second you commit a sex crime.
Screw them.
And before anyone says it, yes I know some people get busted for stupid crap and have it labled a sex crime... that's stupid and the system needs fixed. Rapists and Pedophiles though? (actual pedophiles, not kids downloading child porn from the chans) Screw'em.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
They are mentally ill and there is no cure for their particular problem.
Just like homosexuals?
Scientists think homosexual preference is genetic. I wonder if sex offenders (or more appropriately, sexual deviants, as truly victimless criminals are a possibility under the PROTECT act of 2003) show the same correlation.
But of course, it'd be hard enough to find twins separated at birth, and then get them to admit that they just *love* children (in the wrong way, of course).
And also try to explain why you think it's right that these things should also apply for people who did something minor and inconsequential, like peeing in the bushes out of desperation, or having sex with their one-year-younger girlfriend, or drawing what a judge deems to be child porn, or sending some holiday photographs (that due to the nature of holidays in Italy contain some nudity) to friends, or watching Card Captor Sakura when you're over eighteen (not a crime yet, but I wonder for how long).
You'll say 'but I addressed that in my post!' No you didn't. Because when this legislation gets passed, the laws concerning who is considered a sex offender aren't fixed yet. And apart from that, there are constitutional issues (4th and 5th amendments in particular) and there can be no objective standard of compliance. 'What do you mean you forgot?' Or perhaps 'What do you mean, not your account?' Of course thoughtcrime is a nasty word...
"You have the right to remain silent - well, except for passwords..."
just like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy maybe everyone should post or email everyone simpsons porno.
He wasn't, he was comparing how populist politicians can make any unpopular group a target for repressive legislation; and once that legislation is in place it's a few srokes of a pen to expand its scope.
I think the US had a narrow escape from McCarthy, but now just substitute paedophile (or terrorist) for communist.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And how much of that is date rape? How will handing over passwords affect people who don't understand a simple "NO" as an answer?
If that number you cite is true - I didn't check it but let's assume it is - then the right measure to stop sex crimes has nothing to do with the internet. What you say is that less than 5% of sex crimes are committed online, so why all the fuss? Let's have some different laws instead:
1) Sex offenders may not offer alcohol to other people, or
2) Sex offenders may not own or drive cars, or
3) Sex offenders may not live alone, or...
Why single out one way some (less than 5% according to you) sex offenders use to trap their victims while leaving so many ways the other 95% use?
Surprised nobody picked up on this yet, but once the person hands over their usernames AND passwords, they instantly gain repudiation because the passwords to their accounts and encryptions are in a third party's hands. Any number of bad things could be done "on the person's behalf" that could further jeopardize their freedom. Who has access to the divulged passwords? How are the stored to protect them? It just seems like a really realy bad idea to begin with. Instead, how about they are just required to hand over all online alias and email addresses so they can be monitored?
And it worked. Now I have a serious question.
IS PEDOPHILIA A GENETIC TRAIT?
Life span of humans : An overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Timeline_for_humans
Using this as a basis for analysis we can make some predictions
and conclusions. These may or may not be accurate, but do we have
compelling data to make the case that Pedophilia is genetic in
origin?
Up until the early 20th century, the average lifespan of humans
was 30 years of age, plus or minus 7 years. Worldwide.
IF the human race was to survive, reproduce and train our children
to be self-sufficient, we needed to start breeding at the earliest
possible time in our existence. We, as adults had limited time
left in out lives.
Assuming that 35 years is the norm for human life , we would have
to start families as soon as a relatively healthy female was able
to have children IF we were to raise the children to be able to
survive.
I am assuming that survival is a base instinct. People, whether
agricultural (a relatively recent development) or hunters, wish
to survive. What better way to survive than have progeny who can
help the parents survive in their old age? This old age would be
around 30 years. Children could help increase the available food
supply for all. The children would benefit from the knowledge of
their elders and as a side-effect, elders would live longer, since
they had to do less work for more gain.
Picture this : You live 30 years and struggle to survive on a daily
basis. You hunt and gather for your needs. You are basically nomads,
going where food can be found or hunted. You, as an individual are
dying from birth onwards. Religion has no place in this pre-history
time. That will come later.
The adults who are reproducing, need time to teach their children
survival skills PLUS need to be brought into full 'production' if
the parents are to benefit from the youthful energies and abilities
of their progeny. Children are additional community workers, basically
bound to family/social groups by association.
Adults are getting older, slower and less strong. The mind is all
many adults have to keep them alive once their physical abilities
are compromised. Thinking and knowledge was becoming paramount.
This is not alturistic, it is practical. Family groups, related
people, grouped together for many common reasons. Survival, a common
language (perhaps just signs and grunts) that conveyed meaning to other
people within the group. This enabled knowledge to be passed on to
the family and next generation.
Is this hard to beleive? I think not, but many modern people fail to
see what was needed for their situation to improve over the years to
the point we are at today. Remember, language is a recent development
and written and mass produced language is even newer.
Teaching children was a secondary thing early on in our existence.
Merely having people (children) who could help us hunt or raise crops
was important to us as a people. The secondary effects simply came
about by default. The children provided us with more labor to
accomplish our 'goals'. The goals being more food and an easier life.
People, whether through genetics or accident, began to pass down ideas
and concepts that enabled us to proliferate and prosper.
I believe that the early mating with conducive mates, allowed us as a people,
to become what we are today.
I think that the need to mate, coupled with perceived strengths in our
mates, has given us an advantage over other species. I think that early
mating, with perceived 'better quality' spouses, has made the human
race the best on the planet.
The real reason for early mating was to get the best traits in our progeny
at an earlier time than our contemporaries, thereby allowing 'our' tribe
to prosper.
THI
There ... I fixed the most glaring error in the article.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Sad but True.
Rights don't apply to parolees. If you're on parole, you're still under the jurisdiction of the court as if you were in jail. Your parole officer can show up at any time of the day or night to search your house, make you pee in a cup, whatever. You have to do it. If you refuse, you've violated parole and can go back to jail. When you agreed to be paroled, you signed documents agreeing to all this.
That's parole. Remember, parole is supposed to eventually end. At the end of it, you've paid your debt to society and you get to start over with nearly all your rights intact (and the ones you don't have, like voting and owning a gun, can be restored to you if you apply and a judge approves).
The offender lists seek to make parolee status permanent, turning all sentences into life sentences.
I really don't know how this passes constitutional muster. I was heartbroken when I learned, upon the enacting of an offender registry law (the memory is dim and I don't remember when or where it was), how a not inconsiderable number of now-quite-old men who had gotten (essentially) tickets for homosexual solicitation back in the 1950s had to register themselves as sex offenders so as to make themselves available to be publicly reviled.
Offender registration and tracking is evil. It's understandable; in some cases, it's probably prevented something terrible from happening. But it's still, on balance, evil. There must be a better way.
In fact, here they all are:
...
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaac
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZY
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Now I feel I must say that there is a bunch of garbage in there as well, but they can sort their own damn trash. Viva la QuatriÃme Amendement!
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Whoever said "laws are like sausage -- you should never watch how either is made" was right.
Go read your state legislature's records from when they made the law(s) related to parole / early release programs and you'll find that their primary concern was not letting people who never were (or no longer are) a danger to the public leave jail before finishing their full sentence. Your legislature's (and your state court system's) primary concern was/is control of prison crowding.
Go read the laws governing how your state's parole boards operate and you'll find that even the worst child molester has to be given parole / early release if he/she has attended the designated group meetings, worked on the right prison jobs, etc. As long as the child molester has not committed new crimes while in prison, he/she has to be released from prison without serving the full jail time he/she was sentenced to.
You may be well intentioned, but your legislature and your courts are not as well intentioned as you.
Out of curiosity, if every enlightened person knows that homosexuality is not a choice, and one cannot choose to whom one is sexually attracted, then why do we think that people who are sexually attracted to children can be rehabilitated in prison? Bit off topic, but still.
As a condition of parole, parolees are required to submit to search without a warrant and without cause. In other words, the parole officer can drop by and search the parolee's living space and person whenever the parole officer feels like it. In that context, I agree with this law.
However, once the convict/parolee has done his time, then that should be it. No registrations, no turning over passwords, etc. Anything else is just unAmerican.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Now, I don't have a problem, per se, with monitoring what sex offenders do in public spaces (whether virtual or real), but the fact remains that this proposed measure (requiring people to provide account passwords to the government), per our current Constitution, would be an illegal statute. Even if it seems like a "good idea", the government *cannot* legally just decide to ignore the Constitution when it wants to do something, no matter how well intentioned or seemingly benign.
If the Constitution needs to be changed, it can be - that's what amendments are for, after all. But, the Constitution must first be so amended by the States before something like this, which some people think, even if a *super majority* thinks, is a good idea, can be put in place. The argument that sex offender recidivism is high does not give the government any legal basis to contravene the Constitution.
This is the same problem I have with all the gun control advocates. They *might* have good arguments for gun control, but the point is that, without amending the Constitution, there is no good legal basis for this.
I remember that several men who had been convicted of a 'sex crime' and were forced to register as sex offenders after serving their complete sentences (as in, supposed to be free) were suing the state for making them register. The reason was that they were continuing to be punished after completing their sentence.
Does anyone else remember this?
Personally I think it's a perfect example of what's happening here. The people completed what the state considered a reasonable punishment for the crime they committed and now they're being told "Nope. Now you have to be tracked for the rest of your life and the rights granted to everyone else are subject to our whims."
I think a class action suit is in order but as many before me have said this isn't exactly a group of people that will engender much public sympathy. Without that kind of appeal the media is going to crucify them and there goes any hope of getting their lives back.
I wonder what would happen if they started saying "Screw you. I served my time. Get off my lawn."
I'll post this A.C. because it is so clearly off-topic.
and yes, this planet belongs to me, and people like me - the people who uphold REASON.
On what are you basing that? I would like to consider myself among those whose opinions and actions are guided by reason, and in my estimation the planet does not belong to us. Not by any stretch. This planet belongs (for now) to the majority of our species who are ignorant, emotional, and stupid.
Entire continents are crippled by diseases that spread through the very mechanisms the populace employs to combat them. (Got HIV? Get cured by fucking a virgin!).
Our principal means of producing energy is the same one our proto-human ancestors came up with 800,000 years ago (burn something!) and is known to be adversely affecting the habitability of the planet.
A major cause of conflict between nations is the ongoing debate over what name should be given to the invisible wizard who lives in the sky.
We are not in charge, my friend. The 80 or 85 percent of our number who are irrational or unintelligent have control of this planet, and even they have only wrested it for themselves for a short time, geologically speaking. In truth, it belongs to the insects.
Who is going to hold onto the passwords? What accountability will there be that this access won't be misused?
I could see the following situation happening:
Government Worker who wants to Protect The Children (GWWWTPTC): "Sex Offender 7 is going to be taken off the list? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!!!"
GWWWTPTC looks up Sex Offender 7's passwords, logs into a few of his accounts and downloads some child porn. Then he anonymously reports that Sex Offender 7 has been dealing in child porn. Sex Offender 7 is arrested and put back on the list. GWWWTPTC sits back in his chair satisfied with a job well done Protecting The Children.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Guys--
I am a registered user but will not use my ID for obvious reasons.
Basically, I am now a felony RSO. My crime, "possession of CP." (Did NOT do it. More below.) But in the great state of California there is NO knowledge component. An Evil Person can leave a thumbdrive under the front bumper of your car (with ONE illegal image), call in an annonymous tip, and you are in my shoes. "But I didn't know!" So what? That is not a component of the crime. Do not believe me? Neither did I when my attorney told me.
Then, the feds. The come down to dual prosecute after the state has condemned you. And their prison terms are long. In my case since I am taking this fed case to court (why not? Look what being a good guy in the state system got me) I can anticipate 15 years.
For the record I NEVER had such items on any of my drives. Well over a terabyte of movies, songs, training material, war photos when I returned to the Good Ol' USA, searched with no reasonable suspicion at the border, all seized, ICE went fishing for felonies. And claims to have found _almost_ zero illegal files. Doesn't matter that these drives, in true tech fashion, had for over two years been placed on networks open-access. Or that it is impossible to tell when or by whom such files were placed on the drives. Timestamps? Hah! We have EnCase, perv. Foolish me, I know, and I might as well be dead.
But the worst part is the stunning cluelessness of the Other Side. Hysterial female judges and prosecutors, law enforcement which learned tech from Star Trek, then we have Jessica's Law, Megan's law, AWA, you name it. If a law has a kid's name attached it affects me. What about next week's laws? All for a recidivism rate next to the botton-- the lowest being murderers.
Hear me: encrypt your drives. That way when law enforcement seizes them they cannot be used against you. You lose your expensive hardware but not your life.
I'm sure I trust the government to not mishandle my passwords...such as logging in and sending sexually violent emails from me to another person in the system.
(seriously) wouldn't this be the equivalent to giving cops the keys to every lock you have and saying come look at my stuff anytime you want?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
People like you are why I ignore 'Amber Alerts'.
Plenty of people have shown up on sex offender lists for public urination. You provide no evidence of your claims, so I feel no need to provide evidence of this truth.
Blar.
I live in GA now. I'm glad that cop didn't give me a ticket 20+ years ago when I couldn't "hold it" any longer as I was walking back to the dorm from BFE.
At least my neighbors aren't going crazy about my other "issues."
> You can get tagged as the former for getting
> caught urinating in public in some places.
I call bullshit on that. Show me one example where something like urinating in public, or disorderly conduct, resulted in a conviction for a registrable offense. If someone is just peeing in public, they will be charged with that offense. If someone is running around exposing themselves to little kids at the park, that is another story.
Name one person to whom that happened. There is a 98% chance that every single person who is a registered sex offender knowingly and voluntarily plead guilty to the offense knowing full well of the registration requirements. (Most all registration laws require that the defendant be told prior to plea that it is a registrable offense.) If that is not the case, than a jury of anywhere from six to twelve citizens found, beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed some type of registrable offense. Registrable offenses are felonies, not misdemeanors. No jurisdiction I know of considers urinating in public a felony.
Figures are based on the fact that about 98% of convictions are the result of guilty pleas, the other two percent are trials. And Boykin v. Alabama says that a guilty plea has to be knowingly and voluntarily given.
Don't just spout out crap you know nothing of. Registered sex offenders either plead guilty, or were found guilty by a jury.
Incarceration is not just punishment, it also has the very practical result that the incarcerated person is generally not able to commit more crimes. Some people just do not play nice in the sandbox, and need to be put in time out to protect everyone else in the sandbox.
A lot of people here are bringing up "peeing on a bush" as an absurd sex crime, which it is, but I wanted to list a few more that are felonies in my state (Ohio):
Sex with your wife: If your wife has one drink of wine and you have sex with her, by the letter of the law here, that is rape (Felony 1) or at the very least, Sexual Battery (Felony 3).
Sex with a co-worker: Any time you date someone that is of a different power-level than you, and that could affect your power-level (boss/employee, teacher/student, etc.), even if both people are of legal age and consenting, it is a Felony 3 Sexual Battery.
Owning "Girls Gone Wild": If you bought a copy of Girls Gone Wild, and then later it was found that one of the girls was 17 (which has happened), you are committing a crime of owning child pornography (Felony 4 to 2, depending upon the nature of the content). Beyond this, ignorance is not an excuse. By the letter of the law, even if you thought that you were buying legal content and even if you never heard the report of the girl being underage, you are still guilty. The law is phrased so that it only questions the subject age, not the viewer's knowledge.
And while the idea of the victim needing to "press charges" is great for TV, none of these crimes (or any crime) actually requires it. If a prosecutor wants to prosecute you, then they can do so whether or not the victim "presses charges". In many ways, the prosecutor is the first judge -- they can deem you innocent or make your life a living hell.
God bless America.
Since it's not a crime to wet yourself in public (it's horribly disgusting, but that's another thing), if worse came to worst, I'd just let it drain instead of get registered as a sex offender. I can always wash my clothes... your criminal record not so easily.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
I think what bothers me more than the idea that somebody who got a misdemeanor indecent exposure count would be subject to legislation like this is that anybody at all is subject to legislation like this, and that to argue against it most everybody feels the need to first include a paragraph about how they're not talking about "real" sex offenders. We're letting the greater moral victory slip by us by arguing the periphery. (Aside: Indeed, perhaps the worst part about the entire situation with sex offenders is illustrated in your first paragraph -- but that's an argument for a different time.)
Look, child sexual abuse is a horrible crime and a big deal -- but what ever happened to paying one's debt to society? Once you're let out of prison, that should be the end of it. Do we not find it at all strange that murderers aren't even subject to restrictions this bad? If we don't feel the jail term is sufficient punishment, let's increase the jail terms. If no jail term is enough, let's start executing.
The problem with that is then people would actually have to provide rational justifications for their actions. They'd have to argue with the low recidivism rates among sex offenders and how they automatically deserve to die. Instead they just continue to erode their liberties to "protect the children," though in reality it has little to do with protecting children and little ability to actually protect them. In fact, I would argue that it creates criminals; you put these people back on the streets and then say "go! But you can't live here or here or within 100 miles of here. Go tell your neighbors how awful you are. You can't have any job involving children, nor any job that asks if you've ever been accused of a felony. Turn over all of your Internet accounts, register your address with us." (And that's just so far.) I can't speak for anybody else, but that sure as hell wouldn't rehabilitate me -- it would make me even more of a criminal: Stealing to survive, maybe drugs to cope with the shitty life, or hell, violence as I lash back out against society as a whole.
I know some people will instantly retort "aww, the poor pedophiles!" But I also think a little rational thought applied to these situations--yes, even people accused of raping a child deserve their legal system to engage in rational thought--shows the lunacy and ineffectiveness of what they're trying to do. We don't need yet another sub-class of society in addition to those we already have. That doesn't protect anyone or anything. Everybody deserves the protections afforded by the Constitution, including against idiot measures like this.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H.L. Mencken
While I agree that these scumbags need to be monitored, I strongly disagree with giving corrupt officials an easy means of framing these people for additional crimes.
Let me fucking google that for you.
I don't have time to look further, but here's a link to a Human Rights Watch report that makes such a claim; they could be lying, though, those scumbag human rights fundamentalists.
I have my web browser save many of my commonly accessed account's passwords. When I go to another computer and try to login to my Youtube account or something, there's at least a 50/50 chance I won't know the password if I don't do that often.
Would I be in some kind of violation of law if I forgot my password? More importantly, what I'm an average moron and can't remember my e-mail address or password?
What if I wiped my hard drive before I got arrested and then honestly couldn't remember the passwords?
Seems like there are all sorts of plausible loopholes, aside from the fact that once you turn over access to your account, anyone could be responsible for what is on it.
Wouldn't it be sort of insta-protection to dump your login info on 4chan claiming the account belongs to some public figure? It'd be damn near impossible to sort through that mess.
Georgia: The USSR with a southern drawl.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
... is that it lumps the 22-yr old guy who has consensual sex with a 16-yr old girl in with the child molesters and child rapists. You may find it unsavory and you may not believe that a 16-yr old can "legally" consent (whatever the hell that means), but it's not in the same league as "touching" a child.
Our rights derive from our humanity. They are inalienable in who we are, and exist because we exist. Whether or not you believe in a creator, or Nature, it matters not... our rights still exist either way. Some people believe they were given to us by God, others believe they are the result of Nature.
Libertas in infinitum
What bothers me about this is it gives the ability to government employees with the password the ability to log in as the sex offender, do socially unacceptable things online, and blame the sex offender. It would become much easier to frame the sex offender for new crimes they had not in fact committed.
Joe Moyle
i would love to see if people aren't online, if they are detained/violated in some way perhaps if someone else has the same name.
i could see someone registering bogus names of people that are sex-offenders and posting under those names and then filing complaints to screw with these people.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
So far in this thread I read a lot of pure unadulterated bullshit.
I am one who could not afford to defend myself and was forced to plead guilty. The Public Pretender lied to me... the court lied to me... the fuxing arresting officer lied to the court, and my so-called victim's coerced deposition was used to convict the one she loved. Huge swaths of her statement were redacted by the AG's Office because it didn't fit their conviction oriented agenda. Had the judge seen ALL OF IT, there would have been no case. Had the judge seen all of it I have my personal doubts as to wether she would have been so swayed; such was not the issue before that judge.
In most states I have a so called "duty to register" in some states I do not. I get harassed periodically no matter where I live. The state I was convicted in lies to the other states about my status, for political reasons, and filed charges against me for violating laws they modified 7 years after I was no longer a resident in that state. That, right there, guarantees that I will be unlawfully harassed every time I am Terry-Stopped, no matter what state I live in.
Should I be such a fool, as to attempt to address this in court I would be forced to present myself at the state border to the police and spend the rest of the process warehoused with the most violent and dangerous offenders awaiting "due process." Additionally my jail keepers would assume the worst and notify their pet inmates of my "reason" for being incarcerated and from that I conclude that I would not survive long enough to see my case through... Note: this is not some irrational fear.... it happened the first time... However, my "fellow prisoners" were a gang of inept juvenile street thugs... they had no stomach for the level of violence I was willing to perpetrate to convince them to leave me alone...
I would not be so fortunate on a second swing through "the system".
Since my first round of court dates was such a overwhelming success, I have no doubt that any further dealings with the court would play out similarly... in the US... "sexual offenders" are guilty until proven innocent. That proof tends to come in the form of insane amounts of cash, typically more than I will ever earn in my entire life.
Public defense? There is not much incentive anywhere in the system to defend such a person... anyone who does gets a bad rep. That's what got me into this situation in the first place.
Even an attorney who is well paid for their efforts risks permanent political ruin in defending "sexual offenders" as their victory will be remembered in the public record. At worst council faces mild sanctions for throwing a "sexual offender" client in front of the bus. This is a lot less painful than defending one successfully, guilty or not. In my experience most lawyers don't have the balls to buck the social trend, they simply follow it, to fame and fortune.
The only states I am "safe" are those states who have constitutions that do not allow law to be retroactively applied to their citizens. Thats very few states, it's written into their constitutions.
In the eyes of the public, have a letter carved on my chest, should I choose to divulge my status; it doesn't matter what I did, or did not do... and it doesn't matter what I will, or will not do; I am the boogieman and I must be chained. In this climate of fear there are many victims.... Drawing on more recent examples: I might as well be a terrorist; I'd probably get more respect, unless I lived in New York City.
The thing that keeps me from going Postal over this travesty, is my belief that God has a purpose for me.... and knowing that purpose has nothing to do with what happened to me when I was 18. So you don't have to worry about me... look over your shoulder... there's a law maker who wants to make you a criminal, and you elected the asshole....
Happy Fuxing New Year.
See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.
Yeah, right.
Actually, the passwords themselves won't be used against you, only the information they lead to. And if, for example, the password was a confession to some crime, they could simply give you immunity with respect to the password (but not whatever other information they were able to dig up knowing that you did it).
As far as I'm aware, most judges have agreed with the above logic, tortured as it is, though there was at least one judge (reported on Slashdot) who disagreed.
In other words, I wouldn't rely on that argument in court because it seems as if most (but not all) judges haven't agreed with that.
i dont mind if they keep an eye on them after they get out but ... they should really make sure that rape was involved and that it's not an angry ex-girlfriend scam . As far as common sense dictates, being naked is hardly a crime (??!?) since we're all born that way and pissing on someone's lawn or doorstep is more like vandalism imo ... must be americans huh ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)