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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.
...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.
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...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)?
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?
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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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?
In Georgia, they might as well be the same thing. Recall the fairly recent case of a 17 year old male who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for consensual sex with a 15 year old girl.
Note that the article states that a judge, against the D.A.'s wishes, is trying unsucessfully to get him a lighter deal - 12 months minus time served for "aggrivated child molestation".
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).
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
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
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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.
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
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."
It wasn't even penetration, he got a BJ from a girl a few weeks on the wrong side of a magical line and for that and being black he had his life messed up. He spent 2 YEARS in jail before the Georgia Supreme Court tuled that a 10 year sentence was cruel and unusual ("grossly disproportionate") linky. Luckily that particular law got changed to a misdemeanor with no registration requirement due to the public outcry over his case, but there are still literally thousands of bad laws on the books which can land you on lists and with crazy out of whack sentences all due "But think of the children" pandering from politicians and suburban housewives.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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."
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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.
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.
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.
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?
"You have the right to remain silent - well, except for passwords..."
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.
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.