Illinois Bans Social Network Use By Sex Offenders

RobotsDinner writes "Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed into law a bill that bans all registered sex offenders from using social networks. '"Obviously, the Internet has been more and more a mechanism for predators to reach out," said Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), a sponsor of the measure and a governor candidate. "The idea was, if the predator is supposed to be a registered sex offender, they should keep their Internet distance as well as their physical distance."'"

Comments

Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Gorm the DBA]

I see this dying quickly to a challenge on the basis of rights of association and free speech.

Yes, you can ban them from talking to the punishment here is far too harsh to not be challenged.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Darkness404]

Except for the fact that guns are designed to shoot things. Honestly, I believe that disallowing non-violent felons from the right to bear arms or any other constitutional right is wrong, but social networks are simply talking, and honestly, you can't be molested online, despite what some people might think.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Hamilton Publius]

Agreed, but also not all convicted sex offenders are convicted for crimes that imply all of the outrage associated with the title "convicted sex offenders". As many other posters have pointed out, things like two underage people having consensual sex, public urination, texting a naked picture, etc require registation as a sex offender and apparently being banned from popular social networks. The Economist had a great article about this very subject (cover article actually). They pointed our rightly that the situation is unlikely to get better because no politician wants to be branded as being against coming down tough on "sex offenders".

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[betterunixthanunix]

Not when we use the word "rape" to describe a 15 year old consenting to have sex with a 20 year old. You can try to argue semantics and claim that a 15 year old is not competent to give consent, but even so, it is not a violent crime. Rape of the variety that involves a gun pointed at someone's head is a violent crime, and I would not dispute that, but rape that involves no weapon or fighting is just not something I would call "violent."

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[hey!]

I doubt it.

After you've been convicted of a crime, you can certainly have civil rights taken away as a punishment.

But there's something else people might not realize: civil rights under our system can be regulated if there is a compelling public interest in doing so and the regulation is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. My freedom of speech does not entitle me to speak my opinions through a bullhorn at 3AM in a quiet neighborhood. I am required to find other means of expressing opinions. A law against talking at 3AM would be too broad; a law against talking so loud that people inside their houses are unable to ignore it is narrow; it doesn't prevent me from communicating other ways or at other times.

Telling a sex offender he can't communicate with his friends ever again would be unconstitutionally broad. Telling him he can't use social networking sites to do so is a more narrow restriction, what's more there is a rational justification for it. A social networking site provides access to many, many more potential victims than tradtional ways of making and having friends. Not only is there a "law of averages" effect, it's an ideal laboratory in which to hone a script for convincing a victim to put himself at danger. You can be rejected hundreds or even thousands of times, but if you try something different at or near the point of failure, eventually you'll have a diabolically effective approach.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[schon]

Telling him he can't use social networking sites to do so is a more narrow restriction, what's more there is a rational justification for it.

No, the "justification" is most irrational.

Lumping violent repeat rapists in with people who pee in the woods when they think they're alone, and claiming that "it's for the children" is 100% completely and totally emotional, and therefor about as far from rational as you can get.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Shakrai]

but rape that involves no weapon or fighting is just not something I would call "violent."

Bullshit. It's rape if one of the partners doesn't consent to the activity. The fact that the rapist wasn't armed really shouldn't enter into the calculation, except in so far as that they wind up charged with additional weapons offenses in addition to the rape charge.

Mind you, I don't think statutory rape should be regarded in the same manner as what I described above, but to say that rape isn't a violent crime just because no weapon was involved kind of misses the mark, IMHO. You don't regard it as a violent act to have something penetrate your body against your will?

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[betterunixthanunix]

Look, if a person is a child predator and cannot be trusted with their rights, then leave them in prison for the rest of their life. Prisons are not just there as punishments; they are there to keep dangerous people separated from the rest of society. Keep the people who are likely to repeatedly molest children in prison, and you won't have to have politicians try to figure out what a "social network" is.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[betterunixthanunix]

"You don't regard it as a violent act to have something penetrate your body against your will?"

If you:

1. Do not fight, shout, shove, or resist in any way
2. Are not being threatened with a weapon of some sort
3. Were not poisoned or endangered

Then no, it is not violent. Violent crimes involve violence of some sort. A lack of violence makes the crime non-violent. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and it seems pretty fair to set the threshold of a "violent crime" to be "violence was involved." This is not to say that it is perfectly fine to rape someone -- violence is not the sole factor in determining whether or not something was wrong -- but I absolutely would separate a violent rape from a non-violent rape.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Shakrai]

Do not fight, shout, shove, or resist in any way

So we can only call a crime violent if the victim is willing to resist in same manner?

Are not being threatened with a weapon of some sort

Weapons are not limited to guns and knives. If you were a 100 pound female facing a 200+ pound male who has three or more times your muscle mass are you seriously going to argue that it shouldn't be considered a violent crime just because he didn't happen to have a firearm, knife or some other technological piece of weaponry?

Were not poisoned or endangered

Being raped is endangerment. Ever heard of STDs? Ever heard of the ones that can't be cured and which are eventually fatal? There's a reason why most states (even the liberal blue ones) allow for the use of deadly force when confronted with a would-be rapist. A rapist is arguably every bit as dangerous as a loaded gun pointed at your head or knife at your throat.

Violent crimes involve violence of some sort

I would argue that having your body penetrated against your will is an inherently violent act.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[QuantumRiff]

My favorite. Oral sex and Sodomy used to be considered illegal in some states. Some people are on the list because of that, even though those laws are all gone now, they were on the list, and were grandfathered in. (don't want to look soft on child molesters, do we)..

Not to mention, the rules keep changing, after their conviction, which seems a little unfair.. Think of the republicans the bitch that congress keeps changing the rules for accepting TARP money.. yet many of them are all for this...

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[plague3106]

Due process of law does not mean passing laws further punishing people that have already paid their debt to society. They took the time to codify that you can't be arrested for doing what was legal yesterday but made illegal today, I fail to see how this is really a different concept.

Would you argue in favor of a law that executes anyone convicted of shoplifting, ever in their life? Do you honestly consider that due process?

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[ground.zero.612]

but rape that involves no weapon or fighting is just not something I would call "violent."

Bullshit. It's rape if one of the partners doesn't consent to the activity. The fact that the rapist wasn't armed really shouldn't enter into the calculation, except in so far as that they wind up charged with additional weapons offenses in addition to the rape charge.

Mind you, I don't think statutory rape should be regarded in the same manner as what I described above, but to say that rape isn't a violent crime just because no weapon was involved kind of misses the mark, IMHO. You don't regard it as a violent act to have something penetrate your body against your will?

I think we have some pretty sociopathic mods when a post like this is modded Troll. The simple fact is, being subjugated against your will is a form of violence. The definitions of the words rape and violence imply this.

Go look it up. In the mean time, and as usual, go fuck yourself.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[BobMcD]

Being raped is endangerment. Ever heard of STDs? Ever heard of the ones that can't be cured and which are eventually fatal? There's a reason why most states (even the liberal blue ones) allow for the use of deadly force when confronted with a would-be rapist. A rapist is arguably every bit as dangerous as a loaded gun pointed at your head or knife at your throat.

By this logic (STDs exist) you are also endangered by consensual sex. So do states also have laws permitting the execution of anyone caught copulating, for their own protection? That logic means that your boyfriend is every bit as dangerous as a loaded gun pointed... blah. I can't even finish typing it.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[rjstanford]

Although ironically, having someone known to go around beating women into submission to brutally murder them being restricted from social networking sites has not even been proposed.

How reasonable is this again?

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[phoenix321]

While the definition of "firearm" is pretty straightforward to include a deadly weapon that can kill over a distance of more than a kilometer, I seriously doubt that you, me or anyone else could draw a solid, non-disputable boundary around "social networks".

Is a hotmail account serving social functions? I think so.
Is it connected to a network of some sort? Well, yes.
Is it a "social network"?

What about a Slashdot account?
What about Adult-Friend-Finder and its cousins?
What about platforms like World of Warcraft?

What of that is a "social network" and why do we treat them differently than a physical, brick-and-mortar tennis club? Or a mobile phone? There are SMS dating services for them as well.

Do we ban sex offenders from there, too? Do we cut off Internet access for sex offenders?

The way I see it, sex offenders are the lowest hanging target for politicians to present themselves to be "tough-on-crime". Nobody can say anything good about sex offenders so we can tax, imprison and legalize them to hell - can we?

No matter if they're on the sex offender list for petty "crimes" they did in college or heavy violent rape, they should do their time in prison, locked up for as long as the judge ordered and then they're free humans again.

Cases with Capital Punishment don't need to be discussed here, but other than that the sentence should fit the crime and could carry several decades of imprisonment in extreme cases. After that, they're either still dangerous - and we could as well throw away the key - or they're free humans again.

Either we regard them as humans or we don't. We can do either, but it tells a lot about us "innocents" as well.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Shakrai]

This is also true outside of rape.

The person outside of the rape agreed to the encounter. There was nothing stopping them from making an informed decision about the encounter and taking steps to protect themselves. Of course not everybody makes an informed decision but that's a separate discussion.

The rape victim has had this choice taken from them. That's why it's different. I should think this would be obvious to anyone who was interested in paying attention to my point and not nitpicking it to death with comparisons with consensual activity.

I can't believe that I'm receiving troll mods for arguing that rape is a violent action. WTF is wrong with you people?

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[betterunixthanunix]

"the difference between your strawman and the crime of rape."

Let me repeat myself: Is it not violent to be shot in the head just because you are willing to be shot? This is not a strawman; you said that rape must be violent because the victim is not willing to have sex, and I am asking if, by that logic, a being shot is only violent when you are not willing to be shot.

"I would personally resist a rapist with my last ounce of strength. The fact that some people might be too scared to do so does not reduce the violence of the encounter in any way, shape or form."

Except, of course, that we consider it to be "rape" when a 15 year old has sex with a 25 year old, even when the 15 year old was not forced to do so. The fact that you automatically associate "rape" with something that involves fear, trauma, or a lack of willingness only demonstrates that statutory rape is a misnomer and that we need to find a new name for the crime.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Shakrai]

The fact that you automatically associate "rape" with something that involves fear, trauma, or a lack of willingness only demonstrates that statutory rape is a misnomer and that we need to find a new name for the crime.

The fact that you couldn't be bothered to read the part of my original post wherein I said "Mind you, I don't think statutory rape should be regarded in the same manner as what I described above" only demonstrates that you aren't interested in listening to my point or acknowledging the fact that I'm not talking about statutory rape.

I hope for your sake that you are never unfortunate enough to be a victim of this crime yourself or know someone who is. It's a thoroughly vile, disgusting and violent act and other than murder I'm hard pressed to think of a worse crime that can be committed against the person.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Chris Burke]

No, sorry. Your example about statutory rape where the 'victim' is in fact consenting is an example of a non-violent crime.

Rape against a non-consenting victim is sexual violence. There is violence inherent in the act of violating someone's body. Think for two seconds about what is actually entailed and this should be obvious.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[bky1701]

Why is such a person not in jail, where a law is not needed to prevent them from using social networking sites?

If you are out of jail, you have served your dues to society and (in theory) seen the error of your ways. Tacking on little extras that you can never rid of, even if you were to become the next Mother Teresa, is bordering on cruel. As it stands, there is no way for a sex offender to ever be redeemed in the eyes of the legal system, which in turn forces them to become social pariahs. They are lost to the world, and the world to them, because of one action which may have taken place 40 years ago. Sexual offenses have become modern-day witch trials. Banning them from social networking sites is laughable considering how things already are.

If that's your idea of justice, I think you're a very sad person. I would not even advocate that for crimes such as murder.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[drinkypoo]

Reasonable? If your goal is to win the love of your irrational constituents, then persecuting "sex offenders" (which often includes public urinators and the like, and in any case is highly subject to selective arrest like everything else) who are an easy target (no one loves to speak up in their defense) makes a great deal of sense.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Maxo-Texas]

And if one of the participants looks 21, is in a bar that serves alchohol, had a legitimate looking id, and is actually 17-- then what?

It's happened recently -- in the news in the last couple months.

The guy was screwed since he was over 19. Statutory rape.

---

Even more horrifically, a bud of mine went to new orleans.
Had sex with a girl AND her boyfriend in a three way.

Turns out she had had a drink--- which apparently means she wasn't legally competent to consent in louisiana. Even tho she was probably blowing a .04 or less.

He finally got out of it. After losing his job, spending a lot of money on a lawyer.

I'd have fallen for the same thing- she was pretty and enthusiastic the night it happened apparently.

I will probably never go to New Orleans again in my life. Or I'll bring a breathalyzer. :-)

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Big Jojo]

I sort of agree with the sentiment that releasing someone may be the problem ... but how can you know when/if it will be? There's a really basic problem with the so-called "justice" system in the US, in that it no longer attempts to rehabilitate people. And punishments are so late (I read yesterday about a trial finishing FOUR YEARS after the crime!!) and disproportionate to the offence (on top of crap like "big" drug players getting sweet deals while "small" ones get their lives ruined), that expecting sanity is unreasonable.

Prisons are not just there as punishments; they are there to keep dangerous people separated from the rest of society.

That's a serious misconception. Today, they're fundamentally about punishment ("sit in this overcrowded and dangerous hellhole for a few years"), and secondarily about segregation ... and in effect, also secondarily training about how to become a repeat offender.

Of course, if prisons had effective rehabiliation efforts then the repeat-offender training would become a non-issue. And there'd be a lot less of this "throw everyone (but mostly minorities) in prison, and never let them out" crap. But the prison-industrial complex wouldn't be so profitable then either.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[hairyfeet]

But I have a friend in state police that says they are getting few if any actual child molesters through social networks. What they are catching there is what he calls the 'social retards' and says it is quite easy to spot the difference. The social retards will talk a good game online, but never meet anybody. When you raid their place there is CP alright, along with beastiality and brown and golden showers, and B&D/S&M, etc. You look into their background and most have gone out of their way to not have contact with anyone, kids and adults alike.

Contrast this with the child predator, which is says is actually really damned hard to catch online. They aren't trolling online for kids, because they are coaching youth groups, being active in the church, anything that will get them closer to their prey. He says he has seen plenty over the years that will go so far as marry a woman just to get at her kids. He says they know when they catch one of these guys as they often trade highly encrypted DVDs through the mail with other predators.

So despite the bogeymen stories according to him the hardcore child predators abandoned the net awhile back. There is just so much easier prey in their own neighborhoods, which is how they eventually get caught. I would argue that the social retards could probably be rehabilitated (I actually met one once. The sad little creature would probably have screamed if anybody actually touched him) and that the hardcores are gonna have to be caught the old fashioned way, with good police work. And as someone who had a fed in the past try to entrap him on IRC back in the day (I finally had to get ugly and tell them if they didn't quit talking dirty on a Windows repair channel they would get permanently banned) I find their methods on "catching" anyone on social networks dubious at best.

The whole thing IMHO went south when we turned rapist into "sex offender". After all, everyone knew what a rapist was and had a definition that was pretty consistent. With sex offender it could be anything from pissing on a bush on up. Right now the whole "child molester" bogeyman has gotten to be about as insane as the Red Scare of the 50s. Just see McMartin and Little Rascals day care for examples of normal people acting insane because the word 'child molester" was uttered.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Runaway1956]

I have to weigh in here. I'm old enough, I've been privy to the details of a number of "encounters" that later went to court. I've had freinds, both male and female freinds involved.

First, let's ground ourselves in reality. In Africa, today, (semi)organized gangs of men prowl the villages searching out female victims. Not only are the victims used and abused violently, but they are often cut and mutilated intentionally in an attempt to sterilize and degrade them. If the women survive, so be it, if not, tough. Victims range in age from infants to very old women.

Compare common cases in the civilized world to the actions of those thugs in Africa. I could sit in judgement of those savages, and uniformly award the death sentence from now until hell freezes over.

Here, in America, statutory rape has been abused to the point, that if a boy and girl have been dating for months, and he celebrates his 18th birthday before she does, he can be charged with rape, no matter that she consents, or maybe even initiates an evening of sex. THAT is a case of being raped by the system.

There is a wide range of "rapes" in between the two extreme ends that I've just painted. And, anyone who believes that our court system is adequate for judging all of them has a few screws loose, IMHO.

Real violent, brutal rape is simply not punished severely enough. The man who can use his fists to pummel a resistant woman into submission, should NEVER walk the streets again. In fact, I can justify the death penalty for many of them.

On the other hand, having a casual relationship with someone met in a bar, only to be charged with "rape" later, because she has some "multiple personality disorder" is about as bogus as things can get. (I've been close to two cases like that.)

I don't have any numbers to offer, but at a rough guess, I would say that nearly 10% of "offenders" in this country never should have gone to trial. Prosecuting attorneys seldom care about "justice", it's all about numbers.

The laws regarding registered sex offenders do not go nearly far enough to differentiate between the classes of offenders. As already stated, the worst offenders shouldn't even see sunlight, but there they are, walking the streets. Others, if they really DID do anything wrong, should serve a year of probation and be forgotten - they are no threat to anyone.

Laws like the one in TFA don't do ANYTHING to see that justice is done. They only create beauracratic hoops for a captive audience to jump through. They create jobs for people who get off on minding other people's business. They contribute to an Owellian society, something we are moving toward just as quickly as possible.

Personally I can't see any justice in a law like this. Dangerous people belong in a dungeon or a coffin, and non-dangerous people need their rights restored.

The system doesn't work, and laws like these will only make the system worse.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Delkster]

Public urination? Sex offender? WTF?

I find urinating in public generally more or less offensive (much more so if it's done at a random corner on the street, not really so much in a concealed bush), and would really like the drunked idiots in the city to stop doing that on the street (yeah, it happens), but seriously, if it counts as a felony that you have to register as a sex offender for... someone has a rather weird idea of a sexual act.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Delkster]

What about a Slashdot account?

Clearly, Slashdot counts as an antisocial network.

Re:Incoming 1st Amendment Challenge

[Shakrai]

Here, in America, statutory rape has been abused to the point, that if a boy and girl have been dating for months, and he celebrates his 18th birthday before she does, he can be charged with rape, no matter that she consents, or maybe even initiates an evening of sex. THAT is a case of being raped by the system.

I don't disagree. Sane "age of consent" laws have provisions like my state -- the age of consent of 17 but there's also a four years age difference provision (i.e: a 19 year old can have sex with a 15 year old). I'm not so sure I think that a 19 year old needs to be having sex with a 15 year old but at least the law allows for the high school lovers scenario without sending someone to prison because he or she turned 18 a few weeks before their partner.

Real violent, brutal rape is simply not punished severely enough. The man who can use his fists to pummel a resistant woman into submission, should NEVER walk the streets again. In fact, I can justify the death penalty for many of them.

I would have no problem with the death penalty being applied for these scumbags. I would also have no problem if the woman had blown him away before he managed to get that far. Someone willing to do that deserves nothing more than a quick exit from this world and a face to face meeting with whichever god or gods he believes in.

As already stated, the worst offenders shouldn't even see sunlight, but there they are, walking the streets. Others, if they really DID do anything wrong, should serve a year of probation and be forgotten - they are no threat to anyone.

I completely agree. Someone who molests children or beats the shit out of women and rapes them should never see the light of day. Someone who wound up taking an underage chick home who got into the bar with a fake id and was downing shots of vodka should be charged with stupidity and given a slap on the wrist.

The sex offender registries bother me because they negate the concept of paying your debt to society. If someone is so dangerous that I need to know when he moves into my neighborhood why the hell is he getting out of prison in the first place? If he doesn't that dangerous then why do you need to tell me about him?

Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[Cyner]

I took a leak outside the bar one night when I was drunk and now I'm banned from Facebook for life.

What's wrong with this picture?

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[fearanddread]

what's wrong is a society that treats public urination as a sex crime.

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

you seem to want to use facebook

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I took a leak outside the bar one night when I was drunk and now I'm banned from Facebook for life.

You say that like it is a bad thing.

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[jDeepbeep]

I took a leak outside the bar one night when I was drunk and now I'm banned from Facebook for life.

What's wrong with this picture?

That's not the worst bit. You would be banned from Twitter too. At that point, there is little left to live for.

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

A murderer, however. He's free to use Facebook all he wants to track down new victims...

Re:Punishment doesn't fit the Crime

[rhathar]

It's true. I saw a boob once and now I want to see them all the time.

Social Networks?

[homer_s]

And who decides what a "social network" is?

I wonder when we'll receive calls for govt. regulation of websites to keep it safe for children.

Re:Social Networks?

[blamanj]

This is key. Everything is becoming social. Blogging, which might one have been viewed as publishing, is now social because Google has tied FriendConnect to Blogger. Legitimate job seeking tools like LinkedIn are very heavily social-network oriented.

This is stupid for a variety of reaons, but in a few years it will be the equivalent of banning them from using the Internet.

This is stupid

[the_humeister]

Either they've served their debt to society or keep them in jail. This half-assed "you're out of jail but you can only do X" is ridiculous.

Re:This is stupid

[Monkeedude1212]

If they aren't ready to be re-introduced into society then they shouldn't be, it should be as simple as that.

The idea was, if the predator is supposed to be a registered sex offender, they should keep their Internet distance as well as their physical distance

You thats where the problem lies - you know why people go to prison? To keep their Physical distance away from everybody. If they aren't able to handle that reimmersion they shouldn't be. If the guy can live on his own he should sure as hell be able to surf the net alone.

Re:This is stupid

[schon]

The re-offense rate for sex offenders is unfortunately high.

[citation needed]

I would like to point out that someone has posted recidivism rate for sex offenders is 5%, whereas the recidivism rate for *all* violent offence is 62%.

Please either cite your source, or admit that you are wrong.

Re:This is stupid

[betterunixthanunix]

"You could argue that sex offenders should have longer sentences"

Bingo. If sex offenders are so likely to recommit their crimes, then give them life sentences. I did not mean to say that they should be held longer than their sentence; they should have their rights restored after their sentence is served, and not live in fear of being arrested again just because they use a computer. If we are not willing to give sex offenders life sentences, then we should not start complaining about them logging on to Facebook when they get out of prison.

Re:This is stupid

[glwtta]

This is why, despite my strong civil liberties leanings, I support a sex offenders register and other measures to keep an eye on them.

You're advocating punishing people for crimes hey might commit - I think you have a very confused notion of "strong civil liberties leanings".

Re:This is stupid

[elrous0]

Probation doesn't last for the rest of your life.

Re:This is stupid

[Wrath0fb0b]

Either they've served their debt to society or keep them in jail. This half-assed "you're out of jail but you can only do X" is ridiculous.

"Served his debt to society" is not coterminous with "does not pose a threat to the rights of others -- we would failing our duty to preserve those rights if we did not take reasonable steps to reduce the risk to society as we attempt to reintegrate prisoners into society. We know that some will succeed and some will fall back into crime but, of course, we don't know how it will play out in each individual case. We could keep them all in jail a lot longer because some are still dangerous or we could let them out under reasonable restrictions. The latter seems much more humane, IMO.

The most obvious is the law prohibiting convicted felons from owning firearms. On /. it's easy for people to insist that felons should have all their rights back but I can just imagine how the public would react to a politician that proposes restoring gun-ownership rights for convicts.

Another fairly clear-cut case are the provisions banning those convicted of certain white-collar financial crimes from taking a position of trust (aka, being accountants) over others' money. It seems reasonable that once you are convicted of embezzling your clients'/company's money, that line of work is off limits.

[ IMO, the instant case turns on how narrowly or widely the term "sex offender" is construed -- if it really means "violent people that prety on children" versus "had sex while he was 17 and she was 16". In the former case, I'm not going to lose sleep over child rapists not browsing facebook -- in the latter, well, that just goes to show how retarded our sex-crime laws can be. ]

Re:This is stupid

[arth1]

Indeed. A young girl living next door to a former sex offender has a statistically far higher risk of being raped by her father than the sex offender. Should we then ban all fathers from contact with their children?
I mean, think of the children!

What is a "sex offender" anyway?

[Manip]

"At least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of âoedistributing child pornographyâ to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends. For example, Janet Allison was found guilty of being âoeparty to the crime of child molestationâ because she let her 15-year-old daughter have sex with a boyfriend. The young couple later married."

I'm glad you're banning all 600,000 people 2/3rds of which are said to be "no danger" according to a state's own review board.

Why are sex offenders treated worse than murderers

[Rosyna]

People labeled "sex offenders" (could be from mooning someone, urinating in an alley, having manga, and other little things) are treated worse than murderers in the US. Murderers don't have to tell the community after serving time that they killed someone. They can rent apartments almost anywhere. There's no online database anyone can browse to find murderers living in your area...

It saddens me as, basically, it's better for the perp's punishment to rape a child, kill them, and dispose of the body than just raping them.

Re:how is this enforceable?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It isn't; but it should net some votes, and provide another charge to stack, next time the DA needs to throw the book at some unsympathetic perp.

A scarlet letter wasn't enough?

[jmerlin]

What is this?

Sure, there are violent sex offenders who generally stay in prison more often than not, but there those who did something like sleep with their girlfriend of 2 years whose parents pressed charges because she was 17, and 3 months to 18, and that guy who may end up marrying her, is now a "sex offender" for the rest of his life.

Warranted, yes, SOME people use social websites for predation (and too many), but note that I used the term 'people.' It's not just sex offenders, but I would hazard a guess that not even MOST sex offenders using these services use them for predation. Such a ban is incredibly naive and ignorant, and an outright abuse of power.

Let's apply this same logic. We don't label average citizens who have committed some crime (violent even) that landed them in jail the way we do sex offenders. Say we realized too much violent and organized crime was happening as a result of using socializing websites. Now we want to ban anyone who may have a history of violent crimes or pretty much any crimes from using these to stifle the possibility of having them organize future crimes. So how can we target all of these individuals with such anonymity online? Well hell, we can't really, so let's just ban the website in our state. Done.

I'd put my bet on it that most people who are using social networking sites like this to predate victims for sexual harassment or other sex crimes aren't even currently labeled sex offenders. Are there any stats out there for how many new sex offenders have been entered as a result of crimes initiated via contact through a social networking site? I'd imagine this would be quite a large number per year, so now do we need to hire some precogs to detect these criminals BEFORE they do the crime and ban them from using the service?

This is just silly. They get it bad enough getting raped in prison and labeled on everyone's overlaid sex-offender-tracker GPS etc etc, regardless of what sexual offense they committed, they served their time, why should we now add another step to further punish them?

Perhaps this is just another case of where the actions of a few individuals ruin things for everyone?

America's unjust sex laws

[Mr_Blank]

From the most recent Economist

America's unjust sex laws

Aug 6th 2009
From The Economist print edition
An ever harsher approach is doing more harm than good, but it is being copied around the world

IT IS an oft-told story, but it does not get any less horrific on repetition. Fifteen years ago, a paedophile enticed seven-year-old Megan Kanka into his home in New Jersey by offering to show her a puppy. He then raped her, killed her and dumped her body in a nearby park. The murderer, who had recently moved into the house across the street from his victim, had twice before been convicted of sexually assaulting a child. Yet Megan's parents had no idea of this. Had they known he was a sex offender, they would have told their daughter to stay away from him.

In their grief, the parents started a petition, demanding that families should be told if a sexual predator moves nearby. Hundreds of thousands signed it. In no time at all, lawmakers in New Jersey granted their wish. And before long, "Megan's laws" had spread to every American state.

America's sex-offender laws are the strictest of any rich democracy. Convicted rapists and child-molesters are given long prison sentences. When released, they are put on sex-offender registries. In most states this means that their names, photographs and addresses are published online, so that fearful parents can check whether a child-molester lives nearby. Under the Adam Walsh Act of 2006, another law named after a murdered child, all states will soon be obliged to make their sex-offender registries public. Such rules are extremely popular. Most parents will support any law that promises to keep their children safe. Other countries are following America's example, either importing Megan's laws or increasing penalties: after two little girls were murdered by a school caretaker, Britain has imposed multiple conditions on who can visit schools.

Which makes it all the more important to ask whether America's approach is the right one. In fact its sex-offender laws have grown self-defeatingly harsh (see article). They have been driven by a ratchet effect. Individual American politicians have great latitude to propose new laws. Stricter curbs on paedophiles win votes. And to sound severe, such curbs must be stronger than the laws in place, which in turn were proposed by politicians who wished to appear tough themselves. Few politicians dare to vote against such laws, because if they do, the attack ads practically write themselves.

A Whole Wyoming of Offenders

In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries--more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of "distributing child pornography" to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.

How dangerous are the people on the registries? A state review of one sample in Georgia found that two-thirds of them posed little risk. For example, Janet Allison was found guilty of being "party to the crime of child molestation" because she let her 15-year-old daughter have sex with a boyfriend. The young couple later married. But Ms Allison will spend the rest of her life publicly branded as a sex offender.

Several other countries have sex-offender registries, but these are typically held by the police and are hard to view. In America it takes only seconds to find out about a sex offender: some states have a "click to print" icon on their websites so that concerned citizens can put up posters wit

Re:America's unjust sex laws

[0100010001010011]

In some states, the age of consent and child porn statutes have the same age limits.

For instance, a quick read of NV law shows the AOC to be 16. Child porn is defined as sexually explicit blah blah blah involving a person under 16. Federal law makes it a crime with a person under 18, but there may be some state line/interstate commerce nexus that needs to be fulfilled.

I didn't feel like looking at too many states, but found this same AOC/CP thing with NH-16/16.

Many states forbid distributing/exhibiting obscenity to people under 18, regardless of their AOC/CP statutes.

SO, excluding the feds, it's not a crime to have sex with a 16 year old or film it. But, she can't watch the tape afterwards. It's a crime to allow her 16 year old friend to watch the act as it occurs, but not a crime to have her join. Neither of them can smoke a cigarette or have a beer afterwards. If either one were to rob,beat,kill one of their fellow participants, they would be tried as an adult in every state in the country.

Are all C programmers sex offenders?

[mangu]

As many other posters have pointed out, things like ... texting a naked picture, etc require registration as a sex offender

Wow, does this mean ASCII art too? Then I must admit I'm a sex offender! I have sometimes used the expression if (C==8) in my programs...

Re:Bzzt! Wrong!

[Abcd1234]

Correct. And all those things are also wrong.

Creating an underclass of ex-cons who can no longer integrate effectively into society is a great way to ensure that criminals re-offend. Voting, in particular, is a right, not a privilege, and the government should never have the power to take that right away, ever (well, unless you like the idea of the government disenfranchising people based on the very laws they passed).

Here's the Economist article.

[Dr. Manhattan]

Illiberal Politics: America's Unjust Sex Laws.

Re:Those are old and short-horizoned

[ring-eldest]

10 years? Here you go.

http://voice-of-reason.pbworks.com/f/CA-Ten%20year%20recidivism%20study%20CDCR%206-17-08.pdf

We bounce these guys back to jail for nitpicky violations of parole pretty much exclusively. A 3.38% cumulative recidivism rate for sex offenses is INSANELY low. The odds are probably much better that a slashdotter will commit a sex crime during that same time period.

betterunixthanunix (980855) is willfully spreading misinformation either because he's a massive idiot or because he has some kind of agenda.

Re:Those are old and short-horizoned

[ring-eldest]

I meant OriginalSolver (552648)... God, I'm sorry betterunixthanunix. :( Stupid cut-and-paste happy fingers.