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EFF Sues to Block New Internet Sex-Offender Law
Bobfrankly1 writes "The EFF sued to block portions of the approved Prop 35 today. Prop 35 requires sex offenders (including indecent exposure and non-internet offenses) to provide all of their online aliases to law enforcement. This would include e-mail addresses, screen and user names, and other identifiers used on the internet. The heart of the matter as the EFF sees it, would be not only the chilling effect it would have on free speech, but also the propensity of these kind of laws to be applied to other (non-sex offending) people as well."
Like they could ever enforce this...
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Sent from a registered sex offender
This law seems open to abuse. What rate limiting system does it use? I use a ton of different nicks in my line of work and I tend to change them multiple times per day.
4chan (pedo central) doesn't use usernames, accounts or aliases so they wouldn't be required to report it!
And this is why I voted no.
Username: Anonymous Coward
I think such an attitude makes you depraved, and possibly dangerous/psychotic.
In my state, "sex offenders" include people who have urinated in public, people who forgot to close the bathroom shades before getting out of the shower, and a great many teenagers who couldn't keep it in their pants. Are these the "depraved and psychotic people" whose lives you wish to destroy?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Nowadays a lot of people are classified as sex offenders that shouldn't be, like teenagers that send each other naughty pictures, or somebody that texts a lewd message to the wrong recipient. These people barely meet the definition, yet are branded for life.
If the sex offender status could be assigned with accuracy, I think this proposition would be okay. But it isn't, so the proposition means people are going to get hurt who shouldn't have even been declared as sex offenders in the first place. The proposition compounds the challenges these people face.
And I agree with the EFF that it's a dangerous trend to set. If you want to take away the anonymity of some pervert, do it for a real criminal who posts a credible threat to the community. Many people with the sex offender status don't fit that definition at all.
https://www.aclunc.org/cases/active_cases/doe_v._harris.shtml
It's really not a good law - it won't accomplish its goal and it has lots of bad possible side effects.
Be sure to never ever take a piss outside or you too could be one of those depraved psychotics also known as "sex offenders"!
One night my friend took a leak behind a convenience store when they wouldn't let him use the bathroom and got zapped with indecent exposure, now he's a sex offender for life. Good thing he doesn't live in California or he'd really be screwed.
Unconvicted people are potentially dangerous criminals and should have absolutely no rights to privacy. I don't care what the Constitution says, someone who peed in an alley once where nobody could see should have their lives destroyed. There could have been a school fieldtrip to that alley at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night and have accidentally seen a penis.
Learn to love Alaska
Never underestimate the willingness of unthinking cowards to try to take away the rights of others, especially if the believe it will never affect them.
Who defines potential? Personally, I find you potentially dangerous, and definatly psychotic.
Also, to what end do we allow Prop35? Many states not only don't distinguisy between juvinile and adult sex offenders, but also require longer then juvinile life (21st birthday in most states) registration requirements.
And if this passes, who's to say that in the near future, you will loose all anonymity for simply dis-agreeing with the powers that be.
No. This can not be allowed to happen.
PWND!
"Convicted sex offender" is a very broad term that describes anyone who has been convicted of doing anything that might be construed as a sexual offense, even if the actual victim not only didn't complain, but was a willing participant.
What we really want to do is ensure that serial rapists cannot use the internet as their predatory jungle, and for this type of person I entirely agree with you. But I'd hate to ruin the life of some poor 20yo who fell in love with his sisters friend who happened to be 17, but whose parents decided to have him arrested.
People caught peeing in a bush are treated the same as child molesters under this law. It also includes people that in any way benefit from solicited sex, including the family of people willingly involved in the sex trade.
Violent offenders are already incarcerated, and those that have been released from prison after serving their time are still pretty closely monitored. This proposition sought to make a crime "more illegal" in order to increase the government's authority. The weasel-wording of the bill's description ("increase penalties for sex trafficking") allowed that to get through with an overwhelming majority; suffice to say, I'm not impressed.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I would encourage you to view one of the many sites out there that let you search public registries of sex offenders. (for example, http://familywatchdog.us/ For fun, enter your address. You'll find:
1) the number of sex offenders isn't a "few" (if you live in a metro area, there will be dozens in a 2 mile radius)
2) if you view each one's offense, you'll find most (75%+) had "victims" 14 years old +. Some of those might have been "rapes", but were probably hooking up with someone they should have known better, but it was as consensual as any liaison (ignoring fact that a minor can't consent, but survey any high school and see how chaste your average teen is)
Such sex offender laws apply to all of these (plus those who get caught urinating in public, having a romp with their spouse in public, etc); not a "few depraved and/or dangerous/psychotic people". But "think of the children!" How about a single DWI resulting in a lifetime ban on owning a motor vehicle, or a single drug conviction resulting in a lifetime 9pm curfew?
If someone is truly so sick and perverted that they need a lifetime of monitoring, then give them an adequate prison sentence.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Anonymous Coward posted: "you will loose all anonymity for simply dis-agreeing with the powers that be." Precisely. I anticipate the day when my credit card will be rejected, because the PTB didn't like something I posted on the Internet the night before. But I have hope. Thanks to intelligent and thoughtful folks like yourself.
The law also states that the sex offenders must pinky promise not to make any new usernames or online aliases, or else!
This is a ridiculous law that can never be fully enforced and won't work the way people think it will. What the hell are they even trying to accomplish with it?
First they came for the pedos,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a pedo.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the guys into fisting and DP sites,
and I was like... "at least it was fun while it lasted".
What is needed is a 3 Strikes law, where-after attempting to pass three insane draconian laws, such fiends are registered as civil-offenders and no longer permitted within 100' of a computer device. They should also be required for 10 years to kneel on all fours immediately (while humming the National Anthem) whenever a weary pedestrian needs a place to sit. Their only other option would be joining the French Foreign Legion, which of course would be the default option.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The real problem here isn't the increased loss of freedom for sex offenders. I personally could give a shit less about them. The real problem is the ever increasing creep of the term "Sex offender" Lets be clear, when you say "Sex offender" Most reasonable people would think that meant someone that had had some kind of sexual contact with a CHILD (not a teenager) or had committed actual physical rape. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people labeled as sex offenders by the courts these days are people that got busted when they were 19 for having a 16yr old girl/boyfriend... or were even the same age as their teenage partner but texted pictures of her boobs to their friends. Should they be punished for this stuff? Yes... labeled a sex offender for the rest of their lives? Fuck no. "statutory rape" is not fucking rape. Stop treating it like it is. It degrades the term "RAPE" and trivializes the true victims of this horrible crime. Should some 25yr old looser that nails a 16yr old at a party go to jail for it? YES... but rape? come on. There's plenty of grey area here, and I'm sure we could argue about a lot of it. But there's plenty that's not in a grey area, and destroying someones life over a stupid mistake they made when they were barely out of highschool is detrimental to everyone involved. Including the victim.
Off the top of my head I've got 15-20 accounts (2 brokerages, bank, slashdot, fark, ars, metacritic, couple junk emails, etc etc etc). If, god forbid, I get labeled as a SO then they want *all* those logins? Makes a person mighty easy to track if you wanna, I dunno, drain some accounts here and there.
I'm snotnose in about 2/3 of those accounts. Where I'm not it's because snotnose was already taken. Hate to have a S.O. using snotnose on some site paint me with an awfully ugly brush. Oh, different accounts you say? You really think the kind of dumass that worries about this kind of thing will bother verifying the entire domain, as opposed to just remembering 'snotnose'.?
I was sexually abused by a teenage girl (about 14+ turning 15, 16 is the age of consent in Queensland, Australia)
she accused me of rape, the government covered it up because I was under the care of the government at the time,
it still sort of hangs over me,
I was 11 at the time.
They called the measure "stiffer penalties for human sex traffickers", and not much was explained about the details. I voted against it, not because I don't think sex trafficking is terrible, but because it wasn't clear who would be under the definition or why the current penalties weren't sufficient. Of course I knew it would pass, because "sex trafficker" sounds so terrible. Turns out my suspicions were well founded. plus it said it would cost a "few million dollars" to implement, at a time our state is going through a terrible financial crisis and was facing gutting the education budget.
Do they have to notify them of all their character aliases?
Looks like the spell still has you.
As a social conservative who appreciates the damage done by sex offenses and as a pragmatist who recognizes the liklihood of recidivism, I find the concept of sex offender registries appealing. The problem is that sex offense laws have been turned on their head. The Judaic Law (I am Catholic) tolerated teen fornication provided the couple got married afterward, yet in the U.S. an 18-year-old having sex with a 16-year-old is considered rape. On the opposite end of the criminalization spectrum, adultery -- the topic of two of the ten commandments -- has been completely decriminalized in most states!
Yes, a barrier to a universal registry is the pluarlism of sex ethics in the U.S. (obviously I myself am in a minority), so perhaps a solution is to require registries to include searchable/keyed details, so that consumers of registry information can make their own judgment.
In my state, "sex offenders" include people who have urinated in public, people who forgot to close the bathroom shades before getting out of the shower, and a great many teenagers who couldn't keep it in their pants. Are these the "depraved and psychotic people" whose lives you wish to destroy?
What state are you in?
but survey any high school and see how chaste your average teen is
That strikes me as a good way to get invited to test out this new internet offender law...
There is over 100,000 registered sex offenders in California. Thats about 0.3%. That's higher than the entire USA, which is about 0.2%. 1 in 400 Americans are registered sex offenders.
...offenders are already incarcerated, and those that have been released from prison after serving their time are still pretty closely monitored
In my opinion, once a person has served their sentence, their criminal record should be sealed and not available to anyone, unless the person commits another criminal act, throughout their parole period, and after the successful completion of the period of parole the record should be expunged after 2 years. The whole criminal justice system seems intent upon punishing people for eternity; rather the focus should be rehabilitation and re-integration into society. If a convict is likely to re-offend maybe the person should never have been released from prison. From the moment of release from prison only the police should have access to the person's record but no background check for employment should reveal the existence of the record for all but a select few jobs (financial services, working with the vulnerable, position of trust which includes public office holders). Otherwise, society might as well tattoo a red 'C' on the forehead of the convicted. If a person commits another criminal act during their two-year probation period, they are not eligible for release from prison after the second conviction.
If they can not be trusted than keep them in prison, end of story. None of this bullshit about trying to turn the whole country into a prison. It'll be one crime after another, for the non-rich, until traffic offenders end up being monitored. If the crime warrants life time monitoring then keep them in prison for a lifetime where they belong.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
prop 35 fails to account for rule 34
How about a single DWI resulting in a lifetime ban on owning a motor vehicle, or a single drug conviction resulting in a lifetime 9pm curfew?
I would approve that! These people are much more dangerous than the public urinators and drunk ass-grabbers the GP wants to keeps taps on.
No, no it really doesn't. Many states, mine included don't display level one offenders.
Do you know how the level system works? Let me explain it to you.
Level 1: Usually (but not always) completed treatment successfully, as well as passing multiple polygraphs and plethysmograph exams.
Level 2: Moderate risk for re-offense.
Level 3: High risk for re-offense.
Some states even use civil commitment, and can hold an offender for an indefinite amount of time prior to release, well beyond what would be considered time severed.
As I'm writing this a thought just occurred to me. Prop 35 is a measure of civil commitment without actually doing so. Hmmm...
In any event, your notions of geeks clinging to fantasies of sex offenders are, frankly, repulsive. The recidivism rate among sex offenders is also nearly 1/4 of the standard recidivism rate of the criminal population as a whole.
...or at least create an unmanageable amount of work for the data-entry bureaucrats: Create a "catch-all" email address, i.e., [anything]@example.com goes to you. This is trivial to do with Postfix. Then make up a list of thousands---or millions---of email addresses @example.com and submit that to them. Making the list is of course trivial with a simple Perl script. Also ensure there are a few specific addresses at the example.com domain that go to someone else, such that the bureaucrats can't simply add "[anything]@example.com" to the registry. (If they do do that, they'd be adding the email address of an innocent third party, which could result in another interesting lawsuit all by itself.)
If any RSOs in California are interested in doing this, contact me (jraxis -@- jraxis.com). I'll set you up a catch-all at one of my domains and generate you a list of a few million random addresses at that domain.
Liberty in your lifetime
Victim (testifying in court): "Yes, your honor. I saw it. It was like a penis, only smaller."
Have gnu, will travel.
There could have been a school fieldtrip to that alley at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night and have accidentally seen a penis.
And WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
We can't have Young Boys Seeing Penises!
You have NO IDEA what that will lead to.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
And familywatchdog doesn't list all offenders, either.
I propose: Set up mirrors of these sites. Then keep adding lots of random people. Eventually people will realize such sites are not a good idea after all...
And WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
But the court order said I'm not supposed to think of the children any more.
Learn to love Alaska
It wasn't hard to predict that idiot voters would approve this proposition and that it would then promptly be challenged in court as unconstitutional. I told a friend just that days ago, and look what happened. The same idiots believed the "arguments against" lies about Prop 33 and voted against that one, too. I really hoped that one would pass, as I've been stung by the perverse loyalty restriction in old Prop 103 twice now when I switched insurers.
your grouping victims of a biased outdated legal system in with predators.
#fail
Here is a good PSA on sex offenders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17u01_sWjRE
as long as sex crimes involve victimless crimes, then there will be injustice.
It's not unreasonable for us to limit their access
Are you somehow of the belief that the only group harmed by these reporting requirements are "intergenerational" child rapists?
Do you think that someone that's on this registry that decides to seduce or rape a child is going to register the account they plan to use for that purpose with the police?
or create more laws that they can be found in violation of
Will we ever reach a point where we have enough laws or enough punishment for this class of criminal? If, every year, we enacted new, harsher punishments, and new laws that we can find these individuals in violation of, would we ever hit a point where you might decide it's time to stop? That's really the larger problem with propositions like this: who can come out against it without sounding like you're pro-child rape? Sometimes I hate how easy it is for people to get propositions on the California ballot.
If it were me, they'd have a freaking book! Our list of logins and passwords at work as size 12 Arial and 2 full pages and I recall thinking that I have about 8x that many, lol. Oh, and all mine are much, much, much stupider. I'm | bøøp r nøsè in one game and yes, that's how I spelled it, lol.
And what if that second criminal act was stealing a bit of food to survive? As you point out a marked criminal will find it very difficult to exist in the normal world. Two and Three strikes laws need to be removed, to allow individual cases to be judged on their merits and only the most depraved locked away forever.
Read decision "Columbia Insurance Company v. Seescandy.com, et al." (1999) of the US District Court in the Northern District of California: "People are permitted to interact pseudonymously and anonymously with each other so long as those acts are not in violation of the law." http://legal.web.aol.com/aol/aolpol/seescandy.html It can't be presumed that they are going to break the law just because they are using the fictitious name and have some criminal history.
It seems like we hear or read about a law proposal with incredulous consequences nearly everyday.
The incredible lack of forethought and even rudimentary logic is beyond my comprehension.
Do they even think about the problem beyond pandering to a misguided vocal minority? Do they even think about the innocent people it will catch in its wake? Do they even think AT ALL??
Maybe I'm just naive to think that they actually care about anyone outside of their rich cronies club.
In the last few years, some major social media service providers have been pushing for "real names" policies. Most notably, Google has been doing this. This has been a big controversy with Google+. Google's plan with Google+ was to use it as the basis for an identity authentication system. Part of the privacy threat I see with Prop 35 is that social media services will use it as an excuse to enforce "real names" policies, claiming that it's just too difficult to check whether a pseudonym is a new alias for a registered sex offender, so no one should be allowed to use pseudonyms. That would be a significant blow to free speech on the Internet.
What we really want to do is ensure that serial rapists cannot use the internet as their predatory jungle
Why are serial rapists running free to begin with?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Our society places pedophiles in a special category because they compulsively attempt to lure children to them for purposes of illicit intergenerational sex.
Not all pedophiles are child molesters. I'm not even sure if the majority of them are.
It's not unreasonable for us to limit their access
I think it is to people who actually care about freedom of speech.
Instead of pretending that their rights are somehow linked to our own, let's accept that every society has an ultimate taboo and for us it's the child-rapists.
I don't want to accept what I believe is illogical nonsense.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I can think of two examples illustrating problems with such laws.
1. Urinating in public can, in 13 states, qualify as a sex offense, through charges such as "indecent exposure", etc. A few links mentioning this issue can be viewed here:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/02/sex-offender-registry-megans-law-forbes-woman-time-children.html
http://www.economist.com/node/14164614
https://downtownathens.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/public-urination-considered-sex-offense-in-georgia-not-enforced-by-police/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-25-sex-offender-laws-cover_x.htm
2. Certain interactions with a prostitute can also qualify for sex offense.
Number 1 is certainly more common, and is something nearly any good beer-drinking mammal has been guilty of. Number 2, although less common, is rather questionable. Why questionable? Figure that out yourself. But if it is to be such a grievous offense in the the U.S., it would seem appropriate to prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to nations where such an atrocious offense is legal, such as Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey(?) and others. And certainly anyone doing business with such perverted nations should be registered and arrested as accomplices, because anyone with scruples would take the support of such offenses just as seriously as we take pissing on bushes here -- no dubya pun intended.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
So the public urinaters don't get published in the database you can see. That's a good start, probably because it would be embarrassing to the state if they had to deal with public urinaters being strung up by vigilantes who thought they molested someone.
However, there must be some drawback to being listed as a level 1 offender or they wouldn't have that level at all.
At one time in the UK, it was legal for a man to urinate in public, so long as it occurred on the rear wheel of his vehicle and he had his right hand on the vehicle. The laws allowing this were the Hackney Carriage Laws, which were repealed in 1976.[35] Public urination still remains more accepted by males in the UK, although British cultural tradition itself seems to find such practices objectionable.
I guess when wanking became ambidextrous, they nixed that one.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Just in from Ars: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/california-judge-blocks-voter-approved-ban-on-anonymity-for-sex-offenders/
The Wired article doesn't provide it, and makes it sound like the proposition passed with an 81% Yes vote because people want to track registered sex offenders' Internet activity.
The proposition was billed as the human trafficking and penalties initiative. Its main focus was on increasing penalties for those convicted of human trafficking (mostly kids and women into prostitution). That's why it passed with such a high percentage of Yes votes. The part about sex offenders' Internet activity was a single sentence buried in the middle of the voter pamphlet's summary description, so probably was glazed over by most voters.
I was baffled why something whose main provision seemed like such a no-brainer was even a proposition. It sounded like something the legislature should've been able to pass in 5 minutes. So I did a bit more research and dug up this article explaining why it may not be very helpful, counter-intuitive as that seems. That's something you have to be careful of with these ballot propositions - if it sounds like a simple Yes vote, you need to ask yourself, "What's the catch? Why hasn't the legislature passed this already?"
Just imagine if you could accidentally use the same alias as someone on the sex offenders list!
But... the future refused to change.
Part of the problem is that it only takes a little legal sleight of hand to add considerably less taboo and heinous acts to the list. When people agree to these laws, they are thinking 'sex offender' in the sense you are talking about. They are not thinking about 18 year old dating the 17 year and 364 days old classmate. They aren't thinking about the guy that peed behind the dumpster or forgot to pull the blinds.
Unfortunately, the 'justice' system can't be convinced to make that distinction on a consistent basis.
It doesn't matter how many online aliases he gives the police, he just needs one that he doesn't to keep on molesting. If you could prove without a shadow of a doubt that it was him using that alias, since he's using it to try and molest kids, you'd probably be able to pin him for that too.
Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."
##
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio
##
"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)
##
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director
##
"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History
##
George Carlin:
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehous
destroying the lives of around 800,000 people who may or may not be depraved and/or dangerous/psychotic.
FTFY
The main reason I object to these laws is that they are basically permanent punishment. The fundamental design of a functioning legal system is one of rehabilitation—once you've done your time, you become part of society again. Unfortunately, there are a few parts of our government that violate that design—disenfranchisement for convicted felons, sex offender registries, limits on where convicted sex offenders are allowed to live, and so on—by creating permanent or near-permanent punishments.
Unfortunately, such policies are a big part of why the U.S. has such a staggeringly high recidivism rate. They serve as a constant reminder of what the criminal did—a constant reminder that they're not like the rest of society—which makes complete reintegration with society impossible, forcing them to live on the fringes of society. Every time somebody asks if they voted, they either have to lie or have a very awkward conversation. When somebody asks them to pick up their kids, same problem. And so on.
Regardless of the type of crime, if you think someone is likely to reoffend, you shouldn't be letting them out, and if you don't, then you shouldn't be treating them like they're expected to reoffend, because doing so will significantly increase the odds that they will. That's basic psychology. Anyone who can't grasp that concept has absolutely no business setting any sort of policy on crime prevention. Unfortunately, most of the people setting policies on crime prevention don't understand that concept. And that's why crime in the U.S. is likely to keep getting worse.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They need the room in the prisons for pot smokers. You don't expect the private prison industry to have to deal with dangerous people do you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
In some states a man (and laws ecxlude women) can be put on the Sex Offenders list for simply taking a leak in public.
Imagine this, you are driving along a highway miles from anywhere and nature calls. You stop beside the road and answer the call of nature. When you return to your vehicle there is a police car parked behind yours.
"Yes officer I was answering the call of nature"
Boom, you are in the back of the police car and there goes your life. Chaged with being a sex offender simple for answering the call of nature. Oh, and that means you are branded as being a Sex Offender for Life.
In some countries this is not a crime. Guess which are more civilized societies in my mind?
Sex offenders can come from all walks of life. Some, just as with other criminals, are otherwise fine people and fair candidates for rehabilitation but that is a distinction many people are incapable of making because: (a) they can only view criminals in terms of stereotypes; (b) any attempt to not view criminals in terms of stereotypes leads to cries of "going soft on crime", despite the fact that the prison itself is an abject failure; (c) sex offenders, especially child sex offenders, are the paranoia du jour and we jump at shadows as if on cue; (d) we have sadistic urges and enjoy seeing people punished - the Christian right especially likes to see sinners cast out from society it seems; (e) "sex offender" is a ridiculously broad term, so sweeping as to do great damage. It lumps someone who urinated in a public place in with murdering rapists - what a spectrum! - an injustice if ever there was one.
Unless they're boyscout leaders, teachers, or religious figures -- in which case they should just be moved around to positions in other locations, covered up, and protected by their organizations.
Likewise, Janet Jackson should be registered as a sex-offender, right? :)
The site http://familywatchdog.us/ shows a list of offences that the registered sex offenders have been convicted of. Here's one example of the conviction:
"Attempted Possession of Depictions of a Minor Engaged in Sexual Conduct (attempted)"
How exactly is it even possible? Did someone want to get to a child porn site, got 404 error and got convicted for "attempted possession"?
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Not all pedophiles engage in sexual offenses with kids, and visa-versa is true also. The majority of child sex offenses are *not* committed by pedophiles. Rather, these are mainly committed by so-called opportunistic offenders. People under stress, often with alcohol involved. Pedophilia is a psychiatric diagnosis, albeit a heavily politicized one, that requires certain characteristics be present before that diagnosis is made.
The idea that a person who is caught urinating in public is a sex offender doesn't make any sense!
Where I live in India it is common to see atleast 50 people on an average day taking a dump in the fields and grasslands..
They are so used to it, they've been doing it since childhood.
So I guess, 100% of the rural Indian population is a sex offender, according to US laws.
Hell, little kids are taught to become sex offenders..
And they say THINK OF THE KIDS...
Freudian slip there?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04clpd7h0b0&t=0m44s
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
, people who forgot to close the bathroom shades before getting out of the shower
WTF, is this true? I very rarely sleep with my curtains closed and my bedroom looks over a quiet residential street. If my neighbours cop an eyeful, so what, I don't care, but if they're offended then maybe they shouldn't be looking up into my bloody windows.
Unfortunately, the 'justice' system can't be trusted to make that distinction on a consistent basis.
FTFY
Which means the application of these laws is fundamentally unjust. But nobody is trying to convince the justice system or politicians of that as far as I can see. People are too scared to criticize these laws lest they be labelled pedophile apologists by the crazed zealots who run the show now.
The pedophile witch hunt has been of huge benefit to bureaucrats, police, media and social workers wishing to expand their salaries and power bases. It's no coincidence that numbers in the social work "profession" (using the term loosely) exploded in the 1980s just as "Think of The Children" got real traction. I'll bet a plot of these two trends alongside one another would show a very close correlation.
This has to be irony. Mod funny.
They are not thinking about 18 year old dating the 17 year and 364 days old classmate. They aren't thinking about the guy that peed behind the dumpster or forgot to pull the blinds..
Then they are not thinking, period. That is an expected effect of a moral panic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
An unthinking populace is easily manipulated.
I would encourage you to view one of the many sites out there that let you search public registries of sex offenders. (for example, http://familywatchdog.us/
I love the way the names of these sites always play the "family" card, as if we were all players in an episode of Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best as opposed to actually appearing in a long-running reenactment of South Park. Divorce is the new norm; the old family structure is dead and fucked and Father Knows Bugger-All anyway. But the Christian Right is not interested in reality and yearns for the good old days when Dad was all-powerful and could beat and bugger the children with impunity.
Laws are arbitrary standards relating to specific acts.
Many bad laws are based on arbitrary standards. And it always claimed that the pogrom against pedophiles is based on evidence, which it isn't. Good laws are evidence-based and not arbitrary.
It is a terrible idea to disregard the idea (or usefulness) of a sex offender registry simply because there are some type-1 "errors".
So you equate the effective destruction of convicted people's lives with a mere error message? Nice. Upon such statements all fascist states are built.
everyone convicted under the same law should be treated within the parameters of that law.
But the parameters of laws dealing with sex offenders are ridiculously broad and oppressive. If justice as a goal does not come first, and if the law allows that, then it's wrong.
Dude, I was so going to flame you for this - then I unhid the OP and I was like, dude, that's brilliant.
I took an outdoor piss in Calfornia once with a cop right behind me (it was in some trees at a gig - I think it was Spinal Tap, actually). She was yelling, "Remember Sir, if no one can see your dick, it's fine. If anyone sees it, you're a sex offender!" Sometimes cops rock.
But, it does seem to destroy your "where nobody could see" point, at least in CA.
...we have sadistic urges and enjoy seeing people punished - the Christian right especially likes to see sinners cast out from society it seems...
Especially perverse is that people are actually sexually aroused by punishing others. It's pretty much the nature of authority itself, the feeling of domination being what it is. It defines rape.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
People keep confusing an unintended slippery slope with a well formulated iteration of increased control.
There should be more regulation of pornographic materials. Sodomy is illegal in this state, and its not because the lawmakers are ignorant. Its because it can be manslaughter. People die from intestinal walls being busted more often than you think, and honestly, I think depictions of it shouldn't be legal because of that fact. Also, I don't think any pornographic website should be easy for a child to enter, and I'm aware of net nanny. I'm also aware that a number of kids are like I was and net nanny wouldn't be much help. These are serious problems, and sex offenders have rights also, especially under certain circumstances. I do think they should be required to stay off of certain sites, depending. There's a good bit to how a law like that should be worded and enforced.
From the code of Virginia 9.1-903. Registration procedures. Paragraph G: (emphasis mine)
Any person required to register shall reregister either in person or electronically with the local law-enforcement agency where his residence is located within 30 minutes following any change of the electronic mail address information, any instant message, chat or other Internet communication name or identity information that the person uses or intends to use, whether within or without the Commonwealth. If a probation or parole officer becomes aware of a change of the electronic mail address information, any instant message, chat or other Internet communication name or identity information for any of his probationers or parolees required to register, the probation or parole officer shall notify the State Police forthwith upon learning of the change.
This applies to all sex offenders in VA, whether violent or non-violent. As a side note, in VA, violent includes hands off offenses such as child porn. You could conceivably be registered as a violent SO for looking at a 17 year old girls naked picture.
In addition, just about anyone on probation will have to undergo polygraph testing. While there is precedent that you cannot have your probation violated for failing a polygraph, as it is notoriously unreliable and unscientific, they have and end run. In addition to your polygraphs (which you have to pay at least part of, job or no job, and just try getting a job as a registered sex offender), they -can- kick you out of your court ordered therapy group (which you also have to pay some of) for non participation. If you are thrown out of your group, for any reason, including polygraph failure, you are in violation of your probation and going back to prison.
I am a sex offender. I do not deny that the things I did were terrible. They were. I turned myself in for them and served over a decade in prison. However I now cannot get a job, I cannot pay my child support or my court fines, both preventing from getting a driver's license and opening me up to more 'possible' jobs. I have to pay for therapy, Penile plethysmographs, and polygraphs. Even the literature for sex offender polygraph testing states that is unreliable but useful (google PCSOT).
This creates an environment of failure that would stress many to the point where they offend again, because yes, poor decisions and coping skills play a huge role in sexual offending.
In addition, if I were to desire to offend again, be it to look at porn, child porn, or to try to find a child online, I simply wouldn't register the account(s) used to do so. The same is true of the physical registry. If the police know my address, and workplace or not, that doesn't prevent me from grabbing a victim, or skipping out on the registry all together. It is not preventative of crime in the slightest. All it does, similar to the TSA is provide a class of people with a job (probation officers, registry officers, therapists, polygraph examiners, penile plethysmograph, experts, and all their apparatchiks, while at the same time giving others an illusion of safety. If I wanted to break into your house right now and kidnap your daughter or rape your wife, NONE of what the registry does prevents it. But as with all laws like this, the expand to cover more classes of people and erode rights.
But go on loving your country. Enjoy your free speech 'zones'. Smile when the TSA agent gropes your wife. It makes you safe.
your arm would not be attached to your shoulder any more and I'd be beating you to death with the soggy end.
Really.
wdef didn't say he was trying to seduce your daughter. What if he's taking a piss in a quiet alleyway because there are no public urinals anywhere any more and your daughter sees his willy? You kill him?
You're like that daft bint who saw someone making breakfast in their own home in the buff and, because their child was with them, rather than be arrested for being a peeping thomasina, sued the bloke for exposing himself in public in front of a minor.
Worse than her, because she didn't decide to shoot the bloke for being naked in his home.
But if you try and grab for my cock, I WILL beat you into the ground and keep jumping on the bits until I can stuff that carcass down the gaps in the drains.
In Bakersfield California you had a town so conditioned to fear crime out of near by Los Angeles, that the desire for a "Tough on Crime" DA got them Ed Jagles. Ed Jagles and his buddies have been alleged to have falsely accused and falsely convicted many of sexual assault on children. So consider that some who are whistle blowers in a community might be branded sexual predictors just as a way to make their lives difficult.
Thankfully Ed Jagles chose not to run for office again after all the heat about an illegal warrentless break in to a house in the community which was caught on tape and had gone viral on the Internet.
I love the EFF and support them, but I'm not sure I agree with this (looking at a very broad and non-legal-background view). I think this is a inherent risk and if it can be exposed to prevent predatory habits, it is a good thing.
Having some fun...writing front-end code.
Yeah, but laws like this do not cover just sexual predators, but the much broader group of 'sexual offenders', which means pretty much any crime where a naughty bit is somehow vaguely involved.
One of the best ways to think of yourself as 'normal' and 'moral' is to create a well defined group that you can say you are not a part of.
Just look at the 80s and associating pedophilia with homosexuality. I have met heterosexual pedophiles that were truly convinced that they were not child molesters because they were strait, and often their churches supported them in this assertion. I saw churches overlook fathers molesting their daughters because the strength of the idea that it was purely a gay thing, thus whatever they WERE doing couldn't possibility be raping their kid. Pointing this out could often get you ostracized....
For any of you that may be in support of this, are you aware that in many areas, simply using the restroom in the woods someplace and getting caught is in itself considered a sex crime?
Do you think that is reasonable? Do you feel you should go to prison for such a thing?
(d) we have sadistic urges and enjoy seeing people punished - the Christian right especially likes to see sinners cast out from society it seems;
The "Christian right" are neither Christians nor right. Their views do not in any way reflect what Christ taught. His message was forgiveness, tolerance, and nonjudgementalism. He was decidedly against the wealthy and powerful (which was ultimately what got him executed).
The "Christian right" would be in the crowd screaming "CRUCIFY HIM!!!"
Free Martian Whores!
Or is it libel? Whatever, stop give me a bad name!
Posting to undo a bad click
What Jesus taught, as reported in the Bible (King James version) has less to do with Christianity than current federal laws have to do with the constitution.
Just because the organization wears the name doesn't mean it attends to the stated ideals. It rarely does if it's more then two generations from it's founder. (And often fails sooner than that.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Not sure about him but in Michigan it's that way.
Well, not sure abut the bathroom thing, but the peeing and teenagers (like a 17 yr old doing an 18yr old) is sex offender registry.
What we really want to do is ensure that serial rapists cannot use the internet as their predatory jungle
Why are serial rapists running free to begin with?
Because they're cops.
It's pretty stupid. "More fines and prison time for a crime I know nothing about, sure." Voters deserve the society they are making for themselves. On a positive note in a decade or so most everyone will have some felony and be on some offender list so the "welp not me" vote will be the minority.
The proper time for investigation is at sentencing, not the time of reform.
It's always a good time to investigate, and you're disgusting for saying otherwise. Maybe we should put you in prison and see how you feel.
Are you saying it is more prudent to protect the offenders rights than the freedom of his victims?
Pointing this out could often get you ostracized....
Yes, the downmod I got made that perfectly clear. People in authority and their fervent followers do not like their preconceptions to be questioned. It is seen as a direct threat to the patriarchy.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
My brother was caught by the police peeing in a bush. He just had to show up in front a judge, explain he was just peeing and they slapped him with a fine. End of story. Don't know where you get your info but experience tells otherwise.
The sex offender registry is about as un-American as you can get. If you want to live in a free country, you're going to have to watch your kids and profile the people your kids are around.
If you don't want a sex offender on the street for some reason, keep them in prison for life or execute them. A registry like they do now is a violation of civil rights and the principles this country was founded on.
If anything, it should be an optional plea bargaining tool.
Forgot to mention, you're encouraged to phone the sex offenders in the registry and mail them death threats. They have no legal recourse. If you want to go balls to the wall, dress up as a delivery man but bring a gun to their house. Blast them in the head when they open the door.
You'll be doing God's work.
If a woman gets undressed in front of a window, and a man walking by stops to watch, they arrest the man for being a peeping tom.
If a man gets undressed in front of a window, and a woman walking by stops to watch, they arrest the man for being an exhibitionist.
Do they have a database in place? If I were to give up all that info it would be 10 pages long. Not to mention, it would piss me off and I would submit another 40 pages of bogus info.
All rights? Any law? Either you need more specifics or I don't want to be in the same country as you.
I agree with the GP. We need to start executing some of these terrorist jaywalkers. While we're at it I don't really like my neighbor and I know he has a DUI so I'd like to label him as dangerous as well, please start monitoring him immediately, or at least throw him in prison so he'll quit mowing the lawn at 7 am.
I tried to volunteer with Big Brothers in the 90's. They rejected my application. I've always been convinced that I was turned down because I was open with them that I was gay. I'm convinced it was because they associated being gay with being a pedophile.
Didn't read all of the comments, so I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but Florida has had that law for at least the last two or three years. Guess the EFF doesn't pay much attention to Florida. Oh, and one more thing, Good luck getting your civil rights restored in FL if you had anything more serious than a speeding ticket. Most any felony in FL is a life sentence of shaming, even if the sentence was only probation.
Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lyn made a very similar observation in the 80s, that the prevalence of social problems is directly proportional to the number of social workers, and thus the local council with the fewest social workers was the most effective at eliminating social problems.
The point is that if they DO NOT register, and you catch them, it's a good way of getting charges on them before they harm a kid again.
That's why this exists.
Futurist Traditionalism
"This is a false issue" was the original.
Fucking wireless keyboards.
Futurist Traditionalism
(gosgog): Seems to me some simple answers. 1/. LEGALIZE PROSTITUTION , make it taxable (think Seattle history), make it HEALTHIER, & remove the Pimps, Human Trafficking and other criminals involved, plus stop wasting Police on it...it is the Olderst Profession in the world. 2/. Pedophiles put 'em away for life, same with incestuous parents & other types of Child Pornographers. 3/. People who want to piss in Public...send 'em to Asia, its common practice here! 4/. Politicians & most Lawyers...give 'em one term in office and Kill 'em.