Slashdot Mirror
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."
Every charge sticks unless you can afford to go to trial. Unless you've been wronged by the police before it's pretty hard to have a grip on just how fucked the system is.
Nowadays they can arrest you, make up some false charges... then your in the system and you have to defend yourself with whatever limited resources you have. It's total bullshit and they don't have to ever deal with it again unless you go to trial. Which most people can't and will not. Plea bargains look pretty tasty when your life is in unknown hands and your only form of communication is a telephone that is very restricted.
That's the point and that is the long-game being played, here.
Ultimately, "for the children", they will enforce use of real identities for all individuals on the internet. At the very least, there will have to be a registered real identity that is easily referenced for anyone in "authority" without need for a warrant. Ideally (in their mind), your real identity will simply be all you have to act under while online, presented to everyone.
If "bullies durp durp durp" doesn't do it, then "sex offenders durp durp durp!".
Not to mention, if we're so afraid of these people that we have to put scarlet A's on their doors and mailboxes, have then register every activity and location and method of contact on earth, etc, etc... then why the fuck are we even letting them out of prison, in the first place? Either someone has served the time for their crime and has been determined safe to re-enter society or they aren't. (Probation, yadda yadda).