MySpace, U.S. Address Sex Offenders Online 154
TitusC3v5 writes "According to BBC News, MySpace is attempting to block sex offenders by way a custom database that utilizes state sex offender registries. Sentinel Safe will let MySpace search US state and federal databases to seek out and delete MySpace profiles of registered sex offenders." From the article: "The company said the new service will be the first national database that brings together about 46 US state sex offender registers ... It will be available in the next 30 days. MySpace has not released information on its plans for tackling sex offenders using the service in other countries." This is on the heels of proposed legislation that would require sex offenders to keep their email on file. The addresses would presumably be used to restrict former criminals from accessing online community sites, but in an the era of easily obtainable email addresses it's hard to see how this would be effective.
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
While the intent is good, I'm rather suspect of people who think this is full-proof, and look forward (mockingly) to the future when people think their kids are safe from predators because MySpace is tracking KNOWN sex offenders by their REGISTERED email addresses.
Wow, why don't we just do this with terrorists? Then we'd know where they are and what they are doing all the time, just have to log onto the gov. website to find out....
Of course it isn't perfect (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Of course it isn't perfect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it isn't perfect (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'm not siding with the sex offenders but comon. Either they are guilty enough to still be in jail or they should be allowed to use internet communication websites freely. Maybe instead of banning sex offenders we should ban or force monitoring on minors that use those services. Some other kind of limitation would work the same too.
If they served their time they should be free. If they should not be free there is a problem with sentencing of the criminals and not how websites are monitored.
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For some people, there is this thing called parole. It means they let you out of jail early, if they think you'll behave.
When you get out on parole, you're assigned to a parole officer whose job it is to check that you are following the terms of your release. You stop following the rules, you go back to jail.
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Don't be ridiculous, man, where would we possibly find the funding or manpower? You'd need to employ an adult full-time to look after each individual child. Or even two adults.
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Don't forget the wiretapping! (Score:2)
Don't forget those new warrantless wiretapping powers the executive branch had passed in Congress just before the elections. Who needs AT&T to snoop packets when you can just call Yahoo?
Also: Yeah right, like
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The first and last line of defense is giving a crap about what your kid is doing online. Period. End. Of. Story. There is no magical fairy dust fix that is going to make that any less the case, so why bother?
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For example, the Texas registry is of limited usefulness because they don't tell you the exact nature of the crime. Thus you don't know if that guy down the street is a victim of genuine prudishness and sexual immaturity or if he's a genuine predator. I want to know about real threats, not a lot of noise.
The primary effect of this will be to harrass relatively minor offenders. People who want to be a genuine menace will likely find a way to game both the state databases and myspace or just p
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Laws are brought in "for the sake of the children", but cover a far wide variety of crimes, including even consensual and victimless crimes (and it's not just the US - see my sig for an example where soon looking at a picture will alone be a sex crime in the UK, even though the act itself was not a crime).
plausible deniability (Score:3, Insightful)
This is for one reason only, to give them plausible deniability if someone gets attacked and initial contact is traced to their service.
We have a problem in england at the moment of sex offenders who are being traced/monitored dissapearing from view bec
Risk and consequence (Score:2)
" Under the proposed legislation, any sex offender who submits a fraudulent email could face prison."
Presumably not declaring email addresses is fraudulent too. So yeah, they can use an anonymous address, but they also risk getting busted doing so. Not fool proof, but also forces such people to demonstrate intent.
Osama is already in the poo, flouting email address laws is unlikely to make his legal situation appreciably worse.
Xix.
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Re:Risk and consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
For crying out loud... "sex offender" is not a synonym for "fucking children."
It means everything from peeing on a bush outside to having consensual sex with a consenting partner of reasonable age who decided later to use it against you to having taken completely innocent photos of your own kid. And it does include people who prey on children, I'll grant you, but the point is the brush is now too broad because legislators are idiots; if they go with the email thing you'll have learned nothing useful except how to jitter and freak out about a bunch of people who are likely to be absolutely zero threat to you and any children, anywhere.
Control your legislators, people. Come on. And think!
Thank you. (Score:2)
But if you say this, you're an apologist for JonBenet's killer, and probably a crypto
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First, let me say that I agree with your sentiment completely; however, the reasoning (sophist, in my view) put forward by the USSC was that "registration" isn't punishment, it is a "legitimate state function" where the state "has an int
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How about these loose interpretations of the commerce clause. That was just the first few that turned up in a quick search:
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legislators are idiots
I love to blame the system, and in this case I think it's justified.
Suppose I was a legislator (ha!) and was unnaturally clueful. Angry parents of victims get together and demand Something Be Done to Protect The Children (and I don't blame them at all). Our fear-mongering society then spreads this outrage to paranoid parents and even ordinary or clueful parents. Therefore I have to look like I'm Doing Something, so I introduce a bill to "crack down on preverts".
Other legislators are pretty much requi
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"We're going to make these rules and it will be illegal to break these rules. YOU will go to jail if you break these rules."
It realy sounds like a bunch of children at the playground, the kind that makeup a particular game and create the rules as they go along. One kid figures out how to be 'King of the Hill' and the whiny kid cries because the smarter kids broke the rule.
Yes, there are serious problems here but email tracking is not the way to
Wired News Supplied the code (Score:4, Insightful)
The finest Mashup I've seen to date. Worthy of some sort of prize... Is there a "Mashup Awards Banquet"?
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The key things involved are that the sex ofenders (for reasons known only to them selfs) still register with their REAL info. Why? No clue!
It will stop some offenders I hope, but I doubt it will do much.
The biggest problem is that you just outright block them bassed on email then that enourages them to get an email and not register it.
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The key things involved are that the sex offenders (for reasons known only to them selfs) still register with their REAL info. Why? No clue!
If a sex offender is too controlled by his (or her) urges to the point where they have sex with children, rape someone, or otherwise sexually assault other people, they may not be thinking too clearly in the first place.
Also in the news... (Score:3, Interesting)
To promote easy identification of sex offenders, a new bill requires "registration of the logo and design of the hat worn by the offender." Mention was not made in the bill of what happens if the offender changes hats.
Holy hell, how far can they take this false sense of security crap? If you want your kids to be safe, teach them what things to do are stupid, and how to recognize danger signals (online and offline). Then, you could, you know, always supervise them until you're reasonably sure that they've indeed gotten the point.
Or we could try tracking people by their email address. I'm sure that'll work great. imasexoffender@example.com will never think of registering 15yroldmale@example.com too!
Politicians and pedophiles. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Politicians and pedophiles. Myspace Stats (Score:2)
Re: Myspace Stats formatted (Score:2)
Occupation
Politician tests=7689007, matches=131, percent=0.001703731053957943
Pediphile tests=7689007, matches=1, percent=1.300558056456445E-5
Testing active records, 1 visit every 2 weeks, in 23 Million record sample.
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Try searching "pedophile."
Re: Myspace Stats formatted (updated) (Score:2)
Occupation
Politician tests=7689007, matches=131, percent=0.001703731053957943
Pedophile tests=7689007, matches=26, percent=3.381450946786757E-4
Pediphile tests=7689007, matches=1, percent=1.300558056456445E-5
Testing active records, 1 visit every 2 weeks, in 23 Million record sample.
The solution is good advice... (Score:2)
umm (Score:1)
Armbands (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we are in the process of creating a bunch of second class citizens with sex offender registration laws. People can become sex offenders for a wide variety of reasons, but everybody treats all sex offenders as if each and every single one were an evil predator lurking and waiting for even a glimmer of a chance to prey on a child.
For people convicted of kidnapping children and coercing them into child porn, this might very well be reasonable. But for the 25 yr old convicted of statutory rape of the 17yr old, this is quite questionable. Or the father who molests his daughter (and has never touched another child), or any number of other situations that are significantly milder.
Most people who have to register do not deserve to be treated the same as the worst of the class.
I'm waiting for the laws that strip custody of children from registered sex offenders or prohibit them from participating in school events with their children, or any number of other laws passed by well-meaning people that create a large class (probably nearly a million people in the US) of people who are denied some fairly basic things for no particularly good reason.
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Worse and far more damaging than someone who kidnaps children and forces them into child porn? I hope you're joking.
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Statutory "rape" and music "theft" (Score:2)
Likewise, how many people would support a crime called "copyright infringement"? The record labels need to trump it up into "theft" to get anyone to react.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I do think it's milder than someone kidnapping children and forcing them into child porn. I don't think it's minor.
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I think the gp was referring to the fact that, statistically, most father daughter molestation scenarios are opportunist, meaning they usually involve multiple concomitants such as alcohol/drugs, divorce/unhappy relationships, etc. Opportunistic molesters are not true pedophiles in that they do not specifically target and prefer children.
Of course, statistics don't mean a damn if you're the one getting fucked up the arse by the old man but there is a recognized difference in the field.
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That's an astonishing abuse of trust on the part of the father. It's not milder at all, he's broken one of the basic rules of being a human being (or indeed a member of most animal species) - he's harmed one of his children.
Parents are supposed to protect their kids, not molest them. I suspect that you're in a very small minority indeed in seeing that as being milder than molesting a stranger's kid.
(I realise you're not condoning it
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I can't see any reason not to make people like that register either. And having them show up on MySpace is just fine by me. Personally, I really hope that someone was very careful about things when they released them from prison.
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So.. in numbers that are admittedly vague, but good enough for gov't work, one out of every 100 adult males is a registered sex offender. Doesn't that number seen a little high to you??
Hmm... Given a similar illic
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While some crimes are not punished equally, they are still crimes. In sex based attacks, if you have done it once then there is a high chance that you will do it again. In that case everyone should be warned of your actions.
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That's actually not true. The recidivism rate among sex offenders is very low compared to most crimes. And the likelihood could hardly be characterized as 'high' as I believe the rate is less than 1%.
Now, among certain classes of sex offenders this isn't true. But initiatives like this very rarely make any distinction and treat all sex offenders as the worst kind.
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A guy breaks into your house, kills your wife, and is running away from the house when you chase him down and beat to death. You are convicted of murder. Someone else takes to sniping people in VA. If both were released, who is more likely to kill again, the person that only did it once in a specific situation, of the person that killed strangers multiple times?
A father that molests his own children is not a t
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A guy breaks into your house, kills your wife, and is running away from the house when you chase him down and beat to death. You are convicted of murder. Someone else takes to sniping people in VA. If both were released, who is more likely to kill again, the person that only did it once in a specific situation, of the person that killed strangers multiple times?
Like I posted before either way you are still a murderer. It
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Also, there is a good point to note that we do
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Then the list is unconstitutional. The list is not punishment. If the only reason the list exists is to punish people that committed a crime, then the courts have ruled it can't exist. Therefore, the people that want the list now claim that the list is for "protection." If that is the case, then you are wrong. The severity of the crime and likelyhood of redivism ar
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There are actually very distinct classifications of pedophiles, and those distinct classifications have wildly different recidivism rates. Most sex offender laws actually explicitly recognize this and have a classification scheme based on it. But stuff like this MySpace deal completely ignore that classification scheme and treat all sex offenders the same regardless.
From what I understand, molestation within the family rarely strays outside, and it's uncommon that the offender does it again after (s)he's
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Second-class citizens are useful. (Score:4, Funny)
How else would we have been able to make some of the steps forward in medicine, were it not for some of the work done on "disposable" people?
How else would we have had such a burgeoning entertainment industry, had it not been for laws that deprived actors and actresses from burial in sacred ground?
Who else can be used for a way to see how far a government can go before the first-class citizens decide that enough is enough?
Of course, sometimes a government can overplay its hand. When people find out that convicted sex offenders are not allowed in public hurricane shelters, but have to report to the local jail (and give 24 hours advance notice, even!), there might be a feeling that things might have gone too far.
But then again, when we're "thinking of the children," we don't have to do a whole lot more thinking, do we?
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Uh, what?
Are you saying we wouldn't have summer blockbuster movies and National Enquirer if people could wail and gnash their teeth at the tombs of ancient heroes, and listen to wandering minstrels recount tales of their strength and beauty in verse?
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This is very true. Some states you can get put on the SO registry for simply getting caught peeing in some bushes behind a bar after doing some drinking. That person clearly isn't a threat to anyone, and isn't likely to hurt anyone, but would be on the SO lists never-the-less. This usually causes them to be treated as outcasts and in some cases can be beaten by people who don't care about the details, just know they are a sex offender. Some o
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I think most people would agree that kidnapping children and forcing them into sexual acts is worse than the statutory rape I cited or even a father molesting his daughter.
Sex offenders who violently take what they want by force might be worse than the kidnappers or not depending.
The statutory rape case IMHO hinges entirely on the individuals involved. I can see that being abusive or just fine. I, in fact, know of a case just like that in which both parties are now adults and are doing very well in a co
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When you consider that there are many much worse crimes that do not have registries, it seems a bit illogical to make an equalization to other crimes of conscious decision.
This is
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That's an interesting point. But who do you think would more likely to be on MySpace trolling for young girls?
I consider it milder mostly because it can sometimes be very hard to keep separate one kind of intimate relationship for another, especially if you were abused yourself as a child. I believe those cases are the ones most amenable to treatment. I also believe that the suicide rates among offenders in those kinds of cases are the highest. So, my definition of milder is mostly "least likely to act
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This is AWEFULL, its going to make things worse (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead, this data should be used to covertly keep an eye on their account and account use, indeed, once these predators have been identified anyone contacted by them or looking at their page should get an alert with a warning about who that person is. Or simply make it ipossible for that account to contact or be contacted by children et al.
A passive approach will keep more of the
The Risk-Averse Life (Score:4, Insightful)
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Life is dangerous and it shouldn't be the government's job to protect you from it.
A/S/L? (Score:2, Funny)
Wii:13,F,Fl
MysteryMan33:You like big harddrives? Minz 120Gig.
Wii:wow! thats big.
MysteryMan33:Wanna see it?
Wii:cool
MysteryMan33:Wanna play with my Wiimote control?
BrianWilliams:I'm Brian Williams and your on DATELINE. What were you planning to do with this young girl?
MysteryMan33:I can't log on to MySpace anymore because I am on "the List".
Yet another nail in the coffin of the Constitution (Score:1, Troll)
While MySpace as a private company certainly has the right to use these registries that way, for the government to set up a list of "people not to listen to" or worse "people who private entities should block the speech of or risk lawsuits" is a blow to free speech. Whether it's _for the children_ or not.
Next story on Slashdot: Users blocked from slashdot
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Why stop there? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not just link to the DHS terrorist [slashdot.org] database and prevent them from registering as well?
And, while we're at it, why not extend this to anyone who has ever, in their entire life, done something wrong. Contact the school board! (Given the antagonistic nature toward students, I'm sure most school boards would be more than willing to provide a list of names of "troublemakers").
The notion of a convict settling his debt to society with prison time is quickly becoming antiquated. How long before "Once a criminal, always a criminal" becomes the slogan of law enforcement? How long before forgiveness is a de facto criminal act?
I understand the intentions are good. But people do change. And some "sex offenders" are little more than drunks who got convicted of public urination, or streaking, etc...
And of course, *no one* would think of registering with a fake name. NEVER!
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Yea, the world really need more sexually frustrated terrorists.
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How long before "Once a criminal, always a criminal" becomes the slogan of law enforcement?
The "slippery slope" is not an argument, it's sophistry. No one claims that "once a criminal, always a criminal."
However, once a child molestor*, always a child molestor is quite accurate in the vast majority of cases. There are a lot of reasons someone might steal (hungry, etc), but there's only one reason you become a child molestor: because a child fits your sexual arousal profile AND you lack the ability to
Education and parental involvement is the answer (Score:1)
The Scary Internet Sex Predator may make good headlines, but it's not the biggest molestation danger to our teens. For preteens the danger of an actual kidnapping or meeting is very very small. Predators who send teens and children dirty pictures are easy enough to track down after-the-fact if parents are smart enough to call the police.
The biggest risk to children are parents,
The best solution. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Umm, okay (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not going to do any good to prevent people from registering under alternate e-mail addresses and psuedonyms to get on the site.
The libertarian in me also doesn't believe in sex-offender registries or blacklists such as this one -- the person most likely already went to prison and has a record that will follow them the rest of their life, why not give them a legitimate chance to actually be rehabilitated? Surely the stigmatization of being labeled and tracked the rest of their lives can't help them recover and not re-offend, after all. And if they do it again, well, lock them up for longer or forever.
Fake names? (Score:3, Funny)
This is a bit far (Score:4, Insightful)
What ever happend to 'serving your time and paying your debt to society for your mistake'. When did that become a life long repayment?
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The government hasn't been able to properly reform criminals who go to jail and are released, and most of these criminals re-commit crimes when they emerge from prison. Instead of evaluating our methods of rehabilitation, we just assume that everyone who commits a crime will continue to do so and in effect make it more likely that this will be the case.
If you are an out of
Why do they bother doing this? (Score:2)
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Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders (Score:4, Insightful)
None of that really matters to the linch mob though.
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Goes for all rights, voting, gun ownership, living near a school.
Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders (Score:5, Insightful)
Would someone explain to me why a married couple having sex in a public place should be banned from living close to a school? Someone tell me why a person who repeatedly walks home drunk from a bar and stops to urinate in an alley shouldn't be allowed on MySpace. Why does the drunken frat kid who streaked across campus a few times deserve to be labeled a threat to society?
There is a huge an ever-growing number of "offenses" that gets someone put on sex "offender" lists. The fact that they often get lumped together is pure bullshit.
Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not talking about 18 year olds that have sex with their 17 year old girlfriends, I am talking the 30 year olds having sex with 13 year olds, 40 year olds that rape 8 year olds, and so on.
The main problem with the currently-fashionable "sex offender registries" is that they do not discriminate. As you have shown, we realize there is a continuum: 18 vs. 17 yro statutory cases are at one end, and serial pedophiles are on the other end. But laws like the one just passed here in California this November stamp them all with the big "Pervert" stamp.
It is ridiculous to make a law saying that a 45 year old man, for instance, who was convicted more than two decades ago of having consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, cannot live within a half-mile of an elementary school. And if that man doesn't re-register EVERY YEAR within one week of his birthday, or within one week of a move, a WARRANT goes out for his arrest, and it's a FELONY!
No, I'm not a 45 year old sex offender. I just think we need to be a bit more granular. If he's a serial pedophile, lock him in a treatment program. If he had the wrong kind of sex as a teenager 20 years ago, and has paid his restitution to society, let him go. And don't keep hassling him with punitive registries and requirements that weren't even laws when the crime was committed!
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I don't have statistics handy, but I saw some expert on sex crimes on TV once who said that the rate of recidivism among sex offenders is actually not that high. Most of them are NOT a threat to society.
We've just decided to make sex offenders (particularly child sex offenders) the boogeymen of our generation. Nobody ever lost their seat in the government for being mean to sex offenders, after all.
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Re: Better question is, why are sex offenders (Score:2)
So yes, you could be a virgin, never having even seen anyone else naked, and still be a registered sex offender.
Still, I'm sure the pol
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