The global system designed to track paedophiles is failing as nations refuse to share information following the Edward Snowden spying revelations, child protection experts have warned.
Suspicions of government “snooping” and potential privacy breaches have meant that countries have proved unwilling to hold and disseminate information on known and dangerous child abusers. Full Article
Related:
International Travel – China / Thailand
International Megan’s Law / RSO Travel Issues
International Travel (Main Page)
International Travel (Tag)
I doubt personal privacy issues are the only thing holding up the creation of SO registries in many of these countries. There are at least two other good reasons they may not want one. The first is monetary; it’s expensive to set up a registry and keep it current. They may simply have other things they’d rather do with their money. The second is that it only takes about five minutes of internet research on the US registry to see that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t reduce the incidence of new sex crimes. It doesn’t adequately target those who commit sex crimes. (Even with 800,000 people on the US registry, the vast majority of sex crimes are committed by people not on registries.) And, at least with a public registry, vigilante action by the public is a very real phenomenon, up to and including the murder of registrants and their family members. So, sure, they may have a more robust view of personal privacy protection than our government, but they also may ask, why spend money to waste money on something that doesn’t work and puts more people in danger than it saves from danger?
I note, this is a British report, and Britain has been in fanatic, severely hyped up frenzy about sex offenders for some time now. This report is simply feeding into that and distorted accordingly.
For one thing, the supposed “global system designed to track pedophiles” apparently is not distinguishing pedophiles from any other sex offender — because, as is clear in the US, cracking down on pedophiles is not really what it is all about.
All non-pedophile registrants in the US who have tried to travel overseas since last December can tell you so, as they apparently are all getting turned away at the border of the country to which they are traveling because of the information the US is sending ahead of them to the destination country — even if their offense had nothing to do with children, might even have been a misdemeanor, and might be ancient, might be decades old.
From at least one report here at CA RSOL, the US is simply sending a notice something to the effect: convicted sex offender traveling to your country with the intent to abuse children. This apparently is what is being sent for any registrant, even if their offense was simply indecent exposure from 30 years ago. If the destination country is receiving information that you are a pedophile and actually intending to abuse children in the host country, how can they possibly consider letting you in — they apparently are not being told your actual offense, when it occurred, what your age was at that time (as in the comments above and lower ages for various offenses in the country to which you are traveling) or anything else that might lower the fear level!?
Why are they even telling anything about registrants when they are not doing the same for people people of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, murder, car jacking, armed robbery and an assortment of other violent offenses? Is it really more important to make sure the world knows someone wagged his weenie 30 years ago, do not let him in, than to tele l;them about brutality, murder, aggravated assault, and other dangerous offenses from more recent years?
Why is the US sending such information even if it is for offenses that the federal government does not even require registration, such as indecent exposure and other misdemeanor and many low level felonies or most offenses after 10 years?
Civil rights activists and those defending registrants issues are wildly dropping the ball — again — in not going full throttal against this information the US is sending and that it is sending any information at all. They dropped the ball in the mid-1990s when they did nothing to fight registration when they should have sought to nip it in the bud, and they are doing it again now in not fighting tooth and nail against this advance of the Dark Ages from spreading across the world.
The United States government is actively at war with a segment of the American population namely registered sex offenders. We registered sex offenders are being PUNISHED for actually following the absurd list of added punishments to the letter by providing the government with our information.
The government is handing this information to foreign countries that we are legally trying to visit and part of the pursuit of happiness (travel and seeing the world that we have a human right to explore just like anyone else)!
The US government is betraying our cooperation with their endless punishment. I am seriously thinking of NOT registering next year and waiting to be arrested. Perhaps then I could get a lawyer interested in helping to change this cruel and unusual punishment!
The security and prevention offered here is an illusion. This is nothing more than the classic argument for the advancement of the preventive state – we must move from reacting to sexual violence to a proactive, preemptive, preventive mode. It is not Snowden who has caused the distrust.
The preventive state promulgated by the United States in dealing with terrorists after 9/11 that the rest of world is struggling with, already exists through the registry for registered citizens. Many in the world are smarter than the mentality in America to know that it is a common mistake to assume that a Muslim is a terrorist because they Muslim, or that certain ethnic groups are criminals because of their ethnic or religious background.
We are dealing with humans here – the species with free will and the proven ability to always change our minds even if planning or possessing to the ability to commit a heinous act. The right for every citizen to be safe from governmental intercedence should be fundamental as the expectation of civil liberty and the “idea” of innocent until proven guilty. For registered citizens, these fundamental presumptions no longer exist.
Legislation and laws must deal with facts not predictions. Trying to punish someone for what they might do will always leave room for mistakes. Jurisprudence cannot be created to fit the profile of all people because there is no way one can tell accurately what a person might or might not do. To believe that criminals and sexual predators must be disabled before they can strike is a faulty concept.
The American people and the courts need to catch up with reality and get thinking about the future of jurisprudence in regards to individual rights. The legal system needs to catch up with what is already being done to sex offenders as citizens. The courts don’t know how to react, many just sit back and let the government do what it will, and be silent.
Ernie Allen, some sort of sex abuse expert said, “You lose some of your civil rights when convicted of crimes against a child.” I have an Article 5 problem with this. I certainly understand that our civil rights have been degraded, though illegally. We have many civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Constitution defines how government goes about eliminating those rights: Article 5 defines how to amend the constitution. Our constitutional rights are not degraded by laws or statutes; not by initiatives; not by some fool like Ernie Allen. They may legally be degraded by amending the constitution. They haven’t done that (yet).
This past weekend I traveled to Ohio with my daughter to visit a college. On BOTH flights departing and coming home my daughter and I were both “chosen” for additional security checks. The TSA said “wow I’ve never seen two people traveling together get chosen for the additional check”. Makes me think that they are doing a little check even on domestic flights.
The check was for bomb making material on my suitcase and my hands. The TSA guy had no idea why we were chosen.
I fly regularly to the Midwest from SoCal and have never received any heightened TSA scrutiny.
I last traveled to France in 2005 (a few years after my release from incarceration) and, again, I received no heightened scrutiny at departures or arrivals.
Apparently, that may change next time I travel internationally.
Whatever happens next time, I’ll report my experiences on this website so others can use the info.