It took six weeks. Only six weeks for Congress to make a historic decision without any discussion or debate about its significance. That decision is the addition of “unique identifiers” to the passports of U.S. citizens. This has never happened before in the history of our country and has only happened in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.
The U.S. Senate struck the first blow on December 17, 2015, when they adopted an amendment to H.R. 515, International Megan’s Law, under a “suspension of the rules” that significantly limited discussion and debate. During that time, the Senators failed to mention the importance of the amendment and instead focused on the “alleged horrors” the bill would prevent.
I said alleged and I mean alleged for this is the “new” sex offender myth that continues to be repeated despite a total lack of facts to back it up: anyone convicted of a sex offense involving a minor will eventually be guilty of sex trafficking. Regardless of the age of the offender. Regardless of how many decades ago the offense occurred. Regardless of whether a judge has declared the offender to be rehabilitated.
The U.S. House of Representatives followed in the footsteps of their Senate colleagues today, only six weeks later. And like the Senate, they considered the amendment under a “suspension of the rules”. They did not discuss, they did not debate the historical significance of adding “unique identifiers” to the passports of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.
Americans should be afraid. Very afraid. That any group to which they belong will be next. Are you a Muslim? Are you gay? Are you overweight? Have you ever been convicted of drunk driving?
We cannot sit still and be quiet. We must answer this grave injustice to the U.S. Constitution and we shall. We will file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, possibly the day after the President signs the bill into law.
For if we don’t act. We, too, will be “guilty” of failing to heed the ominous words of a German clergyman, spoken in 1946:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Join us in this fight by showing up, showing up and speaking up. Join us in this fight by making a donation to California RSOL.
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Read all of Janice’s Journal
Related
Congress Reschedules HR 515 Vote for February 1
Video of Hearing on C-SPAN – courtesy of Women Against Registry
Any other outcome would have been shocking.
As always, a heartfelt thanks to all those who invested time, effort and resources in the fight against this abomination. Janice Bellucci, Paul from RTAG, and I am sure many others of whom I am not aware. Thank you.
Thanks also to WAR for making the video available.
Also a big shout out to Rep. Ann Wagner. She gave a flamboyant speech full of pathos (did she say ‘angel’? How many time was that word used in 30 minutes?) in support of the bill, but at least she spoke the truth.
At 26:15 she said, and I quote verbatim – “A 2010 Government Accountability Report showed that in a single year at least 4500 Registered Sex Offenders received US Passports to travel internationally. This is absolutely unacceptable.”
Now, there is no evidence that these 4500 individuals, or a single one (if that were relevant), used this travel document to sexually abuse a child in a foreign country. She does not claim this. There is no evidence that these 4500 individuals, or a single one (if that were relevant), even engaged in foreign travel. She does not claim this.
She states – on the record – that it is unacceptable for certain US Citizens to receive a, THE, document a citizen of this country is ENTITLED to receive, which unequivocally proves citizenship of the United States of America worldwide.
If it is unacceptable for a person to receive, in a lawful manner, the one document that proves their citizenship, then they must not be ‘real’ citizens.
THAT is what she said, and that is what this is all about. Thanks, Ann! If anything your honesty is refreshing.
While our campaign did not succeed we were successful in organizing which is the first step. We filled speaker paul ryan’s voicemail on multiple occasions. Now lets do the same with the president. https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact – send emails, call, write letters. He has 10 days to sign this bill. If we spend as much time over the 10 days explaining what this bill actually is and actually does maybe he veto’s it for no other reason then to force debate.
He is/was a constitutional attorney, he can see the merits of the argument this is unconstitutional and may not want his name attached to such a bill that gets over turned.
Thank you Janice for all of your hard work but the fight is just beginning. I was wondering if the suit should be filed in multiple district courts, that way if circuits disagree maybe this is our crack in the door back to SCOTUS to finally see these are indeed punishments and not civil disabilities.
In NY we do not have a strong organization like this one sadly, but I know one attorney, Kathy Manley that has taken and fought (and even won) several sex offender issues. If you want her email is: KManley@Kindlon.com and phone is: 518-434-1493. She maybe able to assist with filing the same challenges in NY and hopefully 1 of the courts will issue an injunction on this heinous bill
Push the president to consider what the passed legislation does.
Constitutional challenges if the bill is signed.
Lobbying for legislation that nullifies this legislation with more effective measures.
Submitting ideas for bills that redefine what classifies as a sex offense (want to really screw with the legal system push for definition changes) and make them non controversial. Better yet sneak language into other bills that amend, distort, weaken, and nullify this bill.
I’m really trying to hang on to the idea that things must get worse before they get better – hope this is the worst.
Letter and calls fell on blind and deaf politicians.
Donation sent this morning. More to follow as it becomes available. Let’s get this rolling!
Now can we say the registry is punishment????
I have been a registered citizen for over 5 years and for the first time I actually feel less than human because of this. My own government despises me so much that my identification must be labeled so that I can be marginalized and rejected by every human being on this planet. If and when this legislation is overturned it won’t make a difference to me. The psychological damage has been done; I have lost complete trust in my government to protect me and my civil rights.
$1000 donated. Anyone care to match me?
I stayed up late last night finishing an email to President Obama. It was to the point and heartfelt. He promised us many things in 2008, and among those was a country where everyone deserved a second chance. Where past transgressions did not negate a future successful life. He promised that we ALL had an opportunity for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I asked him to consider his statements of the past. Upon waking this morning, I expected there to be headline news about this horrible event that took place. But neither my morning LA Times or the TV news had anything about it. I somehow expected the whole world to have changed, people to be in shock, but there is nothing evident. Yet, I feel so changed. My citizenship has been threatened, my rights have potentially been lost, and the Country that I love has been turned on end. And no one seems to know.
Who will be next? The Muslims? The Atheists? The Gays? Will it matter then?
We can, and we must fight this. No one is safe.
My email to the Simon Wiesenthal Center:
Please forward to the leaders of the Wiesenthal Center- URGENT
Well it’s time not to forget.
Hello I am writing to inform you of a bill that just passed (by suspension of the rules i.e. NO DEBATE) and is on it’s way to to the president to sign. HR 515 International Megan’s Law would require the state department to stamp a “unique identifier” on a certain segment of citizens PASSPORTS, sex offenders. There are only two other regimes that have done this in the history of the world Nazi Germany and communist Russia. As you know, with the Nazi’s it started with the mentally ill, homosexuals and then the Jews.. Where does it go from here in the US? Drunks? Drug users? Muslims? Jews? Who’s next to get stamped and labeled?
Citizens that have long paid their debt to society and are no longer a threat to anyone will now be a prisoner of their own country. Sound familiar.
Please visit CALIFORNIA RSOL and read the following post by Janice Bellucci, a civil rights attorney who has taken up the cause to fight this injustice. You will also find many facts about politicians flat out lying to pass their unconstitutional agendas, it is shocking.
https://all4consolaws.org/2016/02/janices-journal-we-must-answer-this-grave-injustice-to-the-u-s-constitution/.
This law is the start to policy that could become very dangerous for ALL americans. I ask you, as fellow americans to come out against any policy that takes away liberties from ALL law abiding citizens and labels them as outcasts.
It’s time to “NOT FORGET”
Thank you
A law abiding registered citizen
It is easy to ask us to throw money at a lawsuit, but all the other things this movement shuns, like public protests and demonstrations, are needed just as badly. It was good we had online petitions and emails and calls, but it would have been great if we held public rallies to get the message out there.
I personally have little faith that a Chief John “Price Club” Roberts-led Supreme Court would rule against Int’l Megan’s FLAW. SCOTUS is far from infallible. Dred Scott, Buck v Bell, Korematsu v US, Plessy v Ferguson, Smith v. Doe, and most recently, Citizens United v. FEC (that’s the Roberts decision that states money is speech). I have great doubts a Roberts-run SCOTUS will rule favorably for us, especially the “International” version of the very law he championed. Stranger things have happened I suppose but I wouldn’t bet on it. If you think the courts is the way to go, you better hope the bill DOES NOT go to Roberts court.
One more thing– This bill didn’t pass in a “mere six weeks.” It languished for about eight years. This movement raised a stink years ago over the “passports limited to a year” and thankfully that provision was removed. What made this year different was the Senate finally moved on the bill. The House moved on it last year, and this movement worked on it some and neglected the Senate version. The version that passed was the SENATE version of the bill, the version this movement neglected. The Senate scratched the ENTIRE House bill, replaced it with their bill, and sent it back to the House!
I don’t know if it was because we were lulled to sleep because IML failed to complete the pass more times than Peyton Manning in a Super Bowl, or because we were busy with other things on a smaller scale, or maybe the fact after all these years, we lack a DC presence. Whatever the case, we need to devise a better way of addressing these bills BEFORE they become law. Lawsuits are far more costly than stopping a bill.
I assume that, once again, there is no notication – TO RCs – of exactly what will be required of us. As usual, we will be expected to somehow intuitively know what we are supposed to do, who we are to notify before we travel, etc. Or we’ll have criminal charges thrown at us through no fault of our own. It’s yet another “trap” for people who have already done their time and repaid their debt to society.
*Very angry* *Very frustrated*
Terrible headline and more fuel for HR515 supporters:
http://ktla.com/2016/01/30/ohio-seminary-student-arrested-at-san-diego-airport-allegedly-sought-sex-with-infants/
(NOTE: HR515 would have done nothing to prevent this.)
Jo,
I have $500 on it. Who else?? No donation is too small.
With the passage of HR515, it very easy to see why this Country is in such a mess. We have NO leadership, at all. Those whom are elected are purely self serving and are there for the money and power. The original value of, this once, find Nation is torn apart and toss away. However, we (RCs/family/friends and partners) have the truth and the 800 plus whom have participated in the challenge against AB 201, HR 515, and other attacks on us are honing our sites so we can become better teachers, communicators and warriors. The anti-RC pendants only have lies and hatred for their foundations and it is rotting, with time. One should not forget that Vietnam defected The United States with gorilla warfare, US defected England with gorilla warfare. Gorilla warfare is defecting the enemy one at a time. This what we have to do, defeat our enemies one at a time with the truth when we write and speak. We are stronger today than yesterday. The main thing we need to remember is DO NO QUIT!
Do the people making these decisions know the difficulty of letting go of personal punishment without the insult to injury of a “unique identifier” to fuel the corrosive thread of shame?
I feel so defeated right now. I feel angry and hurt and confused. Will Citizens ever be given the benefit of the doubt? Will the actual facts ever make it to the surface?
I have the support of AA, my therapist, family and the help of medication, but how does one truly accept that society will always (at least it seems like) consider Citizens as less than and administer perpetual punishment?
I am so grateful to Janice and all her team for “storming the castle”. I just hope that something bigger than me and us, can handle all this nonsense sooner rather than later.
I need hope. I need to be ok with me. I need to not let society define and continue to punish me for what I did. I did my time, completed the hoops of Parole, a lie detector test, ankle monitor, residency and presence restrictions, while being subjected to mandatory therapy.
I just want to be. Not better than or less than.
I work in law and when I see injustices like the passing of HR 515, I question whether or not I believe that America is truly the land of the free. Definitely, home of the brave. Citizens and their family members must brave the ignorant and stigmatic minds of those that assume and speculate.
I will honor my feelings and try to get into acceptance. But gosh darn it, I’m feeling less than optimistic.
God bless you all, Citizens, family of, and supporters.
Friend of RSOL ,
I couldn’t agree more we need a DC presence. I am a wife , business owner , criminal justice degree holder and not on this registry. I can and will go to DC and fight on everyone’s behalf. I think everyone needs to keep faith at this moment and keep donating what you can. I’m sure Janice and team will instruct everyone how to proceed when they come up for air. It’s not time to give up.
My brother received an email back from his Represenative today, after the bill had been voted on of course, and touting all the wonderful benefits HR515 would provide. This was the response he sent back (shared with permission):
Thank you for your letter. We appreciate your response, but would have appreciated it more if you’d actually read ours. Based on your words, we can only assume that you did not, in fact, read our concerns with this legislation.
We find it horrific that our representative has so proudly added our great country to join the ranks of Nazi Germany and Russia, the only two other nations who’ve added “unique identifiers” to citizenship papers of their less desirables.
Worse still, that our representatives did so without raising a single question before passing such slippery-slope, totalitarian legislation.
We would have hoped the man we voted for would have wondered how many registered sex offenders actually travel abroad for the purpose of sex trafficking?
Considering our national re-offense rate is 5% or less for sex crimes, the answer, extrapolated, would be few, if any.
He could have asked if this historic legislation that has now put us on the same list as Nazi Germany and Russia, would actually do what it is intended to do?
Facts and experts and three decades of data all emphatically say no.
In the appendix to the report used to headline HR515, the State Department noted that there was no evidence that any sex offender listed as having applied for and received a passport had traveled in order to commit a sex crime, and that it already has the authority to deny passports to people convicted of sex tourism involving minors and those whose probation or parole terms forbid them from traveling.
Human trafficking in all its forms (not just sex trafficking) is horrific. This bill you are so proud of will do nothing to curb its spread. Instead, we now have another $12,000,000 applied to the national debt each year, while US Citizens—many of whom were added to the sex offender rosters when they themselves were children—are put in harm’s way for nothing more than going abroad for work or to visit family.
Congratulations, Sir. Never has such willful ignorance of empirical facts come with such pride.
I’ve always wondered if it’s ever a good time to flee.
Legislators Hate to have their own home address published for all to see, I say give them back a taste of their own medicine. I would also think judges wouldn’t want their addresses known. Some police officers use PO boxes to avoid it.
In former USSR it was a line in the passport- Jew. It means no college, no job ,no housing and etc. Sign this bill the President will sign against family because human being are working and making money for vacation with all family. Family does not want to go with one main member and starting falling down. Somebody have to understand it in the democratic country ,where family values supposed to be priority.
The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that we are entering the realm where we can definitively argue that we are second class citizens. We most definitely, at this point, do not have the same rights as other citizens when it comes to procedural due process within the legislative and judicial branches of our government. We are a social class who is punished each year, more than the last, with new “regulatory” schemes.
People, I think we can begin to make our case to other governments with regard to asylum. And, from there try to gain citizenship with other nations. I say make travel arrangements, report it to the U.S. Government and when you are held once you step off the plane – file for asylum immediately and fight to stay. There is nothing left for our class of citizen in the United States except more punishment, and possibly a gas chamber.
Here’s another idea – possibly farfetched – but my feeling is we need to entertain all options.
Again, I don’t know how to do this, but maybe we could brainstorm how to contact the Koch brothers – the billionaires with something like $80 billion between them.
They have begun taking up criminal justice causes, and they are ideological libertarians, which means they are more resistant to emotional appeals for separating out RCs as a special class, different from others with criminal convictions.
Does anyone have the ability to get through to the Kochs? Maybe someone who is a Libertarian or who writes for the Libertarian press, like the Reason reporter?
Normally, I disagree with much the Kochs stand for, but on this issue, they might be good people to contact. Seems like we need major financing here. They would be able to underwrite both a lobbyist and a PR person.
Another billionaire who might be interested: George Soros (on the opposite side of the political spectrum from the Kochs), who has also been taking up criminal justice causes. He is Jewish and may understand the significance of a “marked passport.”
Although the Kochs are mostly interested in positive PR for their own purposes, and are keen on protecting themselves from criminal conviction, they are donating money to a number of unusual causes. The only problem with bringing in billionaires is that they would want a lot of control. But you never know. They might actually care about runaway government in case it would affect them eventually.
It feels like all the odds are stacked against us. But we need to keep fighting as long as we have the ability.
I wrote a letter to the President as well. How can this be considered constitutional in the least? It strips so many people of their basic rights, and if this is not punishment, what is? The right to travel after you served your time and are off parole/ probation should be granted to everyone in this country! There has to be a lawsuit and a class action suit forthcoming. We are being treated as 2nd class citizens, no doubt.