It is the calm before the storm. We have filed our final document in support of a Motion for Preliminary Injunction and we are awaiting an opportunity to explain in court why the federal government should not add “conspicuous unique identifiers” to the passports of American citizens and to notify foreign governments that American citizens are coming to visit.
It is perfectly obvious to many that the federal government should not brand its citizens by adding a “Scarlet Letter” to their passports. Even though the International Megan’s Law authorizes them to do so. Because doing so falsely identifies those citizens as people who have engaged in, or are likely to engage in, child sex trafficking or child sex tourism.
We must explain in court that the federal government has never in the history of this country added any type of identifier to the passports of American citizens. And we must explain that the only countries that have added such identifiers were Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.
It is also perfectly obvious to many that the federal government should not notify foreign governments that American citizens – even citizens declared to be “rehabilitated” and removed from their state registry — are coming to visit. Because very few, if any, of these citizens have ever engaged in, or will engage in, child sex trafficking or child sex tourism.
Why must we appear on March 30 to state the obvious? Because the U.S. Congress and the U.S. President have struck a crushing blow to the U.S. Constitution by eliminating the protections of that document to hundreds of thousands of its citizens.
Join us on March 30 to state the obvious.
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Read all of Janice’s Journals
And don’t forget to mention the fact that the public was lied to by them saying that it was passed by a majority of congress. This legislation was passed by a “suspension of the rules” and was voice vote only. No debate or conversation. No record of how a congressman voted. Where is the proof that a majority voted for this? It doesn’t exist. A lie.
My wife and I will be there, one way or another.
Dear Janice:
It is like you are entering the Ring for a fight and we, all of us, family, friends, male/female, spouses or children are your corner managers, rubbing your shoulders, whispering in your ear…it is the numbers, certainly there are single anecdotal cases, terrible crimes even, but the vast, vast majority of your clients have nothing to do with anything like this…why in God’s name punish the 98.5% for what a tiny minority commits…but most people are redeemable, rehabilitation is, or was, an American Goal…how have we wandered so far from that path?
Then we gently tap the crown of your head and say…Go get ’em! And good luck…
In Your Corner, James
There have been zero cases of registrants being international child sex traffickers. For some reason, ‘sex trafficking’ is in the government response. ‘Sex trafficking’ is in the governement response to this bill when zero cases have arisen with registrants being perpetrators of child sex trafficking. This might as well be science fiction. I have read of only 4 ‘child sex tourism’ cases involving registrants in 7 years from 2003-2009, and zero cases from 2009-present. With these numbers, I see no need for this new bill to be introduced all quickly, then given emergency status, not discussed and voice voted on with 6 members present in the Senate. Registrants have a less than 1% re-offense rate, but since zero registrants have been convicted of international sex trafficking and only 4 registrants have been convicted of child sex tourism out of all the 31,500 ( a theoretical calculation where 4500 pasports per year , and 7 years of this) new passported registrants from 2003-2009, there is no nexus of registrants to child sex trafficking or child sex tourism. Thinking in terms of 2003-present, with 4500 new passports per year, thats 14 years of this. So its 63,000 passports and zero cases of international child sex trafficking and 4 cases of child sex tourism. Thats .0063% of those registrants with passports arrested for child sex tourism. 99.9937% of the passport holders not arrested. Registrant re-offense is under 1% and never are for international child sex trafficking and virtually never for child sex tourism and that’s for parolees. It’s even less for those off parole. Taking away the right of travel from registrants will never balance any rights of children around the world when it is not registrants who are doing these crimes.
Thank you, Janice, thank you!! God willing you will prevail and all of us will, as a result, win. My biggest fear is that the judge will lack integrity and courage and will simply whimper, “Yikes!! Scary, scary sex Offenders! Make any laws at all! Forget that old Constitution.”
Go get ’em Janice.
Having read all the filings under Tags HR515 above, I am very confident you are going to kick some tail! You clearly have this carefully analyzed and do not need additional help from us. I always find it sort of funny (in a sad, pathetic way) how ridiculous the arguments become from someone trying to defend an indefensible point of view, whether it’s big tobacco, big oil, the medical device industry, climate change deniers, etc. Our situation is very similar to the latest bullroar…the anti-undocumented immigrant ads screaming that one killed somebody somewhere. Twenty thousand murders in the US, and they found two by illegals to prove their point…all of them are murderers and rapists, just as all SO’s are traffickers and child killers. And let’s not forget the Muslim terrorists!
A quick read about humanity that sort of explains our screwed up tendencies is the prologue to “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson called the Book of the Grotesque…just a couple of pages, but it says it all. It can be found on Google.
Best wishes on the 30th!
Janice,
Do you expect the judge to issue his ruling on March 30th as to whether the preliminary injunction will be granted or is that something that would take a few days or weeks to decide?
May all their hearts and minds be open. It must be remembered that we will not just be judged by how we treated our favored, but by how we treated our faulted as well.
The carelessly implemented IML is bringing UNBALANCED and DISPROPORTIONATE justice against 850,000 RSO’s who themselves are being targeted and victimized. The congress has not exercised responsibility and fairness in passing a law that does nothing to actually stop the problem of child exploitation. We live in a country that supposedly promotes due process… yet thousands are being unfairly restricted.
Why? Legislators are more concerned about pleasing their constituency than voting logically. The IML community is emotionally pursuing revenge for horrific crimes against children… such anger is certainly justified! But this important cause will be most effective when rationally focusing on specific causes and specific individuals rather than whole groups of people.
Those who get tagged and placed on the registry have become scapegoats for American society… we are not a ‘protected class’ and the draconian laws that so impair our quality of life are freely implemented with the caveat of protecting potential victims. Bottom line… meaningful problem solving is misdirected.
We must defeat this legislation and work on balanced and proportionate guidelines for offenders… and refocus lawmakers to investigate and identify the ROOTS of exploitation so that effective solutions can be implemented.
With deepest appreciation to Janice!
The carelessly implemented IML is bringing unbalanced and disproportionate justice against 850,000 RSO’s who themselves are being targeted and victimized. Congress has not exercised responsibility and fairness in passing a law that does nothing to actually stop the problem of child exploitation. We live in a country that supposedly promotes due process… yet thousands are being unfairly restricted.
Why? Legislators are more concerned about pleasing their constituency than voting logically. The IML community is emotionally pursuing revenge for horrific crimes against children… such anger is certainly justified! But this important cause will be most effective when rationally focusing on specific causes and specific individuals rather than whole groups of people.
Those who get tagged and placed on the registry have become scapegoats for American society… we are not a ‘protected class’ and the draconian laws that so impair our quality of life are freely implemented with the caveat of protecting potential victims. Bottom line… meaningful problem solving is misdirected.
We must defeat this legislation and work on balanced and proportionate guidelines for offenders… and refocus lawmakers to investigate and identify the roots of exploitation so that effective solutions can be implemented.
With deepest appreciation to Janice!
David H writes “the .0063% is probably as low a rate then as compared to the American population as whole: in other words, take all US citizens and divide that by the number of global sex tourism cases; and I bet the subset sex-offender is no higher then all American passport holders; they keep getting their math wrong with us!!”
lets compare them to their demographics groups sub-categories and then generalize the group as a whole. One case I thought involved a registrant, but really didn’t, in the Philippines as I reread the story and new charges came after the sex tourism arrest. So, 3 cases is now my estimate. Single men of 3 distinct Census age categories, 1 was 41 ( age group1 is 40-44 age range ), 1 was 59 ( age group2 is 55-59 age range), and one was 73 ( age group3 is 70-74 age range ).
3 registrant cases/ 850,000 registrants = .00000352, .000352%
assuming, 70 more cases, that would be 2003-present, 140 cases, 3 of which were registrants
137/ ( 15052798 men in age group1 + 15562187 men in age group2 + 7740932 men in age group3) X 2 ( constant that assumes half them men in the US are married )
the equation becomes 137 / 19177958 = .0000071436, .000714%
these raw calculations indicate it is more likely for an unmarried man in the age categories 40-44, 55-59, and 70-74 to commit child sex tourism than a registrant. Now of course, both numbers are far under 1%. Registrants .000352%, relevant sub-category of all Americans .000714%. I did not originally state the registrant rate to compare it to another number far far under 1%. I mentioned it to show that is very close to zero. When something is zero, it is not a major problem that requires collective punishment. Kind of like what are your chances of winning 100 million dollars in a lottery compared to your chances of winning 200 million in lottery. That’s how low these odds are. Would anyone go around saying that they are so happy of their odds to win 100 million dollars in a lottery because their odds are better than the odds of winning 200 million dollars in a lottery? Since its not yet a proposal to ban travel of single men in the age groups mentioned, it makes no sense to ban registrants. And being another rate far far under 1%, it also makes no sense to ban all Americans from all travel, based on the small rate under 1% of all Americans who will commit child sex tourism.
Regarding the fitness of Representative Chris Smith to push through HR 515… “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” He’s not connecting the dots in his speech to Congress…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHepol0MS6A
He’s making an assumption that RSO’s are the cause of child exploitation when as shown above and by so many other studies, the fraction is far less than 1%. Listen to Rep. Smith speak and you can sense the inefficiency of our judicial and congressional systems. Such misdirected efforts hurt and completely evade the core and substance of exploitation… and sadly delays forward progress. Frustrating!
Thank you Janice. We wish you success. Meanwhile, as a registrant who travels frequently I am contemplating Plan B.
First, I have obtained a Real ID driver’s license from my State which will allow me to pass land and sea border crossings into the U.S. without a scarlet letter passport. I urge other registrants to do likewise.
Second, I am considering whether I can affix an unobtrusive removable sticker over the scarlet letter (whatever it may be) on my passport without violating the applicable statute against defacing United States’ property. If nothing else, it will allow me to make a statement that the State Department has already defaced my passport worse than I ever could.
I an offended that for yet another time, I am being censored here when posting. Again, you have withheld my post from the forum, although nothing in it was improper, it was simply pointing out the weaknesses. Perhaps you don’t want the other readers to know about the weaknesses.
In abbreviated form:
To get an injunction against a mark on the passport is a 100% waste of time, it accomplishes absolutely zero. The problem here is not a mark that serves only to backup the information being sent anyway. The problem is that anything is being done at all for people no longer in custody (parole is custody), for people whose rights are supposed to already be restored, or otherwise supposedly have no restrictions on their travel. Even without a mark on the passport, your record is being sent, and that is what will bar you from entering another country, not the irrelevant mark on the passport. In fact, I would suggest it might have been strategically put in the law to distract any challengers to focusing on it instead of on the more serious core of the matter.
The injunction is going after the superficial, and letting the substance remain. Nothing of this bill is acceptable, and what this injunction is not addressing is far, far more serious than a mark on the passport. The mark on the passport is NOT the significant thing here, it is merely the most obvious.
More significant is that this is making yet another major checkpoint for registrants by running deep background checks on all registrants, by notifying their locale where they register that they are traveling or that they are applying for a passport, by notifying the state they are in and any other state where they might have a record (thee only way the feds can get a criminal record is from the states – the FBI no longer holds criminal records, they instead have only an index to lead them to the state). And as with any record check, you should realize it will include taking a close look and seeing if they can trip you up on anything and maybe even send you to prison. It is even setting up all registrants for automatic harassment at the US border. This law is NOT limited only to the registrants about whom an additional notice will be sent telling the receiving country that you are traveling to their country for the purpose of committing a sex offense. This is additionally sending info on ALL registrants, not just those previously convicted of the offenses for which that extra notice is sent. They are not simply looking at some federal list of all people registered; they are going for the full criminal record and THEY will decide who should be registering and will send along their record.
This law is extending the checkpoint from beyond when you travel to even simply when you apply for a passport. And mind you, there is the possibility that in two years, Californians might need a passport simply to fly domestic! Yes, because our driver’s licenses have not been raised to the standard that will be required by the federal government in two years in order to board a plane for even a domestic flight, a passport would have to be obtained instead, and subject us to the checkpoint simply for that.
This is INTENSE scrutiny, and intense scrutiny must raise the court consideration to a much higher level of review. In fact, intense scrutiny can make all the difference to whether it is insignificant or rises to the level of punishment. (In fact, this is an additional reason when compliance checks would be illegal.)
We keep doing this with various things, doing half measures that fail to get at the core and fail to say none of this is acceptable, instead say only this one little item is bad, we feel the rest is legitimate. We keep going at the periphery and leaving the heart and core of the horror intact.
It is not too late to amend that filing to expend its reach. To go after simply the mark on the passport will only undermine us, as that is the only thing the media and others understand. Once that is gone, the rest will not be touchable by us.
I agree with PK. When you travel you get asked for your passport all the time…not just when you enter the country. For a customs agent to get an Angel Watch notice and decide whether to let you in his country…that’s bad enough, but a one time thing. To have every cop, hotel manager, ticket agent, museum worker, and admitting nurse know you are a sex offender, is hell on earth!
And no offence, Anonymous, but when you lead the charge in a Federal case at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars, I’m sure we will all sing your praises, and stand behind you. Until then, maybe you could just enjoy the free ride!
I too wish we weren’t such a revenge seeking “Christian” nation. I have long felt that public access to criminal records is akin to a life sentence…background checks for housing, employment, government contracts, licensing, etc. is brutal and unfair. Cops shooting to death a naked screaming guy with a knife who doesn’t know what planet he lives on, is brutal treatment of the mentally ill. If Janice could expand her law suit to include these issues, I would be incredibly happy. But we fight the war one battle at a time, and this is a very important battle. So, for now, Janice is my hero!
I have read some comments where Janice was alleged to have said that the notifications would likely stand, with much dismay. The green notice is a critical part of being denied into a foreign country and who can blame the foreign country? For the government to be able to send a notice that a registrant is “likely to commit a crime” in their country should trigger a denial. For that part of this law to be legal is beyond reason. No due process, only a notification that is not based on fact. Can someone with a legal mind explain how a court of justice can permit something so arbitrary and capricious?
The identifier is bad, the notifications are the meat of the law. 21 days prior notice is arbitrary, where does that come from? It seems as if we are sheep. The government can kick the crap out of us with ever increasing severity and we just take it.
I am in your corner too Janice. Praying for you and all stakeholders. Thank for doing this for all of us!
I have a question and two comments:
On 30 March, is this a day for arguing the case, or just the day the judges decision will be declared?
What is interesting, as I am personally knowledgeable about this, is the bar code at the bottom of the data page in my passport-has a specific code that alerts ICE to some special status. Each and every time I enter the US from abroad, I go through secondary inspection. The US shares its database with a couple of countries like the UK and Canada, I believe.
I encourage you all to read some legal reviews by Law Professor Corey Yung, Univ. of Kansas https://law.ku.edu/yung because he wrote a great piece (in 2010), about the criminal war on sex offenders.
Your courage and perseverance is a powerful light in the darkness that has been caste upon this group of people and their family and friends who spend every day, every minute, living with this condemnation. I have spoken with many people around me about this law and how this registry works and I can assure you that once they understand the implications of it, they too are outraged. At the rate this registry grows, American will have over 1 million very shortly and will go far beyond it if it is not stopped. Once someone has paid for their crime it should be over. Period. As I stated before, ALL of my friends and family who are not effected by this directly feel exactly the same way. I now warn my friends with teenage sons to sit down and have a long talk with them about the laws in California for they too can be condemned for life. These mothers of sons also want change. We are not Nazi Germany…yet. I will be there with you in spirit and solidarity and burn a candle bright for your victory. Thank you for fighting for these men and women Janice.
There are a number of things that we need to do. We need to get as many RC’s in local groups as well as the RSOL. Then in a systematic way, we need to raise as much money as we can, not just for legal measures, but maybe more importantly to hire a PR firm and start campaigns to raise awareness of the draconian measures now used in this country. If 60 Minutes did a show would raise awareness. I truly wish I had a solution to lessen the media induced fear that in a large measure, triggers these legislative remedies. I realize the fact that we are severely impoverished, dampens our ability to raise funds, but it is an absolute necessity. If we were in contact with more RC’s and their families, even $5 or $10 a month would go a long way to funding more of our objectives.
I have to agree with anonymous although i completely support janice and team the real issue here is the notificationnotification and the self reporting that we all have to do of our inteneriary and god only knows what else because all these laws are so ambiguous and over broad that even judges lawyers and law professionals have a hard time understanding them and their requirements. Does anyone know what is happening with the WAR motion thatcwas supposed to be filed last fall?
Also what about that motion filed by Janice about megans law website doesn’t provide all the info that it is required by law?
Timmr said “True, the model for the Nazi mass sterilizations came from the advocacy of Eugenicists like Margaret Sanger in the US and laws passed during the teens and twenties of the last century.”
Once Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, found out about the Holocaust and saw the consequences of it, she rejected her past views supporting eugenics. She was disgusted by the Holocaust. Chris Smith, borrowing Nazi-like ideas from Hitler’s playbook, seems inspired by it.
We have strength in numbers!!! NO matter what the outcome on the 30th let us not forget.. we must grow our numbers to defeat this madness.
is it not possible… for each of us on here to start a grassroots campaign to get more RSOs involved>>> I mean, look on each states registry, send an annuomus letter to 3 people u pick, telling them about this site.. tell them to tell everyone they know…
we MUST grown our numbers!!!
Ive did my time,my parole, my treatment, NOW, i just want to be free.
Hey does anyone know that study (has Link) that concluded that RSOs which have not reoffended in 16 years are at no higher risk then those who haven’t offended.
Do you Know the guy behind it?
All I know is it is some guy out of ASU but cant find it.
Thanks
The fact that this was signed by a president who has killed hundreds of children with his drones as part of his Muslim genocide, and supported by a Congress that lets children die and be abused everyday through the lack of health care or secure housing just shows this bill is a piece of hypocritical crap.
Good luck in court today Janice. Sorry I can’t be there to support you. I’m living in exile after constant harassment by US border agents even though I haven’t offended for 19 years and am not listed on the registry for a misdemeanor.