Gov. Jerry Brown signed a closely watched bill on Sunday to block the creation of any so-called Muslim registry should President Trump choose to act on a proposal he repeatedly suggested during his 2016 campaign.
Senate Bill 31 by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) bars state and local governments from releasing personal information to the federal government for the creation of any religious list, registry or database. It also prohibits them from using resources to create their own lists.
Dubbed the California Religious Freedom Act, the bill coasted through the legislative process this year, the only proposal to gain bipartisan support from a package introduced by majority Democrats to counter Trump’s policies.
Hmmmm….I wonder if this bill can easily be appropriated, as religion alone cannot be used upon its own merits for instituting such a registry. In short, it’s either allow all registries, or no registries. Smith v. Doe itself appears to be in violation of the new California law based upon those tenets.
Of course the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by Christians. Aren’t Christians supposed to be a protected class? Where’s OUR immunization and exemption from subjugation and oppression? Why were OUR pre-existing civil protections, freedoms and liberties circumvented in the name of “public safety?” So never let anyone tell you that a parent’s “rights” trumps ours. Especially anyone wearing a badge. They will say and do anything to protect their cushy “sex offender task force” jobs.
I suppose our privacy, safety and security (along with our families) doesn’t matter because we’re deemed expendable undesirables in the eyes of the public.
More importantly, why are we reverse engineered to be an imminent and ongoing public safety liability?
Wait! Don’t answer.. because we all know the truth!
It’s about protecting security theater jobs and not children.
A Muslim registry? Will Muslim registrants have to turn off their porch lights for Ramadan? Maybe a tier based system based on how Muslim you really are? Maybe after no suicide bombings for 20 years you can petition to get off? At least they can live by schools and parks and take part in their children’s education. 🖕🏼 Trump
Yet they continue to circle the wagon around Megan’s law claiming that “it’s needed” for public safety and constitutionally sound. Disgusting!
There you go, proof that California has no interest in defending rso.
I wonder if this means Muslims can sue, based on this law, to stay off the sex offender registry.
I highly doubt it. The Muslim Registry targets people of a specific demographic where no crime was actually committed by the individual. The SO registry targets people who had committed specific crimes. People comparing the two are comparing apples to oranges. I’m not saying SO registry is in no way a good thing, but its far different than what a Muslim registry would be. A Muslim registry would basically be no different than a registry for anyone that bought a Raiders jersey with reasoning being that some Raider fans cause trouble. A Muslim registry would literally be what Nazis did with Jews, gays, and others: 100% innocent people blackballed because of BS reasons and beliefs.
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A Muslim registry would literally be what Nazis did with Jews, gays, and others: 100% innocent people blackballed because of BS reasons and beliefs.
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Ummm… if my case was dismissed, then am I back to becoming an innocent person? If so, then I am an innocent person being blackballed because of BS reasons and beliefs.
True, but it is not the list itself that is at fault, it is the loss of privacy and the innuendo behind the list. This innuendo take s away a person’s right to not self incriminate themselves. Of course you can make the argument that we incriminated ourselves by getting convicted of the crime. Notice I said convicted not committed the crime, because some are actually innocent. The innuendo behind the SO registry is that all are guilty, guilty in perpetuity and remain a risk. That risk is so severe that registries are not even considered for other crimes. We’re especially dangerous the message is. That is an innuendo produced of government. The innuendo with Muslims is that a high percentage are terrorists. It has no relation to facts, just like the SO registry has no truth in “frightening and high”. Although one is orange and one is green, they both leave the same rotten taste like false fruits off the same tree of ignorance. They both only serve to nourish fear and suspicion, hate and revenge.
@ Tim and New Person,
Again, I’m not saying SO registry is in any way good or fair. But it’s still very different than what a Muslim registry would be. We all have a direct correlation between crimes we committed and why we, due to our own direct actions, are on the registry. A Muslim registry has zero bases behind it other than racism. It would be equivalent if every single man in America had to register because majority of sex offenders are men, regardless if the person actually did anything.
Alex,
What do you to an RC who has had their case dismissed? They’re basically at the same level as a Muslim. So why are RC’s whose cases are dismissed forced to register? I can 100% say I was never convicted, but I’m still on the registry.
Do you follow that logic or ill logic?
The bill text can be read here:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB31
It forbids state law enforcement from participating in any scheme, particularly federal laws, that would create a registry on the basis of “religious belief, practice, or affiliation, national origin, or ethnicity.” One could argue that the principles behind SB 31 could apply to registrants and I believe it’s worth making that point in the right setting, such as litigation against current registration schemes.
That said, there may be a practical way to directly translate it to the current registry on the basis of ethnicity. It is no secret that every registrant’s public profile includes a description of their ethnicity and other personal identifying information like hair and eye color. It is extremely easy to compile data from the Megan’s Law website that would provide you with demographic distributions based on ethnicity. For example, you could use Megan’s Law data to determine how many latino sex offenders live within 2 miles of San Francisco, or what is the most common type of sex offense among black men. It is in fact a database filled with ethnic information and one could make inferences based on statistical ethnic information.
Last year a study* found that “the sex offender registration rate for blacks is twice that of whites.” Previous court precedent has found that discrimination can be proven even if it is not knowing or intentional discrimination, if the result is disproportionate based on protected class status. This is especially true in the area of criminal law. Using the Megan’s Law website, one could make inferences about the dangerousness of specific ethnicities and conclude that certain ethnicities pose a greater risk of offending than others. We all know what a slippery slope this is, particularly with “risk assessment tools” like the Static-99.
We know sex offender laws disproportionately impact racial and sexual minorities. Due to the confusion regarding the laws in other nations, I suspect immigrants are also disproportionately affected, and so registration has a different impact based on national origin. Furthermore, statistical associations between some racial minorities and the Catholic religion would likely show a disproportionate impact against Catholics.
I believe the argument could go one step further because the registry also includes information that could be used to identify a person’s religious affiliation or practice and their national origin. In theory, listings on the Megan’s Law website should be representative of the overall demographic in that region of the state. It would therefore be quite easy to determine what parts of the state have larger Asian populations, for example, or areas with people who have blonde hair and blue eyes. Using the photographs and other personal identifying information, I don’t think it would be difficult to use the Megan’s Law website to determine where most Muslims are located in the state. And from there you already have, in effect, a Muslim registry.
Try it yourself. Choose a name that is common in a specific ethnic background and then map it. Search for every registrant named Mohamed, for example, or Jamal. In these examples the pins are concentrated around Los Angeles and even provided the immigration status of at least one offender listed as “deported.” Yet if you search for registrants named Matthew, the highest concentrations are in Long Beach, San Jose, and Sacramento. Of the thousands of registrants named John, I couldn’t find any deportations, yet for the list of registrants named Juan, there were 8 deportations in the first results.
Finally, the Megan’s Law website includes scar/mark/tattoo information in the database. One registrant’s profiles specifically lists that he has a cross tattoo on his right hand, likely indicating a Christian denomination.
From the text of the new bill:
“Notwithstanding any other law, a state or local agency or public employee acting under color of law shall not:…(3) Make personal information from agency databases available, including any databases maintained by private vendors contracting with the agency, to anyone or any entity for the purpose of investigation or enforcement under any government program compiling a list, registry, or database of individuals based on religious belief, practice, or affiliation, or national origin or ethnicity for law enforcement or immigration purposes.”
“Notwithstanding any other law, state and local law enforcement agencies and their employees shall not:
(1) Collect information on the religious belief, practice, or affiliation of any individual…”
The sex offender registry is a de facto religious registry, ethnic registry, and national origin registry, particularly when one considers how specific subsets of these protected classifications are disproportionately prosecuted for sex offenses.
*http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsi.12189/abstract
I don’t understand how CA would pass a bill to protect a demographic from being placed on a public list, since the USSC ruled that such public listings are “administrative” and not punishment.
..unless it IS punishment?
(And even if the “administrative” label can’t be overturned and the SO list stays, how can the laws passed that target people on those lists – especially after sentences have been served – be legal?)
That is certainly a confusing thing. How at this stage we could even remotely consider such a registry against 100% innocent people is mind boggling. It’s literally Nazi Germany. And I mean literally in the literal meaning of the word. It’s frightening to say the least. Its this kind of BS that civil wars are made of.
AlexO:
Not just civil wars, but race wars and genocide (Rwanda anyone?) as well.
But……”if it keeps just one family (child) safe”…..
Hold up. Do people forget what happened in San Bernardino, Ca? Shouldn’t that be the mantra as well?