Believing that human trafficking is worsened by the internet’s anonymity, the sponsors of California’s Proposition 35 thought they had a simple solution to combating the problem: require convicted traffickers to register as sex offenders. Then require all individuals on California’s sex offender registry to disclose their online identities and service providers.
The measure passed in the November election with 81 percent voter approval. This isn’t surprising, since Prop. 35 also increases criminal penalties for trafficking, uses criminal fines to fund victim services organizations, and mandates more law-enforcement training on human trafficking. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California sued, challenging the constitutionality of the reporting requirements – and this Monday, a federal court will hear arguments about whether it should continue to block the measure’s implementation. Full Article
Well written article with excellent presentation of facts in a logical and easy to understand manner. I was most impressed with the number of intelligent and overwhelmingly positive and supportive comments post below the article.
Hopefully this represents the thinking of many more and it seems that others are starting to finally “get it” and more importantly are not afraid to come out and be vocal. For too long if anyone said anything about being against new restrictive laws they were branded as being as “bad” as sex offenders with the old blanket statement being “they gave up their rights when they were convicted”.
People are finally seeing how unfair it is to lump all RSO into one group and how contrary it is to continue to punishing us after we have “paid our debt to society” and be given a 2nd chance to heal and more forward with our lives that others are given!
Yeah, OK..but not all that spectacular an article. Sort of the same hackney rehashed and, in typical American Chicken Journalist style, failed to come to grips with the issue.
Take a look at the experience of the “American Sex Offender” (I don’t mean the documentary.) What happens is that the full force and vigor of the police is brought to bear on the offender. He is accused of the “Most heinous crime imaginable” where even brief incarceration will result in certain inmates murdering him due to the lack of control in the prisons.
The American Sex Offender is instructed that his character flaw is so severe that the most modern psychoanalytic theory has determined that he is incurable. That his depravity is so profound that he will remain a substantial threat to society forever. Given this premise, the corollary is that proscribed sexual collusion must be so intriguing that the effect surpasses the most addictive drug imaginable, i.e. it must be *really* good, therefore completely illegal (so more and more people will try it) in a culture where everything pertaining to the expansion of human experience is either forbidden or doled-out by a puritanical authority bent on some uber-purpose. The fact that human sexual maturity is occurring at ever-earlier physical age notwithstanding.
The “uber-purpose” of Megan’s Law and its derivatives is to rid the United States of active males. Questioners. Explorers. (Anybody who pees on a tree will suffice.)
The accused retains attorney and is confronted by the prosecution who (almost) immediately offers the “deal”: that is anything to avoid a public trial. The “deal” couches Registration in a cup of sugar and the accused is urged to accept, not realizing that the entire concept of “Bill of Attainder” is slowly being thrown under the bus.
This is why S191948 in the California Supreme Court is so important. They offer you a plea bargain, a contract under the law AS IT IS AT THE TIME your bargain is accepted. They avoid the uncertainty of a trial and modifications to their strategy by case law; you void the threat of being murdered by rampaging animals in state prisons and all is well…then they change the law and modify the terms of your plea bargain after-the-fact, a wholly illegal strategy now being challenged in the California Supreme Court.
The idea is to get you to leave the Country.
It has nothing to do with protecting children. Those children who will suffer abuse will do so at the hand of a close family member, undetected until much later when the abused will confront the accused and so, the cycle repeats again and again.
Frustrated with the lack of results, or equally embarrassed that the efforts do not stamp-out sex offenses, the pressure is increased on ex-offenders, that is those least likely to re-offend..the Registered amongst us. Again committing a Federal offense by continuing to provide for enhanced Bills of Attainder, the various States continue to prosecute those who are not the problem and continue to create yet another class of victim.
Leave the country. Do so and you will immediately be dropped from the State and Federal Registries only to realize that Offendex.com has trolled all the heretofore protected data and you are now on Google as a Sex Offender..”the enemy”.
Leave the country and change your name. Everybody who knew you in the U.S. will hunt you down and murder you with the full cooperation of the State, which wll not demand that Google take down Offendex.com et. al…because it suits their purpose that you are terrorized and hunted and persecuted and hated.
They love hate. But when twenty-seven children are murdered by a teenager wielding assault weapons…well that’s just a tragedy. Registered Sex Offenders are Public Enemies, but child murderers are just too bad..
Beautifully written. You have a clear and personal understanding of the plight of RSOs.
Does anyone have the name(s) and address of the Offendex.com owner(s)?
..and S191948 is stalled for almost a year at the California Supreme Court. I heartily recommend that you interested parties Google it and read the history of the challenge. Most likely, it will go to the United States Supreme Court because there is no way the prosecuting entities are going to go down hard without a big fight, and S191948 represents a major defeat for their strategy.
This injustice to free Americans discriminates on its face
to selective man-made forced to be on list….when if truly
this ’35’ prop. was Constitutional …would force all free
Americans to give police private communication information …
…’35’ is grossly un-constitutional in alot of sections.
Equal protection of the laws …the Constitution protects all Americans
…not for just some…for everyone ………if some free Americans are
forced against their will to give private communication information …
then all Americans must be forced to give their over phone lines
communication information …this ’35’ part is in direct conflict with
the Constitution.