Georgia Sex Offenders Must Turn Over Internet Passwords
Sex Offenders in the state of Georgia must turn over all of their screen names and passwords under a strict new law that began yesterday. The purpose is to give law enforcement the ability to use their logon information to monitor the offenders’ activities online. While this might have been a good idea in theory, it is a horrible idea in practice.
Registered Georgia Statuatory Rapist Dannie Lee Clinage
From Daily Tech here by way of Hot Air:
An aggressive new law is set to take effect today which will force sex offenders to hand over their internet passwords, screen names, and e-mail addresses to the government for monitoring purposes. Several other states also have efforts that track sex offender’s email and screen names. However, Georgia, which has 16,000 registered offenders, will be the first state to demand the sex offenders’ passwords as well.
Critics of the law say that it not only violates the privacy rights of offenders, but it also places undue stress on the already tight-for-cash Georgian law enforcement.
State Sen. Cecil Staton (R.) who wrote the bill argues that it is necessary to strip the rights of some citizens to protect the rights to life and liberty of others, particularly children. He states that the benefits of the bill, which will allow law enforcement to detect stalking by predators sooner “outweighs a lot of the rights of these individuals.”
He states, “We limit where they can live, we make their information available on the Internet. To some degree, we do invade their privacy. But the feeling is, they have forfeited, to some degree, some privacy rights.”
First of all, if you are worried about child molesters re-offending and molesting more kids when they get out of jail, there is a real easy solution- longer jail sentences.
Secondly, providing the usernames and passwords will be completely ineffective. It is easy enough to provide law enforcement with bogus active accounts and hide other ones that the offender uses to stalk children online or participate in other improper activity.
Parole officers are not trained computer forensics experts either. They will probably not be able to tell that a parolee is using a hidden account on the internet.
The best way to monitor these offenders is to provide them a hard-coded computer that forces the offender to use a web proxy that law enforcement can monitor. Or better yet, the ISP’s can simply route all internet connectivity of sex offenders through a monitored VLAN. The technology exists and monitoring could be effective. But making State Troopers manually log onto web services by hand is time consuming, stupid, and will ultimately FAIL.
This is all absolutely ridiculous.
This is Georgia admitting that their system is a failure and they’re not able to reform anyone. Why not make any password/account/email for anyone in jail up for grabs? What about the serial killers?
Another example of something not well thought out before implemented. I think it’s time for a flow chart/checklist and mandatory incident handlers on staff. 🙂
“…it is necessary to strip the rights of some citizens to protect the rights to life and liberty of others”
Now that is scary. What, or should I say who, is next? With the attitude in the above quote this could be done to anyone no matter what the crime might be. Are minor misdemeanors next? Not that I support sex offenders, but as Poppy said, what about serial killers? Or other major crimes? This is just another scary beginning to violation of privacy by ineffectual means.
Anybody can create internet accounts with false names and identities. How do they think cops catch internet predators and how internet predators go after people? Fake names!
Duh.
Wade and Poppy, I think you are right about the creeping intrusion of government on these criminals. If the government can do this, why not do this to someone accused of stalking his girlfriend? Or perhaps someone who left a comment on a blog or website that the government thought could harm children?
You cannot lump me in with other people when mocking, you must mock me separately.
I am against the Big Brother mentality.
I am against a lawful organization “fixing” its inadequacies by half-assedly making a plan that wasn’t run by anyone with a brain who’s “done this” before.
I am for equal treatment of prisoners.
If you’re going to stalk prisoners, stalk them all.
🙂
I like putting all of the criminals in one tightly packed place to make the stalking easier. And then I ring the place with barbed wire to keep them from breaking out of stalking range. 🙂
I think they call that prison. Too bad they build them too small.
http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=6&func=view&catid=87&id=576
Reports on the rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration of former inmates who were tracked for 3 years after their release from prisons in 15 States in 1994. The former inmates represent two-thirds of all prisoners released in the United States that year. The report includes prisoner demographic characteristics (gender, race, Hispanic origin, and age), criminal record, types of offenses for which they were imprisoned, the effects of length of stay in prison on likelihood of rearrest, and comparisons with a study of prisoners released in 1983.
Highlights include the following:
* Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%),
larcenists (74.6%),
motor vehicle thieves (78.8%),
those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%),
and those in prison for possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).
* Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape,
and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.
* The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release.
Thanks for those stats. They are quite a bit old and I’m surprised that they don’t have modern figures for this. But even if they were current, what exactly are you trying to say with these figures? That on average, parolees are likely to commit 3 more crimes each before they are locked up again?
The stats remain quite even throughout time. For instance California’s rate for first time offenders is less than 4%; N.Y.’s rate for the same is 2.1%.
Over all. Recidivism for first time sex offenders is around 5 to 6 percent over a longer period of time.
My point is this, when compared with other crimes, sex offenders have the lowest rate of recidivism than any other crime except murder.
We are wasting our valuable resources with the myths and “stranger danger” hysteria.
I truly believe we do not need these draconian laws for the most part. Those who need watching are the violent rapist, those who did not know their victims and the repeat offender. Other than that, 95% never repeat a second sex offense and I believe once they finish their contract with the courts they should be able to rejoin society and be productive citizens. Many have spouses and children and unfortunately, when we ban these individuals we do more harm than good.
A good article to read is. :Study: “media creates online sex predator myths.”
Here:
http://cfcoklahoma.com/forum/index.php?topic=628.0
I believe that the repeat rate is so low for sex predators is that they are so closely watched when they return to society. From internet databases and registries, to notifications of addresses with local police, and watchful neighbors and neighborhoods, most of these guys can’t make a move without someone knowing it. I have one living a block from me who is on the Michigan sex offender register list. I know his name, address, age, and that he attempted to have sex with an underage girl from the online list courtesy of the Michigan sex offender list.
I see this guy very rarely, he hardly ever comes out. When he does, eyes are on him. Watchful eyes are a great deterrent. To bad we don’t watch out over our good neighbors more often like we do for these guys. Might be less robberies and home invasions if we all had each others backs all the time.
mslgw50,
A google search of your user name indicates you are campaigning all over blogs, news posts and bulletin boards against the targeting of sex offenders. By your logic, the sex offenders never do anything wrong, and never reoffend, so why bother locking any up in the first place?
You know why so few of them are caught molesting a second time? I think its cause A) the little bastards are hard to catch when your pants are around your ankles and B) they talk too much, so the little brats are typically murdered to hush them up.
Pat,
Thanks for the tip. Looks like someone has something to hide. Some of those comments on various sites and newpapers make little sense, but reveal much when you read them all and put them together. Still need to keep a close eye on the bastards. Government statistics have been known to be wrong.
I’m an advocate for SANE laws. I have no mercy for 2nd offenses.
WadeHM, you said, “mygif
WadeHM said in January 5th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I believe that the repeat rate is so low for sex predators is that they are so closely watched when they return to society.”
Unfortunately, none of the stats indicate that, in fact, recidivism has slightly “increased” since public notification. Not because they are being watched and found out.
The low recidivism rate for FIRST time offenders has always been low. The reason is mainly because the perpetrators are family members or are close to the family. i.e., teachers, best friends, just anyone whop has access and is trusted. Once caught, the humiliation and shame appear to do it’s part and even without treatment, they NEVER repeat another sex offense. True, nothing is 100%. However, one can pretty much who will repeat a second offense.
The violent, those who did not know their victim and the repeat offender. As it stands, the registries are meaningless in that the real threat, the predators, are HIDING in the registries. See: Ricky’s story at http://www.rickyslife.com. Life time level III for consensual teen sex.