The Folly of S-431 `The KIDS Act of 2008' Part 5

6-2-2008 National:

Inactive & Dormant

E-Mail Addresses!

In this Part-5 of "The folly of S-431 'The Kids Act of 2008'" we will explore the world of "inactive" and/or "dormant" e-mail addresses.

There comes a time in the life of a e-mail address that the owner no longer uses that e-mail address but the company that issued it, say Yahoo, Google etc., still has it on file.

At some point the e-mail address is considered "inactive" or "dormant," by the company that issued it, that time period varies with different services, usually somewhere around 1 year, and the e-mail address is closed without notice to the person who created the e-mail address.

The service then makes that e-mail address available to whoever comes along and chose that combination of characters, so they can then setup the e-mail address as their own.

Historical proof:

Angling for new users, Yahoo has decided to let people begin signing up for addresses that have been inactive for years. The offer is designed to lure Web surfers who may have been previously interested in signing up for a free Yahoo e-mail account only to learn one of their preferred handles had already been claimed.

"Some of these addresses could be very juicy and might attract a lot of interest," said David Ferris, an e-mail analyst in San Francisco.

Yahoo says "tens of millions" of dormant e-mail addresses will be made available again. ...... ("Yahoo Bolsters E-Mail Service," 6-15-2004, Wired News)

OK, back to S-431, lets apply the logic (or lack of logic) of S-431 to this scenario, a RSO (we will call him John) sets up a e-mail address (John23@yahoo.com) and complies with his state law and registers it as his own.

Then for whatever reason he doesn't use it for the next year, and Yahoo declares it as "inactive" and closes it, removes John's name as owner of John23@Yahoo.com, and makes it available to the first person that comes along (lets call him Peter) and wants to setup a e-mail address using the EXACT set of characters, John23@Yahoo.com, and Yahoo then records that Peter is the owner of John23@Yahoo.com.

Here we can choose a few scenarios, but lets say that Peter is a bad guy but has never been convicted of any crime. Peter then starts sending questionable e-mails to some youngster and the parent sees them.

Now, according to S-431 there will be a national data base for parents to search to see if whoever their child is conversing with is a registered sex offender.

In our example assume the parent finds a match in the RSO data base and calls the police, who will be arrested? John, not Peter, because a year ago John registered that e-mail address.

John has no idea what's going on, and worse yet, how does he prove he did nothing? True, if the police traced the sending offending e-mail IP address (contained in every e-mail sent) before arresting someone they would know it wasn't Johns but belonged to Peter. However, we all know they will arrest first and sort things out later, and later may be at trial.

All because S-431 lacks any reasonable logic or basis for being a law. The folly of S-431 has now infiltrated all Internet criminal investigations, and possibly even the actual criminal justice system.

Is that so remote that it is not likely to happen at all?

OK, where in S-431 is there any system of verifying e-mail addresses as belonging to the registered sex offender, there is no system. However, assume that one is instituted, so, when JOHN (our example RSO) goes in to register he is asked if there are any changes in his information, and answers, NO.

Remember, if the Internet service declared his e-mail address (John23@Yahoo.com) as inactive or dormant, and removed it, they do not notify John. Is John guilty of failure to properly register or worse purgery? No, but how much you want to bet if they found that situation John would be arrested until all their got sorted out. All because S-431 lacks any reasonable logic or knowledge of how the Internet works.

Lawmakers, for the sake of getting votes, are dabbling in an area they do not belong without expert advice. True that is atypical of lawmakers where sex offenders are concerned. They are experimenting with the lives of human beings and destroying many of them in the process, not to mention clogging courts with frivolous court actions.

In Iowa, virtually the entire criminal justice system is telling lawmakers their residency laws are no good and not working, and lawmakers are turning a deaf ear to the call because, to address THEIR ERROR would make it look like they are being soft on sex offenders and they would commit political suicide.

Lawmakers do not act truthfully when it comes to sex offenders and laws governing them. Courts must start the ball rolling and MASS DECLARE these laws as STUPID and UNCONSTITUTIONAL because as a maturing society we do not experiment with human lives.

Hopefully, in Georgia, where those lawmakers on their residency law, with a DO OVER like a child who didn't get what they wanted, will get knocked down in court again.

S-431 is not a bill that should ever become law. States that have enacted similar laws need to be declared unconstitutional for all the reasons I have shown from Part-1 through this Part-5.

Lawmakers should not be permitted to encroach so deeply into lives of RSOs without being accountable for their actions when RSOs and their families are harmed by these laws.

eAdvocate

PS: I am going to skip the world of Chat Room IDs because those would make what is above look infantile. One thought, Chat Room Ids are temporary in nature and by coincidence could be duplicated in thousands of other chat rooms at the same time. A wasted discussion. Yes, given the temporary nature of Chat Room IDs, do service providers even save them FOREVER given LifeTime registration required under the Adam Walsh Act?

PPS: Lets suppose, and I'm not suggesting RSOs do this, but suppose every RSO sets up one, two or more e-mail addresses yearly, and lets them go inactive or dormant, and only uses ONE of them. S-431, and all other laws like it, CHECKMATE!