8-31-2010 California:
A group of bills related to child abduction and sex offenders, including one that would incarcerate the most violent sex offenders for life without parole and provide harsher sentences for forcible sex crimes, is awaiting the signature of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
On Monday, "Chelsea's Law," carried by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher of San Diego, cleared the state Assembly floor on a 72-0 concurrence vote.
Once enacted, the measure also will place increased restrictions on sex offenders on parole, as well as mandate that the Megan's Law website lists sex offenders' risk assessment scores, and revise the California mentally disordered offender laws to allow for continued detention of offenders where evaluation and assessment indicate it to be necessary.
Chelsea's Law is named after 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway, Calif., who was raped and murdered while jogging in a Rancho Bernardo Park in February.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has said he would sign the measure. "I am committed to protecting our children and keeping our communities safe from the threat of sexual predators," he said.
Mr. Fletcher, a Republican, said Monday that the passage of Chelsea's Law shows that "this body can come together in a bipartisan way and make substantial changes" to what he called a broken public safety system, with "systemic failures." He said the multi-agency group that crafted Chelsea's Law worked nearly every day for six months to find good policy. ..For the remainder of the story.. by Julie Pendray
August 31, 2010
California lawmakers OK 'Chelsea's Law'
August 30, 2010
Cordray Announces New Efforts to Track Sex Offenders
First notice the micro management of the lives of registrants. i.e. e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Of course this new system of tracking likely will catch offenders unaware and maybe arrested, when they are actually compliant. For instance, if a phone is shut off because one cannot pay a bill, that would cause the registrant to be arrested. Next, if the registrant doesn't use his/her e-mail addresses frequently, the e-mail provider will tag them for being dormant and eventually close the e-mail address, causing the registrant to be arrested. Next, if a registrant has many e-mail addresses each for different purposes, will s/he be arrested because he decides to no longer use one of them? There is a big difference in having a e-mail address and using it, this new system forces registrants to use ALL e-mail addresses regularly or face arrest. Insanity in law!8-30-2010 Ohio:
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced today that his office has received a federal grant that will help county sheriffs keep better track of registered sex offenders.
The $155,546 grant will pay for two new programs.
The first will allow the Attorney General’s Office to develop a phone and e-mail alert system that will send automated messages to offenders and sheriffs’ offices around Ohio, five days before offenders are supposed to re-register as part of their reporting requirements. The system also will track phone numbers or e-mail addresses that no longer are in operation, alerting sheriffs’ offices if the contact information provided by offenders is incorrect.
“This automated system will ensure that offenders know when they must register and will help county sheriffs’ offices make sure that those offenders comply with those requirements,” Cordray said.
“Monitoring registered sex offenders is a difficult task for sheriffs’ offices, especially those that have had to make staffing cutbacks," said Coshocton County Sheriff Timothy Rogers, president of the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association. "This new callback system will help our sheriffs better keep track of offenders, especially those who do not comply with their registration requirements, and we thank Attorney General Cordray for his support.”
The second part of the grant will help county sheriffs’ offices fund extradition of offenders who moved to other states without notifying local authorities as required by law.
The grant will fund extradition of up to 50 of the most serious sex offenders, which will allow them to be prosecuted in state courts.
Why are local courts wanting to prosecute these cases, when the offense is a federal offense? AWA has a built-in jurisdictional hook to make this circumstance a federal offense. Should anyone see why a local prosecutor would want to prosecute these cases rather than allowing federal courts to do so, please send me a e-mail. eAdvocate“Too often noncompliant offenders avoid prosecution simply because smaller counties cannot afford the overtime and travel expenses needed to pick them up. This grant will help address this problem.” Cordray said.
The grant money was awarded by the federal Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking and the Adam Walsh Act Implementation Grant Program, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs.
In 2009, Ohio became the first state in the nation to reach substantial implementation of the federal Adam Walsh Act. ..Source.. Ohio Attorney General's Office
Georgia sex crime registry filled with errors
For a moment ignore all the errors spoken of, and focus on what I have highlighted. What you will notice is, that duplicate registries exist: The State and 159 Local registries. That means all those folks are eligible for federal funding for maintenance etc. of those registries and they likely are applying for that money. Also notice the cost for the third party vendor cost for one county $7,000.00 while it may not be exactly the same for each county, overall it makes this state's costs of operation extremely high; I'm sure the vendor loves their foolishness. Now, duplicate functions means there are likely differences between the local registries and the state registry. Maybe that is what is causing the errors spoken of in the article. Sometimes lawmakers are not very intelligent, here is a prime example.8-30-2010 Georgia:
Georgia’s Sexual Offender Registry is supposed to give worried parents or residents a clear picture of what creeps might be living nearby and how creepy they might actually be.
But it doesn’t, a new state investigation has found.
The registry, a Web-based database that shows where convicted sex offenders are living and what they look like, was created to help concerned citizens track convicted sex criminals in their community. The state Legislature required all 159 counties to set up websites listing up-to-date, complete information so residents can know who is in their area. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is required by law to maintain a statewide registry. It is not required to offer that information to the public through its website, although it has for many years. The registry is one of the most visited of the state government’s many websites.
Obviously no lawmaker has yet read the Adam Walsh Act because if they had they would realize the State alone is responsible for providing a public registry, all these secondary registries will do nothing but make a mess and they are not required to comply with AWA, only the State is! It looks like Georgia will never be correct.A new state audit has found that the state registry is flawed with error-ridden, out-of-date and incomplete information.
In a 53-page report, auditors faulted outdated computers, underfunding, understaffing and poor communication between government agencies. The report raises so many concerns that House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he plans to call in a committee to review the report and draw up recommendations before next year’s legislative session.
Kurt Fieldhaus is a husband and father in Waterbury Cove, a subdivision in Lawrenceville. The 43-year-old chairs the local Community Oriented Policing Services board that coordinates with local law enforcement and looks to improve public safety. He said he has tried to use the registry to keep up with changes in his neighborhood and he’s noticed problems.
“At first, I thought, this is impressive,” he said. “A few months later, as I was looking at it ... well, you can create the most perfect database, but if it’s a dynamic database and you don’t put in the resources for updating it, it becomes a less and less valuable tool over time.”
Fieldhaus said he warns people to consider the database as highlighting potential problems, not definite ones. He said his community has an offender who was supposedly living in their area, but the database information was cursory and later proved inaccurate. The convicted offender had moved away.
Victim advocacy groups say they rarely use the registry in part because it’s not timely.
“I almost feel like it’s a false sense of security,” said Sally Sheppard, executive director of the Cottage Sexual Assault Center and Child Advocacy Center in Athens.
Auditors wrote that “errors in the database and the incomplete information on the state website may misinform the public about the number of offenders and the threat posed by offenders in their community.”
The audit found:
● The GBI, which maintains the state registry “has not established adequate management controls over [registry] program operations.” One example: If an offender moves from out of state, a sheriff sends paperwork to the GBI to add them to the Georgia registry. The audit stated the GBI takes too long to add the information, allowing cases to pile up and only working on them “intermittingly.” Meanwhile, the offenders are not listed for months.
● In-state offenders also aren’t being listed in a timely fashion, and the registry isn’t keeping up with them when they move.
● The registry’s database isn’t listing all the information about offenders that state law requires. In some cases, the software doesn’t even allow the information to be entered. In other cases, it was easy for police or state data entry workers to add errors into the data.
● Physical descriptions and photographs of offenders are not being updated frequently enough.
● A special state review board, set up to rank offenders by their danger to the community, is so understaffed and backlogged that it has not classified thousands of offenders. The report found that only 6 percent of the state’s almost 20,000 offenders have been classified by the board, which due to budget cuts has only four full-time and four part-time staffers.
As a result, Georgians don’t know who is living near them. A sex offender may be classified low risk, medium risk or a “predator” — if the board ever gets around to reviewing the offender’s case.
The review board did not return calls seeking comment for this article.
The system is deeply fragmented. Financially strapped counties are required to gather and keep up-to-date information on sex offenders. Some do it themselves, some have privatized the operation and some don’t comply at all. The state registry is compiled from a hodgepodge of sources — county information, what the state can gather, the prisons and other states when offenders move here.
J. Terry Norris, executive vice president at the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, has complained about the registry for years, especially the legal requirements placed on sheriffs, the lack of state funding and weak coordination among agencies.
A recent check of the registry by the AJC confirmed various problems. Many offenders are identified improperly, with names misspelled. Others have their identifying marks listed inaccurately.
For example, Richard Mundell, convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child in Texas, now lives in Haralson County. The database lists him as having no tattoos. In fact, as his photograph on the database shows, he has a large tattoo on his neck.
Some offenders are listed as “homeless,” even though their addresses are listed in the database as verified. Some sex crimes are not described at all, being listed as “9999 Other crime,” with no explanation. Many are listed as “absconders,” meaning they did not report to local police as required by law.
Metro Atlanta parents who are familiar with the registry said they weren’t surprised to hear about the audit’s findings.
Christina Barnette, 40, an Atlanta mother of three young children, said that she checked the sex offender website in the past — and didn’t find it very helpful. “All it told me was there’s a lot of sex offenders and it doesn’t matter where you live,” she said
Beth Ely, 44, a mother of two, said she checked the registry about a year ago when her family moved to a neighborhood in Chamblee. She found it incomplete. “It’s a pretty sloppy system,” she said.
Though state agencies and local sheriffs all told the AJC that the registry has big problems, the GBI criticized the audit.
GBI spokesman John Bankhead said the two-person office running the registry at the GBI is doing the best it can, and the GBI is well aware of what it needs to fix. The issue is funding, he said. He said the registry started in 1996 with one staffer and 300 offenders. Today the office has two staffers — and almost 20,000 offenders.
Bankhead also charged that the audit was guided by a private company, Offender Watch of Louisiana, gunning for a state contract. Offender Watch has its own database and software to track criminals, including sexual offenders.
“That is just a direct conflict of interest,” he said.
In fact, state staff launched and conducted the entire audit, said Leslie McGuire, performance audit division director of the state Department of Audits and Accounts.
She said auditors did their own work, including interviewing state and local officials. They also spoke with officials at Offender Watch, because they work with many sheriffs’ departments in the state. Offender Watch was not compensated in any way and there is no proposal for Offender Watch to get state business. But it made sense to talk to the company, McGuire said.
“It would have been irresponsible not to look at other options that were available,” she said.
Joe Gauthier of Offender Watch in Georgia said he was surprised to hear the GBI was angry over the audit and the fact that he spoke with state auditors.
“I didn’t take [the report] as a slam on the GBI, as it was on the outdated technology,” he said.
Gauthier told the AJC that this year he started talking to Georgia officials about setting up a statewide system like ones that the company operates in nearby states. He guessed such a plan would cost the state about $400,000 a year.
The state audit predicted the registry’s problems will only get worse in coming years as the registered sex offender population in the state rises. The number of registered sex offenders has risen to about 20,000 this year and is expected to reach 34,000 in the next decade. The population is expected to rise because offenders, once on the list, take a long time to be removed, if ever, and more are added every year.
The registry has been controversial for years, with many challenging fairness and accuracy of such a list. Others have strongly supported the concept, arguing it keeps an eye on potential repeat offenders. Legislators have passed laws repeatedly to bolster the registry as well as residency restrictions for offenders.
Legislative leaders say the audit has sparked them to review the registry. Ralston, who was the lead sponsor on the last major piece of legislation expanding offender residency restrictions, said he plans to call a special pre-session meeting of the House Judicial Non-Civil Committee to review the audit this fall. He said he is willing to consider more funding.
“I’m open to any reasonable solution,” he said.
For sheriffs across the state, the unfunded requirement that they set up registry websites had been a burden. Most try to run their own and still others simply link to the GBI’s site or to some commercial version of that information. Gene Pope, sheriff of Butts County, between Atlanta and Macon, said he assigned two officers to watch about 50 convicted sex offenders in his county. Some of their time now has to go to maintaining the registry website.
“It’s a drain on my resources,” he said.
About 40 sheriffs have hired Offender Watch to maintain their sex offender databases. Many of them are strong supporters. Carroll County, west of Atlanta, has been using the system for three years to keep track of about 250 offenders. The program costs the county about $7,000 annually.
Terry Welch, training director and adviser for the sheriffs’ association Sex Offender Registry Task Force, said the biggest problem preventing an accurate, complete registry is technology: The computers that the GBI is using are just too old and don’t have the power necessary to handle the workload.
“Funding is the No. 1 problem to deal with regarding what this law mandates,” she said. “The way it is now, it’s all confused.” ..Source.. Cameron McWhirter
Court says prosecutor's evidence didn't exist
8-30-2010 Kansas:
A Kansas appeals court has ordered a new trial for a convicted sexual predator, saying a prosecutor falsified evidence in a court proceeding.
"We can fathom no greater prejudice... than the use of nonexistent evidence by the State in the case against the respondent," noted the Kansas Court of Appeals in an opinion issued Friday.
"Simply put, attorneys are not allowed to make up evidence and use it to advance their cause."
The state's attorney in the case was Marc Bennett, a deputy district attorney in Sedgwick County who supervises the prosecution of child sex crimes.
The case involved Robert C. Ontiberos, who was convicted of attempted rape in 1983 and aggravated sexual battery in 2001.
When Ontiberos was about to be paroled, prosecutors sought to confine him to a state mental hospital under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act. Sex offenders who suffer a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes them likely to commit additional sex crimes can be held indefinitely for treatment under the 1994 law.
Ontiberos claimed that he did not receive a fair trial when a jury decided in 2008 to confine him to the Kansas Sexual Predator Treatment Program.
The appeals court ruled in his favor and ordered a new trial Friday.
While cross-examining Ontiberos during the trial, Bennett, serving as a special assistant attorney general, "improperly used statements that had not been admitted into evidence," the appeals court ruled.
Also, while cross-examining a clinical psychologist who had evaluated Ontiberos, Bennett asked the doctor "about a 2003 prison incident where Ontiberos fashioned a knife out of a pen and duct tape," the ruling says.
Ontiberos never received a disciplinary report involving a weapon, the court said. And Bennett admitted to the court that "he was unable to locate any reference" to the report that alleged Ontiberos used a knife in a fight.
Said the appeals court: "The State's use of a nonexistent Department of Corrections disciplinary finding, ostensibly painting Ontiberos as being violent because it involved a homemade prison shank, cannot be condoned in any fashion."
Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said Bennett's reference to the weapon in court "was a misstatement, if anything" and should not mar his reputation or the case in general.
"I do not want it said that Marc Bennett somehow willfully, intentionally fabricated evidence, because that's not the case here at all," Foulston said.
"Marc is an extremely professional lawyer, and he's an extremely ethical lawyer. While reviewing thousands of pages in hundreds of documents, he may have mistakenly confused what was in the record.
"If that's the case, obviously that was wrong, it shouldn't have happened, and the court's point is well taken.... But Marc told the court about the mistake. He fell on his sword, so to speak, and I don't believe it's a malicious thing because there's not a malicious bone in Marc Bennett's body."
Foulston noted that several factors weighed into the appeals court's decision Friday, including "the passivity of defense counsel and his apparent lack of preparation," the ruling said.
Foulston said she plans to further review the case and the documents in question. The Kansas Attorney General's Office will decide whether to appeal the court's ruling. ..Source.. SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS
Ruling Limits Ability of Judges to Inflate Sex Offender Sentences
8-30-2010 Pennsylvania:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stopped an end-run around sex offender laws in their efforts to get offenders sentenced to harsher penalties.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stopped prosecutors and judges from employing an end-run around sex offender laws in their efforts to get offenders sentenced to harsher penalties.
The court's ruling came in the case of Commonwealth. v. Jarowecki (985 A.2d 955). Craig S. Jarowecki of West Reading was convicted in 2006 of eight counts of possessing child pornography for having six images and two movies on his computer.
At his trial, Judge Linda Ludgate agreed to treat one conviction as his first offense and the other seven offenses as second convictions, dramatically raising the penalties for Jarowecki.
Enormous Changes
Ludgate then imposed a sentence ranging from 37 months to 17 years in state prison. If she hadn't agreed to the artificial upgrade in his sentence, the punishment for a first offense would have ranged from probation to up to seven years in prison.
In a 21-page decision, Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd concluded that the law doesn't allow treating one violation as a first offense, and other violations of the law in the same incident as second offenses in order to obtain multiple convictions and higher penalties.
Last year, state lawmakers expanded child pornography laws to make intentional viewing of child porn a punishable offense. Previously, a person had to "knowingly possess or control" child pornography. Now the law defines the offense as "the deliberate, purposeful, voluntary viewing" of the materials.
Guidelines
Sentencing guidelines in Pennsylvania are weighted against sex offenders with prior convictions. With sex offenses, the penalties rise significantly for those with multiple convictions.
Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines are broken down into five categories, with Level One being for "the least serious offenders" and Level Five for "the most violent offenders."
For example, a Level Five conviction for sexual assualt for an offender with no prior convictions calls for a sentence of 36 to 54 months, according to Pennsylvania sentencing guidelines. If the same offense is proven against someone with five prior convictions, the guidelines go up to a range of 72 months to 90 months.
Someone who is a repeat Level One and Level Two offender would, for the same offense, get 84 to 102 months. whereas someone classified as a repeat violent offender would get 120 months (12 years) in a state prison for the same offense and conviction.
If you or a loved one faces sex offense charges, contact a Pennsylvania criminal offense lawyer who understands the law and the rights of the accused. A criminal defense attorney can assess the facts and charges in the case and advise you of your legal options. ..Source.. David S. Shrager
WREG Investigators Track Down Sex Offenders
For a moment ignore the slew of registry errors talked about below, and focus on what I have highlighted. The essence of that comment means there is a local registry and the state registry; two registries. That means both the state and the local agency, are eligible for federal grant money, assuming they both apply for it and likely they do. Not only is money appropriated twice for the same function (registry maintenance operating expenses) but this means there is twice the chance for errors to enter the system. The article clearly shows some of the errors are because two agencies are involved.8-30-2010 Tennessee:
FAST FACTS
The On Your Side Investigators track down the four sex offenders featured in our July investigation.
Some violators have been arrested by local police on unrelated charges, but never flagged as being unregistered sex offenders.
Parents now wonder how effective the online sex offender registry really is.
Shannon Massey is a Mid-South Mom and a mother of four.
"I'm very protective of my sons, their well being is my number one priority," Massey said.
She relies on tools like the Sex Offender Registry to keep an eye on who's in her neighborhood.
"I need to know who's living in my area, or who's living next to my kid's school," Massey said.
But when the WREG On Your Side Investigators told her about problems we've uncovered with the Tennessee Sex Offender registry, she was surprised to know that tool isn't as reliable as she'd previously thought.
"It's not doing me any good if it's not accurate," Massey said.
In July, we alerted you to four sex offenders with a questionable address or no photograph on the registry. Authorities didn't know where they were, so we tracked the offenders.
Maclin was a homeless sex offender who was deceased and after our investigation, was taken off the registry.
"I want my dad off the sex offender list, I do," Marquita Jones said.
Jones says her father Eligh Jones died two years ago, but he's still on the registry without a photograph or an address. It even says he checked-in in Februrary 2010.
"He's been deceased since August 13, 2008. So how can he update anything?" Jones said.
After seeing our story, Leotha Powell contacted the On Your Side Investigators, saying he's not a sex offender, although he was pled guilty to Sexual Battery in 1998.
"Up until I was on TV, no one said anything about me being a non-registered sex offender," Powell said.
Powell says his no one told him he had to register -- not his parole officer, the judge, or even his lawyer.
But a source says Powell was registering with the TBI through mailings as of 2003.
But when the system changed making local authorities responsible for local sex offenders, Powell didn't register with Memphis Police.
Powell isn't the only one who fell through the cracks, Willie Spraggins did too. The On Your Side Investigators caught up with one of Spraggins' relatives, who says police have never stopped by her home to ask about Willie. ..Source.. Keli Rabon
Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
8-30-2010 National:
As the privacy controversy around full-body security scans begins to simmer, it’s worth noting that courthouses and airport security checkpoints aren’t the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed. The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.
American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.
“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.
Here’s a video of the vans in action.
The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays indicate less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs, or human bodies. That capability makes them powerful tools for security, law enforcement, and border control.
It would also seem to make the vans mobile versions of the same scanning technique that’s riled privacy advocates as it’s been deployed in airports around the country. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is currently suing the DHS to stop airport deployments of the backscatter scanners, which can reveal detailed images of human bodies. (Just how much detail became clear last May, when TSA employee Rolando Negrin was charged with assaulting a coworker who made jokes about the size of Negrin’s genitalia after Negrin received a full-body scan.)
“It’s no surprise that governments and vendors are very enthusiastic about [the vans],” says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC. “But from a privacy perspective, it’s one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable.”
AS&E’s Reiss counters privacy critics by pointing out that the ZBV scans don’t capture nearly as much detail of human bodies as their airport counterparts. The company’s marketing materials say that its “primary purpose is to image vehicles and their contents,” and that “the system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, sex or age of the person.”
Though Reiss admits that the systems “to a large degree will penetrate clothing,” he points to the lack of features in images of humans, far less detail than is obtained from the airport scans. “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be,” he says.
But EPIC’s Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. “Without a warrant, the government doesn’t have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,” he says. Even airport scans are typically used only as a secondary security measure, he points out. “If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.”
The TSA’s official policy dictates that full-body scans must be viewed in a separate room from any guards dealing directly with subjects of the scans, and that the scanners won’t save any images. Just what sort of safeguards might be in place for AS&E’s scanning vans isn’t clear, given that the company won’t reveal just which law enforcement agencies, organizations within the DHS, or foreign governments have purchased the equipment. Reiss says AS&E has customers on “all continents except Antarctica.”
Reiss adds that the vans do have the capability of storing images. “Sometimes customers need to save images for evidentiary reasons,” he says. “We do what our customers need.” ..Source.. by Andy Greenberg, The Firewall
What do you think? Do AS&E’s vans threaten your privacy? Do airport full-body scans? Or are either one–or both–a fair price for the security they could provide? Let me know your thoughts in comments.
August 29, 2010
Mark Lundsford will be coming to several cities as part of a biker group, "Ride for Their Lives"
8-29-2010 National:
Mark Lundsford will be visiting several major cities with a Biker group known as "Ride for Their Lives."
OnceFallen has covered the claims being made by the biker group, which intends to raise $1,000,000.00 dollars for another group Mark is part of, The Surviving Parents Coalition.
I am sure it all has something to do with the Adam Walsh Act which an untold number of states are objecting to given enacting its provisions will violate a host of state laws, state judges decisions, and past court precedent, but, Congress is coercing the states by threatening them with a reduction in federal Bryne Grant crime fighting money if they do not enact AWA.
For now,
eAdvocate
August 28, 2010
Alabama court to decide if sex offenders must have a home
Obviously the prosecutor, by suggesting places which are not mentioned or eluded to in the statute as a possible residences, and if he is correct and has proved I (defendant) was not sleeping at any of those places which I assume he has sent police to check, and the court has evidence that I was not sleeping at those places by police testimony, then yes your honor I am guilty. But your Honor, I wanted to sleep on the moon but felt that was too absurd to put as a residence, according to the prosecutor that is also possible under the statute, has the prosecutor presented evidence that the police would go there to prove I was not there? If not, then your honor, I am innocent and the prosecutor has failed to prove his assertions.8-28-2010 Alabama:
MONTGOMERY — After serving his prison sentence for rape, Jeffrey Seagle tried to find a place to live. But with no fixed address and no family or friends able to take him in, Alabama's sex offender law kept him behind bars.
When it came time for him to leave the Kilby Correctional Facility near Montgomery, he was re-arrested. The reason: He couldn't give officials an address where he would be living.
"This is essentially an eternal prison sentence. It could be a life sentence," said attorney David Schoen, who represents Seagle and three others in similar situations. "It is the ultimate scarlet letter."
Challenged by Schoen, the law was later declared unconstitutional by two Montgomery circuit judges, but the state attorney general has appealed to have it reinstated. State's attorneys say the four inmates could have complied with the law by listing a park bench or even a street corner as their permanent address.
Montgomery County Circuit Judges Truman Hobbs and Tracey McCooey ruled last year in separate cases that the law is unconstitutionally vague. The ruling struck down charges that the four inmates violated the law when they declared that they were homeless and did not provide an address for where they would be living outside prison.
Seagle and the other three inmates were arrested for violating the notification law when they started to leave prison at the end of their sentences. They have since been released after the law was ruled unconstitutional.
Alabama Attorney General Troy King has asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to reinstate the law, which he said is necessary for law enforcement officers to keep an eye on people convicted of sex crimes like rape. The four men — Phillip Handley, Thornal Adams, Richard Coppage and Seagle — argued in court briefs that they were unable to find a homeless shelter, halfway house or other permanent home.
Under Alabama law, convicted sex offenders are not permitted to live within 2,000 feet of an elementary or high school or college or university.
Although they are now out of prison, Schoen said his four clients are still having a hard time finding a place to live. He said they have stayed in homeless shelters and other temporary locations.
Many states that adopted stringent community notification rules for sex offenders are now grappling with the issue of how homeless sex offenders can comply.
Last year, probation officers in Georgia had to find temporary housing for nine homeless sex offenders who were kicked out of a makeshift tent city they had built in the woods behind a suburban Atlanta office building. The men said the tent city was the only place they had been able to find where they could live and comply with state law.
In a similar case, almost 100 homeless sex offenders in Florida were forced to move earlier this year from a makeshift camp under a bridge on a Miami causeway.
Mississippi has a law similar to Alabama's, but it gives sex offenders 10 days to find a permanent residence after they are released from prison. In California, sex offenders are allowed to register as "transient" if they can't find housing.
Schoen has argued that the Alabama law violates the Constitution because it requires a convicted sex offender, who has "paid his debt to society," to have a roof over his head.
But the attorney general's office has argued in court briefs that the law does not require a specific address and that inmates can say they are going to live on a park bench or under an interstate overpass, as long as they remain the required distance from schools and police know where to find them.
"You can say 'I'm going to live under the overpass on Ann Street," King said, referring to a Montgomery street not far from the Capitol.
Virginia law allows homeless sex offenders to list a street corner, parking lot or other vacant space as their home.
Deputy Attorney General Pete Smyczek denies claims that the Alabama law is an attempt to give homeless sex offenders life sentences.
"We just want them to give us something definitive enough to allow law enforcement to locate them," Smyczek said.
The law passed the Alabama Legislature in a special session in 2005. The House sponsor, former state Rep. Neil Morrison, D-Cullman, said King and some legislators were concerned that "predators were disappearing back into society" as soon as they were released from prison before law enforcement officers could find out where they were living.
"I felt strongly about this. We owe protection to our children," Morrison said.
Schoen said he believes the Legislature intended to require sex offenders to stay in prison if they lack a permanent address and that the argument about living on park benches is being made to improve chances of winning before the appellate court.
But Morrison said that's not the case.
"Nowhere did we say in the law that they have to stay in prison. The intent was to protect children," Morrison said.
In court filings, attorneys for the sex offenders say their clients went to great lengths to abide by the law.
Seagle, who was initially convicted of rape in Montgomery County in 1995, had been in prison for 14 years when he was told he would have to provide an address before he was released from prison and at that time didn't have any relatives or friends he could live with, according to his filing to the appellate court. The filing said Seagle wrote to a number of halfway houses and was only accepted to live in one in Oklahoma City.
But that halfway house later informed him it was full and he could not live there. The filing said Seagle did not have money to rent a house or an apartment and he did not have access to the Internet in prison to help his search. It said Seagle "did not think he could put down that he would be living on a park bench and that if he did, he would probably get arrested again." ..Source.. Bob Johnson
Are sex offenders the bait, to get public attention?
8-28-2010 California:
I am sure folks have heard of what Gov. Schwarzenegger is doing to notify the public when paroled sex offenders do not comply with GPS monitoring. Two of many news reports follows, but there is something most folks do not realize, see my commentary following news reports.California to notify public if sex offenders flee
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ordering corrections officials to alert the public when a sex offender parolee slips away from supervision.
The order Wednesday follows recent incidents in Bakersfield and San Diego County. Parolees there are charged with attacking teenage girls after the felons discarded GPS-linked ankle bracelets that track their movements. Corrections spokesman Gordon Hinkle says the department already notifies law enforcement agencies when parolees disappear.
Hinkle says the department is likely to follow Schwarzenegger's order by posting information about the missing parolees on a public website. He says between 20 and 60 parolees flee in a typical month. He could not immediately say how many of the missing parolees were convicted of sex offenses. ..Source.. by Mercury News.com
New California Website Warns Public When Sex Offenders Bolt
A site to warn the public when sex-offender parolees remove GPS ankle monitors has been created by the California Department of Corrections, according to a statement by the department.
Member of the public can sign up to get email alerts about the parolee violations. Information such as photos, physical descriptions and last known whereabouts are all included in the alerts. The site was created after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the department to notify law enforcement and the media if an offender escapes confinement. Alerts will be updated within hours of the issuance of a warrant.
Law enforcement agencies are already notified by the Department of Justice's Criminal Intelligence and Investigation system alerts. Offender information is located in the Parole Law Enforcement Automated Database System. Those wishing to sign up for the alerts can go to the department's website. ..Source.. by Steve La
All the news is about sex offenders and they are the reason this was all started, right? Lets see, first at the California DOC website it shows the list of parolees who are not complying, see DOC Website, then come back for the real story.
The website is all about sex offenders?
California DOC touts sex offenders, sex offenders, but the truth is that website contains far more than sex offenders. Want proof? There is a "Search Box" in the upper right of that page, put in any of the following: Robbery, Spouse, Ammo, Violence and I am sure there are others, and see what is returned.
Ahh, you found out the truth, its not all about sex offenders, it really is all about parolees who do not comply with GPS Monitoring. So why are they blaming sex offenders? That I have no answer to, and will leave that up to your imagination. Hint, sex sells, and will get the public attention.
Now, for those who will claim, that, those you find that do not indicate they are a sex offender, maybe are really sex offenders? Ok, its possible, but then why would the DOC give out such info to the public and not tell the public about the person being a sex offender? No folks those are other parolees who are not complying with GPS requirements.
Did they appropriate funds for this project?
Lets see, did they appropriate money to setup this website? Again, I do not know, but I do know something about the website, click on this link.
OK, did you notice it is the same information as the DOC link, without the DOC Titles? Yup, they setup the website using a simple FREE Google blog. Want proof? Click on RSS and it will take you back to the DOC website. Folks, I just happenstanced on this and did a bit of research.
Is the information correct?
Lets do a little test, in the search box type in "Taylor" without the quotes, and click search. On the left side it will show two parolees, now carefully do this, open each one, and their detail information will be as follows:
So, the public is going to look for a guy who is 5'10" 190 lbs -OR- a guy who is 6'2" and 230 lbs? And both descriptions show the same name, Richard Leslie Taylor. OH, you also noticed the pictures were of different people? OH yes, also one is a sex offender and the other convicted of robbery. And the title of the post is DIFFERENT??
I seriously doubt Jaycee Dugard, the girl kidnapped by Phillip Garrido -a California parolee- and kept her some 18 years in his backyard, would support these efforts of the California DOC. Should the general public?
For now have a great day and a better tomorrow.
eAdvocate
PS: Wouldn't it be simple to have someone verify what was posted, to see if it is correct? Since it involves public safety. No one thought of it, well they also never checked Phillip Garrido's electric cords going from his house to the hidden shacks in his backyard, where he kept Jaycee Dugard for 18 years, either. In God we trust, but the California DOC, we better double check.
August 27, 2010
State Assembly Postpones Vote For Chelsea's Law
8-27-2010 California:
Vote Tentatively Set For Monday
SAN DIEGO -- The state Assembly postponed taking a final vote Friday on a proposed law named for slain Poway High School student Chelsea King.
AB 1844 -- Chelsea's Law -- calls for mandatory life sentences for violent sex crimes against children. It also tightens sex offense parole guidelines and require lifelong tracking of certain sex offenders.
The vote now is tentatively set for Monday.
"Last minute changes are typical due to an end-of-session proliferation of bills to be taken up in such a condensed time period," said Sara Muller Fraunces, a spokeswoman for Chelsea's parents.
Registered sex offender John Albert Gardner III pleaded guilty to murdering King and, a year earlier, to killing 14-year-old Amber Dubois. He was sentenced to two life terms in prison.
The bill previously passed the Assembly, and was approved on a 33-0 vote in the state Senate on Tuesday. It has to return to the Assembly for consideration of the final text of the measure, and will then be sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has promised to sign it.
On Thursday, Chelsea's parents announced that they had filed paperwork with the California Victims Compensation and Government Claims Board, which makes payments to crime victims.
The move was just ahead of a six-month deadline, and is meant to preserve the King family's right to seek compensation, Fraunces said.
The Kings have not made a final decision on whether to seek compensation for the murder of their 17-year-old daughter, who disappeared Feb. 25 while jogging on a trail near Rancho Bernardo Community Park.
"We are just beginning to think through this issue and are factoring in a variety of opinions," the Kings said in a statement. "If any compensation is received in the future, it will be used to further Chelsea's dream of changing our world for the better." ..Source.. 10News.com
Google and CIA Invest in a Minority Report-Like Technology That May Make Our World a Less Certain Place
8-27-2010 Global:
An article that appeared Wired Danger Room yesterday reveals that the CIA and Google are now in cahoots to invest in a new company called Recorded Future -- a real-life version of Minority Report, one that's all fact and no fantasy, It's purpose is to know the present and predict the future, totally.
I'm a longtime fan of Google and its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." And I applaud its founders and workers' commitment to "Do No Evil." I'm disappointed, therefore, that Google is treating such a potentially dangerous technology, on the scale contemplated by the CIA, as just another investment in IT done up in red, white, and blue bunting. These are smart people. They must know better. What motivates this scheme? According to writer Noah Schachtman, who broke the Recorded Future story on Wired,
The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time -- and says it uses that information to predict the future.
The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents -- both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine "goes beyond search" by "looking at the 'invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events."
The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online "momentum" for any given event.
"The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases," says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science.
The technology relies on Google's massive distributed computing power, its global networks, and the fact that nearly everyone on the net uses Google multiple times each day to store and share information to construct plausible pictures of what's happening anywhere in the world and more dangerously for civil liberties, economic markets, political diplomacy, and anything else that relies on a measure of uncertainty and privacy, what's likely to be happening in the world. To again quote Schachtman,
Recorded Future strips from web pages the people, places and activities they mention. The company examines when and where these events happened ("spatial and temporal analysis") and the tone of the document ("sentiment analysis"). Then it applies some artificial-intelligence algorithms to tease out connections between the players. Recorded Future maintains an index with more than 100 million events, hosted on Amazon.com servers. The analysis, however, is on the living web.
"We're right there as it happens," Ahlberg told Danger Room as he clicked through a demonstration. "We can assemble actual real-time dossiers on people."
Recorded Future, invested in by Google Ventures and the CIA's spooky In-Q-Tel VC subsidiary, posits greater certainty but its result could be exactly the opposite, a more uncertain future in which everyone will be gaming everyone else, on Google, Facebook, in books and periodicals, business articles, sports analyses, personal email, podcasts, political flyers -- every human statement and record -- throwing into doubt the veracity of any posting, comment, website, or archive. This happens already on online predictive-market simulations. And YouTube videos are scamming the public comprehension of complex events. Should Recorded Future succeed, it could turn the production and accumulation of information and knowledge into a never-ending race between the forecasters of the future and those who seek to assuage or delude them.
Conceivably in this future, CIA hitmen could be dispatched to eliminate a terrorist suspect even before the suspect knew what terror he or she is about to undertake. That was the premise for Minority Report (based on a story by Philip K. Dick), in which a future "Precrime" police unit fields SWAT teams that take out people before they commit crimes, based on the premonitions of three psychic mutants. Unfortunately, just as with Precrime's mutants, technology can go terribly wrong or be abused and the results can be deadly.
But even more profound, unintended consequences could follow if Recorded Future's predictions are released to the world -- or if they are not and are acted on by only a small cadre of specialists, to the exclusion of others. Either outcome could be catastrophic for financial markets, industrial competition, world economies, and the relations between nations, not to mention individuals' sense of personal security. In that future, an Iran or North Korea will fear not only that its every move can be a cause for war, but that every idea expressed or even just imputed from undisclosed tell-tales may lead to its destruction. The impulse to strike first will no doubt key a preemptive response on both sides of the equation.
Recorded Future's technological success could instigate deadly chess games at all levels between Knowers and The Known, who may often be one and the same, simultaneously. In this sense, Recorded Future technologically is an evolutionary step upward from the Total Information Awareness promoted by the CIA's General Poindexter (kept alive in concept by the CIA), but potentially a socially evolutionary step downward. Only some people will be granted its God's eye view of reality and insights to the future. On their beneficence or villainy could depend the fate of the world as we know it.
Ironically, Google's participation in this project could result in it debasing its own value as a carrier of information shared by others for purposes having nothing to do with the security of the American state, both its governmental wing and the industrial sector that affects national policymaking and, via outsourcing, its technological deployments.
For a fact, private corporations have been using systems like Recorded Future's for over a decade, constantly refining their predictive capabilities. But none has at its disposal the computing power or access to all the world's data that Google and the CIA have between them. Corporations and private investors that can wangle their way into the Company's good graces as collaborators and subcontractors could have a tremendous advantage over their competitors if they can gain access to Recorded Future, even in its infancy.
Schachtman's article doesn't go into great detail on the business relationship between Google and CIA or with their offspring, Recorded Future, or the missions that Recorded Future may be expected to undertake. And because of the shroud of national security that the CIA throws over every development, it's unlikely that anything short of a Congressional hearing will reveal more. However, one thing is certain: those who have a stake in the future -- all of us -- must develop a new awareness for predictive technology and how it can and will be used not only to describe the present but also to forecast the future and, in the process, remake it.
The flip side is that, were Recorded Future's power to become a public asset generally accessible to people around the world (with limitations on critical types of information, like market dynamics), it could be a boon to global awareness and the ability to solve crises like climate change and nuclear disarmament.
Robert David Steele, an intelligence community insider but not in the mainstream, is the author of The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political - A Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption, a comprehensive primer on "open source intelligence." He posits a world in which citizens, working openly with the tools and information available on the Internet and in other public sources -- this was before Google was going great guns -- can exceed the intelligence capability of the CIA many times over. What was missing, according to Steele, was geotagging of data so that it could be made relevant to problems needing solution, from local issues to global affairs. The New Craft is a striking exposition and a strong refutation of Recorded Future-like pipedreams. Given that Google is now mature and SRI's GeoWeb can provide the universal geotagging process, we might be on the verge of a situation-aware global populace. But is that likely with the CIA in charge? Steele has his doubts.
In his groundbreaking 1992 novel Snow Crash, futurist Neal Stephenson described a successor to the CIA, the CIC -- Central Intelligence Corporation -- a for-profit company that takes over the management role of what was once the U.S. Government, now defunct. It relies on a virtual-world simulacrum, "Earth," as a portal into the Metaverse, the entire collection of all digital knowledge and representations. (Another irony: Earth is a descendant of Google Earth which, according to one of its developers, Avi Bar-Zeev, was inspired by Stephenson's vision of Earth.)
Things go radically wrong in the already data-warped Metaverse and the material world it represents, not least because unsavory people gain access to Earth with its potential for revealing everything they need to know to create a Doomsday scenario. Stephenson's allegory takes some wild bounces, but its lesson for those of us living in the present -- now in the presence of a possible Earth -- is clear.
Now is the time for openness, transparency, and public discussion about what is being proposed via Recorded Future: the power to remake our future and our world, with unexpected consequences that even the most benign benefactors -- even the kind folks at Google -- had best take very, very seriously. This isn't just about the union of business or spycraft, it's existence itself that the digital alchemists are taking in hand. ..Source.. Bob Jacobson
Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars
8-27-2010 California:
(CNN) -- Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge, according to a recent federal appeals court ruling in California.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Oregon in 2007 surreptitiously attached a GPS to the silver Jeep owned by Juan Pineda-Moreno, whom they suspected of growing marijuana, according to court papers.
When Pineda-Moreno was arrested and charged, one piece of evidence was the GPS data, including the longitude and latitude of where the Jeep was driven, and how long it stayed. Prosecutors asserted the Jeep had been driven several times to remote rural locations where agents discovered marijuana being grown, court documents show.
Pineda-Moreno eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to grow marijuana, and is serving a 51-month sentence, according to his lawyer.
But he appealed on the grounds that sneaking onto a person's driveway and secretly tracking their car violates a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.
"They went onto the property several times in the middle of the night without his knowledge and without his permission," said his lawyer, Harrison Latto.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal twice -- in January of this year by a three-judge panel, and then again by the full court earlier this month. The judges who affirmed Pineda-Moreno's conviction did so without comment.
Latto says the Ninth Circuit decision means law enforcement can place trackers on cars, without seeking a court's permission, in the nine western states the California-based circuit covers.
The ruling likely won't be the end of the matter. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., arrived at a different conclusion in similar case, saying officers who attached a GPS to the car of a suspected drug dealer should have sought a warrant.
Experts say the issue could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
One of the dissenting judges in Pineda-Moreno's case, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, said the defendant's driveway was private and that the decision would allow police to use tactics he called "creepy" and "underhanded."
"The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling," Kozinksi wrote in his dissent.
"I think it is Orwellian," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which advocates for privacy rights.
"If the courts allow the police to gather up this information without a warrant," he said, "the police could place a tracking device on any individual's car -- without having to ever justify the reason they did that."
But supporters of the decision see the GPS trackers as a law enforcement tool that is no more intrusive than other means of surveillance, such as visually following a person, that do not require a court's approval.
"You left place A, at this time, you went to place B, you took this street -- that information can be gleaned in a variety of ways," said David Rivkin, a former Justice Department attorney. "It can be old surveillance, by tailing you unbeknownst to you; it could be a GPS."
He says that a person cannot automatically expect privacy just because something is on private property.
"You have to take measures -- to build a fence, to put the car in the garage" or post a no-trespassing sign, he said. "If you don't do that, you're not going to get the privacy." ..Source.. Dugald McConnell, CNN
August 26, 2010
Three Florida Men Plead Guilty to Sex Trafficking Conspiracy
Don't get me wrong here, individually the acts of these men are wrong, but again we see " Casting crime under umbrella terms and phrases!" look at the highlights, what were they called in the past? Are all pimps and brothel madames, sex traffickers? Yes, under the new terminology.8-26-2010 Florida:
Wifredo A Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; John V Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office; and Al Lamberti, Sheriff, Broward Sheriff’s Office, announced that defendants Johnny Saintil, 28, Michael Defrand, 25, and Stanley Wilson, 26, of Broward, pled guilty on August 23, 2010 to conspiring to sex traffic minors and sex trafficking by force, threats of force, and coercion, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1594(c). Defrand also pled guilty to a substantive count of sex trafficking of a minor, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(a). Sentencing for all three men has been scheduled for November 19, 2010 before United States District Judge William J Zloch. Each of the defendants faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Saintil, Defrand, and Wilson were members of an organization that called itself “Please Talk Paper.” From September 2009 through March 16, 2010, the organization was used to prostitute adult and minor females out of national and international hotel chains in Broward County. The organization would advertise its prostitution services on the Internet. The defendants used the organization to do Internet advertising, facilitate transportation, and avoid law enforcement detection. In this way, the defendants shared resources, including hotel rooms, computers, condoms, and the prostitutes working for the organization.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Mr Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the FBI’s Minor Vice Task Force. ..Source. 7thSpace
Mothers' group outraged after their Facebook campaign to expose paedophiles is removed from the internet
Their problem is, they reported the bad sites to the wrong people. i.e. the public instead of Facebook.8-26-2010 United Kingdom:
Six mothers who set up a campaign group on Facebook to track down and expose online paedophiles have been given a warning and had their page removed from the internet.
Leanne Moss, 33, set up the Mommies on a Mission group after claiming she stumbled across Facebook profile pages featuring images of child abuse.
The mother-of-four said she created the campaign page to raise awareness and to ensure the offensive profiles were reported.
But the group, which attracted more than 300 people in two days, was later removed by Facebook, who sent Mrs Moss a message saying the content violated their terms of use.
Mrs Moss, from Hull, who sells baby clothes using Facebook, said: 'It's ridiculous. We're the ones being made to feel like we've done something wrong.'
'In our eyes, all we are trying to do is protect our children. The group had 500 members but then I received a messaged from Facebook saying it was going against the rules.
All we were doing was posting links of profiles which featured sick images.'
Group member Joanne Bell, 32, from Carlisle, claimed it didn't make sense that Mommies on a Mission was removed when what they considered to be 'sick' profiles featuring child abuse were still on the site.
'How can they close the group for having sick content when these profiles are still there?
If they are monitoring us so closely, why can't they monitor these people?'
The group aimed to prevent a repeat of the murder of Ashleigh Hall, 17, who was groomed online by killer Peter Chapman before she was lured to her death.
Chapman, a convicted sex offender, was jailed for a minimum of 35 years in March.
Ashleigh's mother Andrea said Facebook's decision to shut down Mommies on a Mission was 'shocking'.
'They are very quick to shut down people who are trying to do some good for a change.
'If these people can do something good and prevent paedophiles getting in touch with young people then I wish them luck.
'I agree about it taking Facebook too long to remove a profile. I've repeatedly reported people to Facebook that are still on there now, almost a year later.'
'Of all people, I know what it's like to lose a child to a paedophile, but you will never be able to find all the paedophiles on Facebook.'
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, an organisation of police and child protection specialists, said anyone seeing suspicious content on Facebook should install and use the ClickCeop application to report it.
The safety button has already been installed by more than 55,000 people.
A spokeswoman for Ceop said: 'We are very interested to know about any concerns that people have around an individual suspected of grooming or anything like that.
'That is why we work with Facebook on the ClickCeop app that enables people to report concerns.'
A spokeswoman for Facebook said: 'Just as the people who use Facebook create all the content for the site, they also manage and regulate it.'
'We provide them with the tools to report any users or content they think is inappropriate, through reporting links on every page.
'Facebook prioritises the most serious reports, acting on most within 24 hours.' ..Source.. DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Sex Offenders?
8-26-2010 Virginia:
Last September, the probation officers of nine homeless men in Georgia ordered them to, in the words of the AP wire service, “live in the woods behind a suburban Atlanta office park.” When the state government discovered this, Georgia promptly ordered them out.
Why? No homeless shelter in Georgia could legally hold them, and the group had nowhere else to go. Those nine men were classified under Georgia law as “sex offenders,” and as such face strict restrictions for the rest of their lives on where they can travel, work, go to the bathroom, and, yes, where they can be homeless.
The Georgia example may be unusual, but it certainly isn’t unique. In 2007, Miami solved its homeless sex offender problem by housing five of them under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Not in a shed or a shelter or a van down by the river. Just under the bridge.
The post-incarceration punishment of “sex offenders” is ridiculous, unconstitutional, and won’t prevent the individuals in question from committing a crime again. Worse yet, they are not the fault of overzealous law enforcement agencies in Georgia or Florida just trying to do right by saving kids from rapists. No, the fault lies with politicians.
To be clear: Sexual abuse and violence is despicable, especially toward children. Concerns about what happens to those who commit these crimes after they get out of jail are understandable. However, “sex offenders” are not just these people.
The pretentious quotes are necessary, as the definition of the term changes state to state, and is determined simply by ending up in a vast database for one reason or another (and sometimes by mistake).
In California, an old man who got caught being gay when it was illegal is considered a “sex offender.” In most states, an 18-year-old who has consensual sex with a 17-year-old is a “sex offender” for life.
An 18-year-old boy in Iowa was asked by a 14-year-old female friend to, ahem, “sext” her. The two were not involved sexually. In fact, the prosecution agreed that the whole thing was a joke. Oh well. Jorge Canal is now a sex offender. To the bridge/woods with him!
To be a “sex offender” is to suffer extra-judicial persecution for the rest of your natural life, at the whim of politicians. Laws are passed every year restricting the freedom of those labeled “sex offenders,” with the maniacal specificity only government can create.
The 2009 edition of Virginia’s “Sex Offender Statutes and Proximity Statutes” (yes, they change annually), explains that “sex offenders” are “forever prohibited” from being within 100 feet of elementary, middle and high schools, daycares, or any “playground, athletic field or facility, or gymnasium.”
OK. Wait, “sex offenders” aren’t allowed within 100 feet of a gym, let alone inside one? Oh, well. As we all know those people are perverts. Like Jorge Canal. Virginia law also prohibits Jorge from living within 500 feet of a public park “regularly used for school activities.” You know, like most parks. But that’s the price to pay for being a “sex offender,” right?
And Jorge might have shit luck, but these laws are doing good work by keeping children safe from dangerous predators.
Except they don’t. “Residency restrictions for sex offenders popular, but ineffective,” read a 2008 headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, saying “studies conducted by the Minnesota Department of Corrections and Colorado Department of Public Safety have not shown any correlation between sex offender recidivism and living near schools or parks.”
The problem is the real dangerous people, sexual predators and their ilk, don’t need to live within 500 feet of a public park to do evil. They can always drive or walk. Want to restrict where a “sex offender” can travel?
That’s what prison is for. Want to keep “sex offenders” away from children? Then keep them in prison. Don’t pass a local ordinance telling Jorge Canal he has to live 500 feet away from anywhere children may gather.
In fact, residency restrictions serve only one purpose: getting politicians elected. No person running for office has ever run on a platform of making life easier for “sex offenders,” and no one ever will. So the laws will continue to be passed. And nine homeless men in Georgia will continue to shuffle in and out of the woods behind an office park, for perpetuity. Until somebody in power reads the Eighth Amendment. ..Source.. Perry Bentley Richmond College '11
Attorneys general call for Craigslist to get rid of adult services ads
Casting crime under umbrella terms and phrases! Trafficking, the new buzz word to encompass every kind of sex act known to man. Notice the highlighted words in this article, and ask, how is that "Trafficking" some will be, but not all. And, notice who is mentioned as championing the anti-trafficking campaign: NCMEC. Trafficking, their new buzz-word; sex offender, apparently is losing its bite.8-26-2010 National:
(CNN) -- Attorneys general in 17 states have banded together to call on Craigslist, the online classified ad website, to discontinue its adult services section.
"The increasingly sharp public criticism of Craigslist's Adult Services section reflects a growing recognition that ads for prostitution -- including ads trafficking children -- are rampant on it," the attorneys general said in a Tuesday letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark.
The letter continued: "We recognize that Craigslist may lose the considerable revenue generated by the Adult Services ads. No amount of money, however, can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution, and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist."
A Craigslist spokeswoman said Wednesday that the site agreed with at least some of the letter.
"We strongly support the attorneys general desire to end trafficking in children and women, through the Internet or by any other means," Susan MacTavish Best, who handles media inquiries for Craigslist, told CNN Wednesday.
"We hope to work closely with them, as we are with experts at nonprofits and in law enforcement, to prevent misuse of our site in facilitation of trafficking, and to combat such crimes wherever they appear, online or offline."
In their letter, the attorneys general highlighted an open letter, which appeared as a Washington Post ad, in which two girls said they were sold for sex on Craigslist.
When the ad came out, Buckmaster wrote a blog post in response that said, "Craigslist is anxious to know that the perpetrators in these girls' cases are behind bars."
The letter also highlighted a report in May by CNN's Amber Lyon, who posted a fake ad in the adult section. She received 15 calls soliciting sex in three hours.
Earlier this month, Lyon interviewed a woman named "Jessica" who sells sex on Craigslist. She told Lyon a Craigslist ad was "the fastest, quickest way you're for sure going to see somebody that day."
In a later blog, Buckmaster said Craigslist implemented manual screening of adult services ads in May 2009. "Since that time, before being posted each individual ad is reviewed by an attorney." He said the attorneys are trained to enforce Craigslist's posting guidelines, "which are stricter than those typically used by yellow pages, newspapers, or any other company that we are aware of."
Attorneys general from Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia made the request a week after accused "Craigslist killer" Philip Markoff committed suicide in jail.
Markoff was charged with the April 2009 killing of Julissa Brisman. Boston Police said that Brisman, a model, advertised as a masseuse on Craigslist, and Markoff might have met her through the website.
In 2008, under pressure from state prosecutors, the website raised the fees for posting adult services ads. In 2009, it started donating portions of the money generated by adult ads to charity.
A CNN investigation of Craigslist's "adult services" section, which replaced "erotic services ads" two years ago, counted more than 7,000 ads in a single day. Many offered thinly veiled "services" for anything from $50 for a half hour to $400 an hour.
Newmark has defended his site, saying it is doing more than any other site that hosts adult ads to help filter out underage prostitutes and report them to police. Best, the Craigslist spokeswoman, said that fewer than one ad in 10,000 meets the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's guidelines for anti-trafficking action.
"Only Craigslist has the power to stop these ads before they are even published, and sadly they are completely unwilling to do so," Kansas Attorney General Steve Six said in a statement. ..Source.. CNN Wire Staff
August 25, 2010
Blogger Beware: You Can Be Sued Over ‘Anonymous’ Posts
8-24-2010 National:
Updated: When you're angry, complaining on the Web about a business or the person who runs it can be tempting.
But you might want to think a bit before putting up an online rant. While website hosts are generally protected from liability for comments posted by others, those who write such diatribes can be sued, points out the Los Angeles Times.
Expressing an opinion is often OK. However, disparaging a business operator or accusing a public official of criminal conduct are danger zones, as a growing number of those who are criticized on the Web turn to the courts for redress.
"Most people have no idea of the liability they face when they publish something online," says Eric Goldman, an Internet law expert at Santa Clara University. "A whole new generation can publish now, but they don't understand the legal dangers they could face. People are shocked to learn they can be sued for posting something that says, 'My dentist stinks.' "
Posting anonymously also may offer little or no protection if an Internet Service Provider is ordered by a court to reveal the poster's identity.
Last month, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a District of Nevada order requiring identity of three people accused of conducting an "Internet smear campaign via anonymous postings" against Quixtar, the Times article reports.
And in Canada courts are also ordering ISPs to identify individuals who have posted defamatory material online, writes attorney Maanit Zemel in a July 26 article in Law Times.
These so-called Norwich orders are routinely issued without an opportunity for the unknown poster to respond, the Miller Thomson associate points out. So plaintiffs seeking to unveil anonymous bloggers need to beware of potential legal repercussions, too:
Those who proceed without a sufficient basis to establish a defamation claim "might face significant consequences down the road," Zemel writes, "if the identified defendant can later demonstrate that there hadn't been enough evidence for the allegation of defamation and, thus, for the granting of the Norwich order." ..Source.. Martha Neil
State can't exclude felons from in-home care
8-25-2010 California:
An Alameda County judge blocked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday from excluding convicted felons and shoplifters from providing in-home care in a program that serves 430,000 low-income elderly and disabled Californians.
Superior Court Judge David Hunter had ruled in February that Schwarzenegger's action was illegal because state law bars workers from the program for 10 years only if they have been convicted of child abuse, elder abuse or defrauding Medi-Cal or any patient.
In-home patients, who have access to their caregivers' criminal records, can otherwise employ anyone they want, the judge said.
Schwarzenegger, acting by executive order, is seeking to bar from the program anyone ever convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors, which include shoplifting. After appealing Hunter's ruling in May, the governor had planned to implement his restrictions later this week. ..For the remainder of the story.. by Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
