Offender unhappy about mapping website

2-18-2011 Wisconsin:

JANESVILLE — Brenda McIntyre wasn’t happy when she saw her name and picture on a Janesville police website listing felony drunken-driving offenders.

“I just thought it was kind of bizarre and crazy,” she said. “We’re not sex offenders.”

McIntyre is one of 55 Janesville residents on an online map revealing information about people with at least five drunken-driving convictions.

McIntyre, 44, said the Janesville police mapping program, Project Sober Streets, is a violation of her privacy.

She acknowledges that her eight drunken-driving convictions are serious, but she said the map goes too far.

“Do they really have to go to the extreme of putting all of our information on it?” she said. “Why don’t they do one for drug dealers or crackheads?”

Police say Project Sober Streets allows people to track offenders such as McIntyre to protect the public, report problems and deter drunken driving. The map reveals McIntyre’s name, address, photograph, driver’s license and probation statuses.

Police Chief Dave Moore said the map doesn’t violate anyone’s privacy. He said the project publishes information available to anyone on websites such as Wisconsin’s online court records system.

Janesville police arrested 304 people in 2010 for drunken driving. The city averages about 100 drunken-driving crashes a year.

“This is a public safety issue. These are folks that have shown repeatedly that they are unable to follow the law,” Moore said. “Given the public safety measure of this issue, I think the disclosure is appropriate.”

He said police always are looking at ways to fight threats in the community, including drunken driving, drug dealing or other problems.

He said drunken drivers were chosen for the mapping project because the website is a proactive way to fight the problem.

“Absent Project Sober Streets, these people pretty much live in anonymity,” Moore said. “Even at the police department, we were surprised at the sheer number of these people living in our community.”

McIntyre said she is worried about a dangerous man from her past finding her by using the map.

She admits she never raised her concerns with the police department, even though she was notified she would be on the website.

Moore said he would consider removing offenders if they had valid safety risks. He said sex offenders had similar concerns that never came to fruition.

“This was mirrored after the sex-offender registry,” Moore said. “Even with sex offenders, we never experienced any violence from disclosing where they live.”

Moore said he thought he would get several phone calls after notifying offenders they would be on the website. But the calls never came.

Five offenders contacted the department about the website, Moore said. Three were supportive of the program, the fourth was upset and the fifth claimed he no longer lived in Janesville.

One offender wrote the police department a letter, stating he has been through treatment and would like to help keep drunken drivers off the streets.

“I support my community and public safety and am willing to speak and mentor anyone in the community,” the letter states.

Several people in Wisconsin and other states e-mailed the department, complimenting Janesville police on the idea, Moore said. A radio talk-show host in California had Moore on as a guest to talk about the website.

West Allis Police Chief Mike Jungbluth said he liked Janesville’s idea so much that he is doing the same thing at his department. He learned about the program during a meeting of Wisconsin police chiefs.

West Allis police in 2010 arrested 615 people for drunken driving, more than twice as many as Janesville. He said the website would bring awareness to residents and hopefully deter the problem.

“The city of West Allis has a huge issue; it’s a cultural thing,” Jungbluth said. “We have 120 bars within our 11.1 square miles.

“It’s just an ongoing issue that we have within our community,” he said. “We’re definitely doing our best to tell people that it’s not tolerated in our city.”

Posting information about offenders online is not new to Janesville police. The department also publishes the names and addresses of people arrested on criminal charges.

The drunken driving map had 8,000 hits from eight countries in the days after it went public. The site has since dropped to about 270 hits a month.

McIntyre said family and friends immediately told her they saw her on the map after it went online. She said some people posted about it on her Facebook page.

She wonders what else police could put on the Internet.

“What are they going to do next,” McIntyre said, “have a website for people who smoke too many cigarettes a day or drink too much coffee in a day?” ..Source.. TED SULLIVAN

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Web site plotting sex offender locations not always accurate

3-29-2010 Ohio:

Despite what a state Web site says, Collins Christian Children's Center does not have registered sex offenders living a football field's distance away on both sides.

Nor does a man who molested his 7-year-old daughter live within 1,000 feet of Firelands Presbyterian Day Care in Port Clinton.

In Norwalk, however, a man who performed oral sex on his 11-year-old nephew lives closer to a day-care provider than the Electronic Sex Offender Registration and Notification system, known as eSORN, would make it seem.

Register searches on the eSORN site, which allows the public to keep tabs on sex offenders in their neighborhoods, turned up at least 25 instances in which the system plotted the addresses of schools, day-care providers and sex offenders incorrectly.

In the case of Collins Christian Children's Center, the map placement is wrong for the church where it is housed and both offenders who supposedly live within the restricted radius. Instead, the nearest offender lives a quarter-mile away. A registered sex offender does live within 1,000 feet of Just Like Home Day Care and Learning Center in Huron Township, but both are more than a mile west of where eSORN says they are, on Cleveland Road West near Rye Beach Road.

Steeplechase Drive, a street where a sex offender recently lived near Shumaker Elementary in Bellevue, doesn't even appear on the eSORN map.

Law enforcement officials who deal with sex offender registrations say they're well aware of eSORN's accuracy issues, which seem especially prevalent in Norwalk and Clyde.

"There are some discrepancies in their pages," said Sandusky County Sheriff's Major Tom Fligor. "From what I hear, they're trying to update all those." ..Source.. SUSAN MCMILLAN

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Sex Offender Registry Mapping (SORM) Websites

Are sex offender registry mapping (SORM) websites really another form of a vigilante act masked as a legal activity? After all, vigilante actions are the result of a group or a individuals perception of what the law should be, not the result of the law as enacted! In fact, there are no laws directly addressing SORM type websites, SORMs are kinda like a loose cannon doing whatever they want, ignoring laws protecting registrants, and that they are harming folks and families too. Public "warning messages" although not much, may thwart some from vigilantism which is occurring today more than folks realize.

Our recent review of sex offender registry mapping (SORM) websites (ex: Family WatchDog and similar others) has revealed disturbing facts, each of the items below was found to be true of one or more of the mapping websites:

1) State legislatures or local police have not approved them for use, yet we have seen state registry websites show links to them. Accordingly, there is an implied certification created by the linking, either by the state -or- by the mapping site;

2) None of the SORMs carry forward and display the respective state "Public Warning Message" prohibiting harassment, or other acts against registrants -or- the "Correction Method" if the offender's information is incorrect. Further, SORMs do not prohibit printing of registrant information without a public warning and correction message (which is possible);

As states enact their individual versions of the Adam Walsh Act, it contains special requirements with respect to PUBLIC WARNING messages and CORRECTION methods:

Sec 118(f) Warning- The site shall include a warning that information on the site should not be used to unlawfully injure, harass, or commit a crime against any individual named in the registry or residing or working at any reported address. The warning shall note that any such action could result in civil or criminal penalties.

Sec 118(e) Correction of Errors- The site shall include instructions on how to seek correction of information that an individual contends is erroneous.

Is there a way to correct erroneous information displayed on an address mapping website? There should be because SORMs do not update their information with the same frequency as does the state registries. In fact, SORMs never tell folks how up to date their information is. Do you see a date of last update for each individual registrant's record?



3) Many of the state registries have Security Entry Agreements (SEA) or technically known as CAPTCHAs (See Wikipedia good explanation) to prevent AUTOMATED COMPUTERIZED ACCESS to their data, do you recognize this:
SORMs have ignored the CAPTCHAs and bypassed them to gain access to the registrant's information. In most states, bypassing computer security measures, is a crime, SORMs are not prosecuted for that crime;

Example: Arkansas Registry: You must agree before they allow you into the registry.
Example: Utah Law 77-27-21.5(24) The department shall construct the website so that users, before accessing registry information, must indicate that they have read the disclaimer, understand it, and agree to comply with its terms.

4) Several of the states have limits on the use of their registry information and the state registry explains those limits, but SORMs simply ignore limiting information, and they do not print such information on the screen for registrants searched for;

Example: California 290.46(l) (1) A person is authorized to use information disclosed pursuant to this section only to protect a person at risk. (2) Except as authorized under paragraph (1) or any other provision of law, use of any information that is disclosed pursuant to this section for purposes relating to any of the following is prohibited: (A) Health insurance. (B) Insurance. (C) Loans. (D) Credit. (E) Employment. (F) Education, scholarships, or fellowships. (G) Housing or accommodations. (H) Benefits, privileges, or services provided by any business establishment.

Question, with respect to California, given that registry information is only permitted to be used "only to protect a person at risk," do SORMs restrict entry for other purposes?

5) SORMs that use Google Maps are likely violating the Google Maps' "Terms of Service/Use" agreement, in that, Google limits maps to -personal use- and are not for commercial purposes except under API Terms. Google also prohibits advertising other than its own which some of these sites do;

Terms of Service for Google Maps
By using Google Maps and any data or information accessed from Google Maps, you agree to be bound by our Google Terms of Service as well as these additional terms and conditions. For individual users, Google Maps, including local search results, maps, and photographic imagery, is made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. For business users, Google Maps is made available for your internal use only and may not be commercially redistributed, except that map data may be accessed and displayed by using the Google Maps API pursuant to the API terms and conditions.

6) Excepting very special circumstances states are not liable for damages caused by the registry, however, such immunity does not flow to third parties who disseminate registry information. A few states allude to this warning in their disclaimers.

7) So far, with the exception of one, SORMs fail to have, or have very limited, "terms of use" -or- "Privacy" statements pertaining to the SORM site. Such fails to disclose relevant information about the person/s that have created the SORM sites and how they were created, and fail to indicate their accuracy or how to report corrections when information is found to be incorrect. Further, most SORMs fail to inform users whether they collect information from users and how that information may be used (Privacy Question);

8) As to SORM sites with distance measurements: i) They fail to explain where the measurement begins (residence door [front side back], curb, middle of street, or assessor's property line) and likewise where the measurement ends; ii) They fail to indicate when distances cannot be measured (irregular property shapes) -or- indicate incorrect distances for these irregular properties; iii) They fail to explain what system was used to take the measurements and it's tolerances, -or- if any distances were mathematically projected because current information was unavailable;

9) When a registrant is displayed, there is no indication when that information was retrieved from the state registry. How current is SORM information, given there are no laws governing SORMs and they are unregulated?

Austin couple victim of sex offender registration mishap
10-3-2007 Texas

An Austin couple want their neighbors to know they're not sex offenders -- even though a notice from the state might have suggested otherwise.

The couple bought a home where a sex offender used to live, but because of a clerical mistake, it appeared the offender still lived there.

Registered sex offender Zamaripa is behind bars in the Travis County Jail as of Tuesday night. But a notice recently showed up in his old northeast Austin neighborhood warning that a sex offender has moved in.

Instead, it's a young couple, and they're desperate to set the record straight.

Clint and Alexis Jurek just bought their first house and got ready to move in with baby, Max. Then a post card came in the mail.

"All of our neighbors think that a sex offender lives at our address," says Alexis. "And not only that, but our house has been vandalized."

Someone broke a door shortly after the notice showed up -- months past when the offender apparently left.

"Definitely worrisome," says Clint. "I have a five-month-old child that I have to move into the house in two or three weeks, and I can't move him into a place where there could be flying glass."

Notices are required by law -- as are verifications before mailing.

"In the process of doing those verifications, the record for this particular sex offender got lost in the shuffle," says the Texas Department of Public Safety's Tela Mange. "Reappeared about four months later."

DPS says it checked with Austin police -- and was told the offender still lived there.

APD is looking into the miscommunication. And DPS is streamlining processes in the wake of the mishap.

"We're very sorry to the family," Mange says. "And we're doing what we can to fix the situation and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Neighbors are set to receive letters informing them of the mistake.

"It was an inconvenience to me," Clint says. "But who I really feel sorry for are the people in this neighborhood who lived here for six months with a dangerous person."

Now they're getting back to living their dream and putting this nightmare behind them. ..more.. by Alexis Patterson

10) Some SORMs when they display a registrant indicate the person with a colored flag (or balloon), different colors meaning different things. One uses -red- to indicate the registrant's victim was a child, but how do they make that determination? Frequently these are incorrect, unless the state statute specifically makes mention of a victim's age range/s.

In addition, how does one know if the registrant's age WAS NOT within a few years of the victim? i.e., Romeo & Juliet type cases, OR simply the girls parents got mad and filed charges, when it was a boyfriend - girlfriend situation, OR, juvenile with a juvenile… playing doctor…. Misinformation abounds on SORMs.

11) The real purpose of SORMs is? One has to question if they really wish to protect the public, or is that a ruse to get other products and services before the public? Notice when you use them how loaded with advertising they are, which is more likely their primary purpose. Look also to see if they are giving away services or charging for them.

If anyone finds anything further please advise us so it may be included. eAdvocate.

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