This is absurd to the nth degree, look at the statute, it is not possible for one to remember eveyrthing from their past as technically as this statute requires; absurd. Hopefully a good lawyer will take up this case a stick it to the state, laws are not supposed to reach absurd results, this one does.
2-10-2009 Illinois:
EDWARDSVILLE - A Bethalto area man is one of the first people in the area to be charged under a new law that prohibits registered sex offenders from holding MySpace or other Internet-based social networking accounts.
Gregory J. Kruckeberg Jr., 27, of the 5600 block of State Route 140, was charged Monday in Madison County Circuit Court with unlawful failure to register as a sex offender, under a provision of a statute passed last year. The law mandates that registered sex offenders make known to police any Internet connections or Web sites they use or maintain.
"The law has been there, but this is the first time we are charging anybody," said Capt. Brad Wells of the Madison County Sheriff's Department.
Kruckeberg initially was taken into custody last Thursday and was charged formally Monday.
The investigation, which began in November, started as the result of someone calling the department to ask why Kruckeberg could have a MySpace account, Wells said.
He said the investigation took a couple of months because of the subpoena process and the difficulty in gathering evidence about a person's individual accounts.
Detectives had no evidence that Kruckeberg was an immediate threat to anyone by virtue of his access, Wells said.
"If that was the case, we would have had him under a whole lot more of a microscope and (in jail) a lot sooner," he said.
The failure to register also is a violation of MySpace's own guidelines, Wells said.
MySpace recently has made a very public effort to oust sex offenders from its registration rolls. Last week, it announced that it had purged the accounts of 90,000 people. The move came in the wake of public pressure over offenders potentially preying on children through the use of such sites.
"(After the tip), we did a ‘preservation' on the account," Wells said, explaining the department occasionally takes such action in order to prevent records or evidence from being lost or destroyed. A subpoena was necessary to help prevent the MySpace page from being taken down from the site. The tactic occasionally is used in tracking cell phone records and social networking sites, he said.
The department eventually confirmed that the suspect had an active account and a live connection to the Internet, Wells said.
Kruckeberg was being held at the Madison County Jail in Edwardsville on $25,000 bond.
Kruckeberg became a registered sex offender after a 2006 conviction for aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Madison County, records indicate. He has a lengthy record for crimes including forgery, aggravated battery to a pregnant person, burglary and theft, but according to records, he has gotten only probation or supervision for the crimes.
While there are dozens of sex offender charges filed each year in Madison County, it remained unclear Monday whether this case is the first to be based on the statute that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008. Wells said it was the first for his department, but Stephanee Smith, a spokeswoman for the Madison County State's Attorney's Office, said she was unsure if it was the first for the county overall. ..News Source.. by DENNIS GRUBAUGH
February 10, 2009
IL- Sex offender charged after failing to register MySpace account
October 15, 2008
Child predators apparently don’t use Gmail
10-15-2008 National:
A few years ago, a piece of popular legislation made its way past Illinois lawmakers (including Barack Obama, who voted in favor of it, as well as teacher unions, public health officials, etc.) offering comprehensive education to school children that, among other things, would have taught them to identify and avoid online predators. Online safety education is long overdue; when we’re providing fire safety, DARE, and “stay away from strangers” talks, it only makes sense to teach kids to be thoughtful about what they do and who they encounter online. Virginia has already instituted such a curriculum and I’m hopeful we’ll see a lot more of this as kids increasingly spend their time in online communities and immersive worlds (more on that in my next post).
That being said, I have to point out that President Bush signed a seriously stupid piece of legislation into law today. While most regular readers know that I fall somewhere in a weird continuum between tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing liberal and laissez-faire Libertarian, I also tend to avoid too much in the way of politics on this blog. It generally isn’t the place and tends to irritate the occasional social conservative who happens to wander into education. However, this little law certainly affects kids, what they do online, and how we as educators can help keep them safe.
It also happens to have been written by John McCain who, by his own admission, is not exactly the world’s most computer savvy fella. The law, called the “Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008″
shall require that each sex offender provide to the sex offender registry those Internet identifiers the sex offender uses or will use of any type that the Attorney General determines to be appropriate under that Act.
Oh. OK. The whole law can be downloaded here, by the way. The long and the short of it, though, is that sex offenders are supposed to report their email addresses. Then, places like MySpace can check a list of emails when they let people sign up instead of developing new detection tools and employing moderators and schools don’t need to teach kids to be safe online since the government is protecting them so well. It’s probably worth noting (my last political note of the night) that McCain railed against the Illinois legislation noted above, calling it “‘comprehensive sex education’ for kindergarten students”.
Of course, I guess no one expected the sex offenders to simply create a different anonymous email account from the one they report to the registry. Because, after all, it’s pretty hard to get a Gmail account. Ah, for the good ol’ days when you needed an invitation, right?
As Wired puts it,
In other words, to McCain, teaching children to avoid predators is as bad as teaching sexually active teenagers about contraception. But setting up an e-mail database that relies on pedophiles being honest and respectful of the law — well, we can all live with that.
I think I’ll still be keeping a close eye on my kids’ online habits and I won’t be striking Internet safety from our tech curriculum anytime soon. ..Source.. by Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
New Web Law May Be 'Worthless,' Watchdog Warns
10-15-2008 National:
Legislation signed by President Bush on Monday that requires sex offenders to provide Internet identifiers to state sex offender registries and tasks the Justice Department with creating a system that lets social networking sites compare their users' identifiers with those provided to a national sex offender registry may not achieve its intended aim of protecting children, according one high-tech policy expert who tracked the bill. That official, Center for Democracy and Technology general counsel John Morris, said Tuesday that the statute may prove "almost entirely worthless" and warned that it may also carry with it serious unintended consequences.
The bill was introduced in January 2007 by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz., now the GOP presidential nominee, and a companion measure was sponsored in the House by Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. Pomeroy revised and reintroduced his bill after hearing concerns from CDT and other groups, but that version of the bill did not win Senate approval. Instead, the Senate version won out and minor modifications were made to alleviate critics' biggest fears, Morris said, acknowledging that "we have fewer concerns than we once did." Pomeroy's retooled measure would have let probation officers who supervise sex offenders install software on offenders' computers to monitor their Web whereabouts and target supervision to those who actually pose threats to kids.
Nevertheless, Morris believes the new law will not be effective because sex offenders who want to subvert or circumvent their conditions of probation, release or supervision -- which already typically stipulate that they cannot interact with minors -- will forge ahead regardless of the registry requirement. "If they're already intending to violate provisions that apply to them, why wouldn’t they also register a real e-mail and then go create another account," he said in an interview. "It is so trivial to create a new identifier, create a new e-mail address, or social network page. Anyone who is going to pose a risk to minors that this system trying to screen against can easily circumvent it."
CDT is also concerned that the congressionally approved definition of a social networking service is too broad and could "sweep in a great percentage" of blogs, discussion groups and other Internet offerings, he said. Before passing the final version, lawmakers refined the language to exempt many e-commerce sites like Amazon.com that could have unintentionally been covered in previous iterations of the bill by adding a provision that states voluntary compliance would apply to Web sites that whose primary purpose is to facilitate online social interactions.
Furthermore, Morris is worried that even though compliance is voluntary, the long-term impact of the federal government defining social networking could be daunting. "Congress or state legislators might take this new definition from the federal code and try to use it for some regulatory requirement," he warned. "We're increasingly seeing government officials at both the federal and state level pressuring private companies to do things 'voluntarily.'"
Meanwhile, popular social networking site Facebook hailed the legislation's passage and Bush's signing of the measure. The company's privacy chief Chris Kelly said in a blog post that the law "takes an important step in dramatically reducing the opportunities to harm children online." Facebook has long barred registered sex offenders from the service and currently works with individual states' attorneys general to check users against state-registered sex offender lists, he said. But those lists "lack the essential e-mail and IM data" and the process is less efficient and effective than anyone, especially concerned parents, would like, Kelly added.
In response to CDT's concerns, a Facebook spokesman said penalties in the law are severe, as they should be, and the company hopes the statute will be a deterrent. "We’re going to work with law enforcement to identify and prosecute those who aren’t deterred," he said. Facebook plans to add the forthcoming DOJ registry to its existing safeguards and will use the database "as vigorously and comprehensively as we can," Kelly said. Specifically, the site will check new users at sign-up and review existing users as regularly as the technology allows. "Anyone on the list will be prevented from joining Facebook. Anyone already on Facebook who is added to the list will have his or her account disabled forever. End of story," Kelly said.
..Source.. by Congress Daily
July 30, 2008
Yahoo spent $630,000 to lobby in second quarter
Am I the only one who sees a major conflict between the two other bills (highlighted below) Yahoo has lobbied for?
7-30-2008 National:
WASHINGTON - Yahoo Inc. spent $630,000 in the second quarter to lobby on online privacy, patent reform and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report.
The Internet company lobbied on measures to protect data, prevent identity theft, and on legislation to improve federal efforts to halt piracy and counterfeiting of American-owned intellectual property.
In addition, Yahoo (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) lobbied on proposals to crack down on spyware and phishing scams. Spyware are computer programs that can surreptitiously access hard drives to track online behavior and steal sensitive personal data, while phishing scams use fake e-mails and fraudulent Web sites to trick consumers into releasing credit card numbers and other personal information.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also lobbied on federal auctions of wireless spectrum and on online advertising, including an agreement that will allow Google Inc. (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) to sell some ads displayed alongside search results on Yahoo's Web site.
Other bills the company lobbied on would:
_ Require registered sex offenders to furnish their e-mail and instant messaging addresses, and require the U.S. attorney general to have a system that allows social networking Web sites to compare their user lists with the National Sex Offender Registry.
_ Make it illegal for U.S. companies hosting Internet content, such as Web pages or e-mail, to give users' personal information to governments that restrict Internet access.
..News Source.. by Forbes
July 17, 2008
MO- Sex offender laws enhanced
7-17-2008 Missouri:
MISSOURI -- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt recently signed legislation that he says will further enhance laws to better protect Missouri children from sexual predators, especially those who use the Internet in their search for young victims.
Senate Bill 714 requires registered sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and other online identifiers to county law enforcement before using them. This information will be made available to Missourians so they can further protect their children when they use the Internet, Blunt said in a news release.
The legislation gives Cyber Crimes Task Forces and Missouri prosecutors a powerful new tool to go after Internet predators by creating the new crime of "age misrepresentation with the intent to use the Internet to engage in criminal sexual misconduct with a minor, which is classified as a Class D felony punishable by up to four years in prison," Blunt added.
He said the legislation also allows courts to accept children's testimony in court cases involving child pornography without the children having to be in the courtroom.
The legislation also mandates a lifetime sentence with a minimum of 30 years for serious sexual crimes committed against young children and calls for certain sex offenders to be monitored their entire lives.
Oregon County Deputy Lee Simmons said no registered sex offenders in Oregon County have yet to register their e-mail addresses at the sheriff's office. Simmons handles the registration of sex offenders in the county. ..News Source.. by The South Missourian News
July 8, 2008
NSA's Domestic Spying Grows
3-10-2008 National:
Terror Fight Blurs Line Over Domain; Tracking Email
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.
The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Congress now is hotly debating domestic spying powers under the main law governing U.S. surveillance aimed at foreign threats. An expansion of those powers expired last month and awaits renewal, which could be voted on in the House of Representatives this week. The biggest point of contention over the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is whether telecommunications and other companies should be made immune from liability for assisting government surveillance.
Largely missing from the public discussion is the role of the highly secretive NSA in analyzing that data, collected through little-known arrangements that can blur the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence gathering. Supporters say the NSA is serving as a key bulwark against foreign terrorists and that it would be reckless to constrain the agency's mission. The NSA says it is scrupulously following all applicable laws and that it keeps Congress fully informed of its activities.
According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called "transactional" data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected.
The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements.
The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called "black programs" whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say. Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach. Among them, current and former intelligence officials say, is a longstanding Treasury Department program to collect individual financial data including wire transfers and credit-card transactions.
It isn't clear how many of the different kinds of data are combined and analyzed together in one database by the NSA. An intelligence official said the agency's work links to about a dozen antiterror programs in all.
A number of NSA employees have expressed concerns that the agency may be overstepping its authority by veering into domestic surveillance. And the constitutional question of whether the government can examine such a large array of information without violating an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy "has never really been resolved," said Suzanne Spaulding, a national-security lawyer who has worked for both parties on Capitol Hill.
NSA officials say the agency's own investigations remain focused only on foreign threats, but it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between domestic and international communications in a digital era, so they need to sweep up more information.
The Fourth Amendment
In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, then NSA-chief Gen. Michael Hayden has said he used his authority to expand the NSA's capabilities under a 1981 executive order governing the agency. Another presidential order issued shortly after the attacks, the text of which is classified, opened the door for the NSA to incorporate more domestic data in its searches, one senior intelligence official said.
The NSA "strictly follows laws and regulations designed to preserve every American's privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," agency spokeswoman Judith Emmel said in a statement, referring to the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA in conjunction with the Pentagon, added in a statement that intelligence agencies operate "within an extensive legal and policy framework" and inform Congress of their activities "as required by the law." It pointed out that the 9/11 Commission recommended in 2004 that intelligence agencies analyze "all relevant sources of information" and share their databases.
Two former officials familiar with the data-sifting efforts said they work by starting with some sort of lead, like a phone number or Internet address. In partnership with the FBI, the systems then can track all domestic and foreign transactions of people associated with that item -- and then the people who associated with them, and so on, casting a gradually wider net. An intelligence official described more of a rapid-response effect: If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.
The haul can include records of phone calls, email headers and destinations, data on financial transactions and records of Internet browsing. The system also would collect information about other people, including those in the U.S., who communicated with people in Detroit.
The information doesn't generally include the contents of conversations or emails. But it can give such transactional information as a cellphone's location, whom a person is calling, and what Web sites he or she is visiting. For an email, the data haul can include the identities of the sender and recipient and the subject line, but not the content of the message.
Intelligence agencies have used administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI -- which don't need a judge's signature -- to collect and analyze such data, current and former intelligence officials said. If that data provided "reasonable suspicion" that a person, whether foreign or from the U.S., was linked to al Qaeda, intelligence officers could eavesdrop under the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The White House wants to give companies that assist government surveillance immunity from lawsuits alleging an invasion of privacy, but Democrats in Congress have been blocking it. The Terrorist Surveillance Program has spurred 38 lawsuits against companies. Current and former intelligence officials say telecom companies' concern comes chiefly because they are giving the government unlimited access to a copy of the flow of communications, through a network of switches at U.S. telecommunications hubs that duplicate all the data running through it. It isn't clear whether the government or telecom companies control the switches, but companies process some of the data for the NSA, the current and former officials say.
On Friday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a letter warning colleagues to look more deeply into how telecommunications data are being accessed, citing an allegation by the head of a New York-based computer security firm that a wireless carrier that hired him was giving unfettered access to data to an entity called "Quantico Circuit." Quantico is a Marine base that houses the FBI Academy; senior FBI official Anthony DiClemente said the bureau "does not have 'unfettered access' to any communication provider's network."
The political debate over the telecom information comes as intelligence agencies seek to change traditional definitions of how to balance privacy rights against investigative needs. Donald Kerr, the deputy director of national intelligence, told a conference of intelligence officials in October that the government needs new rules. Since many people routinely post details of their lives on social-networking sites such as MySpace, he said, their identity shouldn't need the same protection as in the past. Instead, only their "essential privacy," or "what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs," should be veiled, he said, without providing examples.
Social-Network Analysis
The NSA uses its own high-powered version of social-network analysis to search for possible new patterns and links to terrorism. The Pentagon's experimental Total Information Awareness program, later renamed Terrorism Information Awareness, was an early research effort on the same concept, designed to bring together and analyze as much and as many varied kinds of data as possible. Congress eliminated funding for the program in 2003 before it began operating. But it permitted some of the research to continue and TIA technology to be used for foreign surveillance.
Some of it was shifted to the NSA -- which also is funded by the Pentagon -- and put in the so-called black budget, where it would receive less scrutiny and bolster other data-sifting efforts, current and former intelligence officials said. "When it got taken apart, it didn't get thrown away," says a former top government official familiar with the TIA program.
Two current officials also said the NSA's current combination of programs now largely mirrors the former TIA project. But the NSA offers less privacy protection. TIA developers researched ways to limit the use of the system for broad searches of individuals' data, such as requiring intelligence officers to get leads from other sources first. The NSA effort lacks those controls, as well as controls that it developed in the 1990s for an earlier data-sweeping attempt.
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who led the charge to kill TIA, says "the administration is trying to bring as much of the philosophy of operation Total Information Awareness as it can into the programs they're using today." The issue has been overshadowed by the fight over telecoms' immunity, he said. "There's not been as much discussion in the Congress as there ought to be."
Opportunity for Debate
But Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the committee, said by email his committee colleagues have had "ample opportunity for debate" behind closed doors and that each intelligence program has specific legal authorization and oversight. He cautioned against seeing a group of intelligence programs as "a mythical 'big brother' program," adding, "that's not what is happening today."
The legality of data-sweeping relies largely on the government's interpretation of a 1979 Supreme Court ruling allowing records of phone calls -- but not actual conversations -- to be collected without a judge issuing a warrant. Multiple laws require a court order for so-called "transactional'" records of electronic communications, but the 2001 Patriot Act lowered the standard for such an order in some cases, and in others made records accessible using FBI administrative subpoenas called "national security letters." (Read the ruling.)
A debate is brewing among legal and technology scholars over whether there should be privacy protections when a wide variety of transactional data are brought together to paint what is essentially a profile of an individual's behavior. "You know everything I'm doing, you know what happened, and you haven't listened to any of the contents" of the communications, said Susan Landau, co-author of a book on electronic privacy and a senior engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. "Transactional information is remarkably revelatory."
Ms. Spaulding, the national-security lawyer, said it's "extremely questionable" to assume Americans don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy for data such as the subject-header of an email or a Web address from an Internet search, because those are more like the content of a communication than a phone number. "These are questions that require discussion and debate," she said. "This is one of the problems with doing it all in secret."
Gen. Hayden, the former NSA chief and now Central Intelligence Agency director, in January 2006 publicly defended the activities of the Terrorist Surveillance Program after it was disclosed by the New York Times. He said it was "not a driftnet over Lackawanna or Fremont or Dearborn, grabbing all communications and then sifting them out." Rather, he said, it was carefully targeted at terrorists. However, some intelligence officials now say the broader NSA effort amounts to a driftnet. A portion of the activity, the NSA's access to domestic phone records, was disclosed by a USA Today article in 2006.
The NSA, which President Truman created in 1952 through a classified presidential order to be America's ears abroad, has for decades been the country's largest and most secretive intelligence agency. The order confined NSA spying to "foreign governments," and during the Cold War the NSA developed a reputation as the world's premier code-breaking operation. But in the 1970s, the NSA and other intelligence agencies were found to be using their spy tools to monitor Americans for political purposes. That led to the original FISA legislation in 1978, which included an explicit ban on the NSA eavesdropping in the U.S. without a warrant.
Big advances in telecommunications and database technology led to unprecedented data-collection efforts in the 1990s. One was the FBI's Carnivore program, which raised fears when it was in disclosed in 2000 that it might collect telecommunications information about law-abiding individuals. But the ground shifted after 9/11. Requests for analysis of any data that might hint at terrorist activity flooded from the White House and other agencies into NSA's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters outside Washington, D.C., one former NSA official recalls. At the time, "We're scrambling, trying to find any piece of data we can to find the answers," the official said.
The 2002 congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks criticized the NSA for holding back information, which NSA officials said they were doing to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. "NSA did not want to be perceived as targeting individuals in the United States" and considered such surveillance the FBI's job, the inquiry concluded.
FBI-NSA Projects
The NSA quietly redefined its role. Joint FBI-NSA projects "expanded exponentially," said Jack Cloonan, a longtime FBI veteran who investigated al Qaeda. He pointed to national-security letter requests: They rose from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to a Justice Department inspector general's report last year. It also said the letters permitted the potentially illegal collection of thousands of records of people in the U.S. from 2003-05. Last Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the bureau had found additional instances in 2006.
It isn't known how many Americans' data have been swept into the NSA's systems. The Treasury, for instance, built its database "to look at all the world's financial transactions" and gave the NSA access to it about 15 years ago, said a former NSA official. The data include domestic and international money flows between bank accounts and credit-card information, according to current and former intelligence officials.
The NSA receives from Treasury weekly batches of this data and adds it to a database at its headquarters. Prior to 9/11, the database was used to pursue specific leads, but afterward, the effort was expanded to hunt for suspicious patterns.
Through the Treasury, the NSA also can access the database of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, the Belgium-based clearinghouse for records of international transactions between financial institutions, current and former officials said. The U.S. acknowledged in 2006 that the CIA and Treasury had access to Swift's database, but said the NSA's Terrorism Surveillance Program was separate and that the NSA provided only "technical assistance." A Treasury spokesman said the agency had no comment.
Through the Department of Homeland Security, airline passenger data also are accessed and analyzed for suspicious patterns, such as five unrelated people who repeatedly fly together, current and former intelligence officials said. Homeland Security shares information with other agencies only "on a limited basis," spokesman Russ Knocke said.
NSA gets access to the flow of data from telecommunications switches through the FBI, according to current and former officials. It also has a partnership with FBI's Digital Collection system, providing access to Internet providers and other companies. The existence of a shadow hub to copy information about AT&T Corp. telecommunications in San Francisco is alleged in a lawsuit against AT&T filed by the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based on documents provided by a former AT&T official. In that lawsuit, a former technology adviser to the Federal Communications Commission says in a sworn declaration that there could be 15 to 20 such operations around the country. Current and former intelligence officials confirmed a domestic network of hubs, but didn't know the number. "As a matter of policy and law, we can not discuss matters that are classified," said FBI spokesman John Miller.
The budget for the NSA's data-sifting effort is classified, but one official estimated it surpasses $1 billion. The FBI is requesting to nearly double the budget for the Digital Collection System in 2009, compared with last year, requesting $42 million. "Not only do demands for information continue to increase, but also the requirement to facilitate information sharing does," says a budget justification document, noting an "expansion of electronic surveillance activity in frequency, sophistication, and linguistic needs." ..News Source.. by SIOBHAN GORMAN
July 1, 2008
UT- Sex-registry law on hold
7-1-2008 Utah:
Sex offender exempted from new rule to reveal online passwords
A federal judge has barred Utah from enforcing a new sex-offender law against a Weber County man whose lawsuit against the state could be a test case that decides whether the law is constitutional.
House Bill 43, which is to go into effect today, requires registered sex offenders to hand over to the Department of Corrections all passwords to online social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook.
During a hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell found that the enforcement of the law against "John Doe" would cause him "irreparable harm" before the court had a chance to review the constitutionality of the state law.
The decision deals a small legal blow to the state. At one point, however, Campbell considered enjoining the state from enforcing the new law altogether instead of just applying her ruling to one sex offender.
The man, who court documents only identify as "John Doe," claims the new law violates his Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure.
According to a federal suit filed last week, Doe says he was found guilty of carnal knowledge and sodomy on a minor in a military court in 2005 and sentenced to 18 months confinement. In addition to a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force, Doe served 13 months in the military corrections system and was released early for good behavior.
Doe says he has never been under the jurisdiction of the Utah Department of Corrections, which manages Utah's sex-offender registry, but was forced to register as a lifelong sex offender. Specifically, Doe claims the new provision unconstitutionally requires registered offenders to hand over online identifiers and passwords to social networking and blogging sites. He argues that although the state claims the purpose is to "monitor" offenders, the state can also gain access to sites and plant evidence against people.
In court, assistant Utah attorney general Sharel Reber said the information gathered will be kept in a database by the state and will not be made public, but rather used for law enforcement purposes only. Reber said the new law will not violate the Fourth Amendment because law enforcement requesting access to the database must first seek a warrant from a judge. The state already gathers other personal information from offenders, such as home addresses and Social Security numbers.
-This doesn't make sense, why should RSOs TURN OVER INFORMATION FIRST if the state has to get a warrant anyway, someone isn't truthful here, or- this is one crafty egregious law to get anything (evidence) that can be construed and used as a basis for the warrant.
Campbell said the suit presented "thorny and complex issues," which needed to be fully studied. Because she saw the enforcement of the law against Doe as doing potential "irreparable harm," Campbell ordered that Doe be registered as a sex offender under the old law for now.
Wanting to give time for each side to fully study the constitutional issues, Campbell has asked that Doe's attorneys file a comprehensive legal brief outlining their case by July 21, with the state filing its opposition brief by Aug. 11. A hearing date of Aug. 28 has been set for legal arguments and to determine what further legal action may be needed.
Rep. Jim Bird, R-West Jordan, and sponsor of HB34, said the bill was drafted after a similar law in New Jersey. The states of Florida and Kentucky also have such laws. Bird said he did not know if there had been any legal challenges in those states but was confident Utah's law will stand up to a legal challenge.
"We are very confident that we won't have any problems with this law," Bird said.
University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell, formerly a federal judge, said the case will hinge on whether the new password requirement is viewed as being in the interest of public safety or as punishment against the person.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the state cannot go back and change the terms of a person's punishment. "If this is viewed as punishment, under the Constitution, you cannot impose ex post facto punishment," Cassell said.
It is likely Doe and his attorneys will argue that the requirements under the Utah Sex Offender Registry are punitive against people who have fully paid their debt to society.
Cassell said the state is likely to argue that the registry is in the interest of public safety and that forcing registered offenders to hand over their passwords to online accounts will protect children.
-Obviously they haven't yet understood what the 4th amendment means, or cases that flow from it.
This is the second similar suit this year to challenge the constitutionality of the sex-offender registry. Steven Arthur Briggs, another convicted sex offender, sued the state claiming the registry violates his right to due process by imposing new requirements on offenders without court review.
Briggs also argues the registry holds people out to public shame and should be considered punishment beyond an offender's sentence. His case is pending a ruling from the Utah Supreme Court.
Campbell ruled that Doe will be allowed to pursue his case without using his real name. Any documents filed with his real name will be filed under seal. ..News Source.. by Geoffrey Fattah, Deseret News
Man's case may affect fate of Web sex registry
4-3-2008 Utah
A convicted sex offender says the Utah Sex Offender Registry violates his due process rights and if the Utah Supreme Court agrees with him, the state's highest court could strike down the policies governing the registry as unconstitutional.
Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday in a key case that could hold sway over the fate of a registry that the public can use to access information, such as names and addresses, of thousands of convicted sex offenders over the Internet.
The case involves Steven Arthur Briggs, who was convicted of sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl in 1986 and sentenced to serve 15 years in prison. Before being released from prison in 2002, Briggs was told by prison staff that he had to fill out paperwork to register as a sex offender. Despite being told that it was the law, Briggs refused to sign the paperwork, which included telling prison officials where he would be living.
"You'll have to file charges against me, if you can find me," Briggs was quoted in court documents as telling prison officials.
Briggs was later charged with failing to register as a sex offender between 2003 and 2005. The court sentenced Briggs to two consecutive years in jail with all but 61 days credit for time served. Briggs appealed and argues that the Utah Sex Offender Registry stigmatizes all sex offenders as sexual predators, even those who have no history of repeat offenses. People on the registry are then subjected to public ridicule and humiliation, even after they have fully served their sentence and fulfilled their debt to society.
During oral arguments, Briggs' attorney, Lori Seppi, told justices the sex offender registry lumps all sex offenders in the same category and implies that they are all predators. This includes a 17-year-old male convicted of having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend as well as others with no history of repeat abuse. This information is then published on the Internet without giving the person a chance to argue before a judge that they are not a danger to the community.
Seppi said this violates the Constitution's guaranteed right to due process, adding if these people are going to be held out for public shame, they have a right to challenge it in court and prove that they are not a danger.
Justice Michael Wilkins asked if it's true that the sex offender is a predator, shouldn't he or she be on the registry?
Seppi said she was not arguing that everyone should be taken off and said some people should be on the registry as dangerous, but she argued Utah's laws do not make a distinction.
Chief Justice Christine Durham said she was troubled by this. She noted that children who send cell phone pictures of themselves nude to each other or children charged with acts of lewdness could wind up on the registry alongside adult rapists and violent sex offenders.
Durham suggested that the implication of being on the registry could be far more egregious than the original offense.
Assistant Utah Attorney general Laura Dupaix said all the state does is publish truthful information about sex offenders on the registry, including the crime of which they were convicted. The stigma doesn't come from the state but rather from what the public decides to do with the information, she said.
Dupaix said she would not trust a registered sex offender to be alone with her children, based on their past conduct. The registry gives the community the ability to use the information to make those choices.
Justice Matthew Durrant said he doubted the framers of the Constitution could have anticipated something like the sex offender registry or Internet publication.
Dupaix said the registry is not much different than word circulated about the abuse of a child among colonial townsfolk or of the public humiliation from time spent in the town stockade.
The justices will consider the arguments and issue a written opinion in the coming months. ..News Source. by Geoffrey Fattah, Deseret Morning News
May 19, 2008
NY- Gov. signs e-STOP law
All RSOs in the state of New York recently received the following form requiring them to IMMEDIATELY submit certain information. A sample of the form follows:
The form states "Effective immediately, you are required to register with the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) any internet accounts with internet service providers belonging to you and any e-mail addresses and screen names used by you for the purpose of chat, instant messaging, or Social Networking."
Accordingly, there are two requirements
1) That ALL RSOs must provide the name of their Internet service provider (ISP);
2) That ALL RSOs must provide any e-mail addresses and screen names used by you for the purpose of chat, instant messaging, or Social Networking.
These requirements raise significant constitutional issues which I intend to address over the next few days.
Initially I would like to point out, that requirement 1) violates the 4th Amendment because the ISP is connected to the computer which is in the home, and whatever is in the home is protected by the 4th Amendment, which states:
U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment, Search and Seizure
Amendment Text:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Secondly, please review the actual wording of the law as they are suggesting that the ISP and any website that has access to the e-mail adresses, do so for the purpose of REMOVING that RSO from any access to a place where a child MIGHT also have access to.
Since I know that the majority of RSOs that are on the Internet are there for the purpose of asserting their political and constitutional rights as to laws concerning sex offenders, this REMOVAL (denial of access to the Internet) will stem that discussion which is a constitutional right.
With that said, I do recognize that there are some people on the Internet who are there to contact children, but as stats show so far, they ARE NOT registered sex offenders. For instance, of the 29,000 plus 7,000 RSOs that were removed from MySpace, only ONE had been proven to have violated a child, ONLY ONE.
With all the investigations by 29 Attorney Generals, into the 36,000 RSO cases, they could not find another one violating a child. Yes, they found some who had parole or probation Internet restrictions who violated that restriction, that is a technical violation and not a crime.
For today I am asking that anyone from New York that has further ideas on this law, please for them for inclusion here, or simply type a comment and I'll post it for you.
Also, I do advise folks to contact a qualified lawyer, as I am not (what folks see above is my opinion), to review this law and possibly file suit against the state. More tomorrow when I have more time to review the law.
eAdvocate
February 25, 2008
NY- Proposed Net law has plenty of holes
Measure against sex predators would be nearly unenforceable
2-24-2008 New York
The Internet is arguably the best and worst thing to happen to society in the past 15 years. It allows us to have the world at our fingertips, to communicate with folks on the other side of the world in the wink of an eye, and to tell everyone exactly what we think. On the other hand, it has brought down the level of discourse in this country and (ironically) leaves some people even less connected to the real world.
Sharpening that double-edged sword is the Internet's inherent sense of anonymity. The idea that anyone can hide behind a false mask online, if they so choose, is rabidly defended -- and sometimes rightly so. But it also brings out the darkest aspects of human nature: Many people insult each other in ways that they wouldn't face to face, some are scammers and cheats, and the worst ones approach children with offers of sex from behind the shield of a computer screen.
On Thursday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced a proposed law to ban registered sex offenders from social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which are popular with teens. The law would apply to sex offenders whose victim was under 18, who used the Internet to commit their crime, or who are designated a Level 3 offender. If passed, such sex offenders would need to list all of their e-mail addresses and Internet screen names with the state, or face felony charges. It would also prohibit those offenders from using the Internet to access pornography.
Sure, it's an idea that sounds marvelous -- who doesn't want to protect kids from sex predators (except, obviously, the sex predators themselves)? In practice, though, such a law would be nearly impossible to enforce. Someone determined to stay anonymous could create dozens of new e-mail addresses an hour on sites such as Yahoo, Google Mail or Hotmail. Also, some Web sites offer ways to scramble users' IP addresses -- a unique number that identifies a particular computer to others -- so that communications are nearly untraceable.
Also, let's face it: It's a big online world out there, and while MySpace and Facebook are big among teens, there are thousands of message boards and millions of Web pages where determined predators can hide. Even a site with an innocent focus -- say, stamp-collecting -- can be more sinister if one bad apple shows up.
Keep in mind, too, that the new law would apply just to known sex offenders -- and even then, only the ones who fit the above criteria. Nothing to stop a guy (or gal) who is a first-time predator, or who hasn't been caught yet. That's true for any crime.
When asked Thursday about these gaps, Cuomo admitted: "Nothing is foolproof, but it's a big step forward." While we suppose it's better to have something rather than nothing, how useful is a law that has as many holes as a screen door?
As a possible method of enforcement, the attorney general did mention that probation and parole officers have the power to check the hard drives of sex offenders' computers to monitor their Internet use. However, the Division for Criminal Justice Services estimates about 26,000 sex offenders registered with New York state, and 424 in Broome County. It seems unlikely, however, that every hard drive will be checked every day to ensure compliance with the law. Heck, a clever online predator could own two or three different computers, or log in for e-mail at the local library. (A scary thought, but possible.)
At the core, though, is one simple fact: While "stranger danger" gets the most high-profile attention, the vast majority of crimes against children are committed not by released sex offenders, but instead by the victim's own family, church clergy and family friends. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has said that "based on what we know about those who harm children, the danger to children is greater from someone they or their family knows than from a stranger."
That's not to say that parents shouldn't be on the lookout for online sex predators. As always, it's best to keep the computer where its use can be monitored -- in a family room, not a child's bedroom -- and to teach about the dangers of giving out personal information such as names, addresses and phone numbers. But that should only be part of the lessons about the unfortunate array of ways that children and teens can get into trouble in the 21st century.
Because while we worry about the shadowy sex predator who might be lurking outside, we could be missing the abuse happening right in our own homes. ..more.. Editorial: PressConnects.com
