Sex offenders must hand over online passwords

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28437378/

ATLANTA - Privacy advocates are questioning an aggressive Georgia state law set to take effect Thursday that would require sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses.

Georgia joins a small band of U.S. states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track Internet addresses of sex offenders, but it is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16,000 offenders to turn in their passwords as well.

I can understand WHY they are demanding this info, but it's so easy to get a new email account, what do they really hope to accomplish?

If he was using the internet to download kiddie porn or something?

and free wifi in many places I can't see how they could ever enforce it.

We have a lot of stupid laws that make the rubes here think that our GOP run state is doing something.

In reality, they are all about pleasing corporations.

And suppressing the black vote.

Why are they focusing only on "sex" offenders? What about white collar criminals, burglary, and other crimes that can benefit from the use of the internet to further their criminal behavior?

Compare sex offenders to, say, murderers. When a murderer has served his term in prison, he comes out on parole. It's not that way with sex offenders. About 20 states have special laws and incarceration apparatus (secure treatment facilities) for assessing these people for risk of reoffense and confining them under indefinite mental health-style commitments even after they have served their prison terms for their offenses. There is a whole cottage industry involved in evaluating, prosecuting, defending, committing, guarding, and treating sex offenders. There are two dirty little secrets in this enterprise. The first is that there are no really good ways of predicting who will reoffend. And second, despite all kinds of public misinformation, the reoffense rate of sex offenders is surprisingly low. Maybe 5 or 10 percent get rearrested for sex crimes in their lifetimes, compared to about 68% of criminals in general.

This is not necessarily so for thieves, or grifters. They don't have the same "urges" that a pedophile or serial rapist does. When a thief is released from prison, his punishment has been paid and the individual is free to choose what to do with his life. Sick sex offenders are constantly challenged by their illnesses and violent tendencies even after they've served their prison term.

It's ridiculous that an 18-year-old boy has his life ruined because he had sex with an underage girl, or that a party gotten out of hand results in the same for some hapless swinger. Or for the dude who pees in public. That's a whole other issue.

I was only responding to the post because it compared white collar crime with pedophilia or serial rape. The latter ostensibly wipes out any "free will" choice for the offender. Even if it didn't, I guess there are enough utterly depraved and repulsive examples of the inhumanity and violence some of these people are capable of, to warrant some kind of babysitting.


Have no clue what this email nanny-ing will solve however.

A lot of thieves also have a "sickness." Why there's even a name for it: kleptomania. Maybe thieves who have finished their sentence should then have to spend the rest of their lives at least 10 feet away from any movable property.

Don't get me wrong. There are people who need to have severe restraints on them for the rest of their lives, and not just for sex crimes (I'm thinking there are some "financiers" who should never be allowed so much as a savings account, much less access to other people's money.). But to strip an entire class of people of basic privacy and social interaction because of those few is inhumane and exhausts resources that would be better put into dealing with ones most likely to be repeat offenders based on their individual histories and characteristics instead of fitting into a loose category of convicted offenses.

Such a person would more than likely be referred for psychiatric treatment after his/her sentence. Regardless, it's a question of degree. Someone who steals toilet paper because s/he's "compelled to" is viewed with far less fear than someone who beats women to a pulp after he's violated them in every way, or molests little children in parks. Public safety requires more vigilance when it comes to the latter.

Many are guilty of indecent exposure, or inappropriate touching, or being 19 with a 16 year old lover. And the OCD that you believe can be treated in thieves is also behind at least some of the repeated behaviors of even violent criminals. So why throw civil rights out the window for one group of criminals, and not for another?

Historically, the charge of sex offender was used to justify the worst atrocities against black men and any nonconformist whites. One should be very careful about just what is being justified even today with the same rationale.

Again, I replied to a poster who didn't seem to understand the difference between free agent, free will, financially inspired crime versus the sexual violence committed against women and children. If you don't understand the difference between degree and feel that kleptomania is a good comparison to serial rape and pedophilia, then there's nothing for me to add. As for your last comment, well, what difference would "historically" make to a parent who's just found out a child's been raped and murdered by a repeat sex offender?

...and back to prison.

How would they even enforce it? I have multiple e-mail accounts (5 altogether). How would law enforcement keep track of anything like that unless I decided to offer it up willingly?

You piss off a state official, they go to an offensive or illegal Web site using your name and password.

You are busted.

This is designed to make them move.

I can't believe we pay these asscarrots.