p2pnet - rss feed: ‘Why me?’ - asks sex offender
p2pnet.net news:- “I am devoted to my fully adult girlfriend, and have no desire for minors: female or male. Yet, in an act that completely throws fairness and justice to the wind, I have been banned from the site … due to the fact that some sex offenders have used the site for wicked intentions. How is this fair? Or, more importantly, how is this right? …”
So says Carl, a registered sex offender quoted by Kevin Poulsen in the Wired Blog Network. He’s talking about the decision made by people running Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace who’ve agreed to supply various US attorneys general with the details of known sex offenders who log onto the site.
In a complete about-face, MySpace is giving in to legal demands, promising to release information on registered sex offenders, “it has identified and removed from the social-networking Web site,” says Associated Press.
“MySpace, whose users to create online profiles of themselves and send messages to other members, agreed to provide the information to all states after some of the attorneys general filed subpoenas or took other legal actions to demand it,” states AP.
But, “Are we so choked by fear as a country that we’ve forgotten or denied the ability of persons to change?” - asks the sex offender in the wired story, going on:
“Change, contrary to popular thought, is POSSIBLE. I have not committed another sex crime in the nine years since my conviction. And I’m not alone in such a claim.
“First of all, I am a registered sex offender myself, and have been offense free (by the grace of God. Yes, He really does help people, even sex offenders!) for the last nine years of my life.
“I had, up until this afternoon, a MySpace account. Certainly, I had a few minors as friends, simply because I’m in an online Gaming Clan, which has both adults and minors playing together. None - I repeat in caps, NONE — of my conversations with any of them, which are few and far between, have ever even come close to the border of inappropriate. I have never discussed sex at all with any of them, nor do I make any innuendos or allude to any desire for them - namely because I have none.”
MySpace had always meant to “share” information on sex offenders it knew about and had already pruned some 7,000 profiles, according to MySpace executive vice president and general counsel Michael Angus.
MySpace got the data from partner Sentinel Tech Holding which since last December has been gathering information on US sex offenders, says AP, continuing, “Angus said the company also arranged for law enforcement agencies to use the Sentinel software directly. ‘We developed Sentinel Safe from scratch because there was no means to weed them out and get them off of our site,” Angus said of the sex offenders. “This is no different than an offline community. We’re trying to keep it safe’.”
Meanwhile, MySpace should monitor its site and kick off pedophiles, while leaving ex-offenders alone, says Carl, adding:
“If they have snippets of conversations where they’re saying, ‘Hey, what are you wearing?’ Anything close to inappropriate, then do something about that. But if there’s somebody out there who’s just minding their own business and using it, as they say in the title, as ‘A Place for Friends,’ I don’t see anything wrong.”
Carl, “tried getting a new account under different names, but with his same birth date, and was blocked each time,” says Wired, adding, “His girlfriend loaned him her account, though, and he was able to log in with that, he says.
Also See:
Wired Blog Network - Banned MySpace Sex Offender: Why Me?, May 21, 2007
complete about-face - MySpace hands over sex list, May 22, 2007
Associated Press - MySpace to Provide Sex-Offender Data, May 22, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 24th, 2007 at 8:04 am
He needs to clear his computer of cookies. He also needs to lie about his date of birth as well as his address. It is a damned shame that people have to be forced to live like this. Persecuted people on (unconstitutional) sex offender registries seem to me to be ripe candidates for recruitment by this county’s enemies. The government can only stalk and harrass some people for only so long before they snap! IF someone is so dangerous that they have to have 24 hour monitoring like the U.S. does with these people, they they should have been sentence to a longer term in prison! There are dngers with government playing with the Constitution. I WILL eventually bite the government in the ass.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
The use of the girlfriend’s account is a classic example of how stupid it is to attack problems in society from the top down. There’s a reason the word “grassroots” exists–because change must come from the roots, not from the flowers and leaves that emerge FROM those roots. Politicians who want to minimize new sex crimes will work on solutions such as anonymous therapy for potential offenders that can help to prevent them from falling down the slippery slope of sexual deviance. Politicians who only seek votes, however, pass laws that appeal to the voters’ emotions (or conversely, vote “yes” for bad laws that can be construed to make them look bad later if they vote “no”).