Evil bastards across the USA introduce the NEW Scarlet Letter! Will we be forced to the back of the bus next?

Original Article

Yes I am comparing this to the novel, how the Jews were treated, and blacks. I know what they did was not a crime, but the same things are being done to ex-sex offenders, their families and children, as far as civil rights are concerned, they are the scapegoat for today's vengeful society. What has this country become?

01/13/2013

By MIKE JACCARINO

New Mexico lawmakers are now mulling a ban against registered sex offenders on Facebook and other social networking sites, while states, like Texas, are considering forcing them to identify their crimes in their profiles.

The Texas bill would reportedly force certain sex offenders to embed in their profile the type of their offence, the location where it occurred, their full name, date of birth, sex, race, height, weight, and eye and hair color.

'When you become a member of Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, and one of (them) now is that you cannot be a... convicted sex offender,' State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio told NBC in Dallas Fort-Worth, or NBCDFW.com.

'Now, of course, it's not enforced and so now this is being left up to other states to make sure we have enforcement mechanisms.'

Meanwhile, critics of the New Mexico bill, which would outright ban registered sex offenders from social networking sites, reportedly say it violates the constitutional right to free speech of those convicted of sex crimes.

The New Mexico bill would render it a misdemeanor on first offence for a registered sex offender to use instant messaging or frequent chat room websites 'the sex offender knows allows a person who is under eighteen years of age to access or use,' according to the Sante Fe New Mexican.

Subsequent offenses would, in turn, be prosecuted as fourth-degree felonies, the publication reports.

'This has been a grandstand issue that’s been taken to the courts around the country and dismissed as unconstitutional,' Lloyd Schwartz, president of Reform Sex Offender Laws of New Mexico, told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Schwartz reportedly added the bill is 'overly broad' and 'doesn’t take into account that many of the people on the registry didn’t commit a crime against a minor.'

Indeed, similar laws banning sex offenders from social media sites enacted in Nebraska and Louisiana have been voided by U.S. district judges as unconstitutional.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska said in October 2012 said that legislatures need to 'concentrate on demonstrated risk rather than speculating and burdening more speech than is necessary — use a scalpel rather than a blunderbuss.'

However, in Indiana, U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt upheld a similar law banning sex offenders from social networking sites.

Read the entire article here

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FL - Boca Raton database pioneer Hank Asher dead at 61

Hank Asher

Original Article

He was also a ex-criminal. See the link below for more info.

01/13/2013

By Jeff Ostrowski

BOCA RATON -- Hank Asher, an entrepreneur who pioneered the use of databases and spent millions of his fortune fighting child pornography, died this week. He was 61.

Officials at TLO, Asher's Boca Raton company, couldn't be reached for comment Friday. Former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who worked for Asher for a time, said he was told that Asher died in his sleep Thursday or Friday.

"He was a wonderful human being who, through his philanthropy, saved thousands of children," Butterworth said.

Asher's database work also led to the arrests of the Beltway snipers who killed 10 people in the Washington area in 2002.

Asher pioneered data mining software that was sold to businesses but also sped cops' ability to connect the dots in criminal investigations. Work that once required months could be done in a few minutes, Butterworth said.

When Asher arrived in South Florida in the 1970s, he gave little indication he'd become a data guru or a national crime-fighting figure. He was a high school dropout in search of a better climate for his commercial painting business than his Indiana home offered.

The painting company flourished, and Asher later founded Boca data firms Database Technologies and Seisint. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Seisint developed software that identified terrorists.

Asher owned 40 percent of Seisint in 2004, when it was sold to British publishing giant Reed Elsevier for $775 million and became part of LexisNexis.

"I really thought I'd wind up on a 200-foot yacht down in the South Pacific," Asher said in a 2009 interview with The Palm Beach Post. "But I decided to go back to work."

Asher's final project was TLFO, later changed to TLO, an acronym for "The Last One." Part of his business model was to build a supercomputer that could track child pornography as it traveled over the Internet, then give police free access.

Asher traced his passion for fighting child pornography to 1993, when he donated his database software to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The first time his creation helped rescue a child from a predator, Asher said, he felt like he was cashing "a paycheck for the soul."

After that, he immersed himself in the underworld of child predators. Asher said he wanted to catch "the worst of the worst," men who rape infants, toddlers and young children.

"He really wanted to rid the world of pedophiles," Butterworth said.

Asher donated his computing power to law enforcement agencies. And he paid for police and prosecutors from around the world to travel to Boca to learn about his crime-fighting software.

Even after years of fighting pedophiles, Butterworth said, Asher would get tears in his eyes when a police officer from somewhere in the world called to let Asher know about a child molester who had been captured through Asher's software.

Asher also was driven by memories of his own checkered past. For about seven weeks in the early 1980s, Asher flew loads of cocaine from the Bahamas. He was never charged with a crime and later cooperated with drug warriors.

"He was very open about his past," Butterworth said. "He never hid it. It bothered him."

Portly and profane, Asher was a tangle of contradictions. He dropped out of high school, yet Butterworth swears his IQ was on par with Einstein and Edison.

After his brief foray into crime, Asher devoted two decades to helping cops catch killers and child molesters.

He was a high-powered businessman who never wore a tie or socks. A white guy who grew up on an Indiana farm, Asher liked to say he imagined God as a black woman.

"The guy was complex, to say the least," Butterworth said. "Colorful is not the word for it. He was double, triple colorful."

Never one to shy away from a fight, he seemed to relish legal battles with business rivals. And he loved to make bold pronouncements.

"I'm going for the gusto," Asher told the Post in 2009. "I don't want to check out of this planet without building the world's most valuable company."

His hopes for TLO didn't pan out. Asher laid off most of the company's workers in May.

Butterworth said Asher should be remembered not for the ups and downs of his businesses but for his willingness to give of his wealth, not just to crime-fighting causes but also to cancer research and to earthquake relief in Haiti.

"He was the most generous person I've ever met in my life," Butterworth said.

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PA - Pennsylvania state Sen. Lisa Boscola introduces law to restrict where sex offenders can live

Sen. Lisa Boscola

Original Article

01/13/2013

By Sara K. Satullo

Pennsylvania state Sen. Lisa Boscola has again introduced legislation that would limit how close registered sex offenders can live to schools, day cares, playgrounds and school bus stops.

Boscola, D-Northampton/Lehigh/Monroe, first drafted such a bill in January 2012 after hearing from Saucon Valley School District parents upset that their children’s relocated bus stop was close to a registered sex offender’s home.

If enacted, the law would prohibit sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, day cares, preschools or playgrounds and 500 feet of a school bus stop. It would not be retroactive.

Boscola Chief of Staff Steve DeFrank admits bus stops are a tough issue, and no other state has such a residency restriction. Nineteen other states, however, have some laws governing where Megan’s Law offenders can live, he said.

“Bus stops can be prime target areas,” DeFrank said.
- They could be, yes, but they are not, and the facts, not hysteria, shows that.

The bill does allow for exemptions if a school district can’t relocate a bus stop.

“The school district has to make every attempt to locate bus stops at least 500 feet from sex offenders,” DeFrank explained.

If that can’t occur, the district must notify parents of children at the stop that a predator is present, DeFrank said.
- Not all sex offenders are predators!

Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent Joseph Roy said he has not spoken with Boscola about the proposed law. But it would add another variable into the complex process of busing all of Bethlehem’s private, parochial, charter and public school students, he said.

“From the safety side it makes sense,” Roy said of the bus stop restriction. “From a practical side, depending on how many sex offenders there might be in an area … it could be that we end up with bus stops that cause kids to walk further and cross more streets.”

Roy doesn't think the waiver process sounds practical but there may be ways to work though possible hurdles.

Saucon Valley Superintendent Sandra Fellin said it could be challenging for districts where there is high-density housing or a transient population that requires changing routes, stops or waiver applications.

"I believe all districts plan their routes and place their stops in responsible locations away from known offenders," Fellin said.

Fellin agrees with Roy that if enacted the law means students may have to walk farther.

"At times, safety may mean inconvenience," she said.

Last year, Saucon moved a bus stop to Finady Avenue in Fountain Hill over concerns that the old stop at Benner Avenue and Moravia Street was hazardous during winter weather. After complaints and a district and board review of the stop, the district decided to keep it on Finady. It is unclear if the stop is within 500 feet of a sex offender's home.

Saucon parent Paula Steuer, who adamantly opposes the stop and fought for legislation, questioned why the bus stop wouldn't be subject to the 1,000-foot restriction as well.

“Some children stand alone at the bus stops and some walk these routes alone in the early morning darkness,” Steuer wrote in an email. “I think we need to stop playing with children and their safety and step up and really protect them. It's time to be proactive and not reactive.”
- And if you are so freaked out about it, maybe you should be a parent and walk to the bus stop with your child!

The law is part of a legislative package aimed at keeping children safe, Boscola said in a statement. She said she hopes all the media attention garnered by the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case will make laws that help and protect children a legislative priority in 2013.

“Children are our most precious resource,” Boscola said in the statement. “We owe them our love, support and every legal protection available.”

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FORM - Legislative Intent - Statements made by current and past legislature

Direct link to the form

We are wanting to start keeping track of when current or past legislature say something which shows the intent of the sex offender registry, residency and other laws are about punishment.

So if you know of any such article, please fill out the form below. We do not track your name, email or anything else. It's strictly for documenting the above.

NOTE: Please make sure you click the link below to see if someone has already logged the statement you are wanting to log.

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