Civil Rights Groups Defend Free Speech for Sex Offenders

They're challenging CA's new anti-sex trafficking law

Prop 35, the California ballot measure to increase penalties for sex traffickers, just passed among voters by a whopping 80%.

But the new law is already being challenged by two of the nation's most prominent civil rights groups, who say it threatens to deny the free speech rights of an already widely-despised class of citizens - convicted sex offenders.

Proposition 35 requires that the 73,000 people on the California sex offender registry - some of whom were placed there for decades-old misdemeanors such as indecent exposure - must report all of their internet activities to law enforcement authorities. It's a provision of the new law not sitting well with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who together have filed a lawsuit in a federal district court that aims to overturn the requirement on free speech grounds.

"The ability to speak freely and even anonymously is crucial for speech to remain free for all of us," said a lawyer for the ACLU. "Stopping human trafficking is a worthy goal, but this portion of Prop. 35 won't get us there."

Via the San Francisco Chronicle.

Should registered sex offenders be required to report all their internet activities to law enforcement?

[1hardcorerepub]

Redefining marriage and now this? Who didn't see this coming? ALL democrat/socialist.

[Dan_Tien]

Your one-track-mind comments are the sort of thing that give conservatives a bad name.

[Dan_Tien]

Give me a break. More rights for sex traffickers and offenders? I wouldn't trust sex offenders to report their internet activities. If they have internet access, let it be monitored remotely.

[1hardcorerepub]

They have a right to free speech? Why are you suppressing it?

[Dan_Tien]

@1hardcorerepub Convicted felons lose many of their constitutional rights as citizens. Nothing new about that. With rights come responsibilities, and my sympathies favor law-abiding citizens and potential victims over individuals who have proven that they cannot be trusted.

[1hardcorerepub]

@Dan_Tien now that is not the democrat/socialist way. You guys want equality for all, right? Now quit suppressing their desire for free speech.

[Penn1699]

@Dan_Tien must agree with you here a very large percentage repeat. Although it doesn't quite sit right with me. Where do we draw the line? A necessary evil. It will be interesting to see what the courts have to say...

[dances-weebles]

@Dan_Tien no, they don't. convicted felons only lose the right to their freedom for the duration of their sentence and nothing more.

tell me, did you actually read the article? many of those effected would be for minor indiscrepancies which are decades old.

[Your_Name_Here]

If all other convicted criminals are required to do the same I am all for it.

[RobertJHarsh]

Sex offenders? Bullet to the back of the head. Issue resolved.

[Thegrif]

Absdamnlutly, free speech, I say all right are gone, throw them in the cage, inmates will take care of the rest. I've seen it, it's ugly, and very effective.

[DARSB]

California's pimping and pandering laws only require registration as a sex offender if the person being offered as a prostitute is a minor.(http://goo.gl/CDDMY ) I'd guess that's a fairly small proportion of all the people on the registry, which does raise civil liberty questions for the majority of non-sex traffickers on the registry whose Internet activity is covered by this law.

I'll side with the ACLU and EFF on this one.

[wild_turkey6]

I think what lands someone on the registry need to be relooked at. I mean who among us has never peed outside? That could land you on the list. Students sexting pics of themselves could land them on the list. How asinine is that? "We are protecting you from yourself by labelling you a sex offender."

[DARSB]

@wild_turkey6 There was a case in Tennessee a few years back involving a teen age boy and his younger girlfriend who got caught having sex. She was labeled the victim, he had to register as a sex offender. If I recall, he was 17

[wild_turkey6]

@DARSB I think my state has some smarter laws. I did some training as a sexual assault victim's advocate and iirc, we look at the age difference between the parties if it was consensual. If it is two 16 year olds having sex, then it isn't a crime. I don't recall what gap constituted a crime, but I recall it making sense.

[WilliamWallace]

Welcome to Obama's America.

[dances-weebles]

wtf

[bsking]

no they shouldn't have to do that. matter fact maybe they can be hired as school teachers

[WilliamWallace]

Cheap labor. They will do it for the kids.

[WilliamWallace]

@WilliamWallace I mean good of the kids. Lol

[bsking]

@WilliamWallace hey you were right the first time. but were the 1 who has a problem we just don't understand them....

[dances-weebles]

i don't understand the point of this. could someone please explain the value of such a law for me?

[WilliamWallace]

It's simple. Laws are designed to deter crime, by either making it harder to commit the crime or by the threat of punishment.

[dances-weebles]

@WilliamWallace crimes such as 'alleged' flashing? ohh... that's horrid. i guess the guy won't accidentally leave his fly open if he can't use the internet, huh?

[mimi57]

Your room is down the hall. it's the last room on the left.. ( :

[dances-weebles]

@dances-weebles or he won't pee on a tree beside the road again, right?

[dances-weebles]

@mimi57 hey thanks... right next door to yours, huh? please don't keep me awake all night with your noise this time, okay?

[mimi57]

Of course they should have all rights taken away...but one call to ACLU, and they'll be back to business as usual...

[cloreen]

The law shouldn't have been passed. The "sex offender" net is too wide already. Any 18 yr-old kid who receives nude pix from a girl just a year or two younger and shows them to someone is now not just a sex offender, but a human trafficker. And could go to prison for several years minimum.
For heinous offenders, however, their online whereabouts should probably be monitored, at least for some time.

[dmj49770]

These laws targeting "sex offenders" are just to please the vulgar public that gets its jollies from pillorying a scapegoat--they don't make anyone any safer.

[Wisdom73]

I'm sorry but f*&$# the ACLU. They just sunk a step lower by standing up for pedophiles and sex offenders everywhere. And you though the republicans didn't care about women's rights, well the ACLU doesn't give a s&*$ about women's or children's safety obviously. Pedophiles and sex offenders are a scourge on this earth. They destroy the fabric of society. And for that I believe that the only rehabiitated sex offender, is either a labotomized or dead sex offender.

[marine1]

I have NO use for sex offenders,"but" a 17 yr old and a 16 yr old does not qualify as a sex offender. These laws need to be better written.

[kathyparsell]

I agree completely. True sex offenders are considered untreatable whether remorseful or not. Everyone needs to be protected from these people. However, as the laws are currently written, some peoples lives are destroyed forever for something that in a lot of cases has nothing to do with sexual abuse

[TheLoneRanger]

The American Communist Litigation Union (ACLU) should have its Articles of Incorporation revoked for not acting in the public interest.

Ending Corporate Governance - We The People Revoking Our Plutocracy http://ratical.org/corporations/

[cpeter133]

The ACLU is a private organization, not a governmental one. It protects the constitutional rights of all people. They have every right to challenge unconstitutional laws. It takes courage to ive in a free society; evidently you don't have any.

[TheLoneRanger]

@cpeter133

I never stated that I thought the ACLU was a government entity.

The ACLU was founded as and continues to be a subversive organization. Any actual Constitutional Rights it supports is merely part of its continued mission to work by subterfuge. In other words to deceive people into believing that they are working for the public interest when they are doing just the opposite.

The ACLU’s Articles of Incorporation should be revoked, its assets seized and sold off and its workers arrested for treason and tried as enemies of the state.

Discover The Networks:

The ACLU was established in 1920 by Roger Baldwin who served as its executive director until 1950. Baldwin was a socialist who counseled subterfuge as the preferable means of promoting his political agendas in the United States.

In the ACLU's early years, Baldwin hailed the Russia of Lenin and Stalin as “a great laboratory of social experimentation of incalculable value to the development of the world.”

The ACLU asserts that the First Amendment "protects" child pornography, and that consequently there should be no federal or state governmental restriction on its distribution, reproduction, sale, or use by anyone, including pedophiles. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfi...

Capital Research Center:

The American Civil Liberties Union: How It Thwarts Freedom of Religion http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1298...

[cpeter133]

@TheLoneRanger You throw the word "treason" around but clearly have no idea what it means. The whole basis of free speech is that people may hold any political beliefs they choose, no matter how unpopular. You might not like what they do, but they have a valid right to express it.

[TheLoneRanger]

@cpeter133 - You may not like it but subversion is treason. Subversion is not a free speech issue.

Freedom is not whatever any body wants to do; that is chaos and anarchy. Freedom comes with responsibility.

[cpeter133]

@TheLoneRanger Sorry, senator mccarthy, but you are wrong. At long last, have you no sense of decency?

Protecting constitutional rights is subversive? This country was built on what you would call subversion. Whether you like certain people or not, they do have a right to speak.

[Casper1981]

Yep. Sex offenders should report all their activities even online.

[Dan_Tien]

I do not see how it violates the free speech of convicted sex offenders to require them to account for their internet activities. They are not prevented from speaking or writing on the internet, only accounting for their activities. The Constitution prevents the government from infringing upon your freedom of speech, but it does not guarantee that you will not pay a price for exercising it. Anonymity on the internet is an illusion, as well. Without sophisticated efforts to cover your tracks, anything a person posts or views can be tracked back to them. It seems to me that the ACLU is trying to expand the definition of freedom of speech regarding convicted sex offenders beyond what is currently accorded to the general public.

[TexasBlonde]

YES!

[Keyjo]

Sex offenders should be redefined. A guy who gets drunk and gets caught taking a leak in an alley is NOT a sex offender. An 18 year old having consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend/boyfriend is NOT a sex offender. A sex offender is someone who forces himself on another, an adult who touches children inappropriately. Exposing yourself at a drunken frat party or skinny dipping in the town square is not a sexual assault.

[uhclem]

No.