Stossel goes where most fear to tread.

John Stossel, the libertarian reporter at Fox, tackles sex and the law—that one area where faux "limited government" types become raving banshees for Big Brother. In this first clip he discusses the case of Ricky, who I have discussed on this blog several time. Appearing with Ricky is his mother Mary Duval, who has commented here several times.



Similarly this blog has regularly challenged the absurd and counter-productive sex registry laws. Radley Balko, from Reason, tackles the hysteria. People on the Left, who worry about these sorts of absurd laws, should be applauding Stossel for doing this.

The results of the sex hysteria.

This woman did wrong. She is alleged to have forced a 13-year=old boy to touch her breasts while she was drunk. But, that said, is this an offense worthy of life imprisonment? Absurd.



Here is a 14-year-old girl who is charged with child pornography and face 17 years in jail and life as a "sex offender." Her victim: herself. She took her own photos.

Wonderland comes to the Georgia Supreme Court

The Georgia Supreme Court is apparently stocked with imbeciles. Either that or they are simply dishonest to the core.

As I have noted before, Georgia is one of these theocratic states where the detestable sex offender registry requires people to register as sex offenders, even when they have not committed a sexually based crime. There are two cases where individuals were placed on this odious, useless, counter-productive list where no sex was involved.

I previously reported on a young man who accompanied a friend when the friend robbed a Dairy Queen. A teenager was exiting the store as the robber went in. The robber instructed the young man to lie on the ground until they finished the robbery. No physical contact with the youth took place. But the underage accomplice in the case is now listed as a registered sex offender in Georgia.

The case that these morons in robes heard was similar. One Jake Rainer, then 18, along with unnamed co-defendants, met a 17-year-old girl who said she would sell them pot. She got in their car and they drove her to a cul-de-sac where they relieved her of her marijuana, without paying. Instead of rightfully charging them with theft (something the government doesn't oppose on principle) they robbers were charged with "false imprisonment" and forced to register as sex offenders. Again no sexual contact took place, no attempt at sexual contact took place. There isn't even evidence that anyone thought about sex, let alone did anything sexual.

Now consider that the sex offender registry is itself a vicious form of perpetual punishment applied very indiscriminately, as we see in this case. Having the status of "sex offender," the closest any human even gets to eternal life, means that one is constantly penalized. Presence on that data base, no matter what the circumstances of the "crime," means that one is banned from living in most places, especially in Georgia. There are entire counties where a "sex offender" is basically banned from living there. It subjects one to constant harassment from would-be vigilantes as well as the local police. It is used to deny people seeking to better themselves, from obtaining a college education. It is used so that many on the list are incapable of finding employment. The whole purpose of the registry is to inflict unrelenting punishment on people, even if the sex was consenting and non-violent. And, as we saw here, one need not even commit a sexual crime to be on the list.

The Georgia Supreme Court was asked to rule on the list being cruel and unusual punishment. It certainly is cruel, unfortunately in these less civilized times it is not unusual. Justice Harold Melton rejected the arguments entirely because he said such registries "are regulatory, not punitive, in nature." What a butt wipe! A proper understanding of the nature of "regulatory" actions shows them to differ little from punitive actions.

Consider an area completely outside the realm of sex offenses. If a businessman uses his premises to sell drugs the government may come in and confiscate his business under Rico laws, thus putting him out of business. In truth they can do this merely by accusing him of a crime, even if they have no evidence he actually did anything illegal. The business is gone, the owner is bankrupt. Now consider the same business getting zoned out of existence, regulated into oblivion instead. What is the difference between punitive actions and regulatory actions if both can inflict the same harm?

In this case much of the harm that is inflicted eternally on these "offenders" is not just government sanctioned, but government mandated. Surely when government arrests people for living in their own home, due to sex offender zoning laws, that is punitive. There is a fine line between regulatory actions and punitive ones and the sex offender laws were intentionally created as punitive measures.

The Court ruled that "it is of no consequence whether or not one has committed an offense that is 'sexual' in nature before being required to register." No consequence! Exactly where does this justice have his brains?

Conservatives ought to be worried. This ruling basically says that a government regulation, one that is onerous and harmful, is not punitive because the government calls it a regulation instead of punishment. The court also said that the state may place people on the sex offender list, for public scrutiny and harassment, even if they have never committed a sex crime in their life. As the Justice (sic.) put it, "it is of no consequence" whether or not a sex crime was committed.

I am going to rename my cat Fido, because that will apparently, miraculously turn him into a dog, at least if the logic of the court is accurate. Calling something regulatory, instead of punitive, makes it non-punitive, no matter how much punishment is inflicted by it.

The court said that it was perfectly fine to do this because it "advances the State's legitimate goal of informing the public for purposes of protecting children from those who would harm them." Get real! In this case Rainer was within a few months of the same age of the girl he robbed. She was dealing an illegal drug and he took the drug. If the police did it they would be applauded. There is no reason to assume that Rainer is a threat to children and it is absurd to say that the girl was a child. This girl is old enough to consent to sex in Georgia, and old enough to marry. Yet if she deals drugs and is robbed her robber becomes a sex offender because the State is protecting children.

This should indicate exactly how America's sex laws are running wild, as well as contradicting common sense. The Court ruled:

There is no requirement that sexual activity be involved. Rainer’s belief that the term “sexual offender” may only apply to offenders who commit sexual offenses against minors does not change the fact that the definition provided in the statute, and not the definition that Rainer wishes to impose upon the statute, controls.

Do you get that? Rainer argued that it was wrong to call him a "sex offender" when he never committed a sexual offense. The Court refers to that reasonable definitional issue as merely a "belief" which doesn't matter because the State has redefined the term "sex offense" to include offenses that are entirely non-sexual. In Through the Looking-Glass (aka, Alice in Wonderland), Alice speaks to Humpty Dumpty who tells her: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." Of course when Lewis Caroll wrote that, he meant it as nonsense. When Justice Melton wrote something similar he thought it made perfect sense.

Melton says that Rainer's definition of sex offender is "incorrect" because the Georgia legislature has redefined the word to mean "just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." In children's fantasies this might be amusing, but in the law it is dangerous.

In related news a new study says that 20 percent of teens have sent erotic photos of themselves by cell phone. For most of these teens that means they have committed a felony, could be imprisoned, and may very likely be listed a sex offenders. Given America's tendency to see sex as evil I would assume that when 20 percent of teens admit to sexting, that the actual numbers are significantly higher. As I see it, the government may as well publish well publish a list of the names of everyone in the country, call it a "sex offenders" list and get it over with. The over-criminalization of everything continues unabashed and it is destroying lives.

If this is true—it's damn frightening.

This is one of the more troubling stories that I've read in a long time. What I'm reading is the court filing in a lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District, on behalf of the minor, Blake Robbins, filed by his parents.

The school district issued laptops to the students. The laptops had webcams installed. In legalese the suit contends that the school district has "been spying on the activities of Plaintiffs and Class members (Blake and other students)" through the "indiscriminant use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District." '

The law suit contends that none of the literature given to students and their parents contains any reference "to the fact that the school district has the ability to remotely activate the embedded webacam at any time the school district wished to intercept images from that webcam of anyone or anything appearing in front of the camera at the time of the activation."

In other words, the government school district issued laptops to students and the district could activate the webcam and use it to spy on students anytime the computer was turned out. This was done without informing people this was possible and can be done without the knowledge of the computer user. Consider where students are likely to have their computers. It is not unusual for a student to take a laptop into their bedroom, where they undress, change clothes and engage in otherwise, very private activities. Yet school district bureaucrats can remotely use the students laptop to watch these activities.

This new method of spying on students, in the privacy of their home, was revealed when Blake was told by the Assistant Principal of Harrington High School, Lindy Matsko, that he "was engaged in improper behavior in his home." As proof of this improper behaviour the school showed him "a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor Plaintiff's personal laptop issued by the School District."

Blake's father, Michale, "verified, through Ms. Matsko, that the School District in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a students' personal laptop computer issued by the School District at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer." Equally important is that this can be done so it "will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it."

The suit says: "As the laptops at issue were routinely used by students and family members while at home, it is believed and therefore averred that many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress."

Unless the allegations in the suit are entirely invented by the family, which seems unlikely, this indicates a dangerous new method of putting the public under surveillance. The law suit is making claims based on laws that are supposed to protect privacy, due process for surveillance, and similar manners. I think they should go for the jugular.

Let us make a few points to law the foundation for having the School District arrested and tried as sex offenders. The District gave laptops to 1800 teenage students. In the laptop was a webcam that could be turned on by government bureaucrats to observe those students at any time, including in the privacy of their home. Almost 100% of these students will, at one time or another, engage in legal sexual activity in the privacy of their bedroom. By legal I mean either with another teen considered legally capable of consenting, or in masturbatory activity. With 1800 students engaging in such sex acts the possibility that computer will be sitting there is very high. And government bureaucrats may be watching said activity. Thus the School District has created a webcam operation which shows teens engaged in sexual activity.

It is entirely possible that the signals could be intercepted as well, by others, who may view these "sex webcam shows" that the School District created. The School District officials who set up the program, those who implemented the system, and all school officials who may view these webcams should thus be investigated immediately for the production and dissemination of child pornography. All those found involved should be required to register as sex offenders. In teens who engage in "sexting" voluntarily are arrested then why wouldn't it be a crime for school officials to drag teens involuntarily into something equally explicit?

This is precisely what these School Districts do to teens who engages in "sexting." School Districts, that discover that students voluntarily, and consensually, photograph themselves in the nude, routinely have those students arrested as child pornographers. So why should school officials, doing the same thing, but without the consent of the teens involved, be treated any differently? Criminal charges should be filed immediately.

In fact, along with the law suit, I think parents should file criminal complaints against the School District for the recording and dissemination of child pornographer because the District could watch underage students in the nude, or engaged in sexual activity.

The School District admits that the computers came with the remote webcam feature, which it claims, is only used "to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen" and that it is not used "for any other purpose." But Blake was disciplined for improper activity at home, which had nothing to do with a lost, missing or stolen computer. A photo, taken using the webcam, was provided to him as proof of his action. This indicates that the feature was, in fact, used for purposes other than tracking missing computers.

And while the School District says that the webcams will only be turned on, in the future, with the "express written notification to all students and families"—notice it doesn't require their consent, only that they be told it will be done—there is nothing to prevent school officials from turning on the feature, without notification, if only to browse for titillating scenes. What parent would take this sort of assurance seriously?

What the new policy boils down to is that the school district, or individual employees of the district, will have the ability to turn on the webcam at will, but promise they won't do so without warning students in advance. And, if the officials, don't announce they did it, but still do it anyway, how is that monitored? What assurances do parents have that school officials aren't getting their jollies by turning on the webcams during the hours students would be preparing for bed? The School District continues to have the ability to spy on students anytime it, or any one with access to the systems, wishes and all parents get is the promise that this won't be done. In other words, there is absolutely nothing to stop it happening but the solemn promise of a bunch of government bureaucrats—and we all know what that is worth.

Not given a chance to live.

We talk to kids today about "safe sex" a lot. They are warned about unsafe sex frequently. But one of the biggest dangers to sex is overzealous, pious politicians—screwing hookers on their off time while cheating on their wives and preaching "family values." I have hit this theme repeatedly: these politicians have turned normal adolescent sexuality into a criminal offense and they have the audacity to pretend they are doing it "for the children."

Consider the case of a young man, Matthew Freeman, 23. Five years ago, when 17, Matthew was dating a girl from school who was 15. The two had sex. The result is that Matthew is now a "registered sex offender," which sends shivers down the spine of the uninformed who assume that means he is a rapist or attacks small children. Freeman is none of those things. He was a normal teenager who dated a girl slightly younger than himself. Had she been a few months older the whole thing would have been outside the control of the State. But in this case she was just under 16 and he was just over 17 by only 12 days. That meant he was charged with "fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving force or coercion."

The girl's mother said she didn't want them dating and turned in Freeman merely to stop the dating because she couldn't figure out how else to prevent it. She is one stupid woman who is now trying to stop the injustice she started.

You may remember that I have previously warned that sex offenses involving force don't mean that force is involved. That is how politicians twist the laws so people think things happened that didn't happen. A sexual offense may be entirely free of force yet still be defined as violent by the government sex police. It is automatically assumed to be violent if the "victim" (read willing partner) is under the age set by politicians. Even the girl's mother admits: "My daughter was a willing participant." The mother has now written a letter on behalf of Freeman asking the state to remove him from the sex offender registry. She says: "He's not given a chance to live and become an upstanding citizen."

Freeman admitted he had sex with his girl friend and that meant he became a registered sex offender. He pleaded guilty on the advice of a public defender. After his conviction he was ordered by the State to stay away from his girlfriend. It wasn't her order but the government's, they said she was a victime. He tried to see her and was considered in violation of parole. Remember the State lies by calling the girl a "victim" even if she was a willing participant in a relationship she wanted. This is how they feed the hysteria. They talk about "victims" when no victim actually exists and pretend there is violence when no violence or force was used. They pretend adolescent are children when they clearly are not children. Our sex offender laws are built on deceiving the public about who is actually being arrested and for what. They intentionally create false impressions to feed the fear that keeps the sex police bureaucracy going.

Freeman then did something really stupid. He shoplifted some computer game. That was a second violation of parole. He was now on the edge and trying to be very careful. His mother moved the family to a new house. Like hundreds of thousands of innocent families they are restricted as to where they are allowed to live under the sexual apartheid of the sex offender registries. They are zoned out of entire sections of town because Matthew is now an evil "sex offender" because of his teenage romance.

Freeman's mother, Yolanda, went to the police before moving to her new home. She was told by the police that the home in question was approved for her evil son. That said "it shouldn't be a problem" to live there. So Freeman registered with the police for the vile sex offender registry giving the address that the police had approved.

That put Freeman's name and address on the registry and some frustrated housewife, with nothing better to do than feed her own paranoia, was browsing the registry. She found Freeman. She saw that he lived 400 yards from the school that his young sister attends. And she read the registry precisely the way the politicians designed it to be read: wrongly. The hysterical woman called police in a panic to tell them that a violent, child rapist, lived "directly" across from the school. Again note that there was no child—merely a girl friend barely more than a year younger than Freeman himself. There was no rape, just consenting sex between two adolescents. And there was no violence, the state just calls it violent to scare the bejeesus out of gullible members of the public. Even the original police report clearly states that the girl was "not forced to commit any act" nor "did she ask him not to commit any act." No force of any kind, yet the politicians define this as violence. (Note that when they threaten you with violence, if you don't pay taxes, they define that as "voluntary compliance.")

Matthew was playing basketball in front of his house when the police showed up to arrest him. The Freeman family protested that the police themselves had approved the house. No matter say the authorities. If the police screw up they aren't responsible—Freeman is. So now he faces a year in jail for living precisely where the police had told him it was fine to live.

Of course the local prosecutor, a bureaucrat named Steve Hiller, gives the usual lying response when questioned by the press about the case. This political low-life says that arresting Freeman was a matter of "public safety" which is of "paramount concern" to anyone seeking higher office. He piously claims "This particular law is in place to protect children, so that's obviously a very serious matter." What an asswipe! The law doesn't protect children. There is not scintilla of evidence that offender zoning laws protect anyone. All they do is harass people. There not a shred of evidence that Freeman poses a threat to children. He was never sexually interested in children. He was a teenage boy who had sex with his teenage girlfriend, who was barely a year younger than himself. Hiller is lying through his eye-teeth.

But these sex offender laws are precisely that: lies built on a foundation of falsehood, perpetuated by myths and politically-induced hysteria, promoted by low-life politicians like Hiller. Even the girl's mother, who started the problem by calling the police, says what is being done to Freeman is wrong and she wants the State to bud out.

Case after case, of teens being arrested for normal teenage sexual behavior, are arising due to the laws that were passed in response to the hysteria of the 1990s about purely imaginary Satanic child sexual abuse. Since then those ill-conceived laws have expanded. These laws are not protecting the kids! They are victimizing the kids!

Anyone who thinks these laws are protecting teens from sexual abuse are either uninformed, brainless, or lying. The politicians know what these laws are doing. The police know what these laws are doing. And they are hiding the truth from the public. If the parents of America understood what these sex Nazis are doing to America's young, these worthless bureaucrats would be strung up from the nearest lamp post Mussolini-style — and rightfully so. Now you know why I want to punch the lights out of anyone who publicly uses the "it's for the kids" excuse for their political agenda—it's the kids they hurt.

Photo: Mussolini and his mistress.

The Pee-nal code and sex crimes.

I was reading a website earlier today that mentioned the infamous photos of Prince William, or Billy Windsor as I prefer to call him—not because I know him, just because I’m not big on royal families—in spite of my elder aunt telling me that my maternal lineage goes back to the Carolingians (she promised to send the family tree—we'll see).

The infamous photos were taken at a polo match. Billy Windsor needed to heed the call of nature so he ran over to a fence and whipped out the royal jewels. Of course, the paparazzi were not far behind. Actually, in this case they were in front. And the royal willy was put on display to the entire world.

I had read about this when it happened, and of course, seen the photos. They were everywhere at the time and still easily found via Google (go ahead, you know you want to.)

But today, when I read a mention of the incident, I was reminded of other articles I have posted here. You see Prince William could be classified as a sex offender in many parts of the United States because of his use of the Royal Wee. (Pun intended.)

In Arizona the civil code says anyone who is convicted of public urination two times, if there was someone under 15 in the area, is a sex offender. You get three public pees, provided no one under 15 is around, before you become a sex offender. The odd thing is that public bathrooms are just that—public. Some urinals, especially at state run rest stops are merely troughs against a wall where what you are doing is openly visible to individuals of all ages. Apparently a 14-year-old seeing a pee at the trough is not "victimized" but if he sees the same thing on the side of the road he is a victim in need of counseling. If you empty a full bladder outside a smelly government toilet you become a sex offender. Similarly urination in public is a sex crime in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire , Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont.

A year ago the Eagle-Tribune in New Hampshire reported that two state legislators were trying to end the law. As one lawmaker pointed out, in relation to hunters, there are no toilets in the woods. A bear may shit in the woods, but if you pee there you are sex offender. The odious Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act, pushed by the fanatical John Walsh, means that public urination in the state had to be treated as a serious sex offense.

Over two decades ago Juan Matamoros got a ticket in Massachusetts for taking a pee. Twenty-one years later he was happily living in Florida with his wife and two kids. The state government forced him to pack up his family and move since that one full bladder, years earlier, meant he was considered a sex offender and he had to comply with the sex offender zoning laws. These laws are intended to make all sex offenders miserable for the rest of their lives—a sort of perpetual, never-ending punishment for all the serious sex offenses that the politicians have criminalized—such as peeing outside, streaking, consenting sex between teens, sexting, etc.

A little more information on Mr. Matamoros shows how out of control sex offender laws have become. In 1986 Matamoros was a bit tipsy and took a pee next to a car. Three people saw this and he was fined for the act. Local sex laws say he is not allowed to live near a school, bus stop, park, playground or day-care center. He was living near three parks and one day-care center. So he was told to move to areas that comply with the law. Remember the law is forbidding him to be near areas where children may be found even though his “offense” had nothing to do with children, only a full bladder.

Also consider that the law meant he had to pack up his wife and sons. He was being required to moves his two children into a neighborhood with an unusually high percentage of “sex offenders” because the zoning laws concentrated them there. And it was the only place he and his family could legally live.

A law blog reports on sex offender laws in Georgia saying:

In almost every case, all registered sex offenders are treated equally, regardless of whether they were convicted of child rape or public urination. No sex offender may live within 1,000 feet of a child care facility, church, school, or "area where minors congregate." Those areas are defined as: parks, recreation facilities, playgrounds, skating rinks, neighborhood centers, gymnasiums, school bus stops, public libraries and public and community swimming pools. Adding libraries is the only change to that definition

In Oklahoma, Rep. Lucky Lamons, a former police officer, says the law “forces many offenders to live in rural areas, where they are difficult for authorities to monitor. Also, he says, it does not differentiate between real predators and the type of men he recalls arresting for urinating in public, a sex offense in Oklahoma.”

So when you read those sex offender registries, and someone is listed for lewd conduct, what do you know? Nothing! You might be dealing with some psycho who did break into a kindergarten to masturbate in front of a classroom of children—but not likely. But you could easily be dealing with someone who had to really take a whizz, got caught, and suddenly ended up in the sex offender net that is being stretched slowly across the entire country. So, if you ever once took a pee someplace when there was no bathroom available, and you were outside, then you too could be a sex offender. It was merely happenstance that prevented it in your case, while others were not so lucky.

I still contend that America’s sex laws are so badly written—the result of writing law when in a panic over exaggerated claims—that almost everyone is a sex offender today. The difference between the millions of people on the registries, and the millions of people not yet on them, is often just a matter of chance. When you took your whizz you didn’t get caught. It’s a good thing Prince William wasn’t playing polo in the United States that day—otherwise he could easily be on a sex registry list terrorizing mothers who think they can protect their kids by reading these lists.

Of course, where the sexphobic Americans criminalize urination in public the Europeans have statues for it. And not just the famous Manneken Pis in Brussels either. No doubt in the U.S. this little statue, which attracts millions of tourists, would not only be a crime but probably prosecuted as child pornography as well. Alas, I suspect the real reason for the wall on the border is that once all the borders "are secure" they can just proclaim all Americans sex criminals and call the country a prison.

Don't be thankful for this.

Contrary to the chicken littles of the world, crime in America is down, way down. Oddly, as crime rates continued to plummet in the US the number of registered sex offenders is a growth industry. As the Washington Post reports, "Sex-offender registries have grown dramatically this decade...." They report there are now 716,319 people who are official pariahs in the United States, open to public harassment or worse because their names, photos and addresses are posted online. In 2001 the number was 403,000. So, in just eight years the number of registered offenders has almost doubled. It is basically heading for a doubling each decade. Hmm, at that rate the entire population of the US should be registered sex offenders by the end of the century. In Washington, DC., where the politicians hang out, the number of registered offenders has increased by 483 percent since 2001.

One reason for this explosion is that the registries are now casting wider and wider nets. Politicians have criminalized so much human sexuality that chances are good that everyone is sex offender at some point or another in their life. All that prevents them just combining the census with the sex offender list is they haven't been efficient enough to catch everyone. One in five teens could be arrested as child pornographers for taking nude photos of themselves. Young teens who have consenting sex with each other get charged as sex offenders for molesting children. At one high school, if the law were applied as written, virtually every kid in the school would be a registered sex offender. Some girls were arrested for molesting themselves!

When these registries were started the purpose was to have a data base for law enforcement to use during crime investigations. Then some politician got the idea of making them public, which has lead to numerous problems. Then the natural imperialistic nature of bureaucracy took over and the defining of "sex offender" kept expanding. Now it is wide enough to catch just about everyone.

And all this complicates the nature of investigation real sex crimes. Those 700,000 (and climbing) Americans on the list have to register. The police have to monitor them. The vast majority are not a danger to anyone. So the police spend less and less time monitoring any individual on the list—they can only spread themselves so thin. Consider a police officer with the job of keeping track of the 40 truly dangerous sex offenders in his area. He could spend one hour per week on offender. But if the law expands so that he tracking 400 people instead the amount of time he can dedicate per offender drops significantly. And since the really dangerous offenders would be on the list in most cases, the expansion is coming largely from non-dangerous individuals being added to the list. To spend more time monitoring non-dangerous "offenders" he must spend less time monitoring truly dangerous ones. That doesn't make things safer, but more dangerous.

And unlike other crimes, when you do your time, you haven't done your time. A killer can get out of jail and there is no registry to keep track of him. But two teens who had a rumple in the backseat and got caught by Barney Fife can be put on the registry and in many states they stay there for life. No matter how many decades pass, without reoffending, sex offenders stay on that list for perpetual surveillance. In fact, in many states they won't even delete the names when the person dies.

While we should be thankful that crime has fallen dramatically we should not be thankful that the sex offender lists are growing like Topsy.

Scoundrel defenders line up here. Please!

One reason that authoritarianism continues to prosper in this country is the dangerous notion that bad laws, which ostensibly target some undesired group, are not a threat to those who do not fall within that group.

This is how liberty is destroyed. Rarely do governments pass legislation that clearly assaults the liberty of everyone at the same time—to accomplish that they first have to terrify the public over some imagined monster. While that does happen, witness the odious Patriot Act as a prime example, most liberty is whittled away by slivers, not by large chunks.

To whittle liberty down, the politicians must target some group that the majority of people are loath to defend. Once the new legislation is in place, the net it casts grows wider and wider with each passing day. By the time the law is a threat to the majority of people, it is firmly in place and there is usually an organized special interest group that benefits from it, which will lobby strenuously to keep it, if not to expand it even further.


The drug laws are a good example of this. Most Americans do not consider themselves “drug users,” as in users of drugs who violate the law. Frances Thompson is clearly one such person. She’s a church-going granny who was startled to find armed men attacking her home one day. They were drug warriors who were in the wrong place. As they were preparing to break down Thompson’s door, a neighbor saw them and told them an elderly woman lived there who was quite law abiding, not the drug dealer they claimed they were looking for. Police told the neighbor to mind their own business and attacked Thompson’s home anyway. She was lucky—she lived.

Kathryn Johnston was not so lucky. This woman, in her 90s, was too frightened to leave her home. Police concocted false reports of drug dealing from her home to get a search warrant. They started smashing down her door. The terrified old woman pulled out a gun in self-defense and started shooting. The police killed her. There were no drugs. There was no drug dealer. And all the “evidence” the police had presented to prove there was, was a lie. As we have shown here, this sort of killing of people who have nothing to do with drugs is not uncommon. The police have the power the kill and they just aren’t very careful about they use it.

We have documented numerous cases where laws that are passed, because the politicians say it will protect “the children” from sexual exploitation, are used to actually arrest children for mutually consenting sex with their peers. Kids who take nude photos of themselves get arrested and charged with manufacturing child pornography. The law has gone haywire on the issue.

Easily somewhere around half of all American adolescents could be arrested and convicted as sex offenders, not because they are rapists, but because they are engaged in the sort of sexual experimentation common to teens for all of recorded history.

But a lot of people aren’t teens, and don’t have kids, so they don’t give a fuck what happens. They can’t be the target, can they?

Consider the terror that Harry Berlin, described as “ 71 years old, frail, and, frankly, petrified” has to endure. Berlin moved into an apartment and suddenly found himself the victim of constant harassment and vandalism. Apparently the state of Nevada listed his address as being the home of a “sex offender.” These sex offender registries list the address as belonging to a man who had been arrested for having some child porn. But it wasn’t Berlin. No matter to the vigilantes the registries encourage.

The Las Vegas Sun reports:

“Now whenever the Web site gets TV attention, Berlin says, people come looking for Risdon. Maybe to rough him up. Or at least give him a good scare. Instead, they terrorize Berlin.

Depending on whom you ask, this is either a disturbing example of why the Web site should be taken down or an inevitable and easily remedied occurrence when dealing with sex offenders.

Berlin tried to get his address removed from the web site since no sex offender lived there. The Sun says his “complaint was suffocating in a bureaucratic morass.” The state told him to talk to the city, the city told him to talk to the state. Neither wanted to talk to him. So this elderly, innocent man is constantly victimized by vigilantes encouraged to find his apartment because the police are quite happy to hand out the address on-line.

The police are pretty ho-hum about it. They don’t care that innocent people get harassed—hell, they enjoy doing that when on duty, so why deny the public the same sort of entertainment. Sgt. Steve Rossi, who runs the Vegas program, says the police aren’t responsible. He claims that the sex offenders are supposed to report their current address or when they move. If they don’t do it, you can’t expect the police to worry about it. And he points out that site has a disclaimer telling people not to harass people at the addresses in question. You have got to be fucking kidding me! Any moron knows that a disclaimer like that will have no impact whatsoever on the people reading the registry.

Because the number of “crimes” that qualify one for the sex registry have grown like Topsy, the police say they can’t go out and actually check the data that they publish on-line. The city registry has a statement saying they can “not verify, warrant, vouch or confirm the accuracy of the data posted and makes no warranties whatsoever that the data is accurate or timely when posted by the related agency.” So, of what use is it? These disgusting registries were created because the politicians said the public “had a right” to accurate information on “dangerous sex offenders” (which now includes large numbers of non-dangerous individuals who got caught in badly written laws). But the registries are wrong. They contain bad information. They have even been known to list people as convicted sex offenders who were not.

Only when the press started sniffing around this one case did Harry Berlin get the police to actual remove his address from the list. But that’s just one error fixed. As the laws expand through the invention of new “sex crimes,” thousands and thousands of additional people are placed on the list. Tens of thousands move. Address changes get lost, neglected or typed in wrongly. And the numbers of innocent people living at addresses supposedly marked with the Scarlet O (for offender) grows.

Harry Berlin is lucky. He got out alive and he eventually got the police to correct the error. But people on those sex offender lists have been executed by vigilantes using the on-line information to find their victims. As errors accumulate on the lists it is only a matter of time before vigilantes kill the “wrong person.”

In the cases I know about, an older man was killed by a neighbor who saw the man’s name on the sex offender list. The killer said he had to do it to protect his children from a potential child rapist. The man’s offense had nothing to do with children. The neighbor didn’t realize that. A young man in Maine was executed at his front door, in front of his mother. His crime was that his girlfriend was slightly underage when they, both in their teens and of similar ages, had sex. The killer assumed this meant the young man was a child rapist.

Just because you aren’t a sex offender (which may just mean you were lucky, since the laws are so broad that I suspect half the country is guilty of one sex crime or another), doesn’t mean the sex offender laws won’t harm you. Harry Berlin was no offender yet he suffered for years. Kathryn Johnston is dead because of the drug laws, laws I suspect she would have approved of, and which she did not violate. No matter how “innocent” she was she is dead because of them.

H.L. Mencken warned us. He said: “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

There are a lot of libertarians who, to placate the conservatives, don’t want to spend much time “defending scoundrels.” For P.R. purposes they think it best to avoid those issues. “After all, most Americans aren’t scoundrels, so why should we bother? Let’s stick with issues that bother everyone, like taxes, and avoid the contentious issues that get people upset.” So they avoid them. And the webs that the government spiders weaves just grows bigger and more numerous every day. Sure, some real cockroaches get stuck in the web, but a growing number of butterflies and Ladybugs get trapped as well. But the “moderate” libertarians keep quiet since they don’t want to be seen as defending cockroaches. And so it goes. Liberty is undermined more each day, and cowardly libertarians are often the accomplices of that process.

Carrie Prejean is a child pornographer.

I am shocked. I just realized that Carrie Prejean, the pin-up girl (literally) of the Religious Righ,t is a self-confessed child pornographer!

By now it is well known that this moralistic, preachy busybody not only did raunchy pin-up photos but she also made a pornographic video tape of herself, all while she was a born-again Christian who wants to deny gay people rights because of "God's morality." Anyone know how to spell hypocrite? I doubt Carrie does.

I didn't follow the Prejean porn tape matter that closely. But, in one of the sites I read daily, there was a video of her being interviewed. She gave her typical weepy, "I'm a victim" speech and then she tried to justify her porn tape by "taking full responsibility for it" and mentioning she was 17-years-old when she made the tape for her boyfriend.

Let's ignore the fact that God's law, according to her, wouldn't allow her to be naked with a boyfriend at any age (only a husband) but what about the government's law? Under U.S. law any erotic video. of the nature that Prejean admits she made. is considered child pornography unless the performer is over the age of 18. By her own admission Prejean was under 18 years of age when she made the video.

This blog has covered the cases of numerous teens who have been arrested and convicted for child pornography for doing precisely what Prejean did. Those teens are forced to become registered sex offenders and face punishment for the rest of their lives. So, exactly why is Prejean exempt from the law that is imposed on all these other teens?

Common sense says she was not a child and the tape is not child porn. But the law doesn't rely on common sense, it relies on what politicians think they need to get reelected, not on rationality. Is Carrie Prejean exempt from the law? She admits she made the video. She admits she was under age when she did so. She admits it is pornographic. Legally she is an admitted child pornographer and, by law, ought to be on the sex offender registry as well.

But there are double standards. If she were just some oversexed high school boy taking a 3 second video of his girlfriend's breast, the prosecutors would be all over the case. She's a darling of the Religious Right. But, if the prosecutor did take her confession of being a child pornographer seriously, and did prosecute her according to the law would the Religious Right defend her? I would. But would they?

So far it appears no one, except this blogger, has noticed the fact that Prejean violated laws on child pornography. The women at The View, who were speaking to her when she made her confession, didn't seem shocked or horrifed and didn't think she was a child pornographer. The reason that no is noticing is because people are using common sense to consider the matter, not the legislation. Yet, others are selectively prosecuted under this law for doing things far less graphic than what Prejean admits doing. That Prejean's status as a sex offender is being ignored so far is an indication of exactly how out of sync our sex laws are with what the average person thinks. And it is the laws which need changing.

Photo: Carrie Prejean with her Bible, looking for a loophole.

Naked Pumpkinhead joggers are sex offenders say police.

This video depicts a rather odd Halloween activity in Boulder, Colorado. It is the annual Naked Pumpkinhead Run where naked joggers put a pumpkin on their head and run through the streets. What you will see above is last year's Run. This year it didn't happen. Apparently this silly prank is not consider a "sex crime" by the local police and anyone caught in this activity will be arrested as dangerous sex offenders. Anyone still think those sex offender registries actually mean anything? According to the Wall Street Journal the police chief has decided to crack down on this horrible crime.

So he intends to stop it.

He will station more than 40 officers on the traditional four-block route tonight, with two SWAT teams patrolling nearby. All have orders to arrest gourd-topped streakers as sex offenders.

Last year the police also decided to act but only ticketed runners and most charges were later dropped or reduced to disorderly conduct. This year the police chief decided that the runners were actually dangerous sex offenders who had to be apprehended. According to the report the entire city council and the mayor all disagree with the actions of the police. But since when do elected officials make the rules? In the new America the police make the rules. What do they call that again?

Also consider that nudity per se is not actually illegal in Boulder. The Journal writes, "the city has had a long, proud history of nudity." So the police, who now run the town apparently, decided that the run amounts to indecent exposure—once again the idea that the human body is indecent, a very sick concept if you think about it, has reared its very ugly head. That laws states that it is a crime to expose one's genitals in circumstance "likely to caused affront or alarm." Please note that only the genitals can be exposed in such a manner. Quite honestly I suggest more fists have been displayed in a way that causes alarm than genitals but waving a fist in public is not a crime.

The absurdity of the police threat is that they know this run does not cause "affront or alarm." In fact, it is held late at night, after children have gone to bed. And the streets line up with people there with the purpose of watching the run. Clearly the throngs of willing viewers are neither alarmed or affronted.

The Journal also reports: "Those convicted of indecent exposure rarely get jail time, but they must register as sex offenders, just as rapists do. Which seems a bit excessive to Boulder Country District Attorney Stan Garnett."

Remember that these Pumpkinhead joggers would be registered sex offenders. They would be listed in the registry with their photos and their home addresses listed. They would be restricted on where they could live. They would be forbidden to have certain jobs. They would be required to register with the police and forbidden to engage in Halloween activities in the future—due to allegedly being a threat to children.

Three people, wearing shorts did run on Halloween night. Police, couldn't see what was happening for sure and that prompted "officers to descend on the area." With SWAT teams on the ready to arrest joggers, and hell, maybe shoot a few for sport, the police were ready. They also simply closed parking garages so people had no where to park and couldn't attend the party. Police even were stationed on rooftops to keep an eye out for Naked Pumpkinheads.

Remember that these joggers would have been listed for indecent exposure. They would have been listed int he same category as a flasher masturbating in front of a group of shoppers. When you read the "offense" in the registry the wording is always kept vague and general so readers DO NOT KNOW the actual circumstances, even if they think they do. In one case a man who had been listed as an offender for being too aggressive with an adult woman was murdered by a neighbor. The neighbor said he had to do kill the man since he was on the registry that meant the man was a threat to the children in the neighborhood. In Maine, a teen who had consenting sex with his girlfriend, was put on the registry. He was later executed on his doorstep by a vigilante who pulled his name and address off the web site for sex offenders.

Just this week I read a story in my local paper of a man who was arrested and found guilty of sexually molesting a boy. What caught my attention was that the offense was vaguely listed and it said that the "crime" could have taken place in 1974. Based on the man's age that would have made him 12-years-old at the time. Decades ago, as a child himself, he "molested" another kid and now will be listed on the sex registry with a current photo. We don't know the circumstances of the offense because, as usual, the facts are hidden from the public. But when people see the photo they will see a guy in his late 40s, and read he molested a child. Few will know he was child and none will know the circumstances.

Why do people think this registries actually provide useful information?

Lenore Skenazy on our column.

The feedback from the column on teenage "sex offenders" continues to be mostly positive. Syndicated columnist Lenore Skenazy is the most recent to mention the essay in her column of Sept 17th. Coincidentally I had just finished reading Skanzy's own book, Free-Range Kids, a short while ago. Her publisher had sent me a copy and I sat down immediately to read it through. My only problem with it is that it seems that what she is saying is so obvious I'm still having a hard time believing people need to hear it. But apparently there are a lot of irrational, fear-driving adults out there.

Skenazy made the news herself when she wrote a column about her son nine-year-old son Izzy. Izzy told his mother he was confident that he could find his way around on the New York City transit system and asked permission to go with her downtown and find his own way back, without her. She agreed. Izzy had no problems whatsoever and easily found his way back. Skenazy wrote about this and the hysterics and panic-driven launched into overdrive attacking her as an awful mother daring to give her kid freedom. Doesn't she know that children must be constantly monitored for ever second of the day due the high chance of something awful happening—abductors, rapists, murderers, vampires, meteors, space aliens, etc? There are just some people who seem to get a kick out of being in a panic about something. And Skenazy pissed them off because, while she apprehensions, she didn't share the shear panic that such hysterics get high from.

Skenazy wrote about a blog radio interview she did recetly about "sex registries" and said she had "written that these lists are rife with folks who've committed such 'sex crimes' as peeing public, visiting a prostitute or even streaking—in other words, folks who don't pose much of a threat to kids." She told her readers: "So rather than making our kids safe from predators, the registry is turning them into "predators." It's labeling them that! Boys as young as 14 [actually Lenore, it is much younger] can find themselves on the registry for years—for decades—and our rationale? It's 'for the sake of the children.'" Amen, Sister Lenore, I'm with you.

She then urgers readers to go to freestudents.blogspot.com, that's us. So, if you came here as a result of that column welcome. The article you are looking for can be found here.

I am sure that Ms. Skenazy will get some rather unpleasant hate mail as a result of her column. But she got that merely for letting her son ride the subway on his own. Good lord, I once walked a couple of miles as a small child to find my father—successfully. On another occassion, even younger, I walked from my parents home to my grandmother's across several busy streets. I knew where I was going and got there. (Oddly years later, I mentioned to my mother and grandmother that I had just gone to look at the first house we lived in -- which I moved from when I was five. They both insisted I went to the wrong house and simply couldn't remember it after so many decades. Then they realized I was right and they had gotten it wrong. I liked that.)

I'm glad she has a syndicated column and appreciate the mention. I hope she's ready for the burning at the stake.

One more piece of evidence.

It speaks for itself.

A partial listing of our material on teens, sex offending, and the infamous registries.

The recent post on teen sex offenders riled up a lot of people. Most people were horrified at what is going on. A substantial minority, however, were trying hard to justify these bad laws. Many simply claim that there is no evidence that kids are being penalized for natural, sexual activity between teens.

Their argument, limited as it was, claimed that I didn’t offer proof. That they were reading what I call my “summation to the jury” made no difference to them. They ignored reams of evidence posted on this blog merely because it wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter with the summation. But that summation of the situation, was long enough. Trying to make it a definitive discussion of the issue simply makes no sense. And readers, who were too lazy to check what else was published on the matter, really shouldn’t condemn an author because of their own failure to research the matter more thoroughly.

The purpose of this posting is merely to list the dozens of articles that tackled this topic in various ways. I will list them in categories with links. Those people who pretend that every kid on the sex offender’s registries deserves his fate are not just ignorant of the facts, but intentionally ignorant. The facts are readily available and documentation exists showing this to be a widespread problem. I can understand some of this willful blindness. If you can convince yourself that the vast majority of kids on these registries is guilty of some horrific crime, it makes life easier. You can sleep better pretending things are fine. The alternative is too upsetting for some people so they pretend.

Here are the numerous articles that make up my “evidence to the jury.” The “summation” ought to be read in light of the evidence to be properly assessed.

False Accusations

Teenage boy false accused of sexual molestation spends, is raped in prison, attacked and abused. After spending 21 years in prison he is released as innocent. Yep, they are all guilty, aren’t they


Kids and Porn

Two 11-year-old boys face felony charges for using a school computer to find porn and showing their friends. Conviction could mean sex offender list.


Teacher investigates teens for “sexting.” He confiscates one image, that showed nothing actually, and is then arrested and prosecuted as a child pornographer.

General Discussion

A look at the trend in criminalizing teenage sexuality.


Sex Offender List

How the lists are used to force “offenders” into being homeless and how that lead to one man freezing to death because he was banned from having a house.

A man steals a credit card and ends up on the sex offender registry as a result.

A high school girl gives a classmate a blow job. Years later she is still on the sex offender’s registry.

A woman is groped by a man. She tells him off. He gets worried she will report him so he reports her saying she groped him. She ends up on sex offender’s list.

Indiana considers law that makes selling “obscene” material an reason for being put on the sex offender’s list. Two more cases of voluntary teen sexuality leads to life on the sex offender’s list.

Girls who whistled at some men face potential criminal action. England considers laws that would qualify said whistlers for the sex offender’s registry.

A extremely mature looking, underage girl, lies about her age. Claims to be a divorced adult tricks two men into having sex with her as an adult. Her family reports the men who are now registered sex offenders even though the girl clearly appeared to be in her 20s and admits lying about her age.

Teen boy ends up on sex offender list for consensual sex with date. Female youth worker hugs boy. Because the hug meant her breasts touch him she is arrested and put on the sex offender’s list.

A young mother breast feeds her baby. A photo of this is taken by her husband. They are arrested for child pornography and forced into sex offender therapy.

Boys play “slapping” game at school, arrested for sexual harassment and jailed. The kids all thought it was a game but the State thought otherwise. More here.

Racy photos from an Abercrombie & Fitch ad campaign gets store raided for child pornography.

Sex offender registries make reoffending more likely, thus leading to more crimes, not less. Individuals on said list include people arrested for gay sex (before it was legal), and a prisoner who masturbated in his own cell. Numerous cases itemized here.

Sex Offender Registries used by vigilantes to find victims to murder.

Teens go on sex offender list for consenting sex. One young man, added to the list for sex with his girlfriend, is murdered by a vigilante who used the sex offender’s list to find his victim.

Teenage boys finds computer controlled by malware, faces prosecution as a sex offender. The Matt Bandy case. More here, here, here, here and here.

Teenage boy faces sex offender list for streaking a school event.

Priest jogs around track in the nude, in the middle of the night, by himself. Police drive by, notice him, arrest him and he’s now a sex offender.

Man in jail cell masturbates and charged as a sex offender for doing so.

Two kids have consensual sex with each other. Both are arrested for "molesting" the other.

Two girls arrested for molesting themselves.

Four-year-old's hug deemed sexual harassment.

Sexting

Six teens are arrested in Pennsylvania as “child pornographers” for images of themselves. One school based police officer claims half to 2/3rds of teens have such images. These teens, when convicted end up on the sex offender registries.

A survey of American teens shows that about one in five are legally guilty of violating child porn laws because of sexting. All these kids qualify as sex offenders no matter where they live.

Teens have sex in a car and use cell phone to record it for 30 seconds (not much was actual shown). The police get wind of it and the teens are arrested and charged with child pornography. That would make them sex offenders.

A teenage girl photographs herself nude and sends the photo to a teenage boy. The boy is arrested on child porn charges.

A 15-year-old girl in Ohio takes a photo of herself nude. She is arrested as a child pornographer for “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material”. She faces the sex registry as a result.

Police imply that all students at one local high school are guilty of sex offenses for sexting or possessing said images.

Sex Panics and Kids

Study shows that few kids receive sexual solicitations on-line and most who do are older teens who used the Internet to look for sexual partners.

Even looking in the direction of children is deemed by some to be a perversion requiring regulation and police intervention.

Two elderly women want to take photos of children playing and are harassed by the police as potential pedophiles.

Sarah Palin’s daughter was pregnant and her boyfriend was the father. No charges in Alaska, but he would have faced sex charges in numerous other states and been subjected to the sex registry for it.

A 4-year-old boy hugged a teacher and is thrown out of school for sexual harassment. Another school disciplines two girls who hugged each other, calling it “inappropriate” touch.

Police officer humiliates teen girls in front of school to prove the internet is a dangerous place for kids. Proves cops are dangerous to kids as well.

Man is prosecuted for taking photos of a cheerleaders at a public exhibition. Police claim it is child pornography even if the girls are dressed. Man stupidly accepts plea bargain.

A small boy is listed for sexual harassment because he slapped another student’s butt. The police were called by the school for the offense. Hundreds of kids are so accused each year.

School covers faces of all students in on-line photos to “protect” them from imagined predators.

Ten-year-0ld suspended for asking for hug.

Kids and internet porn, are they accidentally viewing it, or looking for it.

Teacher loses control of classroom computer and arrested as sex offender. More here and here.

Five-year-old suspended for sexual harassment.

Erotophobia

How our culture cultivates an anti-sexual attitude.

Politicians want to add "elderly" to laws on child pornography making photos of old people a sex crime.

Selling dildos a sex offense. And here, here and here.

Male dancers (clothed) arrested for pelvic thrust.

Wow and Triple Wow

The post I wrote about the anger and sadness I felt when looking at the photos of so-called, teenage "sex offenders" has gone viral. I honestly did not expect the response I received. Since this blog was created I have commented on this issue numerous times. I did so previously with sources referenced so people could verify what I said. That got very little attention.

Regular readers here were horrified by the stories but it rarely went beyond the confines of this little blog. The comments from a few days ago was not a dispassionate discussion of the issues. It wasn't filled with links to sources for verification. It was merely a summation of my own feelings, as they have jelled over this issue, based on years worth of accumulated evidence. It was raw and emotional—that got attention.

Wendy McElroy, a friend of this blog, noted it on her blog iFeminist. Radley Balko, at The Agitator, mentioned it as well. He called the post "one of the more moving blog posts I've read in a long time" and said the photos were "crushing." Truly, they are. That is how I felt when I first saw them myself. Several other sites started picking up the article as well. Earlier today Andrew Sullivan mentioned it on his blog. It got on some of the social networking sites and has gone viral. Since lunch today we have had new readers on the site at the rate of one every 2 seconds.

Now I discover that Dr. Christopher Ryan has written a piece at Psychology Today using the blog post as the foundation for it. He writes:

Adolescents all over the country are getting into serious legal trouble for sexting one another: snapping a risqué photo of themselves with their cell-phone and sending it to a friend. Turns out, in many states, these kids can be sent to prison (where sexual abuse is rampant) for photographing their own bodies (manufacturing child pornography) and sharing the photos (distributing child pornography). They're being forced to register as sex offenders despite the fact that they themselves are the victims. Being freaked-out about sex isn't just sad and ridiculous. It leads directly to horrible abuse of people who aren't responsible for the twisted sexuality of adults.

In watching the explosion of visitors I could do some basic monitoring of who is on the blog. There were visits from the U.S. Senate as well as the House of Representatives.

There have been some issues raised which I commented on briefly in the comments section and in an update. Let me do so again here. First, some noted no females. Originally I came across the photos on another site, it was there that I first saw them. I used what they had gleaned from the records. I used them because they had the bars over the eyes to try and help protect the identity of these boys and it would be quite time-consuming to do that with photos I pulled from the registry sites. I spent some hours on two sex registries where I was able to sort "offenders" roughly by their age. In the course of that research I looked at hundreds of cases. Not one of the cases I saw on-line, at two registries, had a girl in the teenage section, that I saw.

I did stop looking after a couple of hours of depressing reading. I know that their are girls on the registry. But the law is mainly enforced against boys, not against girls. And I for one, hope the legal system doesn't start doing this to girls as well. I want equal justice, not equal injustice.

The other fact which was brought up at Obsidian Wings was that most the boys appear to be white though one "may be Hispanic." Again, since they were borrowed from another site I was using what I had, but my time on the registry offender sites showed me that the overwhelming majority of boys being arrested are white, or appear to be. (The use of Hispanic to denote race is very loose and imprecise and should be avoided. Hispanic is a language group not a race. Many Hispanics are black, many are white, many are Indian, many are mixed ethnicity. How it got used for race I don't know, but it is confusing.) With 50 registries the percentage of whites on a list may vary with the percentage of whites in the state. One state I looked at is clearly a very white state, but the other is quite mixed. Even in that state I saw few dark faces.

Why that is, I'm not sure. Certainly the adult sex offenders are far more racially mixed. Perhaps teenage sexuality is not viewed the same way in the minority communities. Perhaps it is white America that is horrified at teen sex more than others and thus more likely to report such incidents. I don't know. I sure hope the law is not equally applied to racial minorities. I want these laws changed not enforced equally.

Obsidian Wings wonders if the fact that these boys look like us made the story more emotionally compelling. Perhaps. I don't actually care why it got attention, I'm just thrilled it did. These laws are a blight on America. The true child molesters were the people who passed these laws and who enforce them. And I want people to realize this is happening.

Some dismissed the language as flowery—I take that to mean it that words were used which they don't understand. But, you know what? It worked. It got noticed where the previous articles, with the sources scrupulously linked, got ignored. If it takes flowery language and emotion to get people to sit up and notice a horrible injustice around us, they damn me for it, but I'll use all the flowery words and emotions I can muster. Unlike most the laws justified by this term, I can really say, "It's for the kids." It really is for them.

A film producer from California is interested in producing a documentary based on the evidence we have presented in this blog about this issue. I know others who feel the same way and want to see this project. The funds that need to be raised to produce it are $100,000. If you would like to help with that (and I believe we can get you a tax credit for any donations) or if you think you should be interviewed for the project, please email the project at documentarykids@gmail.com. Someone will be in touch.

A list of the numerous articles previously posted on this topic can now be found here. This is not a complete list but fairly complete and documents the claims made on this blog.

There is a fury and and sadness inside that I cannot express.

This is not the blog entry I intended to write. Something very disturbing happened to me that has forced me to change my topic completely. It is not a new topic, but it is one that hit me with a new sense of urgency. I saw an image earlier today, while reading an article that someone suggested to me. That image broke me down emotionally.

I looked at it for a second and turned away, not because it was horrific or grotesque, but because another few seconds of viewing it and I would have been sitting in my office in tears. Even now I fear adding the image to my blog because of the impact it had on me—it is so disturbing to me that I literally wish to avoid looking at it again, even if to share it with you. I will force myself to do it. I know that I am compelled to do it because of the great injustice that is being done.

I just wish it were not necessary. I just wish I knew how to speak so people understood this issue. Between the tears all I feel is rage, an uncontrollable rage. I want to grab our “society” by the shoulders, shake it violently, and scream at the top of my voice: “Don’t you fucking understand what you are doing? How can you let this happen? How can you demand that it happen?”

Here is the photo. I’ve looked at it again. I can’t look at it and type at the same time, it is too upsetting. This boy is one of the many kids that our society says are sex offenders. The interfering politicans, the would-be Nannies and do-gooders, passed ill-conceived laws to protect our young, and instead, they are devouring the young and sacrificing them to the god of safety.
What was once considering a normal rite of passage, typical curiosity that the newly sexualized young have about themselves, their bodies, and the bodies of others, has become a heinous crime. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again—a warning most heeded for at least another few years, after which time warnings were useless. Today, it has been criminalized, and criminalized in a way far exceeding crimes of violence. A youth who has sex with another youth, even if voluntary, could well face legal sentences far worse than if they had killed their friend.

Consider two young people, confused by their own budding sexuality, curious as to the dynamics of sex, terrified by it, but drawn to it anyway. Nature, or God, if you prefer, built the human body so that that the young are flooded with hormones that inspire lust and a need for release. Perhaps the mind is not ready to grasp what is happening, but the body demands it. At the very least, it is NOT very intelligent design. But it is what it is. Wishing won’t make it different.

These two young people seek some seclusion. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” Nervous hands unzip zippers. Tentative touching, complete silence as they forget to even breathe. A door suddenly opens. They try to cover up. They don’t understand why they did it or what it means. That is part of what they were trying to figure out. Something from deep within compelled them to seek something they didn’t understand. Perhaps they are too young to fully understand.

These days we let the special interest groups and politicians terrorize us about the “threat to our children.” We have passed hundreds of ill-conceived pieces of legislation “to protect our children.” Now we are sacrificing our children on the very political altars that we helped build.

Just as Abraham was willing to tie up his beloved son, Isaac, and stab a knife into the boy’s chest as a sacrifice to his God, the American public has made their children a sacrifice to the god of big government. We have allowed the politicians, no—we didn’t allow it, we demanded that the politicians abuse and torture thousands of children per year because we were afraid of monsters that we imagined, far worse than those that really lurked in our neighborhoods. To solve a bad, but thankfully small problem, we decided to take a sledgehammer to it.

One can always kill flies with sledgehammers. It’s very effective. It will kill the fly. But in the process the damage that is done is far worse than the problem that it solves. To protect our kids we take sledgehammers to them and smash their lives.

Consider what happens today to the sexually inquisitive young. The intruding adult feels compelled to take this private matter and make it a case of the criminal law. The sledgehammer is called in. No matter that no violence or threats were used. No matter that both “victims” were very willing partners in crime.

In our new bizarre world of sexual offender legislation each child is a victim and a perpetrator. As the victim, they get no help, of course. The victim status is the excuse needed so that the sledgehammer may be used on the other child. So each becomes a perpetrator. They will be arrested; they will be forced into court. They are likely to be convicted and sentenced. They may be placed into the various prisons for children that have been established—places where they will learn what unwilling, sexual attacks are really like. They will be tortured by therapists and eventually released—maybe. Even that is no longer guaranteed under our sex panic. Today, someone who has served their sentence can then be held in preventative detention for the rest of their natural life because the mob demands it. And the politicians give the mob what it wants.

If our children happen to be released then the real torture begins. They are branded by the cruel laws that opportunistic politicians imposed to satisfy fearful voters. First, the child will be photographed. His or her photo will be published for the world to see, much like the poor boy above. The government hit lists, called sex offender registries, will tell any would-be vigilante where to find this child. The address will be given, if the child is lucky enough to be able to live at home, and not institutionalized.

The sex offender laws will kick in and are guaranteed to destroy any ambition your child may have for success. Any attempts to better themselves, or become productive members of your community, will be throttled by these laws. Every road they try to pursue will become a dead end. It may be impossible for them to finish school. Any job they seek will require them to reveal their “sex offender” status to their employer. Any curious neighbor can find out the “crime” that was committed, though not the circumstances. Years down the road, this child, now an adult, will be listed as someone who committed lewd acts on a child. People will imagine an adult raping a child, not two children playing doctor.

Each time the child moves the police will help him feel welcomed by handing out fliers to the neighbors warning them that a “sex offender” is now living nearby. Rocks thrown through windows can be mild compared to some welcomes that are given. One young man in Maine, opened his door to be executed on the spot, by a stranger. His crime was that he, as a teen, had sex with his girlfriend. In puritanical America that is enough to make him a sex offender. For that he was murdered with his mother only a few feet away. In jurisdiction after jurisdiction this “offender” will find that most of the community is zoned off limits to him. He can’t live too close to a school, too close to a park, too close to a bus stop, too close to…., the list is almost endless and growing all the time.

Every so often he will be required to visit the police and report to them. They may show up at his home anytime they want and demand to inspect it. He could be banned from social networking websites, or from the Internet completely.

If you child grows up to have a family, a normal relationship will be forbidden. He may well be banned from all activities at his children’s school. They may be in a play; he won’t be allowed to watch it. If the kids play on a sport’s team, their father won’t be allowed to attend. Ditto for Little League. Forget having friends over for a birthday party. Dad is a pariah until he dies and his children, and his wife, will be forced to endure the torture with him.

The lucky ones barely manage to hold on. Those who are not so lucky simply end their lives. Others have the option of suicide robbed from them by vigilantes. They quickly learn to give up ambitions and dreams. To excel in life is not possible. To merely survive is hard enough. And some, robbed of all normality, robbed of all hope, mentally and emotionally raped by the state, decide they may as well become the monsters that they are imagined to be.

It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids “moon” a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a “child pornographer” for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a “victim.” One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week’s difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.

These laws are not so much protecting children from predators as they are turning them into predators. Look at this chart (see note at bottom of article). Individuals who are legally defined as sex offenders. When you look at the ages of the offenders you see that 14-year-olds are apparently the most sexually dangerous group in America. The rate declines from there, but throughout adolescence the law is far more likely to deem kids as offenders. You may imagine the dirty old man down the street. But with age people are less likely to “offend”. One reason is that they are more mature. But another reason is clear. Once you reach a certain age, having sex with people your own age is normally not considered a crime. The explosion of “youthful sex offenders” is not the result of our kids becoming perverts. It is the result of the law criminalizing what is a normal part of growing up.

These kids are criminals, not necessarily because they violated the life, liberty or property of another person. They are criminals because the politicians defined them as criminals. These damned “family values” conservatives, and compassionate feminist Leftists, who banded together to “save the children,” turned America’s kids into sex offenders by fiat. And they feel good about it. They are satisfied by it and only wish more had been rounded up earlier. The Left wants everyone in therapy and under the perpetual care of the state, and the Right wants everyone in prison, or in fear of the law, and under the thumb of the police. And that is what is happening.

Don’t think you can even explain to your kids all the ways in which the State can turn them into sex offenders. I doubt that even a qualified attorney can do that. The laws are constantly changing, usually for the worse. The mob brays for ritual sacrifices and your child is the Isaac they want placed on the altar. They will only be happy when they see the knife plunge downward, hear the tortured scream of the child; watch the blood drain from the trembling body. Then they will be satiated, until the next Isaac comes along. Unlike Jehovah, the political mob will not stay the hand that holds the knife. They will, instead, demand bigger knives, sharper knives, and more stabs into the heart, more children on the altar, even more altars. They want someone to suffer. After all, we have to protect the children.

Damn them all. Damn John Walsh and his perverted justice. Damn the politicians who don’t give a fuck about hurting kids so long as they can win votes. Damn the hysterics in the churches, the media and the special interest groups, who preach fear to terrify the mob into searching for monsters. Damn them all. If they really want to find the monsters they only need look in the mirror. Me, I can barely look into the faces of these victims of the American witch-hunt without breaking down.

Note: These photos are real. They are kids who are marked for life and displayed on the internet, by our government, for every vigilante to hunt down. Look at them. Look at then closely. They could be your kid, your neighbor, your nephew, your little brother, or yourself at a younger age. Why do we let this happen?

UPDATE: A film producer has expressed interest in a documentary based on the accumulated evidence that this blog has produced on these sorts of cases. (This wasn't our first article on the topic just the most read one.) The estimated cost to produce a documentary on this horrendous situation is about $100,000. If you would like to help fund the film, or if you have a story that should be included, please contact the film company at documentarykids@gmail.com.

First, I want to recommend some books for those interested. You can click on the link and order them online if you want. First is Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine. The book covers some of the areas discussed in this article and a lot more. Next is Dr. Richard Epstein's book The Case Against Adolescence, which documents how society has turned adolescents into children. He argues persuasively that most adolescents are capable individuals and that treating teens like children is unwarranted and harmful. The third books is Dr. Marty Klein's work, America's War on Sex, which covers the general intrusion into sexuality by Big Brother. All can be ordered from our friends at Laissez Faire Books, or you can call and order them at 1-866-686-7210. Given that this article is pulling in a couple thousand readers per hour, you might want to order on line lest the phone lines be busy.

For a response on the impact of this article and for answers to a couple of questions, go here. A list of the numerous articles previously posted on this topic can now be found here. This is not a complete list but fairly complete and documents the claims made on this blog.

Note regarding Chart: This is to correct an error, not ours but the Department of Justice. The chart is from page 8 of a DOJ report and is marked as Figure 6. However, in typesetting, in the report, someone had made a series of charts about the "age of victim," which appear on the preceding pages. At this point in the report the information shifts to the "age of offender" but the person who labeled the charts continued with the previous label in error. This is clear when you read the report as it specifically refers to Figure 6 as showing, not the age of victims but is a "detailed age profile of offenders." It says the "greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14 (figure 6). The frequency of offenders within age groups declined gradually with age, reaching half the peak frequency by the late 30s."

Some people have latched on to the error and are claiming the error proves that this site doctored the evidence (some people are very desparate to cling to these bad laws). However, they did not read the information which appears below Figure 6 which clearly shows it is a chart of offender's ages not the ages of victims. An error was made but not here. I should also note that one person is running from site to site, which mention this article, and telling people there that the DOJ reports says statutory offenses are not included in these reports. That is not true. In the comments section I quote from two different passages of the report clearly indicating that statutory offenses are included, contrary to the claims by this person. However, even though they were given exact quotes from the report they still persist in misreporting what the contents of the report.