Digests
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Each month we put together an email digest for our members. These include updates about RSOL and other groups and events, breaking news on the sex offender registry, and articles from our blog and elsewhere. Start receiving the digest with our members by signing our statement, or by adding yourself as a non-signatory.

RSOL DIGEST, Nov. 2009, #27, Part III

By alex marbury <alexm60@fastmail.fm> Posted on 12.02.2010 Link to this digest: [0037]

RSOL DIGEST NOV 2009, #27, Part III - Continued (last section of Nov. RSOL Digest) 3. In God We Trust or A Difficult Pill To Swallow If one U.S. Congressman has his way, 2010 will be the Year of the Bible. Georgia Republican Paul Broun has introduced legislation asking the President: "to issue a proclamation calling upon citizens of all faiths to rediscover and apply the priceless, timeless message of the Holy Scripture which has profoundly influenced and shaped the United States and its great democratic form of government." Opposing Views The Representative presents a resolution that seems to be based in sound reasoning. It is true that the majority of the Founding Fathers were religious. It is also true the majority of devout among the Founding Fathers were Christian of one sect or another. On this basis, the Representative defends his resolution. Representative Broun is a Medical Doctor. That in itself presumes an extensive and broad education. Another, Sir William Blackstone was also broadly educated. Among his subjects he read in mathematics. One might wish that Representative Broun had also exercised some reading in mathematics. He then might have understood that while a square is a rectangle, a rectangle is not necessarily a square. Indeed, the Bible is an influential work. In fact, it would be more influential if more who stood on the Bible would get off of it, open it, and read it. Whether viewed as the inspired Word of God, as a complete philosophical work, as separate historical mythologies, or, as is most often the case, separate verses* of either inspired codification of the Word of God or Analects of philosophical value, the Bible is certainly influential. It is not a reach to present the Bible, in whatever form as a work of principle upon which people should interact with one another and towards whatever divinity they adhere to in life. Nevertheless, to proclaim the Bible as the founding principle of a political entity presents a conundrum. To illustrate, consider these excerpts: The Master said, "The matters of the Gods are the matters of the Gods, if men were to understand the matters of the Gods, they would be the matters of men and not Gods; the proper study of men is man." Kong Fu Tze (Confucius) (The Analects are Public Domain so I provide it for download.) Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's. (The King James Bible,or you onw one, readit. It is copyrighted so I cannot reproduce it here.) Jesus In the first instance, it supposes that a society can govern itself on the basis of the unknowable. The oft given answer to the bereaved of a lost child is, "God works in mysterious ways and we cannot understand his plan." If we cannot understand the mystery of God or God's Plan, how can we hope to govern ourselves by His Plan? Surely we can base our governance on the teachings in the Bible. Of course that would mean that we would have to restructure our entire justice system, the registry included, on forgiveness. That would certainly challenge those who want all sex offenders labeled for life and ostracized and restricted. Possibly this is what Representative Broun intends. In the second instance, there is even greater challenge. Jesus said that the things which belong to Caesar are to be given to the power of Caesar. That is simple when viewed simplistically. The parable is about a coin struck with the likeness of Caesar. But, when did Jesus ever offer simplicity? Was he not saying that there are things that are the matters of God and there are things that are matters of men? Jesus returned as a King and confused Peter and everyone else. They took the view of the Messiah as the conquering King that would bring Rome to its knees and Israel to it proper political dominance. Of course, Jesus repeatedly told them that his Kingdom was not of Earth, it was of Heaven. Indeed, Rome did not fall, witness the power of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. Further, consult any Biblical Scholar on Revelations and understand it is about the fall of one Empire, Pagan Rome, to the emergence of another Empire, Christian Rome. In fact, the American Republic was not founded on the Bible. For those who doubt, read the works of Sir William Blackstone and John Locke. These are the basis of the Constitution. The ordaining document that creates the American Republic is the Constitution of the United States of America. It is written and ratified by a predominantly Christian society. That is what makes it remarkable. Not in what it says as much as what it does not say and then emphasizes what it does not say in what it had to be amended to say so that it could be ratified. The Constitution was not ratified until the first Ten Amendments, The Bill of Rights, was appended. In preamble, the Constitution says: We The People... It does not say: One Nation Under God... (that language was inserted in the poem entitled the Declaration of Independence by its authors, the Communist Party of America.) It does not say: In God We Trust... (that language was added to the coinage by Roosevelt.) The very first amendment to the Constitution says in very clear language that the government ordained under the Constitution shall not establish a religion. It this language only to protect religious freedom? It is much more than that, it is written to prevent the government from devolving into theocracy. None of this is to deny that America, in religious terms is predominantly Christian. Though there is much dissention between the various sects of that belief system making it difficult to identify as a single philosophy. It is difficult enough to deal with the various ideologues of our primarily two party system. Imagine if Congress were divided along the lines of Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and on ad infinitum. Of course we could then expand the registries to include Pagans (the world's fastest growing religion) Daoist, Buddahists, Hindu... Still, if Representative Broun speaks to the true nature of Christianity and to the answer Jesus gave to the hysterics about the Sex Offender - Let him without sin cast the first stone... Go, and sin no more... - Then he presents legislation that can be supported. Now, when Congress ends its debate on the important issue of what to proclaim the year 2010 to be, might it be reasonable to ask that they spend just a little time on the economy, joblessness, homelessness, starving children, military adventurism, health care, and the other minor issues of government. * In point of fact, the Bible was not versified until the publication f the King James Bible in 1620 ******************************************************************************************* ________________________________________________________ 4. RSOL Goes To Sweden by Kelly R Piercy with Sandra (South Carolina) Sandra, the State Organizer for South Carolina, an RSOL Affiliate, was contacted by Magnus Arvidson, a Swedish Documentarian and Media Personality on Swedish National Radio. Sweden is considering a registry scheme, though the Swedish legislature is resistant to the idea. Magnus decided that registries needed to be investigated, understood, and openly discussed before any decision was made. Of course, Sweden does not have a registry to investigate so Magnus set out to discover what a registry is, how it works, what it accomplishes, and what effect it has. He contacted the South Carolina State Organizer for the RSOL South Carolina Affiliate from the many options available to him and, through some weeks of discussion, arranged to travel to the United States to meet with Sandra and interview her for his documentary. Sandra met with Magnus and his wife in her home town and spent time with them. Magnus took the opportunity to interview the local police and ride along with them as they went about their duties with respect to the registry. After some days, Magnus, his wife, and Sandra traveled to Georgia to meet with the RSOL State Affiliate, Georgians For Reform, State Organizer. This was the first meeting between these two State Organizers and had the dual purpose of providing information for the documentary and a new State Organizer, Sandra, meeting with an established State Organizer, Kelly. Magnus decided the best plan for his documentary was for the two organizers to discuss their work and share ideas while he functioned as a moderator. The plan was to get about an hour of tape. Alas, the plan fell through as Kelly and Sandra engaged in a conversation that lasted well over three hours. The opportunity to present factual information in a non confrontational, conversational atmosphere was more than cathartic. There was a freedom experienced by both Sandra and Kelly as they discussed strategies and tactics. Sandra brought a fresh perspective, loaded with emotion to the table while Kelly, in his somewhat jaded and cynical manner, focused on what is working for Georgia, Texas, Virginia, New Mexico, Ohio, Illinois, and other states. The initial results of the interview can be heard, half in Swedish, at: http://www.sr.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=3052&artikel=3232248 or, if you do not want to bother with the way cool Swedish radio station, you can go directly to the program at: http://www.sr.se/laddahem/podradio/sr_p3_verkligheten_091116015910.mp3 At last report, the video will be available in about 5 months. As we continue to be effective in our own states and nation, word is spreading across the globe that there is a better way to deal with this issue than the way we are dealing with it in the United States. Every opportunity to get the facts presented brings more pressure to counter those who drive the hysteria that creates this misery. I know our two State Organizers, Georgia and South Carolina will not forget the opportunity Sandra made possible with her courage to speak out. I also know that as Georgia moves forward, we will bring South Carolina along. Soon we will catch up with Florida and begin to drive a wedge into the hysteria that creates the registry from this corner of the nation. As Magnus left Georgia, his last words to Kelly were, "Keep fighting." ******************************************************************************************* ________________________________________________________ 5. Note, the click here items in this article go to: http://www.rathersandfamilies.org Parental Alienation Editor's Note: Of the major instigators of false accusation, divorce and custody rank very high. Many fathers find their struggle to make a divorce between husband and wife not mean divorce between father and children ended by accusations of abuse. Step-parents walk an ever narrower line as ex-spouse's raise accusations of abuse in their unrequited anger over divorce tainted with jealousy. Fathers & Families can be a strong resource to assist those who find themselves afoul of this circumstance. NEW CAMPAIGN: Ask DSM to Include Parental Alienation in Upcoming Edition A group of 50 mental health experts from 10 countries are part of an effort to add Parental Alienation to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association s "bible" of diagnoses. According to psychiatrist William Bernet, adding PA "would spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to a charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment." Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation. In PA cases, one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed. Fathers & Families wants to ensure that the DSM-V Task Force is aware of the scope and severity of Parental Alienation. To this end, we are asking our members and supporters to write DSM. If you or someone you love has been the victim of Parental Alienation, we want you to tell your story to the DSM-V Task Force. To do so, simply fill in our form by clicking here. Once you have filled out our form, Fathers & Families will print out your letter and send it by regular US mail to the three relevant figures in DSM-V: David J. Kupfer, M.D., the chair of the DSM-V Task Force; Darrel A. Regier, M.D., vice-chair of the DSM-V Task Force; and Daniel S. Pine, M.D., chair of the DSM-V Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group. DSM V is struggling with many weighty matters and as things currently stand, Parental Alienation might not get much notice or attention. By having our supporters write to leading DSM figures, we hope to draw attention to the issue. Again, to write the DSM Committee about your story, click here. Running these campaigns takes time and money the postage and supplies alone on this campaign will be several thousand dollars. To make a tax-deductible contribution to support this effort, click here. Together with you in the love of our children, Glenn Sacks, MA Executive Director, Fathers & Families Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families Fathers & Families' Letter to the DSM Committee Dear DSM-V Task Force: We are writing to you concerning DSM's consideration of Parental Alienation Disorder for DSM V. Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation. In PA cases, one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed. We believe that Parental Alienation Disorder should be added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V). Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 "high conflict" divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied. Some experts estimate that there are roughly 200,000 children in the U.S. who have PAD, similar to the number of children with autism. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children, who lose one of the two people in the world who love them the most. DSM has accepted several relational disorders, such as Separation Anxiety Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and PAD is a typical relational disorder. Any target parent of Parental Alienation would certainly believe that his or her child's sudden, irrational hatred constitutes some sort of a mental disorder. Dr. Richard A. Warshak explains: PAS fits a basic pattern of many psychiatric syndromes. Such syndromes denote conditions in which people who are exposed to a designated stimulus develop a certain cluster of symptoms. Inclusion of Parental Alienation in DSM V will increase PA's recognition and legitimacy in the eyes of family court judges, mediators, custody evaluators, family law attorneys, and the legal and mental health community in general. Children of divorce or separation--who are among society's most vulnerable--will benefit. We urge you to consider inclusion. Together with you in the love of our children, Glenn Sacks, MA Executive Director, Fathers & Families Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families Send your own letter to the DSM Committee or send along ours by clicking here. ******************************************************************************************* RSOL 1. History A Brief History of a Young Movement: Sex Offender Law Reform 1998-2009 Alex Marbury By the mid 1990s, it was becoming obvious to a small band of civil libertarians, as well as some family members of those affected, that America's justice system had gone haywire in its monitoring, pursuit and punishment of sex offenders, long after sentences had been served. Within four years (1998-2002) several new web-based groups emerged to support sex offenders and their families, and to work to change what were considered unjust and extreme laws. The predecessor group to RSOL ( reformsexoffenderlaws.org), "Save Our Children and Our Liberties" began in 1998. Other groups followed quickly. Among these were SOHopeful, SOclear, and in England (reacting to a US-generated witch-hunt), Inquisition21. Still other groups with diverse goals and backgrounds were SOSEN, ETAY, B4UAct, CURSOR, CFCAmerica, and Voices of the Gulag. These groups often grew out of and sometimes replaced, earlier efforts. Finally, in June, 2007, just as SOSEN was re-organizing and as SOCLEAR and others were publicizing the dramatic Miami debacle of sex offenders forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, RSOL itself was begun (June 29, 2007). RSOL focused on repealing life-time civil commitment for sex offenders, and the public registration and shaming of sex offenders, often for life, as well as severe residency, employment, computer use, and other restrictions. RSOL saw its tasks as public education and lobbying at state and federal levels, not as direct social service and support for offenders and their families. This blossoming of sex offender support and reform groups must be set in the context of twenty years of sex panic in the United States. It was clear to many by the 1980s, especially gay and lesbian leaders, that sexual hysteria, focusing on sex with children was reversing tolerance and sexual freedom in America. This sex panic has been documented by many researchers, including Phillip Jenkins, MORAL PANIC (1998) Camille Paglia, professor at the University of Pennsylvania (SEXUAL PERSONNAE, 1974 & 1991), and gay writers like Pat Califia (1988) and Gayle Rubin. Rubin pointed out then,(1984) "historically we have seen that when moral panics are over, countless individuals and groups have suffered greatly and the original triggering social problems have not been remedied. This could as easily be said of today's sex offender registration craze. All these writers pointed to the ugly fanaticism and homophobia of the fundamentalist Christian preacher, Anita Bryant, in her barnstorming "Save the Children" campaign of 1977, as the origin of what some saw as a third or fourth sex panic in US history. Earlier panics had focused on venereal disease and prostitution in the 1890s,1920s and late 1930s. In 1997, gay writer Eric Rofes said, at the Lesbian and Gay Task Force meeting in San Francisco, "Waves of terror and scapegoating homosexuals, beginning in New York City, have closed bath-houses and gay clubs, and resulted in a return to pre-Stonewall levels of homophobia and discrimination." Rofes also pointed to new developments in US law that seemed to undermine the U.S. Constitution - among these were sexually violent predator statutes in 16 states (this has now grown to 46 states in 2009), where those deemed dangerous could be confined for life in concentration camp style centers. Rofes, and others after him, pointed out that more than half of those confined were gay men. Rofes believed the US was on the verge of a "Sexual Civil War." All these writers talked of an alarming trend to publicly register sex offenders, many of whom were gay men. They believed that the sex panic of the 1970s to 1990s was the result of the resurgence of a rabid right-wing in the U.S., as well as a growing disparity between poor and rich - all of which led to a sense of stress and despair. This was a perfect environment to foster paranoia and to single out convenient and exaggerated scapegoats - like queers who spread AIDS, or sexual predators who prey on children. It was amid this growing repression of sexual freedom that the original signatories of RSOL's predecessor, "The Call to Safeguard Our Children and Our Liberties," (The Call) came together in Boston in 1998. Meeting both at the American Friends Service Committee in Cambridge and at Roxbury Community College in Boston, community activists who had worked together in peace and civil rights movements, and most recently in solidarity groups to support democracy in Haiti, began to draft their original statement. Professors Chris Tilly (economics, U. Mass. Lowell) and Marie Kennedy (community planning, U. Mass. Boston) had served as co-chairs of delegations to support the restoration of President Aristide of Haiti. They now agreed to work with Paul Shannon of American Friends Service Committee, who had also been in Haiti with them, to find supporters for the new campaign to stem the tide of sex offender scapegoating. Jamie Suarez-Potts of AFSC and Kazi Toure, a former Black Panther and Roxbury Community College lecturer, took leading roles in persuading other prominent activists to join the effort. They were successful in persuading Dr. Howard Zinn, one of America's most prominent historians (PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES), amd many other progressives to join the Call. Among them were Dr. Ruth Hubbard of Harvard, Jennifer Firestone (of the Firestone Foundation), gay leader Michael Petrelis, and Rachelle Simon, a leader of the incest survivors' network. Dr. Richard Pillard, former President of the American Psychiatric Association, and a Professor of psychiatry at Boston University, headed the list of signatories. The 1998 Call began, "We are committed to protect society and its children from the dangers of real sexual violence and abuse. We are also committed to preserve the American system of civil liberty and genuine criminal justice, based on carefully limited laws that target acts not classes of people, and that seek to rehabilitate rather than vindictively punish offenders. We assert that only by supporting liberty and justice can we maintain a safe and secure society. For these reasons, we speak out against the ever mounting hysteria against vaguely defined sexual dangers, which ostracize and scapegoat a wide range of people who have been labeled "sex offenders." The progressives behind the Call pointed out similar lack of due process and violation of habeas corpus rights with regard to those called "terrorists" but noted that there was at least an outcry from civil libertarians on behalf of such people, as opposed to sex offenders, who seemed to have no-one to defend their rights. Those who signed the Call also insisted that this attack on sex offenders diverted attention from "other prevalent dangers to children" such as "crushing, humiliating poverty and family violence." It also insisted that teenagers were being prosecuted for activity that youth had engaged in "for millennia without stigma." Finally, it noted that adults, especially men, were afraid to be alone with children, or to give children affection, and said, "Children, men and society are the losers." It also insisted that there were many false accusations in such a environment of fear, and that "any accusation of sex with a minor was splashed in the media whether true or not," often leading to vigilante justice and suicides of those accused. This is similar to such cases today - such as that just this month in Toronto when a school teacher, arrested for chatting with minors in an internet chat room, was falsely accused of sexual acts with children by the Toronto STAR, and then killed himself. The "Call" was a Boston effort, and those involved knew each other and met face to face often, both in this effort, and in their mutual work on behalf of other causes. The "Call" was not an internet campaign, but a community organizing venture by activists well known in neighborhoods and professional associations across the Boston area. "Call" signatories met Massachusetts legislators and gave interviews to Boston news media. Their efforts met with little response in the state which was among the first to take a lead in crafting a public sex offender registry, and which had had life-time civil commitment for some sex offenders at its Bridgewater Institution for decades. In June of 2007, four individuals, including Paul Shannon, felt it was time to try a similar, but independent approach, on a national scale. This time, the effort was entirely in cyberspace, with the organizers sitting behind computers in cities far from each other. They found the going even rougher than it had been in Boston in 1999. Paul kicked off the effort with an article in CounterPunch.org, the online progressive magazine. "Eight years have passed and the crisis we addressed then has gotten far worse. The demonization of those accused of illegal sexual activity -- both the innocent and the guilty -- and the criminalization or stigmatization of more and more forms of sexual expression has reached new heights. All sense of fairness and due process are often tossed to the winds." Shannon' s article began, "There is today in our country a growing threat to our legal system, to the rights of all of us, to the quality of life of children, and to common sense. This threat has been fanned by prosecutors, nurtured by the media, and ignored by those who usually speak out against such dangers "In its most narrow sense this threat can be defined as the particular approach to sexual deviance embodied in ever-more-draconian laws against all behaviors labeled "sex offenses" -- including those committed by minors -- and in the sex offender registries of every state and the Federal government. In this approach to sex offenses slander, hysteria and demonization often replace reason, solid research and proportionality. "But more broadly, the danger consists of an all-out assault on fairness, on the reputations of some of our most caring people, on necessary social relationships and on our critical ability to confront the deepening social paranoia of 21st century America." The result of the CounterPunch article was the launching of the new web-based movement, http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org, or RSOL in June, 2007. RSOL included its own Statement, and some thirty of the signatories from the previous group in Boston signed on. The new website also included discussion materials from the National Center on Institutional Alternatives, as well as pages for Tales from the Registry (the stories of offenders forced to be on public registries), Blogs, News Items and major Research articles. In September 2007, RSOL launched a monthly Digest of important articles, announcements and research material. Within three months, about 100 others signatories had joined from all over the U.S. A decision was made that sex offenders themselves would not be signed on as public signatories, but would participate fully as non-public members. A young college student, Alain Levesque, came onboard and began to organize affiliated state groups. The decision was made that these groups should be autonomous, and that RSOL itself should not incorporate or seek tax exempt status, which might involve intrusive U.S. government involvement, and limit the group from lobbying and public education work. In January of 2008, an Administrative Team began a more formal decision-making process, with telephone conference calls every two to three months. The Team today includes Mary Sue Molnar, leader of the Texas RSOL affiliate (Texas Voices); Laurie Peterson of New Hampshire RSOL and a leader in the fledgling group Cursor; Joel Pentlarge of Massachusetts RSOL; Kelly Piercy of Georgia RSOL; Alain Levesque; and Paul Shannon and Alex Marbury (original organizers of RSOL). In mid 2008, Dr. Marshall Burns, a California researcher, initiated SOL Research http://www.solresearch.org with RSOL funding. Burns has provided substantive research to back up RSOL positions on the registry, on juvenile offenders, on false accusations, residency restrictions and many other topics. Lynn, an RSOL Georgia participant, organized the Prison Project in mid 2008 to send by U.S. post copies of the Statement and the monthly RSOL digests. In an effort to respond to hundreds of emails from people in severe crisis, RSOL helped spin off and fund an independent support hotline, which continues to give daily help to many people: 1 800 773 4319. Also in 2008, a Correspondence Committee, to respond to articles in the media, was set up at http://www.rsolcc.org. In early 2009, this also became the RSOL e-Magazine, edited by Kelly Piercy, which publishes the monthly Digest and other materials. By October 2009, RSOL had grown to include almost 900 public signatories, and more than 2000 non-public participants in the national and state groups. It has more than 30 active affiliated state RSOL organizations. A national conference was held simultaneously in Boston, Massachusetts and Austin Texas, linked by video, in July 2009, with about 100 participants (videos of the conference are available at the RSOL e-Magazine. Three RSOL affiliated state groups have made major gains lobbying their state legislatures, and a fourth is participating in a Federal Court lawsuit. Three state groups have over 100 active members each. Just as RSOL was launched, other sex offender groups were also busy. Sohopeful International, formed in 1999, had been the largest such group, though its actual membership has never been verified. SOHopeful ceased operations in early 2008. SOSEN (Sex offender Support and Education Network) began as a Sohopeful interest group in 2002 with 50 members and now has approximately 200 members. Also the same week as RSOL's founding, the group Soclear Media, led by sex offender and writer Tom Madison of Oregon, burst onto the scene with a dramatic series of videos, including one at the homeless camp for sex offenders under the bridge in Miami, Florida. Working with Madison was a sex offender from Kansas, Terry Brown, who also had a website, hope4tomorrow. Brown traveled to Florida to join the Miami offenders under the bridge, gaining national media attention. A public rally by sex offenders was organized in March 2008 by Voices of the Gulag ( http://www.sexgulag.org) to draw attention to non-violent sex offenders committed to the California state civil commitment center at Coalinga, and to a whole series of rights violations against detainees. It was cosponsored by the Friends & Families of Coalinga Detainees and RSOL. Among the speakers was Paul Shannon of RSOL, by phone, and Tom Madison in person. Madison was later interviewed on a national TV show, Mike & Juliet, in which he was drawn into a shouting at the moderators when the other guests began asserting the typical myths about sex offenders as fact. Madison withdrew entirely from public activity, and took down his website. At the time, RSOL supported Madison, while some others criticized his TV appearance. The Coalinga group and Sex Gulag still exist, though they seem much less active. Inquisition 21st Century, in England, is, like many sex offender groups, the product of one person's work on the internet. Nevertheless, Brian Rothery of Inquisition21 has managed a consistent presence on the net, and in a major class action suit in England, against victims of an FBI-inspired British internet sting operation, called Project ORE in 1999, in which 7,250 suspects were named and 4,283 homes were searched. Of the 3,344 arrested, only 1,451 have been convicted in eight years. Other groups still exist. B4Uact, a Maryland group whose purpose is to keep pedophiles from acting on their desires, and to help get public support for this hated and scapegoated group. B4Uact's position is that pedophilia is, like homosexuality, an orientation not chosen by individuals, but genetics. They believe there must be understanding and compassion, not hate and persecution. ETAY, Ethical Treatment for All Youth, is a group that supports the rights of juvenile sex offenders. CFC America, is a general sex offender reform and support group, which is the work of one person, and which severed its link to RSOL because of RSOL's support for homosexual sex offenders. Altogether, RSOL, and the other groups may include 5,000 or so active supporters. Of that number over 3,000 are members of RSOL - a tiny drop in a huge flood. When RSOL started, it was estimated that there were 500,000 registered sex offenders. There are now 675,000. Additionally, there are perhaps 200,000 released sex offenders being sought by authorities for failure to register. Finally there are another 150,000 offenders still serving sentences. Between 2 and 3,000,000 people are close family members of all these offenders. New signatories are added to the RSOL statement every week, and the site now gets about 60,000 hits per month. It is clear that RSOL's best and strongest work is in a few of its affiliated state groups, such as Texas, Virginia, Illinois, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Oregon, with perhaps ten other groups building support rapidly. The RSOL Administrative Team is working towards the next National Conference in the late Spring to Early Summer of 2010. As RSOL's strength grows, vicious attacks, without exception based in untruth, misrepresentation, and a general fear and hatred, become more frequent. This clear indication of the impact RSOL is having only strengthens the resolve of the RSOL Administrative Team and the hard working RSOL members. As Mary Sue Molnar has so often said, "We'll keep raising hell in Texas." Truth and reason can never be silenced. Through the efforts of RSOL and the other groups opposing the registry we will prevail because at least RSOL will never quit until we do and RSOL will never let the attacks on its character distract it from its goal. ******************************************************************************************* 2. Mission RSOL: The Statement Explained Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) has 2 broad purposes: 1. To call on our society to come to its senses in the way it deals with the very real problem of sexual violation of children. We advocate reason and justice rather than moral panic 2. To abolish the punitive sex offender registry, residency restriction, and civil commitment laws that endanger our society as they stigmatize, shame and unfairly ruin the lives of registered children and adults and their families. RSOL seeks to detach illegal sexual behavior - including the devastating forms it sometimes takes - from the hysteria now rampant in the country so that it can be dealt with effectively and fairly. Any society that carries out a witch hunt to deal with any major social problem casts justice and rationality to the winds, guarantees large numbers of false accusations and false convictions, substitutes false beliefs for science, and devours itself and its children. There could be no better example of how an hysteria works than the way our country dealt with the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Here was a major crisis. Instead of solving it we whipped ourselves into a frenzy and engaged in the lunacy advocated by top officials in the media and government by going to war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat whatever to the United States. Present and future generations have just begun to bear the human and financial costs of this trillion dollar debacle. And yet, we continue to view a number of our major problems through the lens of panic, hysteria and demonization. In the case of sexual violation of children, it is the atmosphere of fear and panic and the proliferation of laws based on this hysteria that pose serious danger to the well-being of our society and to young people themselves. This assertion is true for young people whose lives and whose family's lives are destroyed by being labeled a sex offender, for children whose parent is demonized and denied employment or housing after serving his sentence, and for all children for whom the irrational fear of all men is held up as a positive virtue. The policies called for by RSOL are best expressed in its "Statement" signed by 900 people across the country. Signatories are not sex offenders. They are people from all walks of life who see the need to call attention to the dangers posed by sex offender registries and related laws and who call for radical reform of these laws. Paraphrasing from this Statement, RSOL advocates the following: * Abolish sex offender registries for those who have completed their sentences and abolish registries that publicly shame offenders on probation or parole. (In cases of coercive sex crimes, especially against children, and with a specific finding of likelihood to re-offend despite having completed one's sentence, registration tailored to the specific circumstances may be required. But there would be no postings on the internet). Rather, support carefully limited laws that target harmful acts, not whole classes of people, and which rehabilitate rather than vindictively punish and shame people. * Abolish life-time civil commitment for sex offenders who have completed their sentences (Again, in cases of violent offenses and specific findings of a likelihood to re-offend, carefully constructed court hearing with medical advice and full due process should determine if the person may be further incarcerated for a short time with regular review. The ultimate goal must be an offender's return to the community when they are not likely to offend, rather than lifetime commitment) * Stop public vilification and demonization of sex offenders in media and public discourse, particularly by the mis-use of the term "pedophile". In addition, hysteria about defending children from a violent rapist has broadened to a wider hysteria about all sex offenders even though the vast majority of sex offenders pose no danger to children. But demonization is destructive even when applied to truly violent offenders. * Help sex offenders re-enter society by abolishing universal residency restrictions and measures that make it virtually impossible to find a job. Encourage support groups and provide help with finding housing, employment and effective treatment before their release and afterward * Implement measures that protect society and its children from the dangers of sexual harm. But children need to be protected as well from other forms of abuse that traumatize millions of kids every day but are usually ignored in the sex abuse crusade: homelessness, malnutrition, poverty, inadequate health care and discrimination. * De-criminalize all consensual sexual activities among teenagers. * Stop all required sex offender registration for minors. * Abolish any laws that provide the death penalty or life in prison without parole for sex offenders. * Provide accurate information and support valid research about sex offender characteristics and recidivism rates in order to effectively protect children and respect due process. ******************************************************************************************* 3. Scope, Purpose, and Goals RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals Kelly R Piercy RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals Introduction: Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) began as a national effort from beginnings in Massachusetts (See History.) Effectively, RSOL as an identifiable organization began in 2007. Though some members of RSOL had previous associations with previous groups opposed to registries, From its inception, RSOL is a unique organization that has no affiliation or ties with any other organization. Front this beginnings, RSOL has operated under the guidance of its stated position with respect to the registry (See The Statement Explained.) To further clarify RSOL, the following Scope, Purpose, and Goals is presented. Scope: RSOL is concerned with the preemptive justice represented by the registry and civil commitment. Preemptive justice is contrary to the nature of a free society. This sort of 'preventative' justice cannot work when it is applied to a category rather than an individual. RSOL recognizes that there are individuals who are and continue to be a danger to the community. However, this is not the norm, nor is it a significant fraction of those convicted under the general category of 'sex offender'. RSOL recognizes that a society has the right, if not obligation, to define the terms and conditions (laws) under which that society, and members of that society, will conduct itself. However, those terms and conditions, when clearly in violation of individual rights, must be protected from the majority or the society becomes one of government by whim and a tyranny of the majority. In that understanding, RSOL does not work to change any law regarding conduct, including sexual conduct, except in the below stated areas. * RSOL does support and works towards the decriminalization of non-coercive sexual conduct between minors. o The important distinction is that RSOL does not seek to 'legalize' such activity between minors, the effort is to decriminalize such conduct. * RSOL works to remove minors, in any circumstance, from any criminal registry, allowing such persons to seal or expunge any juvenile record upon reaching their majority. * The removal of conduct without specific sexual conduct from the category of 'sex offense'. Thus, the scope of RSOL is to end the practice of public registry and residency restriction as it represents; preemptive justice, establishes a class, proscribes that class, and thereby violates Bill of Attainder proscriptions of the United States Constitution, is ineffective in addressing the issue it is meant to solve, is a violation of civil rights of individuals who have served their sentences and successfully completed any counseling/therapy ordered, and removes any meaningful effect of such counseling/treatment by removing any positive goal from the process. Outside the Scope of RSOL are such issues as age of consent, age differential, specific sexual conduct, the issue of consensual sex, and concerns of the increasing number of false accusations. Those issues being outside the Scope of RSOL does not, in any way, prevent RSOL from supporting ad hoc consortiums among RSOL affiliates and others in opposing such statures or legally attempting to change or enact such statues. RSOL takes as its limit, the opposition of the preemptive justice represented by the registry and endeavors to end the registry and replace it with policies of real justice based on sound research. RSOL recognizes that justice has three components; punishment, education, and restitution. * RSOL supports reasonable punishment based on proportionality. * RSOL recognizes and supports the concept that the most effective justice for the victim, the offender, and the society is to educate and rehabilitate the offender. * RSOL recognizes that in cases of violent behavior, restitution may be a difficult process for the victim. Nevertheless, vengeance can never be part of a just society and such restitution as is possible must suffice in these cases. Purpose: RSOL maintains itself within the above Scope to fulfill the need of society to effectively address the issue of violent sexual offense, where the violence is actual as opposed to imputed. In this Purpose, RSOL recognizes that the registry does not address the issue in any effective degree and must be ended so that effective resolution can obtain. Goal: RSOL is focused on ending the registry, bringing rational sentencing and justice back to the society, and emplacing effective programs of education, awareness, and treatment to effectively impact the incidence of violent sex crime in the society. Conclusion: RSOL is dedicated to the protection of society and children. RSOL opposes any conduct, and any law, that is contrary to the safety of society or its children. RSOL is opposed to any act of society or government that, not being based on sound research and fact, limits the freedom, rights, or civil rights of any member of that society. RSOL believes that a person who makes a mistake, commits a crime, can change and can become a positive part of society, if that society allows such change. RSOL does not condone any act that harms another person, nor does it condone excessive punishment by a society. RSOL believes that disproportionate sentencing and post sentencing registration and restriction represent vengeance based punishment, thus becoming punishment for the sake of punishment, thus rising to the level of cruel and unusual punishment and being a clear violation of the Eight Amendment proscription against such punishment. Therefore: RSOL is concerned with the registry and not the offenses that lead to registration, except in the case of consensual conduct between minors, or where no actual sexual conduct is an element of the offense. RSOL has the single purpose of ending the registry and replacing it with rational justice based on sound research and proportionality, emplacing education, awareness, and treatment in place of excessive sentencing and registration/restriction. RSOL maintains the ultimate goal of emerging from this hysteria into a society that treats its fallen with justice and compassion and works through effective methods of education, awareness, and treatment to positively impact the incidence of sex offense and protect children, allowing society to focus on larger issues facing society and children such as poverty, nutrition, homelessness, and physical, mental, and emotional abuse. ******************************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************************* END OF RSOL DIGEST - NOVEMBER 2009

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RSOL Digest Nov. 2009, #27, Part II

By Alex Marbury <alexm60@fastmail.fm> Posted on 12.02.2010 Link to this digest: [0036]

RSOL Digest Nov 2009, #27, CONTINUED - PART II The RSOL Correspondence Committee, Minute Men - Editor in Chief, Minute Men In the previous RSOL e-Magazine, readers were introduced to the new RSOL Correspondence Committee: The Minutemen, a group of volunteer men and women whose purpose is to combat the abundant myth and misinformation regarding sex offender issues. On the surface, this task, while tedious, seems to be fairly straightforward: review relevant information presented in research, analysis, and legal opinion (Researcher), seek articles, news, and other commentary contrary to that research (Monitors); and create clear, precise and factual comments to refute the myths and misinformation (Responder). Simple, yet extremely complex. A Google search of the words "sex offender" alone results in 2.4 million hits. Narrowing this search for only news items slims the results to a mere 5,682 hits. This magnitude of available information, much of which is misguided, along with continual influx of news items, proposed legislation and court decisions can overwhelm even the most discerning searcher. The overriding question becomes how any searcher, whether a formal member of the Minutemen or a general RSOL supporter, decides what news or commentary is worthy of valuable time and attention? To answer this question, let s apply several tests. * 1. Does the article or commentary present information regarding critical issues outlined in the stated goals of RSOL? It behooves us to revisit these goals http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/statement.php and analyze the list of 8 immediate actions calling for reform to sex offender laws. Key words or phrases in these 8 actions provide direction regarding issues that have been identified as key for national RSOL. Clearly there are easily identifiable topics to narrow the field of possibilities for those seeking news or commentary that misrepresent the facts: public registration policies, registration of minors, criminalization of teenage consensual sex, residency restrictions, civil commitment laws, and recidivism rates. Focusing on the target issues enables the searcher to be selective, weeding through the plethora of topics that abound regarding sex offenses that may or may not be specifically addressed by RSOL goals. This approach is not to downplay other issues as not important or less relevant but to keep the searcher focused and aligned with RSOL goals. * 2. Does the news or commentary have broad application across the wide spectrum of the class of people labeled as sex offenders? Our work in advocacy for sex offenders and SO law reform must take on a much broader perspective than one individual s struggle or plight with any singular issue. For example, searchers who have been impacted by residency restrictions (or any other single issue) may be more inclined to see news and commentary dealing with that issue as paramount over all others. While driven by personal experience, we must remove emotion and bias from the process and understand that what we are tackling are much deeper issues involving civil and human rights, born out of sheer ignorance of the facts and misguidance from the media and politicians. At any given moment in any day, a Google search for news regarding sex offenders results in thousands of reports of men and women being charged with sexual offenses, but while we should not ignore these cases, we must search for those pieces that broaden the perspective from individual cases to those that focus on national issues. * 3. Is fear/moral panic the basis for the news or commentary? It has been suggested that our nation is now in a state of moral panic over sexual offenses. Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension at the heart of which are matters considered to be taboo. Any disagreement with the issues themselves or policies governing those issues is difficult at best. In our current state, the facts themselves have become blurred both intentionally and unintentionally by media and politicians who capitalize on the widespread, perceived threat posed by the group in question, i.e. sex offenders. A searcher should seek articles, news or commentary that plays upon the public s fears and uses untruths and misinformation to sensationalize issues surrounding sexual offenses. * 4. Is the source a respected, reliable media source, one of primary import, or is it a small voice, unlikely to be heard on any large scale? In Cervantes' The Man from La Mancha, the main character, Don Quixote, inadvertently attacks windmills he perceives to be ferocious giants. We can use that analogy to drive our searches for noteworthy news and commentary regarding sex offender issues. Are we seeking out "windmills" for our information or "ferocious giants"? The readership for ferocious giants will be much larger in volume and will provide a greater audience for refuting myth, misinformation, and deliberate deception regarding sex offender characteristics and issues. The task set before the Minutemen is a Herculean one, considering the availability of information on the Internet. While RSOL supporters do not have to be formal members of the Minutemen to contribute to the purpose of refuting myth and misinformation, only through organized and concerted effort will we build a cohesive voice for RSOL. If you would like to contribute your time to this effort in a formal way, please contact the committee at vandrwall@gmail.com. ********** The RSOL Correspondence Committee, e-Magazine - The Editor, The RSOL e-Magazine This month's edition is honored with more important articles from people of stature and knowledge. The well researched article by journalist Chris Dornin gives perspective to what the registry is and what it does not accomplish. Joe Owens inaugurate the Theologians Corner. Joe and subsequent contributors will give us a perspective on our struggle that comes from compassion and hope. This is a part of the magazine that is to be contemplated and meditated upon more than to be read. ******************************************************************************************* ________________________________________________________ 8. News In Review News... News... News... For so many years we have read with despair the news that another registry was created in another state and those with registries already established were increasing the restrictive nature of their residency restrictions. Continually, politicians bled the issue dry of every vote they were able, to distract the electorate from seeing the job they were not doing to solve the real issues facing America. It turns out that Lincoln was right: You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The US Postal Service is among the all of the time crowd with their decision to cancel the Santa Project. The state of Georgia is in Federal Court resisting a challenge to a law passed last year requiring all persons on the registry to surrender all email, usernames, and associated passwords to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. This case follows the same argument that was successful in Utah Federal District Court. Georgia has lost on all motions filed to keep the issue out of Federal Court and the decision is pending. Still, this nearly bankrupt state has let a contract to a company, Remote.Com, to invade the privacy of citizens. On the other side of the coin, change is constant. Slowly, the hysteria is being answered with reason. The Supreme Court will dedicate a major part of its calendar to the intrusion of government that has grown deep roots into the soil of American Freedom since the Nixon Years. There is even better news. One of the people who arguably has the most sensitive feeling for the pulse of the people is getting out. Oprah has announced that her last season will be the 2010/2011 season. She is taking her billions and retiring. Can O'Reilly, Dr. Phil, and Grace be far behind? Now is not the time to slacken our efforts. We can sway the populace by constant contact with the true power in America, Television News. As the Georgia State Organizer, I call every media contact I have every time there is a story about the registry or some terrible crime against a child is reported. I tell them that the position of Georgians for Reform is that we are disturbed and upset by the crime and offer our empathy to the survivors of the crime. Then I tell them that we must create change, we must end the registry because it again accomplished nothing in preventing the crime. I tell them our position is to replace the registry with education, awareness, and treatment. I tell them that 97% of Georgians on the registry are in compliance at the cost of decent housing and employment and that the crimes reported do not involve the 426 absconders out of the 17,707 persons on the registry. I tell them that other than some very rare, high profile cases such as Garrido, these crimes are committed by first time offenders. I tell them all I can for as long as they will listen. Has it done any good? Only time will tell. I have only managed to be quoted in two AP articles and one Atlanta Journal Constitution Article, and been in contact with a CNN Reporter who tried to get my comments into a story only to have her editors cut my comments. Nevertheless, they are now answering my calls and emails. We will be heard as long as we keep speaking to the issue with reason and focus. Is sanity beginning to rear its ugly head? Federal judges argue for reduced sentences for child-porn convicts. It is time for everyone to contact Howard and Rita and get on board with the Sentencing Project. ******************************************************************************************* Articles: 1. This Article is very graphics intensive. It is recommended that you go to the RSOL e-Magazine to fully understnad the article. httP://www.rsolcc.org/art1.html An Overview of One State _______________________________________________________CSI Miami/NCSI/Without a Trace/CSI New York/NCSI Los Angeles/Criminal Minds/Law and Order episodes. Anthony Sowell is charged with raping and murdering at least 11 women in the poorest part of Cleveland, and authorities suspect he committed the unsolved and eerily similar Strawberry murders of destitute women in East Cleveland when he lived there. Those horrific crimes stopped when he went back to prison for a few years. The news comes too soon after lurid revelations about Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy in Antioch, California, another bad neighborhood. The husband is charged with fathering two children by Jaycee Dugard, who was 11 years old when he allegedly abducted her. His wife is charged with helping him hide Jaycee and her children for two decades in a makeshift backyard minimum security prison. Should juries find them guilty, the Garridos and Sowell deserve the worst punishments. But if recent history holds true, lawmakers in both states will file draconian legislation named for the two suspects or for their victims. Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, has already filed a bill in response to the Sowell case. It boosts supervision of level III sex offenders like Sowell without reducing the police workload elsewhere. This group of offenders would register 12 times a year, not quarterly. Authorities would personally verify their addresses four times a year and notify the community about them at least once a year in addition to the Internet sex offender listings. The coming prosecutions and the legislative debates in Columbus, Sacramento and Washington will further inflame a national hysteria that dwarfs what happened in Salem, Massachusetts 317 years ago. I grieve to see my country poised to take its revenge on all registered sex offenders for the atrocities of the worst few. But that's how sex offender laws happen. They are part of a national mourning process. They are memorials to victims. The real question is how two people on the sex offender Internet registry for many years came so close to discovery so many times committing new crimes. Police received complaints and tips about both men and never duly followed up. There's plenty of blaming afoot, and there should be. The Ohio media are blasting the Cleveland police for essentially ignoring reports of violent crimes against poor or drug addicted women. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has pieced together a time line of apparent police blunders. 12/8/08: A bleeding woman tells police Sowell tried to rape her at his home. Police arrest him on his third floor, but later drop the charges because the woman refuses further contact with detectives. 9/22/09: Deputies make a surprise visit to Sowell's house to verify his address, but never go inside. Hours later he allegedly chokes and rapes a woman in his home. She escapes and goes to the police. For weeks detectives are unable to find the victim for follow-up meetings. 10/20/09: A woman falls from Sowell's second floor window and neighbors call an ambulance. Sowell tells the EMTs the two were doing drugs. On a report from medical personnel, police go to Sowell's home, but he isn't there. They do not enter. The woman refuses to talk to investigators, and the cops drop the case. 10/27/09: The woman assaulted 9/22/09 contacts and meets with police. 10/28/09: Police obtain an arrest warrant. 10/29/09: Police find Sowell away from his house, enter the premises, and discover the first two of many rotting corpses inside. Amid all these missed chances to catch Sowell, the whole neighborhood reeked from the flesh of 10 decaying bodies inside his home, not counting the skull in his refrigerator. The stink must have been horrific inside his lair. The inspector general for California issued a similar damning report in November on the Garrido case. Authorities failed to properly classify and supervise Garrido, gave the public a false sense of security about the global positioning device he wore, should have caught him violating parole many times, and never asked about the 12-year-old girl in his home during a parole inspection. She was Garrido's daughter by Dugard. One reason for these lapses, maybe the key reason, is the sheer size of the Internet sex offender registry. A national suspect list with nearly 700,000 names, most of them available on line, is almost useless to law enforcement and parents. We assume authorities are closely watching anyone so dangerous they have made it into the cyberspace foot stocks. That is a myth. Ohio is the first state to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Act against sex offenders. Not only do they register on the Internet, but the state bans them from living within a thousand feet of schools, daycare centers and preschool programs. Those precautions did nothing to save Sowell's victims, if he is found guilty. He wasn't going after children, so far as we know. The Ohio Parole Department guarded kids this Halloween from all the latter-day registered witches on the Internet like Sowell. So did California, Texas, Florida and many other states. Hundreds of sex offenders sat out the holiday at district offices in Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus. The rest stayed home with the lights off while officers made compliance checks. There's a huge problem with these efforts to control the very few, very worst sex offenders. The statutes are so harsh on everyone else they face double punishment for a past crime or pre-emptive punishment for a future crime. Sex offenders are a widely diverse group of scapegoats for something huge that scares us. Maybe it's the economy or the war on terror or the next act of mass destruction like the fall of the World Trade Towers or all the above. We need to see in every sex offender a Jeffrey Dahmer, an Anthony Sowell, a Phillip Garrido, an Osama bin Laden. The politicians guard a secret that scares me more than these villains. The Al-Qaida training camp we call the sex offender registry includes flashers and teenage statutory rapists; peeping Toms and roadside relievers; convicted hookers and Johns; possibly innocent husbands accused during traumatic divorces; streakers and frat party drunks who took a maybe no for a yes; and distraught fathers or brothers with just a single victim who was a family member. The basketball coach who acts out his crush on his ninth grade point guard makes the hit list. So does the cheerleader caught sexting photos of herself to underage schoolmates. The roster even includes a small percentage of stereotypical, mean-stranger, serial pedophiles. One of them could keep rotting corpses in his house. Nobody would find the source. The dangerous repeat criminals on the registry look just like the large majority of contrite and well punished human beings who will never have another victim. Attorney Margie Slagle of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm, blames the Cleveland horror in part on the state's recent compliance with the Adam Walsh Act. Before it took effect, experts evaluated each offender and placed only the worst recidivism risks on the public registry. The federal law assigns offenders instead to three risk tiers based entirely on their categories of crimes, a poor indicator of dangerousness. Many level one offenders have pled down from more serious crimes. Many level three offenders have multiple convictions for a single criminal course of conduct against one victim. The Ohio registry change forced authorities to verify the addresses of thousands of folks who never registered in the past. Many others now register four times a year instead of once. The spike in workload strains Ohio law enforcement departments amid widespread cuts in public funding. Slagle's office worked with the Ohio Public Defender and the Civil Liberties Union on a writ to block the change in the registry. The Supreme Court refused to hear this direct appeal in 2007 and required a lower court ruling first. The parties in that eventual test case, State v. Bodyke, held Supreme Court oral arguments in early November. Slagle's firm helped an alliance of victim advocacy agencies intervene on behalf of Christian Bodyke and other defendants. The amicus briefs call the change in registry retroactive and punitive, and say its very size makes it useless. Thousands of low-risk offenders would disappear from the registry if Bodyke wins. "One of the three Supreme Court judges mentioned the Sowell case to suggest the registry is not working," Slagle said. "Under the old law resources were targeted to the most dangerous people, and the others could rehabilitate. What happened in Cleveland doesn't surprise me in the least. The police are so busy knocking on doors they're not doing the work of protecting the public. And that's a shame." She warned that no law can prevent people like Garrido and Sowell from committing crimes. The registries divert scarce enforcement resources because the police waste so much effort on low-risk offenders. "All that money and time could be used for patrols and investigations," Slagle said, "perhaps resulting in discovering crimes sooner." One of the interveners on behalf of Bodyke is the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, a nonprofit child protection agency. Patty Wetterling lost her son Jacob two decades ago. A masked gunman kidnapped him, and the boy's body was never found. Lawmakers named the first federal sex offender registry law for Jacob. At first it created a non-public roster of potential suspects to help police solve future kidnappings. Today after several iterations it has morphed into a public shaming gallery. Patty Wetterling opposes making the names public, because the stigma drives sex offenders underground, makes them unemployed, destabilizes them and renders them more dangerous. In June 2008 she gave an interview to Richard Wright, author of Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions. She told him she never wanted a statute named for her son. "When these guys are released from prison," she told Wright, "we want them to succeed. That's the goal. Then you have no more victims. All of these laws they've been passing make sure that they're not going to succeed. They don't have a place to live; they can't get work. Everybody knows of their horrible crime and they've been vilified." If she's correct, we are all losing the war on sex offenders, and the collateral damage is only beginning. I came to that oddball view as a New Hampshire Statehouse reporter watching sex offender laws take shape. I'm also a religious volunteer into New Hampshire Prison and a former correctional counselor there. The Internet registry can summon vigilantes. They don't wear white hoods yet, but Rico M. Rutherford, 32, was gunned down in Cincinnati in September, three months after completing six years in prison for sexual contact with a child. Another sex offender, John Stouffer, 25, was stabbed in his bed in Newark, Ohio, in August. He was on the registry for propositioning a child. Neither man had actually penetrated his victim if that counts for anything, and it should. Newark Detective Steve Vanoy told me Stouffer's alleged killer has been indicted along with four accomplices. The police officer declined to say if Stouffer died because he was a sex offender, but all five defendants knew he was one. Sara Andrews, the Ohio parole director, said her department is mindful of child safety on Halloween. Her officers tell parolees that somebody will be out there checking on them. "It's a common-sense approach," she told me. "Sex offender registration and monitoring make people feel confident. It's also for the offender's benefit. They can't be accused of being out chasing kids." A research article this summer, "How Safe Are Trick-or-Treaters?: An Analysis of Child Sex Crimes Rates on Halloween," showed no holiday spike in child molestations, and only one in 500 crimes that night is a molestation. Senator Joseph McCarthy led a similar campaign to root out closeted Commies in the 1950s. Decades later authorities rounded up accused daycare mass molesters and satanic ritual child abusers, jailing dozens of innocent people in retrospect. Twenty-one innocent witches accused mostly by children died in Salem in 1692, 20 by hanging and one by crushing him under boulders. Ohio almost made sex offenders use psychedelic green license plates. The existing laws are tough enough. Across the country, they condemn roughly 700,000 registered Americans to banishment, joblessness, divorce, humiliation, emotional breakdown and the whims of the posse. We can hurt them better, of course. But the enemy is not a wolf stalking the playground. We are that enemy, and here's how. A 2006 report to the Ohio Sentencing Commission said 93 percent of child sexual assault victims knew their perpetrators well, over half were related to their victim, and 93 percent had never been arrested for a previous sex crime. That means the Internet sex offender registry identifies one of the next 10 perpetrators. The rest will strike, maybe from the child's own home, like a 747 into a skyscraper. An Ohio corrections study in 1989 said 8 percent of sex offenders committed a new sex crime within a decade. The recidivism rate for incest was 7.4 percent. That news belies the myth that all sex offenders are incorrigible. A statewide Ohio sex offender intake report for 1992 said 2.2 percent of child molesters were strangers to their victims, and 89 percent of perpetrators had never been convicted before. A report by the U.S. Justice Department in 2004 tracked 9,691 sex offenders for three years after release. The cumulative recidivism rate for new sex crimes was 3.5 percent. It was 2.2 percent for child molesters. A report this spring by the Indiana Corrections Department said sex offenders released in 2005 have compiled a 1.05 percent recidivism rate over four years. What if Indiana is onto something important? It provides intensive treatment in prison and on the outside. Sex offenders get a fair second chance after they serve their time. That's a lot cheaper than jailing them until death behind razor wire or in their own living rooms. It also dignifies a democratic society. Chris Dornin, a retired journalist, can be reached at cldornin@aol.com. ------------------------------------------------

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RSOL Nov. 2009, #27, Part I

By alex marbury <alexm60@fastmail.fm> Posted on 12.02.2010 Link to this digest: [0035]

he RSOL Digest, November, 2009 is now available at: http://www.rsolcc.org/ The RSOL Forum, http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ Announcements: Go to the RSOL website, http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/ or The RSOL e-Magazine, http://www.rsolcc.org/ to read the imortant announcements. Departments 1. Quote of the Month - Mahatma Ghandi 2. From The Top, Alex Marbury 3. Editorial, Kelly R Piercy, Editor 4. From The Admin Team 5. Theologian's Corner 6. Philosopher's Corner, Alex Marbury 7. From The States 8. News In Review ********************************* Articles 1. An Overview of One State's Registry 2. We Are Losing The Battle 3. In God We Trust or... 4. RSOL Goes To Sweden 5. Parental Alienation ********************************* RSOL 1. RSOL: A History, Alex Marbury 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained, Paul Shannon 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals, Kelly R Piercy ********************************* 1.Quote of the Month Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking - Mahatma Ghandi ________________________________________________________ 2. From The Top - Alex Marbury Laws Not Worthy of Democracy Must Be Abolished! RSOL Must Not Be Divided By Petty Differences! - by Alex Marbury We are a broad coalition, and coalitions are very hard to keep together as they grow. RSOL is certainly having growing pains. We keep adding signatories - now we have about 920 signatures for our broad reform statement. Non-signatory participants also come on board every week. Yet we have also experienced some division and bickering recently. This is normal for any organizing effort as large and diverse as ours, with more than 30 state groups. But we must keep our focus on bringing about change soon, and we must not let our differences keep us from doing that. There is room for a broad variety of strategies in our movement, and we need to be tolerant and encouraging of each other - but we cannot waste time in name-calling or questioning each other's motives. The need for sex offender law reform is more urgent than ever. Some states keep adding worse and worse features to the registries. There are increased residency and other restrictions, which make it virtually impossible to find housing or jobs for former offenders. There are more and more people in America's Siberia - the so-called civil commitment camps. Thousands languish in those camps, cut off from family, often behind barbed wire, and deprived even of the simple rights afforded prisoners, because of the laughable fiction that these camps are not punishment. As a Swedish observer wrote recently (Blog No 018): "The laws to register people for life [in the U.S.] are a 'fascist idea', and not worthy of a modern democracy." Yet these awful laws do not surface on most people's political agendas - whether conservative, libertarian, liberal or radical! So far, President Obama does not seem to notice them. Even as he tries to do something about Guantanamo, Cuba. What RSOL Virginia organizer Mary has called 'Virginia's Guantanamo' is totally ignored, as are all the other internal sex offender Gulags. Despite brave protests, places like Coalinga and, just last month, Farmville, Virginia, remain dirty stains on America's conscience. At Farmville, detainees are denied even towels, bedding and decent food - and must pay exorbitant rates for anything they are allowed. Yet their recent petition to the Governor of Virginia, which Mary sent to every state representative and to major media in Virginia, was absolutely ignored. We simply cannot stand for such silence in the face of what we have clearly identified as an evil aberration in American justice. And RSOL will not stand for it! We will move on now to the next level - abolition of the shameful and shaming public registries and the punitive commitment camps, at both state and national levels. The first RSOL national conference last July, in Boston, Massachusetts, and Austin, Texas, were a successful start. We got to know each other, we heard from the top US legal and mental health experts, and we began to craft a common approach. We will now move toward the second national conference, set for next June, in Washington, D.C., where we will 'come out' into the public light and meet those in Congress who are our adversaries as well as those who are potential allies. No more sidetracks! Get ready for Washington, RSOL! Watch for specific dates and the agenda in the December Digest and the RSOL e-Magazine. ________________________________________________________ 3. Editorial - Kelly R Piercy There seems to be a nature to the struggle against the registry. The struggle seems to be factionalist and fractionate. Over the past year of my involvement as an activist in this struggle I have witnessed more 'friendly fire' incidents than effective opposition. More energy has been wasted on internal conflict than has been expended in efforts to educate and illuminate. Over the past months I have watched in amazement as various individuals and organizations have maliciously attacked other individuals and organization in what can only be seen as self aggrandizement. I do not understand the need to feed personal ego when the claimed goal is to end the registry for all and replace it with a scheme that is more effective in preventing the heinous crimes that have led to the registry and respect the rights of the individuals blanketed by the over-reaching registry schemes. Unless and until this internal judgment and hatred ends, the supporters of the registry have a free hand to enact even more restrictive laws. Congress and state legislatures are gearing up for a new session and many states are looking at schemes to come in compliance with the AWA as Oprah and Walsh mount major letter writing campaigns to push Congress to fund the act. What have we been doing? Certainly not writing or contacting Congress. Why, might it be because those who join us are put off by the flood of attacks that come directly and from innuendo among us? Might it be because from every corner comes an issue that has nothing to do with ending the registry and boils down in to meaningless discussion of what should be a crime and what should not be a crime? Could it be that the agenda is so un-prioritized that the original focus to end the registry is lost among the Romeo and Juliet and Age of Consent arguments? Could it be that there are too many who want to be chiefs and no one who is willing to be a warrior? I really have no idea what the issue is. I know that as long as we continue to accuse each other and make public remarks meant to defame each other we will have no credibility. A few weeks ago I circulated this to some friends as an inside joke. Now, I see the sad truth of it. This is how we are seen by those we are trying to bring to the table for open, honest discussion. If your agenda is yourself or your loved one, I encourage you fight. If your fight is not for the whole, I encourage you to continue alone. If you have a difference with someone, I encourage you to have open and honest discussions with that individual, not public debates. If you disagree with an organization and wish to not struggle with them, dissociate quietly. If you have a position based in fact, state it, if your position is based in the myths, lies, and misrepresentation of the opposition, I encourage you to verify your facts before you defame supposed alliaes. Most of all, if it is your desire to see the registry continue and become even worse, I encourage you to continue feeding your ego with hatred and let it consume you. ******************************************************************************************* 4. From The Admin Team It has been a busy month as the RSOL Administrative Team works towards adding focue to the constatnly growing force RSOL has become. Looking forward, the Administrative Team has made some additions to bring more expertise close to the top and work towards an even more progressive 2010. * The admin team has added a new member, Marshall Burns, who is a major sex offender law researcher, and the webmaster and director of solresearch.org, the sister site to RSOL. This gives us an executive team of decision-makers of eight members: Paul Shannon, Kelly Piercy, Alain Levesques, Alex Marbury, Mary Sue Molnar, Laurie Peterson, Joel Pentlarge and Marshall Burns. * The admin team has telephone conference calls at least every two months, often every month. If you want propose something for RSOL, send it Alex Marbury, Kelly Piercy or Alain Levesque, and it will be put on the agenda of the next meeting. THE NEXT MEETING OF THE ADMIN TEAM WILL BE FRIDAY DECEMBER 11. * A major conference to begin the federal lobbying project for changes in the Adam Walsh Act and other federal sex offender registry, residential restrictions and committment laws, will be held in JUNE 2010 in Washington, D.C. WATCH FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF SPECIFIC DATES IN THE DECEMBER DIGEST AND e-MAGAZINE (plblish date: 1 January 2010.) ________________________________________________________ 5. Theologian's Corner - by Jedi Jah Since the RSOL Digest has seen fit to dedicate space to a "Philosopher's Corner," I would like to think there might also be room for a "Theologian's Corner," and I offer this reflection to start it off. In the same way that philosophy consists simply in our reflecting on our experience of what it means to be human, so what we call "theology" is really nothing more than our struggle to understand and express any experience we may have of transcendence, of going beyond the human, without becoming less human. Those of us who are Christian tend to experience such transcendence as somehow divine, and we use traditional Christian categories to describe it, but there can equally be Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucian, or Hindu theologies, to name only a few, and all of them can contribute something to our understanding of the Ultimate Reality that grounds our universe and our selves. I am moved to scribble the present reflection because a lot of the theological reading I have been doing lately leaves me ever more convinced that the revelation we find in the Bible can help us understand better what is happening in our country with regards to sex offenders and other persons who are being persecuted with such relentless and fanatical zeal. Over the last few decades an especially interesting strain of Christian theology has been inspired by Rene' Girard, a French thinker who studied the key role played by sacrifice and scapegoating in the historical development of culture, society, and religion. In his later works Girard became convinced that the biblical revelation - tentatively in the Old Testament and more clearly in the New - exposed the ancient and persistent practice of scapegoating for what it truly was: the merciless sacrificing of basically innocent persons for the sake of the larger society's social cohesion. Mark Heim, in his book Saved from Sacrifice, does an excellent job of relating the thought of Girard and other key thinkers in this area to what is happening in contemporary society. The basic idea of Christianity, according to these scholars, is that God, by identifying wholeheartedly with the rejected and crucified Jesus, becomes himself the victim of human scapegoating, and by so doing he completely confounds the whole sacrificial process. In effect, he throws a monkey wrench into the works and renders it useless. The divine abolition of the sacrificial process becomes manifest in the resurrection of Jesus, which gives rise to a new community where there will be no scapegoating, where human beings will not be sacrificed for the sake of others. In Heim's words: "In seeing Christ on the cross, in the light of the resurrection, believers see what has happened... and not just to Jesus. What is revealed is not only the enormity of such violence against God, but the evil of our longstanding scapegoating against each other. We can no longer say we know not what we do. And when this abyss opens before us, the order of magnitude of this sin appears virtually unlimited. It is the dimensions of grace that bring home to us the real nature of wrong. We see that Jesus does not deserve to be on the cross. That allows us to see that those we put on the cross in the same place Jesus occupied, for the same socially unifying purpose, do not deserve the scapegoating at our hands (whatever their real sins may be)." What is happening with sex offenders in contemporary America (as with so many "lepers" in times past) is scapegoating: that is, certain persons (often the "majority") decide to portray others as irredeemably evil, so that they themselves can somehow feel "good" and "virtuous." The tragedy is that the more loathing people feel toward themselves, the more they will resort to scapegoating in order to escape from the pain of their self-contempt. Throughout his book, Heim describes how the sacrificial system works and how it maintains an amazing consistency across cultures and across epochs. As you read the following passage, understand that in our times "sex offenders" are truly the equivalent of the "sacrificial victims" mentioned there, those who are charged with crimes that "always outgrow their actual offenses and capabilities." "God accepts to be a victim of our original social sin, to step into the place of the scapegoat, and to do what no human being can do. Humans fitted to the role of sacrificial victim are inflated beyond their true stature. The crimes they are charged with always outgrow their actual offenses and capabilities. They are held responsible in a wildly disproportionate way. And every victim proves inadequate, in the sense that even when sacrifice works, it works only temporarily and requires repetition. If the victim were truly responsible, then eliminating the victim would truly solve the problem. Just as the sacrificial subjects are not really adequate to the condemnation they receive, so they are not adequate to overcome the powers that converge against them. They do not have the means to prove their innocence of the outsized charges. They cannot resist the judgment of a unanimous community. They cannot change the script of their own deaths that is written after them, in which any protest is erased." I am convinced that there is an unrelenting unforgivingness in our modern society that is antithetical to everything that is Christian. No matter how much they may quote the Bible or call on the name of God, those who are advocating ever more repressive sex offender laws are betraying the heart of the Christian gospel. There is no doubt that the Christian churches over the centuries (and the rulers they have backed) have engaged in horrendous scapegoating and have sacrificed countless victims, but that does not invalidate the central Christian message of a crucified Messiah. The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was intensely anti-Christian, but he understood better than most believers what was the core of Jesus' mission in life. He wrote: "That pseudo-humanism that calls itself Christianity intends precisely to forbid that anyone be sacrificed." ******************************************************************************************* 6. Philosopher's Corner - Kelly R Piercy Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. - Marcus Aurelius Hibble: Circumstances have taught me that a man's ethics are the only possessions he will take beyond the grave. - from the movie Moll Flanders (1996), based on the novel Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe The frustration of the registry is more about tomorrow than it is today. For most that tomorrow is only more todays, only a life to be endured rather than to be lived. Some of us are fortunate enough to have a family endure with us. A family we agonize over every day as we watch them suffer for our status. Some of us endure alone and face a future alone. Some of us are the family and friends who agonize over the undue suffering our registrant must face every day and look forward to facing for every tomorrow. ...tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you're always a day away.. ...tomorrow, I know you tomorrow, you're just another day of pain... Which song will we make our own? There is something to be learned in what Marcus Aurelius tells us. Tomorrow will bring more of today, no less. There is a world full of people who live and love with reason and compassion. Each time we are alone and reach out to others in our circumstance we are relieved of some of our burden. That is the sword and shield we battle with today. Will it be enough tomorrow? Those who would make us the embodiment of evil batter our single shield and make it seem insignificant. We can make it more, we can make it an irresistible wall. Recall the Phalanx and understand its power. It was not one Greek Hoplite, the Phalanx was a formation of interlocking shields that took the onslaught of the enemy and in unison and unity struck back. The sheer mass of the unified phalanx drove the superior force from the field at Marathon and across entire empires. Alexander did not just conquer. As he marched his hoplites across western Asia he brought a new way of living under a new culture to the vanquished and created allies. We can strengthen ourselves in the same way and have today's weapons to face tomorrows tribulations. We can reach out to each other and we must reach out to those we have hidden from. We know our cause is just and we can bring that justice to our neighbors and associates one conversation at a time. Those are our weapons of reason. Tomorrow, one tomorrow in the future will be where we must stand with all our possessions, our pain, our failures, our successes, our joy will no longer have any meaning. There is an equality among religions. That equality is judgment in one guise or another. We can face today and tomorrow with the reason that is our shield today, but that shield will not stand in the face of judgment. There the only evidence admissible will be our ethics. We must arm ourselves with reason today and trust it to be our armor tomorrow. In the end, we must trust that we wielded those arms with ethics. What does that mean... "...and the second of these is as great. Treat your fellow man as you would have him treat you." Jesus ________________________________________________________ 7. From The States Alain Levesque, alain360@fastmail.fm Dear friends, This was a relatively quiet month for the state groups. No new state organizers joined RSOL in November, and we expect recruitment to remain quite slow for the rest of the year. A new recruitment campaign will be launched in January, with the goal of getting a few new states organized, and to ultimately reach the magical number of 50 state groups! Of course, in the meantime, if you wish to get involved in your state, be sure to contact me (alain360@fastmail.fm) and I will give you all the info that you need. On this very short note, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and I hope you enjoy your digest! ********** Georgia - State Organizer: Kelly R Piercy Georgians For Reform held a conference by telephone this month. Most of those on the line were the wives, husbands, mothers, or fathers of persons on the registry. However, one of the people on the line had no one on the registry, the woman had discovered what the registry is and knows it is wrong and is working iwth us to end it. We have emplemented three major projects for the coming year. * A letter, email, and personal visit/phone call campaign to our legislators before and during the upcoming 2010 session of the Georgia General Assembly. * An outreach campaign using the conveniently providede list of addresses on the Georgia Sexually Violent Offender Registry (yep, that is what our registry is named, no matter why you are on it.) Of the 17,707 persons on the GSVOR, 11,007 live in the state and are not incarcerated (no address provided for those.) We plan on sending an information/invitation letter to every one of them. * We are beginning to plan a conference in mid to late winter. The plan is for two locations to cover the largest state east of the Mississippi River, one in the Atlanta area and the other in the Savannah area. You can see how our outreach project is working on our website at http://www.gasorr.org/outreach/outreach.html Our letter/email campaign is found through our Resources Page, http://www.gasorr.org/res.html We have also posted an outline for the legislation we are driving towards. We won't stop until we reach legislation based on this outline. You can see where we are going by clicking on the link on the Home Page, http://www.gasorr.org and click the REAL Law link. We are adding a prominent link on our home page for those who arrive at the site by mistake. It will lead the visitor to a page with facts and invite them to contact us for more information. The Georgia State Organizer met with the South Carolina State Organizer to be interviewed for a documentary by a Swedish Journalist. The Journalist found the State Organizers through the RSOL website. The radio station can be found at: http://www.sr.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=3052&artikel=3232248 Or, you can avoid all the cool Swedish stuff and go straight to the program at: http://www.sr.se/laddahem/podradio/sr_p3_verkligheten_091116015910.mp3 This would not have been possible without the courage and cooperation of Sandra, the RSOL South Carolina State Organizer. ********** Michigan - State Organizer: Francie Hi there, Well it has been a very busy month for me in Michigan. I was asked to do a radio interview with Ed Brayton of AM RADIO 1680 Public Reality WPRR about my personal story about my sons situation and how I would like to see the sex offender registry and laws reformed. It was an awesome interview and he is totally on board with wanting this thing reformed and thinks it is just barbaric. We were on the air about 20 minutes and even my son got to hear it in prison. It was really encouraging. The link to his radio station and program is http://www.publicrealityradio.org/listen.php He then has founded a online paper called the Michigan Messenger and he had is reporter contact me and we had a 2 hour interview. I got consent from many of my Michigan contacts who are either on the SO List or has family on it so this reporter can contact them and use their real stories to show what is actually happening out there. It was awesome. Not sure when that will post yet online but will keep you posted. That link is http://michiganmessenger.com/ Also, I have 142 signatures on my online petition and I hope to reach my goal of 200 to send to the legislature with my proposal. That link is http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reformsolawmich/index.html So far so good! Things are destined to change. Sincerely, Francie Baldino Michigan RSOL ********** Utah - State Organizer: Mary In Utah I sent letters out to the state officals also. I haven't heard anything back as of yet. I am writting letters to the registered offenders in my 6 county area and then will branch out as I get more help and support. ********** Virginia - State Organizer: John and Mary The next phase of the Book Project is complete with copies of Dr. Wright's book on the way to being delivered in early December. Make this project complete by getting your member, friends, and associates to follow up with letters, calls, and email. Contact RSOL Virginia for details. ********** Wyoming - Contact Mary: rsolwyoming@yahoo.com In Wyoming this month I sent letters to the state officals. Thanks to Rita in New York, she gave me alot of advice and letter examples. My support is still slow in Wyoming but I have a registered offender who is willing to mail letters to other offenders, I sent him a letter of introduction and he is currently working on that. I have gained another supporter who has some web knowledge. Realistically with the holidays coming we will probably have a website up sometime in January.

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The RSOL Oct. Digest, #26 Part IV

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 19.11.2009 Link to this digest: [0034]

The RSOL Digest, October, 2009 Part IV The RSOL Forum, http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ Departments 1. Quote of the Month 2. From The Top, Alex Marbury 3. Editorial, Kelly R Piercy, Editor 4. From The Admin Team 5. Philosopher's Corner, Alex Marbury 6. From The States ********************************* Articles 1. RSOL: A History, Alex Marbury 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained, Paul Shannon 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals, Kelly R Piercy 4. The Melian Dialogue, Kelly R Piercy 5. The First Stone, Ms, Felwell 6. Messianic v. Mosaic, Mary 7. The RSOL Minute People 8. The Shame of Consensual Sex, Laurire Perterson ********************************* 6. Messianic Law v. Mosaic Law or Subjective v. Objective or Reason v. Hysteria In an email from the members of RSOL Virginia, Mary, the Virginia State Organizer wrote: This morning I viewed a new Steve Shannon campaign advertisement and this evening I logged onto Steve Shannon's webs-site (http://shannon2009.Com/#) to thoroughly evaluate the subject of the commercial... And Yes, it is actually saying what I thought it was. Steve Shannon wants to criminalize the sacrament of Penance, the right to ask God for forgiveness, every Catholic's spiritual right. The Sacrament of Penance, commonly called Confession, is one of the seven sacraments recognized by the Catholic Church. Catholics believe that all of the sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ himself. Shannon is treading on everyone's Freedom of Religion; a Catholic priest hears a confession [a sin] and is not allowed to EVER repeat it, including murder. But former Delegate Steve Shannon our Democratic candidate for Attorney General wants to hold all clergy personally responsible if they do not report child molestation. Sounds reasonable until you really understand what Shannon is saying. Where would this end, perhaps all sins confessed should be of public record? Our Government has removed the statute of limitations for ALL sexual claims or crimes and now requires all mental health and medical professionals to report what their patient discloses during a medical session. Quite realistically this should place many persons in doubt as to whether they could be prosecuted as a Sex Offender and is ridiculous. Imagine you were to relate a story about being in college years or decades ago and realizing that a partner you had been with was just under the age of 18, if this story were mentioned to a mental health professional one could be subjected to prosecution and forever labeled as a Sex Offender. That is clearly bad enough, but to prevent someone from asking for forgiveness and peace for past sins is simply unforgivable. Congress is currently looking at the Over-Criminalization of America but Steve Shannon wants to charge and convict clergy who respect their religious responsibility to God and force them to report past crimes that are confessed to them. Perhaps Steve Shannon should draft a disclaimer from God stating "Feel free to confess your sins, unless it involves any previous criminal activity or; well, let's be on the safe side, just tell me the good things you've done lately". Where does it stop? Comment: Thomas Rydzewski This is a very interesting article. Canon Law 983.1 (the Catholic Church's Law) states specifically that the seal of confession is not simply strict but absolute. A priest may not violate this confidentiality for any reason - not even to save his own life. The Catholic bishops have dealt with this problem - even in other nations, and they continually support the fact that confidentiality must be maintained - even if it means the priest has to violate or disregard a civil law in order to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of the Sacrament. Cardinal McCarrick, for instance, (Archbishop of Washington, DC) has stated that he would be forced to disobey any such law and would instruct his priests to do the same. He is not alone in doing so. Apparently Steve Shannon has never heard of Canon Law (or simply does not care??). It is not up to the priest to decide whether or not he can or should use information he learned in the confessional - It is simply forbidden at all times and in all circumstances to betray the seal of the confessional. If a priest intentionally uses such information he is excommunicated from the church automatically. In other words, the law would not be so much a problem for the person confessing his/her sins, but it would be a problem for the priest. The priest is not allowed to violate the Church's (Canon) Law in this case - even if local law dictates otherwise. This sets up one major debacle for church and state relationships! I would also ask you to look at these sites: http://moss-place.stblogs.org/archives/2003/02/dont-try-to-hid.html http://bluepanjeet.net/2009/08/31/5548/newsbits-history-priest-sues-seal-confession-inmate-violated/ It seems our leaders are using fear and hysteria in an attempt to gain control over churches. They hide behind the facade of "protecting the children" in order to gain power, sympathy and potential voters. It seems that our constitutional rights are being tested in every arena possible. Thanks for passing along this information. It's really got me thinking! Sincerely, Tom R. Maryland ________________________________________________________ 7. Once More Into The Line Among the several websites throughout the United States and Canada now dedicated to providing up-to-date information relevant to sex offenders, RSOL has concluded that what is truly needed is a site which accumulates high-impact feeds of news and commentary and presents them in a format suitably designed for rapid response. It is not sufficient that sex offenders, their families and supporters, merely know what is going on around the country; they must also engage in the growing conversation about sex offenders, registries, restrictions, and the effect of reactionary public policy. To this end, the RSOL Correspondence Committee has assumed a new division: the Minutemen. The Minutemen are made up of volunteer men and women who have committed their time to help combat the constant cant of misinformation and statistical fiction contained in most new internet posts and a preponderance of forum comments. When one pauses to consider the importance of the original Minutemen and the selfless contribution they made to the tree of liberty, it is not hard to see why the moniker is apropos in this instance. The RSOL Minutemen stand ready to oppose the tactics of oppression, and they will give voice to tens of thousands of sex offenders, their families and friends. In reliance upon the most current statistical and analytical research available, the Minutemen utilize the best possible facts to make pithy, surgical responses wherever possible in promoting the stated goals of RSOL http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/statement.php. As this is a new and upstart venture, the Minutemen invite all well intentioned people to join its ranks. Minutemen are divided according to task. There are monitors who help gather, distribute, and repost fresh feeds of news and commentary available online. There are also researchers who work together to collect the best of every variety of supportive documentation (studies, statistical data, journals, case law, etc) and frame it into a friendlier, presentable format. And, there are responders, the heart and soul of the rapid deployment force, who combine the work of monitors and researchers into effective advocacy by following the links (posted by monitors) and applying the facts (collected by researchers). It is, of course, the goal of the Minutemen to do their job without getting caught up in the passion of arguments which often accompany the posting of a new article or commentary regarding sex offenders. It is not the job of Minutemen to convince people, necessarily, but merely to make sure that the facts available - the real, dependable facts (such as correct recidivist numbers, etc.) - are inserted into the public debate and made accessible to all. Whether another person agrees or disagrees with the stated goals of RSOL is a matter quite outside of the Minutemen's control. As Mark Twain said perhaps better than anyone could have, "You're entitled to your opinion. But you're not entitled to be wrong about the facts." The facts are the friends of sex offenders and their supporters. Hardly a single, respectable study of the problems plaguing sex offenders as a result of "registration-and-restriction-mania" has produced facts in support of continuing these draconian policies. The primary task of the Minutemen is to make certain that results such as these, and similar evidences of the same, are posted in reply to any and all available internet feeds where there is a possibility of so doing. Of course, it is not necessary to become a Minuteman in order to advance the cause of reform. We encourage everyone with a stake in improving the conditions for sex offenders to do all they can to combat ignorance and deliberate deception. And, once we are fully operational, we will welcome anyone to visit our website, utilize the research we have compiled, and make valid, cogent responses to all the disinformation whisking around the world-wide-web. Nevertheless, our objective is to build the Minutemen into the avant-garde of online SO activists. I can not really overstate our need for additional volunteers. If you think you'd like to play a part in our effort by contributing a few hours a week to monitoring, researching, or responding, please send me an email today vandrwall@gmail.com and we will be happy to put you to work. ________________________________________________________ 8. A Life of Shame for Consensual Sex Friday, July 27 2007 @ 10:17 AM CDT Contributed by: outrage Views: 2,625 Op-Eds Consensual teenaged sexual experimentation is an activity that is labeled by most states as child sexual abuse, child molestation, sexual assault and statutory rape. Under most state laws it is a felony crime, accompanied by sex offender registration. The legislative belief is that these relationships are coercive and unhealthy even if they are consensual. --By Laurie Peterson Most local governments send teenagers to high school from freshman to senior year, ranging in age from 14 to 19 on average. Ironically, these same state governments make it explicitly illegal for these peers to engage in some, if not all, forms of consensual sexual relations. These adolescents are taught a safe sex message in school, even as under aged minors, who cannot legally engage in sexual intercourse. These minors in turn have a tendency to equate safe sex with legal sex and they are wrong, sometimes with lifelong consequences. While it is the general intent of statutory rape laws across the nation to discourage underage sexual activity, is it the equal intent of these laws to subject these young offenders to a lifetime of stigma by registration? In light of the seriousness of a felony record and registration requirements it is time to review the parameters of these laws and the consequences they have for youth at the dawn of their adult lives. Decades ago when these laws were first pieced together the outcome was much different for a statutory rape conviction than it is today. The outcome during that time was a criminal record unencumbered by the release of CORI reports and registration requirements. After their conception, sexual assault laws were coupled with new legislation that further compounded a conviction. Federal legislation expanded the release of criminal records reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 USC 1681g, et seq.) used by employers and subsequently resulted in the direct loss of employment for young offenders. In addition, Federal laws like the Wetterling Act, Megan's Law and The Adam Walsh Act have now mandated lengthy registration periods and online posting of information under the title of "Sex Offender or Offender Against Children" and these newer laws have resulted in a social stigma and a private shame for young offenders that could not possibly have been anticipated by legislators when the original sexual assault laws were created. Today sex crime convictions equate directly with job loss and employment opportunities, possible residency restrictions, and a general inability to provide for a future family through gainful employment and parental involvement (volunteering, coaching, and chaperoning) in the lives of future children. Registration laws at their heart were aimed at violent and predatory sex offenders, not teenage love affairs or casual nights of experimentation. It is time to restore balance to the system by removing these young men and women from the registry for their consensual sex acts as teenagers. A significant number of teenagers are engaging in all types of sex acts well below the age of consent. Sexual assault laws generally define penetration as any object, however slight, that penetrates the sex organ of another. Many teens are involved in acts of mutual groping that could fall under the legal definition of penetration, without actually having sexual intercourse, and thus would be guilty of statutory rape. One shudders to think what the outcome would be if there was a nationwide attempt to crack down on this 'heinous' criminal activity inside the walls of our high schools. It's hard to imagine the courts would have time to prosecute anything else. While this group of registered sex offenders represents the minority of those registered, there are still substantial numbers of young men and women forced to register for consensual sex as adolescents and society should not overlook them. Complicating statutory rape law review is the associated label of 'sex offender'. Families are bombarded with messages daily assailing sex offenders as a group. They are touted as the 'worst of the worst', untreatable monsters who will repeat their crimes. With such an ugly stain attached to the sex offender label, there is little doubt as to why politicians back off from endorsing any sort of meaningful and necessary reform to sex offender laws. Perception being nine tenths of the law, all registered sex offenders must be child molesters. The truth it seems is rarely reported. The truth is that those guilty of statutory rape would not have been guilty of a crime at all in a specified number of days (when the underage partner turned the legal age). It underscores the reality that maturity cannot be legislated in black and White terms. Those convicted of statutory rape are rarely repeat offenders, though there are little studies to prove this because these young adults rarely serve prison time and most studies are conducted on those who have been paroled since prison sentences indicate a more serious offense. Even those guilty of other types of sex crimes are not as likely to repeat these offenses as society has been led to believe. The US Dept of Justice issued a study in 2003 that followed just under 10,000 convicted sex offenders released from prison in 1994. Less than 400, approx 3.5% were returned to prison for a repeat sex offense within the first three years following release. This hardly represents the 'high rate of recidivism' that is loudly proclaimed by those looking to advance their political standing with tough new laws aimed at registered sex offenders. Interestingly, women's and children's rights advocates have asserted that a level of coercion exists based on the age difference alone between two consenting teens and thus a sexual assault has occurred regardless of the consent given. These powerful lobbying groups, along with victim's rights advocates, are unwilling to acknowledge that an 18, 19 or 20 year old can be both an adolescent and an adult simultaneously and lack criminal intent when it comes to sexual relations with a younger partner. Their belief is that these individuals are undeniably adults and therefore should know better than to engage with an underage peer under all circumstances. While the potential age difference represents an aspect of the debate that makes many uncomfortable, some criminal penalties for statutory rape do not have to be removed in order to accomplish reform. Allowing judicial discretion in sentencing for this age group, as well as removing the registration requirements for a first time offense, would suffice. These organizations continue to strongly oppose these changes alleging that these 'mature adults' use their older age status to manipulate younger individuals into relationships with them. These groups refuse to acknowledge that the younger partner may have wanted, provoked or encouraged this attention and they disregard younger partners who insist they are not a victim. In fact the very idea is dismissed as blaming the victim or oneself if the older person in the sexual relationship is not held completely and solely accountable for the sex acts that occurred. These advocacy groups continue to hinder the potential reform of statutory rape laws by not allowing any open dialogue that can weigh and balance the aspects of accountability and maturity on both sides of this contentious subject. The current imbalance of accountability is most evident in the strict liability nature of statutory rape laws. Statutory rape laws are defined as strict liability crimes in 33 states. Strict liability means that the prosecution does not have to prove criminal intent, only that the criminal act occurred. Victim advocacy groups stress the need for the 'strict' protection offered by these laws in an attempt to save young teenage individuals from their own poor decisions. There is no such protection afforded to older teenage individuals in these situations. Consequently, the impact of this type of law is that there have been mentally innocent people convicted of statutory rape with a peer they believed to be 'of age'. It is not a defense in court to say that the underage minor misrepresented their age in most states. The result of this strict liability is that innocent minds that did not intend to commit a crime are irrelevant before a court of law. There is little push to change this imbalance because it is poorly understood by the public and once an individual is labeled a sex offender, they are no longer part of mainstream society, regardless of the nature of their crime. Young adults and older teens have painfully little life experience and may not realize that they are being lied to by someone they perceive as a peer. Even worse, they have no concept of strict liability crimes and their automatic guilt under the law because they have barely entered adulthood and are lacking the critical knowledge that these circumstances exist. This transition into adulthood should not be overlooked when reviewing statutory rape laws. For most teens this is a complicated and tumultuous time, of still being 'a child' while simultaneously being allowed several 'adult' privileges. In New Hampshire, as in most states, the first adult privilege our children receive is a driver's license at age 16. Their adult privileges continue to grow until the age of 21 when they are legally able to buy and consume alcohol. In legal terms, I would argue New Hampshire has defined the age range of 16 to 21 as the age of transition for our youth into adulthood. Even insurance companies regard the age of maturity as 25 years old when deciding on premium decreases. This age range makes notoriously poor decisions, as most of us know from our own personal experiences. There is scientific research to support the assertion that the age range for adolescence is markedly longer than previously regarded, lasting well into the early twenties. Do people really need to be reminded that teens and young adults have bad judgment without necessarily having criminal intent? A great number of our own actions during those transition years could be considered regrettable to say the least. It is easy to imagine how our own lives may have been different if we were subject to prosecution for consensual experimentation. As the wife of an offender who is registered for life over a night of consensual sex as a teen, I can tell you this is an outrage. My husband and children have been shunned by others in the neighborhood because the perception is that all sex offenders are child molesters. My husband is not alone. Genarlow Wilson of Atlanta, Georgia, is currently serving a ten year prison sentence for receiving consensual oral sex at the age of 17, from a 15 year old peer, and will be registered for life upon his release(1). A quick search on the internet will confirm that millions of people around America have rallied around Genarlow to voice their disgust in his sentence and to call for his release. The media and public outrage in Genarlow's situation is rare, and most do not get the same support. Joshua Widner is another young man who is sitting in prison for ten years, convicted of the same crime as Genarlow and it has sparked no outrage(2). Perhaps it is because there was a slightly larger age gap in Joshua Widner's case than there was in Genarlow Wilson's case. The net result is still the same: a young man in prison for a mandatory ten years over a consensual sex act. Some of these teens, labeled by the law as a victim, are now married to their partners who are registering as sex offenders and considered their abusers by our criminal justice system. Take, for example, New Hhapshire's own Jody Barry and his wife. Jody is registered as a sex offender and posted online for life. Kearstin is the victim, and the mother of their four children. It's been more than ten years since they were teenagers, but their lives are still shadowed by the law. She was fourteen, pretending to be older; he was eighteen and believed she told him the truth. There is no relief in the law for this couple and there is no relief for anyone else convicted under consensual circumstances either. Until statutory rape laws and associated registration laws are examined there will be no relief. In reviewing these laws and registration requirements, it is necessary to remember that registration laws are not about punishment; they are about public safety. The US Supreme Court ruled in SMITH V. DOE (01-729) 538 U.S. 84 (2003) that sex offender registration was not a punitive sanction, establishing that these laws were not intended to be used as punishment. Registration laws pass constitutional muster because they were determined by the Supreme Court to be civil regulations imposed by the government for a narrowly defined interest in protecting the public safety. The original intent of registration law was narrowly defined in the beginning but it has grown to encompass perfectly natural sex acts amongst adolescents. It is perfectly acceptable, psychologically speaking, to be aroused by your own social group during your teen years. Those who fall in this category do not pose an immediate threat. The offenders who ought to cause concern are those who are abnormally aroused by abnormal things. Labeling these young men and women as sex offenders for consensual sex acts inflicts immeasurable trauma on these young individuals as they contemplate their new reality as child molesters in society. Thoughts of suicide are common for those convicted under these circumstances. Even though they did not molest children, the title sex offender is synonymous and the psychological damage of this label is huge. There exists a widely recognized problem of childhood sexual abuse. However, those unfairly labeled as child molesters continue to go unrecognized and grouped in with a broad range of registered sex offenders that no one would dare defend. In trying to remedy the problem created by registering teens and young adults as sex offenders for consensual sexual activity, state's have three options: allow petitions for removal, craft the laws to make this activity legal, or continue to make these acts illegal and do not couple convictions with registration laws for a first offense. It is time to realize that having the wrong people on the sex offender registry risks hurting the whole community in many ways. It cannot be stressed enough that the inclusion of those who have lesser, non-violent and singular offenses on the registry is a benefit to those with violent and predatory offenses. These dangerous offenders are harder to spot and track when everyone is included under the same umbrella of lifetime registration and online posting. Further, it unfairly lowers the property values for citizens living near a registered offender, so it would make sense to keep the list of registered offenders narrow and specific. Lastly, our tax dollars are best spent registering and monitoring high risk offenders who have repeated their crimes, or have shown excessive violence, or have multiple prepubescent victims, rather than squandering resources on consensual sex acts engaged in by pubescent adolescents that lack the criminal intent of an older adult grooming a young teen for sexual purposes. Comprehensive review and subsequent reform is long overdue. Notes 1 Genarlow Wilson's appeals are ongoing. He was originally charged with the aggravated rape of a 17 year old girl and aggravated child molestation for oral sex with a 15 year old girl. He was acquitted of the rape charge by a jury. The year following his conviction and mandatory 10 year sentence for oral sex, the Georgia Legislature changed this statute to a misdemeanor offense. It was not made retroactive to those already imprisoned. After appealing his original convictions to the Georgia Supreme Court, who denied a hearing on the matter, his Atty. B.J. Bernstein filed a writ of habeas corpus to the District Court in Humphrey v. Wilson, No. S07A1481. Judge Wilson (no relation) ordered that Genarlow Wilson be freed because his continued incarceration constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The Attorney General of the State of Georgia then filed a motion to block Genarlow's release and the case is now before the Georgia Supreme Court, who agreed to hold a hearing on the matter. The hearing was held on the 20th of July 2007. The decision is expected in September of 2007. Gnarlow Wilson has been released, however, he must still register as a sex offender. 2 Joshua Widner was 18 years old when he engaged in multiple consensual sex acts with a 14 year old female. He was convicted of statutory rape, a misdemeanor crime for sexual intercourse and aggravated child molestation, a felony crime requiring a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison for oral sex. Works Cited "Nearly 3 in 10 Young Teens 'Sexually Active'." MSNBC on the Web 31 Jan. 2005. 20 July 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6839072. Knapp, Sue. "Brain Changes Significantly After Age 18." Innovations Report 2 Aug. 2006. 20 July 2007. http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/report-54958.html. Thomson, Wright. "Outrageous Injustice." ESPN on the Web 2007. 20 July 2007. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=Wilson. Palmer, Alyson. "Tale of Two Cases Shows Murkiness of Sex Law." 14 June 2007. 20 July 2007. http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/new_singleEdit.asp?individual_SQL=6%2F14%2F2007%4013816%5FPublic%5F%2E.htm Barry, Jody., and Kearstin Barry. Telephone interview. Nov. 2006. Laurie Peterson ******************************************************************************************* END OF RSOL DIGEST - OCTOBER 2009

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The RSOL Oct. Digest, #26 Part III

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 19.11.2009 Link to this digest: [0033]

The RSOL Digest, October, 2009 Part III The RSOL Forum, http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ Departments 1. Quote of the Month 2. From The Top, Alex Marbury 3. Editorial, Kelly R Piercy, Editor 4. From The Admin Team 5. Philosopher's Corner, Alex Marbury 6. From The States ********************************* Articles 1. RSOL: A History, Alex Marbury 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained, Paul Shannon 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals, Kelly R Piercy 4. The Melian Dialogue, Kelly R Piercy 5. The First Stone, Ms, Felwell 6. Messianic v. Mosaic, Mary 7. The RSOL Minute People 8. The Shame of Consensual Sex, Laurire Perterson ********************************* 4. Athens, Lacedaemon, Melos, America, and the rule of .45 .45 - Model 1911 A-1, Colt, Semi-Automatic Pistol. Athens - Greek City State, Major Sea Power. Lacedaemon - Greek City State (Sparta.) Melos - Colony of Sparta (Island in the Aegean Sea.) Peloponnese - Southern Peninsula of Greece. Rule - Term or condition under which a game is played or a society is governed. Athens is unchallenged as the birthplace of democracy. In about 500 bce an Archon, political leader, of the City-State of Athens introduced the concept of a government of the people. In this new government, the leaders of the society acted more as executives that carried out the will of the people. This was a direct democracy. Each citizen met with every other citizen in assembly and issues concerning the function of the state were debated and voted upon. The government, executive, then carried out the will of the people. Everything from ordinances to building of the Acropolis, to the election of generals and construction of fleets was decided in assembly. Our American Representative Republic has its roots in this original Athenian Democracy. More than the birthplace of democracy, Athens is held up as the triumph of a democratic system of government over a totalitarian system of government. This heroic people stand out in history as twice standing against the most powerful empire of their day and twice defeating them. The Athenians destroyed the numerically superior and stronger Persians at Marathon (circa 490 bce) by themselves and saved the Peloponnese and Greece from becoming a satrapy of Darius. Ten years later, contrary to popular belief, the son of Darius, Xerxes was again defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Salamis (circa 480 bce.) Though Leonidus and 300 of his Spartans did go to Thermopylae, the majority of the Spartan army did not come to the aid of Athens. The Spartans, with the exception of the small group led by Leonidus, retired across Peloponnese Greece to join with the Corinthians and leave the peninsula to the mercies of the Persians. While the Spartans died well in legend, The Thespians gave their lives at more than two to one (700:300) at Thermopylae. In fact, the Persians were only delayed at this narrow pass and most of the Greek City-States did not 'band together' to face the invading Persians. The actual battle that ended Xerxes ambitions was a sea battle fought by an Athenian fleet with some other ships of Athenian allies in the Aegean Islands. Xerxes was not defeated in the classic movie version of a defeat. The Persian army did reach Athens and did burn the city to the ground. But the delay at Thermopylae and the crushing defeat of his fleet at Salamis made any further campaign untenable and he satisfied himself with burning Athens and going home. That straightens out that bit of revisionist history and puts those myths to rest. Now to put to rest the rose tinted glasses view of a bucolic and democratic Greece. There is a tendency in the acquisition of power that spans the entire history of human-kind. A review of history shows that every improvement in the human condition is followed by the collapse of the society that ushered in that improvement. The last 3,054 words of this article comprise the Melian Dialogue. This event in history illustrates what has been called The Rule of .45. The Rule of .45 is simple. He who holds the .45 makes the rules. That may not seem right. Right, Rights, is one of the pivotal arguments used to argue against the registry. It violates Constitutional, Human, and Civil Rights. That argument will not be posed again here. Those involved in this struggle understand the argument to a lesser or greater extent. Another argument that is made is of a moral/ethical nature. God will not allow this to continue. In fact, the most obvious example, for Christians, of the way God would handle this is found in the Book of John, Chapter 8. The crowd brings a woman who has committed a sex offense to Jesus. He gives an answer to the crowd and a command to the sex offender. To the crowd, he says, let him without sin throw the first stone. To the sex offender he commands, 'Go, and sin no more.' How different would the world be today if those who claim to 'stand on the Bible', got off of it, opened it, and read it. How different would our world be today if Hellenic society fit the mold of myth and revisionist history we have made for it. Above, rather cynically, The Rule of .45 is proposed as the model by which society works. There is another word, better than cynicism, the word is realism. While the Melian Dialogue is important for everyone to read and understand, to overcome the rather difficult translation, it is presented in summary here. Athens was the most powerful City-State in the Hellenic World. For a shining period it was an example to the rest of Greece and the World of how a people and government should co-exist to the betterment of both. After the trial of fire by the Persians, Athens grew even more powerful. That power was felt by the other powers among the Peloponnese. Sparta began to feel the pressure as did Corinth. In about 431 bce a great war erupted on the peninsula. Sparta fell to Thebes along the way and became the Lacedaemon Empire. Athens began to build Empire (Attica) as the Peloponnesian War progressed. A truce between Lacedaemon and Athens stopped direct confrontation between the major players. In this uneasy peace, Sparta and Athens began pressuring the smaller allies of the other to switch alliances. The Athenian Navy descended on the Island of Melos and sent envoys to offer the Melians the opportunity to ally against their ancestral alliance with Sparta. The offer was quite reasonable, ally with Athens in the face of 38 war ships manned to the gunwales with heavy infantry and Melos would not be razed to the ground. Of course, the Melians refused the offer, citing that they were neutral and the law protected their status. The Athenian envoys replied that they really did not care about the law. The Melians protested that the Gods would stand on the side of Right. The Athenians said that they worshipped the same Gods and that the Gods appears to stand with the powerful. The Melians said that the Spartans would come to their aid. The Athenians replied that the Spartans would not risk a fight agasint the most powerful navy in the known world over this tiny island. The Melians proclaimed that they would rather die than suffer what seemed to them to be a violation of trust in law, God, and their ancestral alliance with Sparta. The Athenians killed every man on the island and sold every woman and child into slavery. Eventually, Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 bce.) Defeated in the sense that the entire war seemed to fizzle out and the last major defeat was suffered by Athens. The cultural, social, and political center of Greece, the modern capital of Greece Athens. Sparta, Thebes, Melos spots on tourists maps. The point? The Once and Future King: Arthur, son or Pendragon - Might for Right. The Crimson King: Mordred son of Arthur - Might is Right! There is a moral high ground. Do not count on it against power. Power is the only answer to power. Study the next 3,000+ words carefully because part of power is knowledge. The Melian Dialogue: Sixteenth Year of the War - The Melian Conference - Fate of Melos The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of three hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring islands of their empire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders. The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows: Athenians. Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still? Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you. The Melian commissioners answered: Melians. To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery. Athenians. If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you, we will give over; otherwise we will go on. Melians. It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose. Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon. Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both. Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule? Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you. Melians. So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side. Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power. Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels? Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea. Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it? Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger. Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke. Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are. Melians. But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect. Athenians. Hope, danger's comforter, may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources, if not without loss at all events without ruin; but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far as to put their all upon the venture see it in its true colours only when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them to guard against it, it is never found wanting. Let not this be the case with you, who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means may still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction. Melians. You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational. Athenians. When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about the Lacedaemonians, which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you, here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their own interests or their country's laws are in question, are the worthiest men alive; of their conduct towards others much might be said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than by shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honourable, and what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not promise much for the safety which you now unreasonably count upon. Melians. But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and thereby losing the confidence of their friends in Hellas and helping their enemies. Athenians. Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security, while justice and honour cannot be followed without danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians generally court as little as possible. Melians. But we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake, and with more confidence than for others, as our nearness to Peloponnese makes it easier for them to act, and our common blood ensures our fidelity. Athenians. Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the goodwill of those who ask his aid, but a decided superiority of power for action; and the Lacedaemonians look to this even more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home resources that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour; now is it likely that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over to an island? Melians. But they would have others to send. The Cretan Sea is a wide one, and it is more difficult for those who command it to intercept others, than for those who wish to elude them to do so safely. And should the Lacedaemonians miscarry in this, they would fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom Brasidas did not reach; and instead of places which are not yours, you will have to fight for your own country and your own confederacy. Athenians. Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience, only to learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any. But we are struck by the fact that, after saying you would consult for the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to come out victorious. You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this. You will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as to choose the worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and reflect once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting, that you have not more than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin. The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians, left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding with what they had maintained in the discussion, and answered: "Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at first. We will not in a moment deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven hundred years; but we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now, and in the help of men, that is, of the Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save ourselves. Meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party, and to retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall seem fit to us both." Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference said: "Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions, regard what is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in your eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have staked most on, and trusted most in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your hopes, so will you be most completely deceived." The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians showing no signs of yielding, the generals at once betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a line of circumvallation round the Melians, dividing the work among the different states. Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place. About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos took so much plunder from the Lacedaemonians that the latter, although they still refrained from breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens, yet proclaimed that any of their people that chose might plunder the Athenians. The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians stayed quiet. Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night and took the part of the Athenian lines over against the market, and killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they could find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future. Summer was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended to invade the Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing unfavourable, and went back again. This intention of theirs gave the Argives suspicions of certain of their fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however, escaped them. About the same time the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves. Thucydides Peloponnesian War - Hisotry The Peloponnesina War - Thucidides ________________________________________________________ 5. The First Stone - A blog posting Ms Fewell I've not posted in a really long time but I did want to let everyone know am still in the battle. I am shocked and disgusted at all I've learned about our Criminal Justice System. I've been mulling this over a good while now. The violations of the Constitutional and Civil Rights of individuals labeled "RSO" should instill fear in every American Citizen. Some of you may not know me so just a little background. Born & raised in Alabama, female; baptized at age 10 at the First Baptist Church of Alabaster, Alabama. Vacation Bible School was mandatory probably my entire life. I no longer consider myself "Baptist" but I will always know that I am a Christian because nothing can take me from God's hand. I truly do not judge those who are not Christian or may disagree. It is not mine to judge. God judges our hearts. He is a good God and a just God. I do not believe God would condemn any good person to Hell* and I believe there are many good people regardless of their religious beliefs. (I know that many Christians would consider that last statement heresy, but please don't judge me.) The following is what I would like to share with you regarding the banning of sex offenders from Church: One of my favorite pictures of Jesus from my childhood Bible is the one of Him surrounded by the little children. As a victim of child molestation and a mother of 3, I know the need for protecting our children from sexual predators. However, the net cast by the current and ever changing laws relating to sex offenders is a very broad net. 3 Examples: * A 25 year old man is currently listed on the public registry because at the age of 10 he allegedly showed his 'winkie' to a 7 year old little girl. * The 23 year old who has been on the public registry since he was 17. He had consensual sex with a girl he believed to be 16 in a couple of weeks. The girl was soon to be 14. The girl and her family do not agree nor like what has been done to this now 23 year old; it was the State's decision to prosecute. * The 29 year old who had sex at 19 with his 15 year old high school sweetheart. They are now married and have a child. As registered sex offenders, these three young men would be banned from going to Church. Their crime is a crime relating to man's law, but what about God's Law? Did this 10 year old little boy break God's Law? If so, which one? We know the teenage boys and girls broke God's Law so perhaps there are some who can justify banning the young men from Church, but what about the girls? I can visualize Jesus (our Perfect Example) as he drew in the sand and told the hypocrites that whoever had no sin cast the first stone. What if we (based on God's Law) banned everyone from Church who has ever broken God's Law regarding premarital sex, extramarital affairs, lust, porn addictions, coveting your neighbor's wife (husband), etc? Who would be left to watch our children? Maybe this is why some things are best left for God to judge. just my thoughts, jan *Socrates, a Canonized Saint of the Church, upon being condemned to death, was urged by his friends to choose exile over death. Her refused, saying, "The Gods will not punish a just man." Ms. Felwell ________________________________________________________

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The RSOL Oct. Digest, #26 Part II

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 19.11.2009 Link to this digest: [0032]

The RSOL Digest, October, 2009 Part II The RSOL Forum, http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ Departments 1. Quote of the Month 2. From The Top, Alex Marbury 3. Editorial, Kelly R Piercy, Editor 4. From The Admin Team 5. Philosopher's Corner, Alex Marbury 6. From The States ********************************* Articles 1. RSOL: A History, Alex Marbury 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained, Paul Shannon 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals, Kelly R Piercy 4. The Melian Dialogue, Kelly R Piercy 5. The First Stone, Ms, Felwell 6. Messianic v. Mosaic, Mary 7. The RSOL Minute People 8. The Shame of Consensual Sex, Laurire Perterson ********************************* Articles ________________________________________________________ 1. RSOL: A History A Brief History of a Young Movement: Sex Offender Law Reform 1998-2009 Alex Marbury By the mid 1990s, it was becoming obvious to a small band of civil libertarians, as well as some family members of those affected, that America's justice system had gone haywire in its monitoring, pursuit and punishment of sex offenders, long after sentences had been served. Within four years (1998-2002) several new web-based groups emerged to support sex offenders and their families, and to work to change what were considered unjust and extreme laws. The predecessor group to RSOL ( reformsexoffenderlaws.org), "Save Our Children and Our Liberties" began in 1998. Other groups followed quickly. Among these were SOHopeful, SOclear, and in England (reacting to a US-generated witch-hunt), Inquisition21. Still other groups with diverse goals and backgrounds were SOSEN, ETAY, B4UAct, CURSOR, CFCAmerica, and Voices of the Gulag. These groups often grew out of and sometimes replaced, earlier efforts. Finally, in June, 2007, just as SOSEN was re-organizing and as SOCLEAR and others were publicizing the dramatic Miami debacle of sex offenders forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, RSOL itself was begun (June 29, 2007). RSOL focused on repealing life-time civil commitment for sex offenders, and the public registration and shaming of sex offenders, often for life, as well as severe residency, employment, computer use, and other restrictions. RSOL saw its tasks as public education and lobbying at state and federal levels, not as direct social service and support for offenders and their families. This blossoming of sex offender support and reform groups must be set in the context of twenty years of sex panic in the United States. It was clear to many by the 1980s, especially gay and lesbian leaders, that sexual hysteria, focusing on sex with children was reversing tolerance and sexual freedom in America. This sex panic has been documented by many researchers, including Phillip Jenkins, MORAL PANIC (1998) Camille Paglia, professor at the University of Pennsylvania (SEXUAL PERSONNAE, 1974 & 1991), and gay writers like Pat Califia (1988) and Gayle Rubin. Rubin pointed out then,(1984) "historically we have seen that when moral panics are over, countless individuals and groups have suffered greatly and the original triggering social problems have not been remedied. This could as easily be said of today's sex offender registration craze. All these writers pointed to the ugly fanaticism and homophobia of the fundamentalist Christian preacher, Anita Bryant, in her barnstorming "Save the Children" campaign of 1977, as the origin of what some saw as a third or fourth sex panic in US history. Earlier panics had focused on venereal disease and prostitution in the 1890s,1920s and late 1930s. In 1997, gay writer Eric Rofes said, at the Lesbian and Gay Task Force meeting in San Francisco, "Waves of terror and scapegoating homosexuals, beginning in New York City, have closed bath-houses and gay clubs, and resulted in a return to pre-Stonewall levels of homophobia and discrimination." Rofes also pointed to new developments in US law that seemed to undermine the U.S. Constitution - among these were sexually violent predator statutes in 16 states (this has now grown to 46 states in 2009), where those deemed dangerous could be confined for life in concentration camp style centers. Rofes, and others after him, pointed out that more than half of those confined were gay men. Rofes believed the US was on the verge of a "Sexual Civil War." All these writers talked of an alarming trend to publicly register sex offenders, many of whom were gay men. They believed that the sex panic of the 1970s to 1990s was the result of the resurgence of a rabid right-wing in the U.S., as well as a growing disparity between poor and rich - all of which led to a sense of stress and despair. This was a perfect environment to foster paranoia and to single out convenient and exaggerated scapegoats - like queers who spread AIDS, or sexual predators who prey on children. It was amid this growing repression of sexual freedom that the original signatories of RSOL's predecessor, "The Call to Safeguard Our Children and Our Liberties," (The Call) came together in Boston in 1998. Meeting both at the American Friends Service Committee in Cambridge and at Roxbury Community College in Boston, community activists who had worked together in peace and civil rights movements, and most recently in solidarity groups to support democracy in Haiti, began to draft their original statement. Professors Chris Tilly (economics, U. Mass. Lowell) and Marie Kennedy (community planning, U. Mass. Boston) had served as co-chairs of delegations to support the restoration of President Aristide of Haiti. They now agreed to work with Paul Shannon of American Friends Service Committee, who had also been in Haiti with them, to find supporters for the new campaign to stem the tide of sex offender scapegoating. Jamie Suarez-Potts of AFSC and Kazi Toure, a former Black Panther and Roxbury Community College lecturer, took leading roles in persuading other prominent activists to join the effort. They were successful in persuading Dr. Howard Zinn, one of America's most prominent historians (PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES), amd many other progressives to join the Call. Among them were Dr. Ruth Hubbard of Harvard, Jennifer Firestone (of the Firestone Foundation), gay leader Michael Petrelis, and Rachelle Simon, a leader of the incest survivors' network. Dr. Richard Pillard, former President of the American Psychiatric Association, and a Professor of psychiatry at Boston University, headed the list of signatories. The 1998 Call began, "We are committed to protect society and its children from the dangers of real sexual violence and abuse. We are also committed to preserve the American system of civil liberty and genuine criminal justice, based on carefully limited laws that target acts not classes of people, and that seek to rehabilitate rather than vindictively punish offenders. We assert that only by supporting liberty and justice can we maintain a safe and secure society. For these reasons, we speak out against the ever mounting hysteria against vaguely defined sexual dangers, which ostracize and scapegoat a wide range of people who have been labeled "sex offenders." The progressives behind the Call pointed out similar lack of due process and violation of habeas corpus rights with regard to those called "terrorists" but noted that there was at least an outcry from civil libertarians on behalf of such people, as opposed to sex offenders, who seemed to have no-one to defend their rights. Those who signed the Call also insisted that this attack on sex offenders diverted attention from "other prevalent dangers to children" such as "crushing, humiliating poverty and family violence." It also insisted that teenagers were being prosecuted for activity that youth had engaged in "for millennia without stigma." Finally, it noted that adults, especially men, were afraid to be alone with children, or to give children affection, and said, "Children, men and society are the losers." It also insisted that there were many false accusations in such a environment of fear, and that "any accusation of sex with a minor was splashed in the media whether true or not," often leading to vigilante justice and suicides of those accused. This is similar to such cases today - such as that just this month in Toronto when a school teacher, arrested for chatting with minors in an internet chat room, was falsely accused of sexual acts with children by the Toronto STAR, and then killed himself. The "Call" was a Boston effort, and those involved knew each other and met face to face often, both in this effort, and in their mutual work on behalf of other causes. The "Call" was not an internet campaign, but a community organizing venture by activists well known in neighborhoods and professional associations across the Boston area. "Call" signatories met Massachusetts legislators and gave interviews to Boston news media. Their efforts met with little response in the state which was among the first to take a lead in crafting a public sex offender registry, and which had had life-time civil commitment for some sex offenders at its Bridgewater Institution for decades. In June of 2007, four individuals, including Paul Shannon, felt it was time to try a similar, but independent approach, on a national scale. This time, the effort was entirely in cyberspace, with the organizers sitting behind computers in cities far from each other. They found the going even rougher than it had been in Boston in 1999. Paul kicked off the effort with an article in CounterPunch.org, the online progressive magazine. "Eight years have passed and the crisis we addressed then has gotten far worse. The demonization of those accused of illegal sexual activity -- both the innocent and the guilty -- and the criminalization or stigmatization of more and more forms of sexual expression has reached new heights. All sense of fairness and due process are often tossed to the winds." Shannon' s article began, "There is today in our country a growing threat to our legal system, to the rights of all of us, to the quality of life of children, and to common sense. This threat has been fanned by prosecutors, nurtured by the media, and ignored by those who usually speak out against such dangers "In its most narrow sense this threat can be defined as the particular approach to sexual deviance embodied in ever-more-draconian laws against all behaviors labeled "sex offenses" -- including those committed by minors -- and in the sex offender registries of every state and the Federal government. In this approach to sex offenses slander, hysteria and demonization often replace reason, solid research and proportionality. "But more broadly, the danger consists of an all-out assault on fairness, on the reputations of some of our most caring people, on necessary social relationships and on our critical ability to confront the deepening social paranoia of 21st century America." The result of the CounterPunch article was the launching of the new web-based movement, http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org, or RSOL in June, 2007. RSOL included its own Statement, and some thirty of the signatories from the previous group in Boston signed on. The new website also included discussion materials from the National Center on Institutional Alternatives, as well as pages for Tales from the Registry (the stories of offenders forced to be on public registries), Blogs, News Items and major Research articles. In September 2007, RSOL launched a monthly Digest of important articles, announcements and research material. Within three months, about 100 others signatories had joined from all over the U.S. A decision was made that sex offenders themselves would not be signed on as public signatories, but would participate fully as non-public members. A young college student, Alain Levesque, came onboard and began to organize affiliated state groups. The decision was made that these groups should be autonomous, and that RSOL itself should not incorporate or seek tax exempt status, which might involve intrusive U.S. government involvement, and limit the group from lobbying and public education work. In January of 2008, an Administrative Team began a more formal decision-making process, with telephone conference calls every two to three months. The Team today includes Mary Sue Molnar, leader of the Texas RSOL affiliate (Texas Voices); Laurie Peterson of New Hampshire RSOL and a leader in the fledgling group Cursor; Joel Pentlarge of Massachusetts RSOL; Kelly Piercy of Georgia RSOL; Alain Levesque; and Paul Shannon and Alex Marbury (original organizers of RSOL). In mid 2008, Dr. Marshall Burns, a California researcher, initiated SOL Research http://www.solresearch.org with RSOL funding. Burns has provided substantive research to back up RSOL positions on the registry, on juvenile offenders, on false accusations, residency restrictions and many other topics. Lynn, an RSOL Georgia participant, organized the Prison Project in mid 2008 to send by U.S. post copies of the Statement and the monthly RSOL digests. In an effort to respond to hundreds of emails from people in severe crisis, RSOL helped spin off and fund an independent support hotline, which continues to give daily help to many people: 1 800 773 4319. Also in 2008, a Correspondence Committee, to respond to articles in the media, was set up at http://www.rsolcc.org. In early 2009, this also became the RSOL e-Magazine, edited by Kelly Piercy, which publishes the monthly Digest and other materials. By October 2009, RSOL had grown to include almost 900 public signatories, and more than 2000 non-public participants in the national and state groups. It has more than 30 active affiliated state RSOL organizations. A national conference was held simultaneously in Boston, Massachusetts and Austin Texas, linked by video, in July 2009, with about 100 participants (videos of the conference are available at the RSOL e-Magazine. Three RSOL affiliated state groups have made major gains lobbying their state legislatures, and a fourth is participating in a Federal Court lawsuit. Three state groups have over 100 active members each. Just as RSOL was launched, other sex offender groups were also busy. Sohopeful International, formed in 1999, had been the largest such group, though its actual membership has never been verified. SOHopeful ceased operations in early 2008. SOSEN (Sex offender Support and Education Network) began as a Sohopeful interest group in 2002 with 50 members and now has approximately 200 members. Also the same week as RSOL's founding, the group Soclear Media, led by sex offender and writer Tom Madison of Oregon, burst onto the scene with a dramatic series of videos, including one at the homeless camp for sex offenders under the bridge in Miami, Florida. Working with Madison was a sex offender from Kansas, Terry Brown, who also had a website, hope4tomorrow. Brown traveled to Florida to join the Miami offenders under the bridge, gaining national media attention. A public rally by sex offenders was organized in March 2008 by Voices of the Gulag ( http://www.sexgulag.org) to draw attention to non-violent sex offenders committed to the California state civil commitment center at Coalinga, and to a whole series of rights violations against detainees. It was cosponsored by the Friends & Families of Coalinga Detainees and RSOL. Among the speakers was Paul Shannon of RSOL, by phone, and Tom Madison in person. Madison was later interviewed on a national TV show, Mike & Juliet, in which he was drawn into a shouting at the moderators when the other guests began asserting the typical myths about sex offenders as fact. Madison withdrew entirely from public activity, and took down his website. At the time, RSOL supported Madison, while some others criticized his TV appearance. The Coalinga group and Sex Gulag still exist, though they seem much less active. Inquisition 21st Century, in England, is, like many sex offender groups, the product of one person's work on the internet. Nevertheless, Brian Rothery of Inquisition21 has managed a consistent presence on the net, and in a major class action suit in England, against victims of an FBI-inspired British internet sting operation, called Project ORE in 1999, in which 7,250 suspects were named and 4,283 homes were searched. Of the 3,344 arrested, only 1,451 have been convicted in eight years. Other groups still exist. B4Uact, a Maryland group whose purpose is to keep pedophiles from acting on their desires, and to help get public support for this hated and scapegoated group. B4Uact's position is that pedophilia is, like homosexuality, an orientation not chosen by individuals, but genetics. They believe there must be understanding and compassion, not hate and persecution. ETAY, Ethical Treatment for All Youth, is a group that supports the rights of juvenile sex offenders. CFC America, is a general sex offender reform and support group, which is the work of one person, and which severed its link to RSOL because of RSOL's support for homosexual sex offenders. Altogether, RSOL, and the other groups may include 5,000 or so active supporters. Of that number over 3,000 are members of RSOL - a tiny drop in a huge flood. When RSOL started, it was estimated that there were 500,000 registered sex offenders. There are now 675,000. Additionally, there are perhaps 200,000 released sex offenders being sought by authorities for failure to register. Finally there are another 150,000 offenders still serving sentences. Between 2 and 3,000,000 people are close family members of all these offenders. New signatories are added to the RSOL statement every week, and the site now gets about 60,000 hits per month. It is clear that RSOL's best and strongest work is in a few of its affiliated state groups, such as Texas, Virginia, Illinois, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Oregon, with perhaps ten other groups building support rapidly. The RSOL Administrative Team is working towards the next National Conference in the late Spring to Early Summer of 2010. As RSOL's strength grows, vicious attacks, without exception based in untruth, misrepresentation, and a general fear and hatred, become more frequent. This clear indication of the impact RSOL is having only strengthens the resolve of the RSOL Administrative Team and the hard working RSOL members. As Mary Sue Molnar has so often said, "We'll keep raising hell in Texas." Truth and reason can never be silenced. Through the efforts of RSOL and the other groups opposing the registry we will prevail because at least RSOL will never quit until we do and RSOL will never let the attacks on its character distract it from its goal. Alex Marbury ________________________________________________________ 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) has 2 broad purposes: 1. To call on our society to come to its senses in the way it deals with the very real problem of sexual violation of children. We advocate reason and justice rather than moral panic 2. To abolish the punitive sex offender registry, residency restriction, and civil commitment laws that endanger our society as they stigmatize, shame and unfairly ruin the lives of registered children and adults and their families. RSOL seeks to detach illegal sexual behavior - including the devastating forms it sometimes takes - from the hysteria now rampant in the country so that it can be dealt with effectively and fairly. Any society that carries out a witch hunt to deal with any major social problem casts justice and rationality to the winds, guarantees large numbers of false accusations and false convictions, substitutes false beliefs for science, and devours itself and its children. There could be no better example of how an hysteria works than the way our country dealt with the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Here was a major crisis. Instead of solving it we whipped ourselves into a frenzy and engaged in the lunacy advocated by top officials in the media and government by going to war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat whatever to the United States. Present and future generations have just begun to bear the human and financial costs of this trillion dollar debacle. And yet, we continue to view a number of our major problems through the lens of panic, hysteria and demonization. In the case of sexual violation of children, it is the atmosphere of fear and panic and the proliferation of laws based on this hysteria that pose serious danger to the well-being of our society and to young people themselves. This assertion is true for young people whose lives and whose family's lives are destroyed by being labeled a sex offender, for children whose parent is demonized and denied employment or housing after serving his sentence, and for all children for whom the irrational fear of all men is held up as a positive virtue. The policies called for by RSOL are best expressed in its "Statement" signed by 900 people across the country. Signatories are not sex offenders. They are people from all walks of life who see the need to call attention to the dangers posed by sex offender registries and related laws and who call for radical reform of these laws. Paraphrasing from this Statement, RSOL advocates the following: * Abolish sex offender registries for those who have completed their sentences and abolish registries that publicly shame offenders on probation or parole. (In cases of coercive sex crimes, especially against children, and with a specific finding of likelihood to re-offend despite having completed one's sentence, registration tailored to the specific circumstances may be required. But there would be no postings on the internet). Rather, support carefully limited laws that target harmful acts, not whole classes of people, and which rehabilitate rather than vindictively punish and shame people. * Abolish life-time civil commitment for sex offenders who have completed their sentences (Again, in cases of violent offenses and specific findings of a likelihood to re-offend, carefully constructed court hearing with medical advice and full due process should determine if the person may be further incarcerated for a short time with regular review. The ultimate goal must be an offender's return to the community when they are not likely to offend, rather than lifetime commitment) * Stop public vilification and demonization of sex offenders in media and public discourse, particularly by the mis-use of the term "pedophile". In addition, hysteria about defending children from a violent rapist has broadened to a wider hysteria about all sex offenders even though the vast majority of sex offenders pose no danger to children. But demonization is destructive even when applied to truly violent offenders. * Help sex offenders re-enter society by abolishing universal residency restrictions and measures that make it virtually impossible to find a job. Encourage support groups and provide help with finding housing, employment and effective treatment before their release and afterward * Implement measures that protect society and its children from the dangers of sexual harm. But children need to be protected as well from other forms of abuse that traumatize millions of kids every day but are usually ignored in the sex abuse crusade: homelessness, malnutrition, poverty, inadequate health care and discrimination. * De-criminalize all consensual sexual activities among teenagers. * Stop all required sex offender registration for minors. * Abolish any laws that provide the death penalty or life in prison without parole for sex offenders. * Provide accurate information and support valid research about sex offender characteristics and recidivism rates in order to effectively protect children and respect due process. Paul Shannon ________________________________________________________ 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals Kelly R Piercy RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals Introduction: Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) began as a national effort from beginnings in Massachusetts (See History.) Effectively, RSOL as an identifiable organization began in 2007. Though some members of RSOL had previous associations with previous groups opposed to registries, From its inception, RSOL is a unique organization that has no affiliation or ties with any other organization. Front this beginnings, RSOL has operated under the guidance of its stated position with respect to the registry (See The Statement Explained.) To further clarify RSOL, the following Scope, Purpose, and Goals is presented. Scope: RSOL is concerned with the preemptive justice represented by the registry and civil commitment. Preemptive justice is contrary to the nature of a free society. This sort of 'preventative' justice cannot work when it is applied to a category rather than an individual. RSOL recognizes that there are individuals who are and continue to be a danger to the community. However, this is not the norm, nor is it a significant fraction of those convicted under the general category of 'sex offender'. RSOL recognizes that a society has the right, if not obligation, to define the terms and conditions (laws) under which that society, and members of that society, will conduct itself. However, those terms and conditions, when clearly in violation of individual rights, must be protected from the majority or the society becomes one of government by whim and a tyranny of the majority. In that understanding, RSOL does not work to change any law regarding conduct, including sexual conduct, except in the below stated areas. * RSOL does support and works towards the decriminalization of non-coercive sexual conduct between minors. o The important distinction is that RSOL does not seek to 'legalize' such activity between minors, the effort is to decriminalize such conduct. * RSOL works to remove minors, in any circumstance, from any criminal registry, allowing such persons to seal or expunge any juvenile record upon reaching their majority. * The removal of conduct without specific sexual conduct from the category of 'sex offense'. Thus, the scope of RSOL is to end the practice of public registry and residency restriction as it represents; preemptive justice, establishes a class, proscribes that class, and thereby violates Bill of Attainder proscriptions of the United States Constitution, is ineffective in addressing the issue it is meant to solve, is a violation of civil rights of individuals who have served their sentences and successfully completed any counseling/therapy ordered, and removes any meaningful effect of such counseling/treatment by removing any positive goal from the process. Outside the Scope of RSOL are such issues as age of consent, age differential, specific sexual conduct, the issue of consensual sex, and concerns of the increasing number of false accusations. Those issues being outside the Scope of RSOL does not, in any way, prevent RSOL from supporting ad hoc consortiums among RSOL affiliates and others in opposing such statures or legally attempting to change or enact such statues. RSOL takes as its limit, the opposition of the preemptive justice represented by the registry and endeavors to end the registry and replace it with policies of real justice based on sound research. RSOL recognizes that justice has three components; punishment, education, and restitution. * RSOL supports reasonable punishment based on proportionality. * RSOL recognizes and supports the concept that the most effective justice for the victim, the offender, and the society is to educate and rehabilitate the offender. * RSOL recognizes that in cases of violent behavior, restitution may be a difficult process for the victim. Nevertheless, vengeance can never be part of a just society and such restitution as is possible must suffice in these cases. Purpose: RSOL maintains itself within the above Scope to fulfill the need of society to effectively address the issue of violent sexual offense, where the violence is actual as opposed to imputed. In this Purpose, RSOL recognizes that the registry does not address the issue in any effective degree and must be ended so that effective resolution can obtain. Goal: RSOL is focused on ending the registry, bringing rational sentencing and justice back to the society, and emplacing effective programs of education, awareness, and treatment to effectively impact the incidence of violent sex crime in the society. Conclusion: RSOL is dedicated to the protection of society and children. RSOL opposes any conduct, and any law, that is contrary to the safety of society or its children. RSOL is opposed to any act of society or government that, not being based on sound research and fact, limits the freedom, rights, or civil rights of any member of that society. RSOL believes that a person who makes a mistake, commits a crime, can change and can become a positive part of society, if that society allows such change. RSOL does not condone any act that harms another person, nor does it condone excessive punishment by a society. RSOL believes that disproportionate sentencing and post sentencing registration and restriction represent vengeance based punishment, thus becoming punishment for the sake of punishment, thus rising to the level of cruel and unusual punishment and being a clear violation of the Eight Amendment proscription against such punishment. Therefore: RSOL is concerned with the registry and not the offenses that lead to registration, except in the case of consensual conduct between minors, or where no actual sexual conduct is an element of the offense. RSOL has the single purpose of ending the registry and replacing it with rational justice based on sound research and proportionality, emplacing education, awareness, and treatment in place of excessive sentencing and registration/restriction. RSOL maintains the ultimate goal of emerging from this hysteria into a society that treats its fallen with justice and compassion and works through effective methods of education, awareness, and treatment to positively impact the incidence of sex offense and protect children, allowing society to focus on larger issues facing society and children such as poverty, nutrition, homelessness, and physical, mental, and emotional abuse. Kelly R Piercy ________________________________________________________

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The RSOL Oct. Digest, #26 Part I

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 19.11.2009 Link to this digest: [0031]

The RSOL Digest, October, 2009 Part I The RSOL Forum, http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ Departments 1. Quote of the Month 2. From The Top, Alex Marbury 3. Editorial, Kelly R Piercy, Editor 4. From The Admin Team 5. Philosopher's Corner, Alex Marbury 6. From The States ********************************* Articles 1. RSOL: A History, Alex Marbury 2. RSOL: The Statement Explained, Paul Shannon 3. RSOL: Scope, Purpose, and Goals, Kelly R Piercy 4. The Melian Dialogue, Kelly R Piercy 5. The First Stone, Ms, Felwell 6. Messianic v. Mosaic, Mary 7. The RSOL Minute People 8. The Shame of Consensual Sex, Laurire Perterson ********************************* 1.The RSOL e-Magazine Abandon idle chatter. Speak in season, speak what is factual, what is in accordance with the goal... Speak words worth treasuring, seasonable, reasonable, circumscribed, connected with the goal. - From the Pali Canon of Chinese Buddhism - good advice for all RSOL participants! - Alex Marbury ________________________________________________________ 2. At The Equinox This is a difficult time for sex offenders and their families. It just seems to get worse and worse. Halloween restrictions on sex offenders and their families this year was even more insane than ever. Americans are not only mean-spirited, they are dumb. Why punish an 80 year old who had forced sex with another 80 year old thirty years ago, at age 50, to stay away from children on Halloween? Yet laws in some states are just that bad. Some states even required on people's doors, as we've written before, literally a scarlet letter, or two scarlet letters: SO lives here. Or, as in Maryland, "No candy here." Absurd and cruel. Many national and local media ran specials on sex offenders at Halloween - but usually devoid of any balance - just more "scare tactics," appropriate for the season, it would seem. RSOL, too, has had some difficult days, after having grown steadily for two years. We are still growing, and having some growing pains, as there are different approaches to our work. And fanatics who run hate websites have also spread false and vicious information which we choose mostly to ignore. Yet there is some good news! The RSOL Administrative Team had a wonderful all-day meeting in Boston, October. 30, which I attended. I am so very impressed with the compassion and intelligence of the fine people who are on our team - Mary Sue Molnar, Laurie Peterson, Kelly Piercy, Paul Shannon, Joel Pentlarge and Alain Levesque. The Admin Team will be announcing soon the addition of one new member, a long-time RSOL activist and major researcher in our area of interest. RSOL will add a new feature soon on our homepage - "The RSOL Administrative Team" page, which will feature biographies of our leaders. The Admin Team, among many decisions, has decided that the next National RSOL Conference will be held in June 2010 in Washington, D.C., with a focus on national law reform and lobbying members of Congress. Watch for exact dates and further details soon, and make plans now to join us in Washington. This time there is enough advance notice that people should be able to save for the trip and make arrangements for work and family, so we can have a big gathering. We also approved the printing of a new RSOL Flyer with our statement and the names of signatories, to be able to use at the conference and in all our public education events. This month's digest is crammed with excellent articles, some by the Admin Team, including articles about our statement and our history, as it is part of the larger sex offender law reform movement. And, on October 28, RSOL reached a milestone - 900 public signatories, and still growing. We will not be discouraged or defeated! We will help end this blight on America's conscience - the unjust sex offender registration, residency and other restriction, and lifetime civil commitment laws. We are still committed, as our predecessor group in Boston said in 1999, to "protect our liberties and our children." Alex Marbury ________________________________________________________ 3. Observations: While the current state of affairs has all the earmarks of previous eras, i.e. the Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-War (Viet Nam) Movement, it misses one critical component, public sympathy. In these earlier movements there were two opposing forces, the establishment and those who stood against the establishment on moral and ethical grounds. What allowed these movements to succeed, to some degree, was the establishment's inability, through inexperience, to counter a public that ranged from ambivalent to a public that was sympathetic to the issue. In the instant case there are two critical components that will prevent earlier tactics from succeeding. The first is that the establishment, the government component of the establishment and those who support the tactics of fear and lies, are well versed in ways and means of countering previous tactics and that we live in a different world since the mid 80's. The government has seized both power and momentum from the people, and the people, for the most part are comfortable with that shift in responsibility. I became very concerned during the early 80's when I began to hear people speak of the government as if it were a separate, omnipotent entity. I became alarmed when I began to hear law enforcement begin to use terminology such as' the civilian population'. A large portion of the power of the people collapsed when the media began to define the news as a profit center. Traditionally, the media saw the news as a public obligation. Now, it is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and its purpose is to sell soap. It is my contention that using the previous model to bring justice in this issue cannot work. We must recognize realities and adopt a strategy that fits within that model. I believe that too much effort is wasted on parading individual wrongs. These do not fit the wrongs done to people who suffer because they are of a different race. It is quite simple and I do not understand why it is not recognized. The sympathy comes from the fact that a person's heritage is not a thing that person has any control over and to suffer because of an 'accident' of birth is clearly wrong. The sympathy generated by a person, family, community, or even people suffering because opposing political engines exercise that greatest extension of diplomacy, war, in their back yard comes from the fact that those people becoming collateral damage is wrong. The issue with war is now ineffective because the establishment now claims 'surgical' precision in waging war and blames atrocities on the unidentified enemy while supporting puppet governments that are as tightly controlled in their exposure as real puppets are on a stage. Add to that the deserved shame America feels because of the way they treated the children they sent off to Southeast Asia to wreck the carnage of their political will and the population will not dare speak out against the adventurist imperialism of the government. In our issue, the sympathy quotient will not work. The reason is that the reason a person is on the registry is not an 'accident' of birth or the acts of governments. Every person is on the registry because of a willful act, or has been accused and convicted of a willful act. Here, the effect is not in question. What becomes central is the willful act. The approach I am seeing is to ask for sympathy. That is not going to happen because of the visceral reaction to the label. Every mother who storms around demanding her little boy be excused from the registry for bopping a thirteen year-old does not consider how she would feel if it were her thirteen year-old daughter in question. This entire mother thing is overblown. The mother of a daughter is not going to join in a huggy circle with the mother of the boy who has been her greatest fear since before her daughter entered puberty. The 'mother' instinct is to protect her child, not someone else's child, especially another child who has caused harm to or might cause harm to her child. If there is a nature that can be assigned by gender, then the nature of a mother is defensive, cautious, and suspicious. One strategy that is self defeating is that constant fight to change laws so that some people who committed a crime will not have committed a crime under the new definition. This raises the question of age of consent, age differential, viewing as opposed to taking pictures, consensual majority-minority sex, etc. Asking for change in these laws is nothing more than asking to be allowed to commit a violation of what society deems as proper behavior. When an organization asks that consent laws be changed, the public hears the organization asking to legalize sex with minors, no matter how reasonable the request may seem. When an organization asks that the viewing of images of minors be permitted or lessened to a misdemeanor and that the actual producers of the images be sought and punished instead, the public hears that predators can now take images of their children for their own enjoyment; and nothing more than a slap on the wrist will obtain. To ask that the current iteration of registry be changed because it is inconvenient to those convicted, and make no mistake, the public hears inconvenient no matter what word is used, only brings the reaction that the offender is fortunate that inconvenience is the only thing suffered by the offender. Any attempt to change laws only increases resistance to change and leads to harsher conditions because we simply do not have the numbers. The fact is that fewer than 2% of the population is affected by the registry and fewer than 1% oppose it. Until the population recognizes the larger issue presented by the registry, they will not care. I learned a very valuable lesson in Viet Nam. While I delivered death and destruction in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way (an oxymoron in three parts,) I began to look around me. What I discovered was that the people America told me I was dying for did not give a fuck about anything other than where there next bowl of rice was coming from. More, they did not care if that bowl of rice came from a Marine CH-46 or the local Viet Cong stores. They just said thank you very much and would you please play war over in the next village. The same situation obtains in America today. America does not care about their neighbor, let alone their community or society. How many Americans have done more than give lip service to the collapse of any meaningful manufacturing in America. They may whimper, then they go to Wal Mart because things are cheaper (and cheap.) They have no concern that their neighbor has no work, and possibly food, because the job they had was shipped overseas to provide the cheap goods at the Wal Mart where they are shopping. Worse, the neighbor out of works is shopping right next to them. The problem here is not the law. As illustrated, asking for the law to change is only asking permission, in the public's jaundiced view, asking permission to rape children. The problem is perception. To engender any change, we must engender a change in perception. That perception is only strengthened when we try the various ideas that have been and continue to make the rounds. Here are a few examples. File a class action against the registry in court. Unless and until the courts recognize that some harm has occurred, this is a dead end. The rule of thumb is if you are going to sue for damage, you must first show injury. No one has successfully shown injury to the level the courts demand. Individual cases of murder or freezing to death are simply countered by the state by pointing to provisions in the law to prevent the lowest level of harassment and show that the person could have simply gone to the local sheriff and found temporary unimpeded shelter at the local jail. Sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is probably the biggest silliness that makes its cyclic appearance. Any disability that is the result of a willful act does not qualify under the ADA. Case closed. Change some law, such as age of consent to remove some behavior from the criminal code. I am still surprised that any with any political savvy propose this in the same breath they demand a disclaimer because association with certain groups made it appear that RSOL condoned the public perception of those groups. This does not smack of any understanding of the opposition and demonstrates a complete lack of political thinking. Let me see, first disclaim any association with a publicly perceived evil, then set an age that most identify as a child, or at least what should be protected offspring, so I can go fuck their brains out. When you have a 30 or 40 or 50 year-old man who represents an organization opposed to sex offender registries, or the mother of an out of control teen who is bopping someone's sweet, innocent little girl asking you to change the age of consent so they can do what they want and you have no recourse because the girl who lives in your house, eats your food, and drives your car can make her own decisions If we do not start thinking like the opposition, we will never accomplish anything. Everyone needs to sit down and read their Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz. Let me thoroughly disgust you with an illustration, take this tack and this is what will happen. When I was wandering around the trees and bushes of I Corps and I saw a target as obvious and open as the one presented by sex offenders arguing in any degree to change age of consent, I did not bother to risk engaging, I called in every battery I could, including 16 inch Naval Gunfire. When I was done there was nothing left but some body parts and a large hole in the ground. I never broke a sweat when I called a Carrier Battle Group for some F-4's to sanitize the area with napalm. What has to happen is that people need to engage their brains before they engage their keyboards. This fight is being lost on almost every front. In some cases, through the effective work of people like Laurie, Mary and John, Mary Sue, and some few others, the line is barely being held. In most other places it is being lost. We must continue to support the effective work of Laurie, et al. We have to get behind Alain's Minute Men Project full force. We have to develop our media contacts. The Minute Men must answer every article, story, blog, and forum with the truth presented in a way that foments change and awareness of the truth. We must cultivate the media in a way that they begin to stop using the label sex offender as a generic term and begin reporting more stories of people who are on the registry because they did not kidnap, rape, and murder a child. It is perception we must change, not laws. We must make this about the wrongness of creating a sub-class of citizens by registration. We must join with groups such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)to bring about rational and subjective sentencing. We must make America realize that there must be an end to punishment. If we do this, then the laws will fall in turn. We can no longer go along to get along. That way leads to loss of identity. We must decide on a path and follow it and it must be our path and not dictated by any who have only their own interest at heart. Kelly R Piercy ________________________________________________________ 4. From The Admin Team * The RSOL Administrative Team met in a face to face conference in Boston on 30 October, 2009. o A new member will be added to the RSOL Admin Team to enhance the Teams ability to respond to the needs of the affiliates and to more aggressively address the national effort to change the registry. o To better identify the members of the RSOL Administrative Team, and to provide factual information about those members, the RSOL website will feature 'bios' for all Admin Team members. o The next RSOL Conference is in Planning and a date has been set: + June, 2010 + Washington, D.C. The RSOL Administrative Team ________________________________________________________ 5. Philosopher's Corner - Alex Marbury Dialogue seeks a goal of common purpose In the past few months, many of us in RSOL have been stressed by severe outside attacks from very evil people, and by internal divisions and misunderstandings. We cannot let these betray our cause. I think the following essay from the Pali Canon of Chinese Buddhism is very relevant and should be spiritually and politically helpful to us all. I know I will take this to heart. Alex "Right Speech" Right speech (samyag-vac - samm -vac ), deals with the way in which a Buddhist practitioner speaks with others. In the Pali Canon (of Chinese Buddhism), it is explained thus: "And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This is called right speech." The Samannaphala Sutta, Kevatta Sutta and Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta elaborate: "Abandon false speech... Speak the truth, hold to the truth, be firm, reliable, no deceiver of the world..." "Abandon divisive speech... What we have heard here, we do not tell there, to break those people apart from these people here... Thus we reconcile those who have broken apart or cement those who are united. We love concord, delight in concord, enjoy concord, speak things that create concord..." "Abandon abusive speech... Speak words that are soothing to the ear, that are affectionate, that go to the heart, that are polite, appealing and pleasing to people at large..." "Abandon idle chatter... Speak in season, speak what is factual, what is in accordance with the goal: the Dhamma, and the Vinaya. Speak words worth treasuring, seasonable, reasonable, circumscribed, connected with the goal..." - The Pali Canon, Chinese Buddhism Alex Marbury ________________________________________________________ 6. From The States Alain Levesque, alain360@fastmail.fm Dear friends, First, I wish to personally congratulate Kelly Piercy on the remarkable work he has been doing on the e-Magazine website! I'm sure all of you will agree with me that this magazine format makes the reading of our monthly Digest a much more pleasant experience, and this would not have been possible without Kelly's amazing initiative and talent! In September and October, RSOL continued to grow with the addition of new organizers in FIVE states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. In Ohio, James and Dolly Madison, who had already been very active in lobbying in their state, to joined our organization. They bring a lot of experience and even more dynamism to RSOL. Their first move was to do something that had never been tried by any other RSOL organizer before: using the Ohio registry, they went door-to-door, introducing themselves to the people listed on the registry, offering their support, and inviting them to join the fight for reform! The outcome was very positive, and they managed to recruit some new volunteers! Rest assured that Ohio RSOL is THE place to be right now for anyone who is looking for action. To get involved in the state, please contact James and Dolly: ohiorsol@yahoo.com. In Pennsylvania, Frank, who is personally affected by the the unfair registration and residency restriction laws, joined our organization a few weeks ago. Frank has started spreading the word about RSOL, and he is looking for volunteers to get his group rolling. Please contact Frank at reformpennsylvanialaws@yahoo.com. In North Dakota, Mandi, the wife of a former sex offender, joined RSOL just a few days ago, but she has already started working on a website for her group. Mandi's biggest challenge will be trying to recruit a group of volunteers in the 3rd least populous state in the country. If you are in Noth Dakota and want to help us in this fight, please contact Mandi: rsolnd@gmail.com. Finally, RSOL has the pleasure of welcoming a new and extremely motivated organizer, who offered to organize two states simultaneously: Utah and Wyoming. Just like Mandi in North Dakota, Mary Gay joined RSOL just a few days ago. She is very creative and full of ideas, as can be seen by reading her group's mission statement on our website (http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/groups/#053). I urge all of our known supporters in Utah and Wyoming to join Mary's efforts: rsolwyoming@yahoo.com or rsolutah@yahoo.com. James, Dolly, Frank, Mandi, Mary: welcome aboard the great RSOL family! I hope you enjoy your news from the states, and I will see you all next month. Alain Levesque Alabama - State Organizer: Anthony Alaska - Neighboring State Contact: Alain Alain is a temporary contact for Alaska. We are seeking a permanent State Organizer for this State Arizona - State Organizer: Tina Arkansas - State Organizer: Austin California - Sate Organizer: Linda Gallagher Colorado - State Organizer: Bennie October 2009 Not much has changed from the last report in Colorado. There was a two day conference in Denver conducted by CURE. I am just now coming out of my doldrums, but the other members who are primarily with Colorado CURE are continuing their contacts with state agencies. I am now pursuing a focus on the state legislature as the SOMB is coming up for renewal, and the Judicial committees will probably reaffirm the SOMB for another three years. I am also generally the point person for helping others who contact me, so I am the local help desk. Bennie Walton Back to top Connecticut - Neighboring State Contact: Howard and Rita Delaware/a> - Neighboring Sate Contact: Thomas District of Columbia - Neighboring Sate Contact: Patricia Florida - State Organizer: Colette Georgia - State Organizer: Kelly R Piercy Georgia is planning its first meeting among supporters this month. The focus of the meeting will be to discuss ways we can bring more awareness to the registry and bring more exposure to our group. Guam - Neighboring Sate Organizer: Kelly R Piercy I am establishing email contact with our members in Guam. Hawaii - Neighboring Sate Contact: Kelly R Piercy Idaho - Neighboring State Contact: Shelley Illinois - State Organizer: Renate and Tonia Illinois has been very busy. Several RSOL supporters have joined with us in making change. We ve had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with a few people and plan on meeting more in the near future. Several of us have been sending out letters to those listed on the registry asking them to join our fight. We have about 6 people working on separate counties and so far we've had a pretty good response. We've been watching the bills in congress and have been writing our state representatives and senators opposing these new bills. The October Sex Offender Management Board meeting was cancelled, but we will be at the meeting in November. We also have a couple new projects underway (http://www.love-is-not-a-crime.com/Projects). If anyone is interested, please email me (toniat@sbcglobal.net). We are still passing out our flyers and brochures any chance we get in hopes of educating the public a little more on these laws and their terrible restrictions. Tonia Indiana - State Organizer: Kimberly Kansas - State Organizer: Michael Kentucky - State Organizer: Jennifer Good news from Kentucky! October 2, 2009, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled (5-2) retroactive application of residency restrictions unconstitutional! After that news, I was invigorated and sent out letters to all the Justices, thanking those in the majority and asking those in the minority to reconsider their position. I have yet to have any response from the Judiciary. Likewise, I sent out letters last week to all legislators in Kentucky with some biographical information about how the registry (particularly the unconstitutional residency restrictions)has impacted my family, some stats about the ineffectiveness of the registry itself, and a call to a common sense approach to these issues. Just today, I received a note back from my local representative who starts his note with "I certainly agree with your assessment of KY's archaic approach to SO laws". Needless to say, I will be scheduling an appointment with him very soon. In addition, I will be sending out an e-mail letter within the next couple of weeks to all legislators, to introduce RSOL Kentucky and once again call for change and common sense. I have begun a letter to send out to family and friends of registrants seeking supporters and will send those out soon as well. I have talked with two supporters on the phone; so KY RSOL is slowly growing. Louisiana - State Organizer: Debra Maine - State Organizer: Jane Maryland - State Organizer: Thomas Massachusetts - State Organizer: Joel Michigan - State Organizer: Francie Minnesota - State Organizer: Fima Mississippi - State Organizer: Dave Dave is the temporary contact for Mississippi. We are seeking a State Organizer for this State. Missouri - State Organizer: Dennis and Donna October has come and gone rather quietly. It has been a month of "behind the scenes" work. We have continued to use the sex offender registry to our benefit by mailing out letters to registrants with the hopes of involving them, their family, and friends. We are having some success. So many folks take many months to respond. Others do not respond at all. It is so sad to see so many hide behind the shadow of fear. It is so important to me to start some type of a legitimate support group for former offenders, their family and friends. It is difficult because many are on probation and cannot be around other ex-felons on probation. But, i am determined to find a way to gain some sort of status for a support group ( like AA or NA.) Hopefully, I will be announcing that information in a future monthly report. The Missouri supporters are getting ready to go to our first sex offender management board meeting in Jefferson City. We have had some great support from a news columnist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who may come to the meeting as well. Dennis and I have been working with other state organizers who are fighting for review/reform of the child pornography guidelines. We are still playing phone tag with politicians. I will not give up! Montana - Neighboring State Contact: Shelley Shelley is the temporary contact for this State. We are currently seeking a State Organizer for this state. Nebraska - Neighboring State Contact: Kyle Nevada - State Organizer: Ruth New Hampshire - State Organizer: Laurie New Jersey - State Organizer: Terry New Mexico - State Organizer: Alice and Lloyd Lloyd and his wife had their first child, a boy last Saturday and without any sleep Lloyd presided over our monthly CFC meeting on Sunday afternoon. We are attending every legislative meeting we can. Three of us went to Las Cruces (400 miles round trip) to attend a meeting featuring sex offenders. About half the senators who met seemed sympathetic to our point of view. We are gearing up for the one month legislative season in January. We will oppose every move to make sex offenders' lives more difficult. In the meantime we are researching job possibilities and housing for them. I am writing this as snow falls on me in the East Mountains of Albuquerque. Alice Benson New York - State Organizer: Howard and Rita North Carolina - State Organizer: Linda and Chris North Carolina stepped out in October with the creation of the FACEBOOK link entitled: Reform Sex Offender Laws Sort of NC (*the same as our State name) in less than 3 weeks we obtained over 200 "fans" of the site; we are the 3rd state to create a Facebook site which allows family members and friends to have a voice and a place to "sound off" and to view updated information. while it may be in its infancy and it may only have a small number of "fans" it is growing attention not only with NC folks but it is gaining members from all over the USA which is a GOOD THING. if we can all share information we gain more ........ Linda in NC North Dakota - Contact Mandi at: rsolnd@gmail.com North Dakota is in the fight. Our efforts are currently focuesed in contacting supporters in our state and letting people know we are here to stay. We now have a website for people to check out, which is http://www.rsolnd.co.cc/ and will continue to add information and reatures to keep our members informed and to give those who are seeking information a way to get the facts. Ohio - State Organizer: James and Dolly October 2009 Ohio, as always, has been very busy and very active. Their Report, this month, might seem brief. If it does, it is because they are spending so much time 'in the field' and we much appreciate them taking the extra time to send this report (and we wish they would tell us how they even found the extra time with all the work they do!) * 1) Met with aides of two State Representatives * 2) Met with our Regional State Representatives. (We sent an article about this around via tte email circuit.) 3) Met with two Senators, one in Columbus and one in Cincinnati. Oklahoma - State Organizer: Mary Oregon - State Organizer: Shelley The first meeting of Oregon RSOL signatories was convened in Portland, Oregon, on October 16, 2009. From this six-hour meeting, after a lengthy conference call with Mary Sue Molnar from TX Voices, Oregon Voices was formed and Board members appointed. We are taking the organizational steps to prepare and launch the website as well as to develop educational materials for distribution. One week following this meeting, donning red "Oregon Voices" name tags, two of our members traveled to Salem to attend and observe the Sex Offender Treatment Board (SOTB) meeting where they were afforded the opportunity to engage certain members of the Board in conversation regarding who we are and what are objectives will be. Though amazed to learn that one particular member, an SO treatment provider in an Oregon county, believed recidivism rates to be high, our Oregon Voices representatives informed him of the true low statistics and static rate of recidivism among SOs. We were also surprised to learn that the Governor-appointed Chair, Dr. William Davis, in response to comments made by our Oregon Voices representatives, indicated 1) that the Oregon SOTB had only been in existence for two years; and, 2) that he completely agreed that not all offenders' cases should be treated the same. He further stated that evidence supports the fact that SOs need housing, employment, etc., otherwise, the recidivism rates climb and that it was his sentiment that reform come. Finally, PP (plethysmography) was discussed and the Board concurred that this could not be used as a normal treatment but, rather, was to be used only in extreme cases on juveniles (and we hope to have included developmentally-disabled or DD persons on our way to trying to get rid of it for the most part). Oregon Voices had prepared and provided a "wish list," indicating that risk assessment protocols should only be used with validated models, and that minors should have the right to consent to outpatient treatment. When the meeting concluded, Oregon Voices representatives distributed business cards with RSOL contact information included. The SOTB members seemed very pleased to have the Oregon Voices reps in attendance and more of us hope to attend the next scheduled meeting. Pennsylvania - State Organizer; Frank Puerto Rico - Neighboring State Contact: Kelly R Piercy Rhode Island - Neighboring State Contact: Joel South Carolina - State Organizer: Sandra SC RSOL Organizer is meeting with a Swedish Documentarian/Film maker this month regarding the sex offender registry, restrictions, laws.. Sweden is considering a registry as the US has, and conversations already with this gentleman has raised red flags for him. He is filming in Anderson, SC , doing interviews with the sheriff's dept, offenders and is specifically interested in restrictions (prompted by the fact that offenders in Anderson are required to be locked up together at a public building on Halloween from approximately 5:00 p.m. until 10:30 p.m.) South Dakota - Neighboring State Contact: Kyle Tennessee - State Organizer: David and Andrea We are in the process of re-evaluating the direction of TN Voices of Reason. We have decided to take the next few months and concentrate our entire efforts towards building a support base within our own state and backing away from spending our resources and valuable time on national efforts. We will continue to represent RSOL and encourage our TN supporters to sign the RSOL statement and help with national efforts if desired but to primarily focus on building support within our own state. We are actively building a new area of our website to represent our Mississippi reform efforts. Although it seems we have been inactive lately it is just because we are changing focus. As always, any information or articles that we place on our website are free to be used by any RSOL affiliates within any state if they feel the material will benefit their state's reform efforts. Dave & Andi Texas - State Organizer: Mary Sue Utah - State Organizer: Mary I have only been organizer for Utah for a couple of weeks. My projects have mostly been getting myself organized to take on this project. I am making lists of legislators. Checking on Utah Statutes. I have contacted the supporters who have already signed the RSOL website to let them know I am available to help and support. Researched news articles and made contact with many of the other state organizers. I have asked a lot of questions and received alot of advice. So for now I can only say I've been getting my feet wet... although someday's I feel up to my neck! Hopefully I cam report more success for Utah. Thank You, Mary Gay RSOL Utal Vermont - Neighboring State Contact: Laurie Virginia - State Organizer: John and Mary RSOL of Virginia October 2009 Summary * We met with Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Bob McDonnell's Policy Manager. * We wrote and sent Unmasking the Bogeyman, Halloween Restrictions for Virginia Probationers to the Virginia Media after contacting the Virginia Department of Corrections, see our letter on our site, http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_147.html * We have received enough pledges to cover the cost of distributing Dr. Richard Wright's book to certain State and Federal Legislators. We are now gathering those payments to order the books in November and distribute in January. * We know everyone's finances are tight right now and if you can't assist us with this project we would hope that every RSOL supporter will find the finances and the time to personally read these four very well written books. o Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions, by Dr. Richard Wright 2009 o The Modern Day Leper, by Dick Witherow 2009 o Knowledge as Power: Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws in America, by Wayne Logan 2009 o Failure to Protect: America's Sexual Predator Laws and the Rise of the Preventive State by Eric S. Janus 2009 * Ten months after the Virginia State Police Lieutenant told the Virginia Legislators at the 2009 General Assembly that the VSP does have a list of all the restrictions and regulations that registered sex offenders must obey or risk violating and then being charged with a Class 6 Felony, we discovered they still have not created a handout or listed the rules on their web-site. We have asked the VSP Lieutenant to support the bill he had killed in 2009 and that we will have resubmitted in 2010, see our letter on our site, http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_150.html * The Richmond Times Dispatch ran a story titled, Jury Trial Rate at All-Time Low in Va. Finding that 1% of felony convictions results in a jury trial because guilty pleas and Alford pleas are the norm. We of course responded with a letter to the editor,see our letter and the article on our site, http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_152.html * We've asked all supporters who have retained their voting rights to get out to the polls in Virginia on Tuesday November 3. The entire Virginia House of Delegates is up for re-election as well as selecting a new Attorney General, Lt. Governor and Governor, http://www.rsolvirginia.org/elect_2009.html RSOL Virginia Washington - State Organizer: Avendora West Virginia - Neighboring State Contact: Jennifer Wisconsin - State Organizer: Nathan Wyoming - Contact Mary: rsolwyoming@yahoo.com I have only been State Organizer for a week or two for Wyoming. My first project was to write an introduction letter to the supporters who have already signed on the RSOL web site. I recieved only one reply, but it was from a woman who really needed a place to talk and I have had several conversations with her. I have identified my legislators and prepared letters to send them. I have made lists of all the Wyoming newspapers. I have been in contact with several other state affliates with alot of questions.. Hopefully by this time next month I can report more success for The Equality State of Wyoming. Thanks! Mary Gay RSOL Wyoming The RSOL Correspondence Committee, e-Magazine - The Editor, The RSOL e-Magazine The RSOL Correspondence Committee The e-Magazine is constantly on the prowl for articles and editors. We have many departments and many needs. In addition to writers and editors, there is a definite need for an Art Director to assist in locating images and animated gifs for articles and to help plan the publications layout. A new feature this month is contact information for all Federal Legislators and a beginning of State Legislators. As this department expands, there will also be links to the legislation in the various stats concerning that states registry. The RSOL Correspondence Committee, Minute Men - Editor in Chief, Minute Men The RSOL Correspondence Committee, Minute Men and Women The RSOL Minutemen is up and running again. And this time, we hope to have the momentum and volunteer commitment to continue the effort. Our committee is small but dedicated. Our goal is precise: to make certain that the best research and most accurate facts are inserted into the broader national debate with regard to sex registries and restrictions - their effectiveness and actual contribution to public safety. We will strive to do this by actively seeking to respond to any and all forms of internet news and comment related to the general issues confronting sex offenders, their families and friends. If you, or anyone you know, would like to play an active role in reforming the multitudinous laws affecting the lives and families of struggling sex offenders, this is perhaps the best opportunity for you to commit of your time and energies without having to leave the comfort of your home or the limitations of your pocketbook. If you have the ability to carve one, two, three or more hours a week out of your schedule, we can put you to work as a friend of liberty and justice in the noblest tradition of original Minutemen (who fought to extend liberty, not restrict it). So, grab your laptop, gird your loins, and join our rapid deployment force of internet activists. Let liberty ring throughout all the land... and let us proclaim freedom for the captives! For more information about how you can join the RSOL Minutemen, contact Robin at vandrwall@gmail.com or Jennifer at RSOLKentucky@yahoo.com. *********************************

[ Please contact us ]

RSOL Digest #25 September 2009 Part III

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 02.10.2009 Link to this digest: [0030]

The RSOL Digest - September 2009 #25 The RSOL Digest is available at http://www.rsolcc.org 11. Josua's Story 12. United Voices Against Ponography Laws 13. A Great New Resource 14. Citizen Lobbyist --------------------------------------- 11. There has been a profoundly evil development in the American Gulag. The draconian sex offender laws are being used to entrap and criminalize teenaged boys. Every American parent with teenaged boys is now at risk. If ever there was a time to fight back, this is it. Brian Rothery As there may still be a vestige of skepticism about entrapment procedures in America, I need to state up front that most knowledgeable observers outside America are aware that one of the few remaining sources of child pornography in the West is the FBI which publishes it for entrapment purposes. At a personal level, I ran a story for over a year on this website about how the FBI, using the major server Dreamhost, were publishing erotic images of preteens and children, including, outrageously, some of the famously 'rescued' Masha (Disney girl). Let me be clear about this: they rescued a Russian girl whose American 'adoptive father' was publishing erotic images of her on the Internet, then went on publishing the same images themselves on a web site titled mycandidteens.com. Both I as a journalist and Masha's former lawyer protested, but in contempt of any such criticism they not only continued to use Masha's images but added those of other children and kept the site in operation until July 2009. They are now using other sites, but it has become too dangerous to investigate them, because exposure of police corruption where child porn is concerned now ranks as criminal activity. The sad story of Joshua: (What follows is the story as I received it from a family member) Joshua was born to his US citizen parents January 12, 1987 on the island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. He spent the first few months of his life on the nearby island of Montserrat in the British West Indies where his father, a physician, was associated with the island's medical school. The next few years of his young life were spent in London, England where his father was undertaking additional clinical training. Finally in 1994 he settled in North Carolina. He grew-up a gentle, happy, curious, very bright child. He loves animals and always had a home over-filled with pets. An avid swimmer, he was by age 11 a certified scuba diver and pursued the sport with great enthusiasm. Joshua shares his parent's passion for travel. By age 17 he had literally been around the world and visited well over twenty nations on six continents. His deep desire to learn about the peoples and cultures he has visited is remarkable as is his compassion for those he saw and came to know less fortunate than he. Joshua truly has the mindset of a global citizen. He is a child of the computer age having first been introduced to them at age 2 and by age 3 had his first computer. As each new generation of computer was released he received one. He had virtually unlimited computer and later internet access throughout his childhood and adolescence. Near totally oblivious to the tremendous risks this new technology presented, his parents provided little computer supervision and even fewer computer safeguards. The stage for disaster was set. At age 10 Joshua stumbled across internet pornography and sadly he joined the rapidly growing ranks of countless other internet pornography viewing child victims. By his early teens he began viewing peer pornography that is viewing adolescents of his own age. In doing so he was progressively sucked deeper into the cesspool of what is to mature adults, child pornography. (Editor. As the parents are over-critical of what they perceive to be their own failure to prevent Joshua from accessing pornography, I have removed some sentences here and will expand on the reason below.) As much or all of the obscene internet material made available to Joshua was in violation of federal statues, so too did federal law enforcement agencies very grossly fail in their sworn duty to protect him from these illegal materials. In June, 2005, having completed his entire primary and secondary education without ever so much as a trip to the principle's office, Joshua graduated from high school. In spite of his dyslexia he graduated with honors as a member of both the National Honor Society and National Technical Honor Society. Having been accepted at Appalachian State University a very bright, productive future was immediately before him. Shockingly, later, the week of his graduation, federal and state law enforcement agents arrived at Joshua's home to execute a search warrant. The entire evidence basis for that warrant was solely an event which occurred while Joshua was still a juvenile yet law enforcement waited until after he had turned age 18 to act on it. Following execution of the search warrant Joshua and his family remained in a hellish limbo for nearly 1-1/2 years. During this time the US Department of Justice analyzed his computers, found they did in fact contain contraband materials and apparently groped for a decision as to whether the matter did or did not merit prosecution. During this period on the recommendation of legal counsel, Joshua entered one of the world's leading centers for the evaluation and treatment of sexual addictions and compulsivity. At age 18 he was the youngest person ever to enter that facility. Following a six week stay he was discharged with a primary diagnosis of depression, no surprise given the uncertainty he was facing at the hands of the US Department of Justice. During his stay there a diagnosis of pedophilia was clearly excluded. Following his discharge he commenced his studies at Appalachian State University where he remained until his imprisonment. While pursuing a triple major he maintained a grade point average above 3.0 while again facing the uncertainty of his future. Finally the 1-1/2 year limbo came to an end when the US Department of Justice announced its' intent to prosecute Joshua. His world and that of his family came crashing down. The case was assigned to a rather callous Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) who pursued Joshua without conscience or mercy. The Assistant US Attorney refused to directly meet with Joshua and his parents along with their legal counsel having no apparent interest whatsoever in hearing their side of the matter. Numerous letters were submitted on Joshua's behalf. Amongst those writing was his pastor with who of his own incentive Joshua had commenced regular, on-going counseling sessions even before the search warrant was originally executed. His highly qualified Clinical Psychologist with whom Joshua had regular therapy sessions since his treatment facility discharge. That letter again clearly excluded the diagnosis of pedophilia. Other letters from outstanding civic and community leaders who knew both Joshua and his family well were submitted in his support. All were meaningless, the mindless prosecution progressed. Finally nearly 3-1/2 years after the original search warrant was executed Joshua finally appeared before the Court. During that interval his conduct and behavior had been stellar as he vigorously pursued his education, was fully compliant with all therapy recommendations and also restrictions on him previously placed by the US Department of Justice. From the outset it appeared the appointed for life Federal District Judge hearing the matter was at best disinterested. The Assistant US Attorney recommended the Court sentence Joshua to 10 years in Federal Prison. Joshua's defense team and the witnesses they called presented an extraordinarily compelling argument for Joshua to be granted probation and not compelled to serve time in prison. Joshua's testifying witnesses were; * 1. Both of his parents who made an impassioned plea for his freedom and future. * 2. Rev. John Padgett who affirmed Joshua's active, committed participation in nearly 4 years of Pastoral Counseling along with his belief in Joshua's desire and ability to function as a caring, useful person in society. * 3. Dr. Ron Hood, Joshua's Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Hood testified to Joshua's complete compliance with nearly 3-1/2 years of regular out-patient therapy. He further testified to the exclusion of pedophilia as a diagnosis, the very low probability of Joshua ever again engaging in such inappropriate behavior and the fact that imprisonment was totally inappropriate in this matter. * 4. Dr. Craig Ausmus, a family friend who has known Joshua since birth. Dr. Ausmus testified to Joshua's good character. Further, as a former Medical Officer for the Federal Bureau of Prisons he testified to the tremendous risk of physical, emotional and psychological injury this young man who never once in this life had raised his hand in anger to another human being would likely be subjected to if imprisoned. * 5. Col. Sharon Cooper, MD, USA (Ret) presented the most scholarly, eloquent and compelling testimony. A forensic pediatrician, Dr. Cooper is a faculty member at the University of North Carolina College of Medicine at Chapel Hill and an instructor at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on internet sexual exploitation of children and author of the definitive textbook on sexual exploitation of children. Her involvement in Joshua's case marked the very first instance in which she testified as a defense witness in a "sex offender" case having on numerous previous occasions testified for the prosecution and as an expert witness before the US Congress regarding internet child sexual victimization legislation. Dr. Cooper testified to the growing prevalence of children and adolescences viewing adult internet pornography and progressing to internet child pornography. She described such actions as child or adolescent sexual exploration as opposed to the sexual exploitation which occurs when mature adults view such materials. She went on to describe the excellent psychological care Joshua had received prior to coming before the Court and the low probability of him ever engaging in such inappropriate behavior in the future. She closed in strongly recommending against Joshua's imprisonment and described his potential usefulness in the free world educating other children and parents on the dangers of internet pornography. Following Dr. Cooper's testimony, closing arguments were presented. It appeared that at some point in the proceeding the Assistant US Attorney had a moment of enlightenment and recognition of the injustice she was attempting to impose on Joshua. In closing she altered her opening recommendation of 10 years imprisonment to a closing recommendation of only 24 months imprisonment. Unfortunately for Joshua and all those who know and love him her enlightenment occurred too late. It seemed the judge either heard not or cared not about her revised sentencing recommendation and defense testimony immediately sentencing Joshua to 8 years imprisonment. An obscene perversion of justice had been completed. The same federal justice system that had so grossly failed in their sworn duty to protect him when as a child and adolescence he had access to these illegal internet materials had now succeeded in his destruction. Since Joshua's sentencing, a search of similar cases across the US reveals that numerous individuals, all but one of them grown, mature, adult men have recently faced the exact same charge as Joshua. Each and every one was sentenced to some form of probation and none to imprisonment. Additionally a 65 year-old NASA scientist was arrested for accessing child pornography on a NASA computer. This Physics PhD was allowed to plea guilty to the simple charge of misusing a government computer and given probation. Insult added to injustice. Joshua reported to federal prison on July 1, 2009. A lamb led to slaughter to be locked away for the next 8 years of his young life in a cage like an animal with real animals. It currently appears that Joshua's last remaining hope is an outcry of public opinion against this perversion of justice. Please write your elected officials in Washington, write the US Attorney General and demand that real justice prevail for Joshua. In today's world of near ubiquitous internet access and pornography he could just as easily be your child. Statistics * 1. 90% of teens are exposed to internet pornography. (1) * 2. 90% of 8-16 year old internet users have viewed online pornography. (2) * 3. Average age of 1st exposure to internet porn is 11 years. (2) * 4. Largest consumers of internet porn are 12-17 years old. (2) * 5. 47% of computer users who view online porn are 12-18 year old females. (3) * 6. 20% of investigations into illegal internet materials involve 14-19 year old males distributing and trading child porn. (4) * 7. "Pedophiles often send child pornography and obscene materials to minors for the purpose of desensitizing the child to obscene behavior and to entice the child to believe that such sexual activities are normal." (5) o (1) Statement of former Attorney General John Ashcroft o (2) MSNBC survey o (3) Net Trends survey o (4) New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs Censorship Unit report o (5) US House of Representatives report 105-557 (End of family story.) Returning first to the point where I edited out the expressed perception of guilt from the parents, I did this primarily because of the anger I felt not just at Judge Richard L. Voorkees, who handed out this savage sentence, but at the 'hang all pedos' comments from some Americans on the web sites discussing his fate, and I hasten to add that while there were more of these than one would expect to find outside of America, there were refreshingly also many expressing shock at the savagery of this so-called 'justice'. I make several points in answer to the 'hang all pedos' argument. The world, mainly via the Internet and TV, has become increasingly eroticized. Practices formerly considered sub-human, such as homosexuality and simulated lesbianism, are now the diet of late night adult TV channels. A 'hang all pedos' ideology sits uneasily with a system of entrapment in which policemen masquerade as underage girls in chat rooms and the FBI offers illegal images of underage kids. Indeed, outside of America such an entrapment scheme would be considered criminal. Not only do those close to this case claim that Joshua was a victim of entrapment, it appears that like many of his peers he was using P2P file sharing, in which anything in addition to whatever adult porn he was looking for could be downloaded unknowingly. Finally, other youngsters are now being similarly criminalized for 'sexting' - texting explicit images of themselves to friends. These also are being classed as 'pedos' because of their natural sexual interest and curiosity. America has used child pornography, first to criminalize adults, and now to criminalize children. I sent Joshua's story to a colleague who is a British author and academic. Here is his response "I read with mounting horror and dismay the tragic and harrowing story of this young man. This is an account of a living nightmare which ought to awaken every parent in the USA and UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand - everywhere, in fact, where child porn hysteria has caught fire. It is being stoked and enforced by a kind of unelected junta, a coalition of zealots and fanatics who masquerade as guardians of decency and, even more perversely, as protectors of children. "Joshua's story demonstrates how unspeakably cruel and life-destroying their particular brand of compassionate protectiveness turns out to be in reality. Their zealotry chillingly authorizes the needless destruction of a gifted, gentle young man, in body and soul, in the name of fundamentalist extremism. The scandal is not that a young lad was interested in pornography - he was just doing what many young boys before him have always done; his misfortune was to have been born into the computer age, where the secret thought police could snoop on him and destroy his life. The scandal is not even that the contraband images he accessed might have been provided by law enforcement agencies in their alleged fight against contraband images, even though this possibility has a dark absurdity Jonathan Swift or Lewis Carol couldn't have done satirical justice to. The scandal is that a boy like this could be crushed by the State which is supposed to have protected him, simply for being naively sexual. For all the poisonous hot air about predatory paedophiles pumped out by these fundamentalist maniacs, it is transparently absurd to categorise this boy as such. He was just a sexual human being - like everyone else - who looked at stuff because it was there, whose curiosity led him deeper and deeper into a mire which might even have been created for entrapment purposes. "Every parent should be startled into militancy against this outrage; unless you can be totally sure that your son or daughter, perhaps especially sons approaching their teens, would never dare look at erotic images, you should be very afraid. I suspect that this means every parent: none of us, unless we are being stupidly and recklessly defensive, could ever be certain of this. It could be your child next, your child subjected to lethal public shame, incarcerated, falsely branded as a 'monster, all in order to further the careers of fanatical and pitiless zealots. "With the emergence of this kind of atrocity, which amounts to no less than the torture and imprisonment of youngsters by the State for being what they cannot help but be (sexual human beings), every parent should be demanding an end to this benighted witch-hunt. It is not about 'saving' children so much as conserving a barbaric moralism; sexual hate - the most malignant and murderous form of hate in circulation - can never, ever promote a good society. But it can effortlessly destroy harmless and invaluable young men like Josh with the tap of a judge's gavel. "I hope this young man is freed and compensated for the appalling suffering he and his loving family have been put through. Ordinary, loving parents have a duty now to protect their children from the clutches of ruthless ideologues who have hijacked the rule of law, feathered their own nests, and destroyed countless lives on the path to personal glorification. This terrible tragedy has to stop - no one is safe. "The more people get to see what is being done in the name of 'child protection' - the hateful scapegoating, the excessive and purely destructive punishments, the abhorrent cruelty - the better." (End of statement) An appeal from his Americans supporters. "I would very much appreciate you making mention of our "Free Josh" group on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=102549365377 where interested persons can visit/join, find some of Josh's letters from prison, photos and suggested form letters to be sent to various US officials demanding Josh's case be reviewed and reconsidered. We will soon provide you with the address of the website we are constructing, which should be up and running in the next few weeks." Finally, as a writer living in Ireland who has watched this dismal vista of the American penal system of Gulag, with its world's largest prison system, unfold over recent years and expand to Great Britain, I have mixed feelings about this story. First shock and anger at this callous judge and legal system, then sadness for Joshua and his family, but also a sense of inevitability. This is what many of us have been anticipating for years. Up to recently the 'hang all pedos' argument was being used to silence all critics of America's draconian SO laws, even those that allowed displacement into homelessness, shunning and shaming and other cruel punishments for life. Now, however, with no mother's son safe, surely the time has come, not just for reflection, but for revolt. America, which conquered Nazi Germany over 60 years ago, is now using Hitler's 'for the good of the children' mantra to implement its own Nazi fascist regime. [Note: Comments specified as (Editor...) in this article are by the original Editor, Brian Rothery of Inquisition 21st Century] ---------------------------------------- 12. There has been a profoundly evil development in the American Gulag. The draconian sex offender laws are being used to entrap and criminalize teenaged boys. Every American parent with teenaged boys is now at risk. If ever there was a time to fight back, this is it. Brian Rothery As there may still be a vestige of skepticism about entrapment procedures in America, I need to state up front that most knowledgeable observers outside America are aware that one of the few remaining sources of child pornography in the West is the FBI which publishes it for entrapment purposes. At a personal level, I ran a story for over a year on this website about how the FBI, using the major server Dreamhost, were publishing erotic images of preteens and children, including, outrageously, some of the famously 'rescued' Masha (Disney girl). Let me be clear about this: they rescued a Russian girl whose American 'adoptive father' was publishing erotic images of her on the Internet, then went on publishing the same images themselves on a web site titled mycandidteens.com. Both I as a journalist and Masha's former lawyer protested, but in contempt of any such criticism they not only continued to use Masha's images but added those of other children and kept the site in operation until July 2009. They are now using other sites, but it has become too dangerous to investigate them, because exposure of police corruption where child porn is concerned now ranks as criminal activity. The sad story of Joshua: (What follows is the story as I received it from a family member) Joshua was born to his US citizen parents January 12, 1987 on the island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. He spent the first few months of his life on the nearby island of Montserrat in the British West Indies where his father, a physician, was associated with the island's medical school. The next few years of his young life were spent in London, England where his father was undertaking additional clinical training. Finally in 1994 he settled in North Carolina. He grew-up a gentle, happy, curious, very bright child. He loves animals and always had a home over-filled with pets. An avid swimmer, he was by age 11 a certified scuba diver and pursued the sport with great enthusiasm. Joshua shares his parent's passion for travel. By age 17 he had literally been around the world and visited well over twenty nations on six continents. His deep desire to learn about the peoples and cultures he has visited is remarkable as is his compassion for those he saw and came to know less fortunate than he. Joshua truly has the mindset of a global citizen. He is a child of the computer age having first been introduced to them at age 2 and by age 3 had his first computer. As each new generation of computer was released he received one. He had virtually unlimited computer and later internet access throughout his childhood and adolescence. Near totally oblivious to the tremendous risks this new technology presented, his parents provided little computer supervision and even fewer computer safeguards. The stage for disaster was set. At age 10 Joshua stumbled across internet pornography and sadly he joined the rapidly growing ranks of countless other internet pornography viewing child victims. By his early teens he began viewing peer pornography that is viewing adolescents of his own age. In doing so he was progressively sucked deeper into the cesspool of what is to mature adults, child pornography. (Editor. As the parents are over-critical of what they perceive to be their own failure to prevent Joshua from accessing pornography, I have removed some sentences here and will expand on the reason below.) As much or all of the obscene internet material made available to Joshua was in violation of federal statues, so too did federal law enforcement agencies very grossly fail in their sworn duty to protect him from these illegal materials. In June, 2005, having completed his entire primary and secondary education without ever so much as a trip to the principle's office, Joshua graduated from high school. In spite of his dyslexia he graduated with honors as a member of both the National Honor Society and National Technical Honor Society. Having been accepted at Appalachian State University a very bright, productive future was immediately before him. Shockingly, later, the week of his graduation, federal and state law enforcement agents arrived at Joshua's home to execute a search warrant. The entire evidence basis for that warrant was solely an event which occurred while Joshua was still a juvenile yet law enforcement waited until after he had turned age 18 to act on it. Following execution of the search warrant Joshua and his family remained in a hellish limbo for nearly 1-1/2 years. During this time the US Department of Justice analyzed his computers, found they did in fact contain contraband materials and apparently groped for a decision as to whether the matter did or did not merit prosecution. During this period on the recommendation of legal counsel, Joshua entered one of the world's leading centers for the evaluation and treatment of sexual addictions and compulsivity. At age 18 he was the youngest person ever to enter that facility. Following a six week stay he was discharged with a primary diagnosis of depression, no surprise given the uncertainty he was facing at the hands of the US Department of Justice. During his stay there a diagnosis of pedophilia was clearly excluded. Following his discharge he commenced his studies at Appalachian State University where he remained until his imprisonment. While pursuing a triple major he maintained a grade point average above 3.0 while again facing the uncertainty of his future. Finally the 1-1/2 year limbo came to an end when the US Department of Justice announced its' intent to prosecute Joshua. His world and that of his family came crashing down. The case was assigned to a rather callous Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) who pursued Joshua without conscience or mercy. The Assistant US Attorney refused to directly meet with Joshua and his parents along with their legal counsel having no apparent interest whatsoever in hearing their side of the matter. Numerous letters were submitted on Joshua's behalf. Amongst those writing was his pastor with who of his own incentive Joshua had commenced regular, on-going counseling sessions even before the search warrant was originally executed. His highly qualified Clinical Psychologist with whom Joshua had regular therapy sessions since his treatment facility discharge. That letter again clearly excluded the diagnosis of pedophilia. Other letters from outstanding civic and community leaders who knew both Joshua and his family well were submitted in his support. All were meaningless, the mindless prosecution progressed. Finally nearly 3-1/2 years after the original search warrant was executed Joshua finally appeared before the Court. During that interval his conduct and behavior had been stellar as he vigorously pursued his education, was fully compliant with all therapy recommendations and also restrictions on him previously placed by the US Department of Justice. From the outset it appeared the appointed for life Federal District Judge hearing the matter was at best disinterested. The Assistant US Attorney recommended the Court sentence Joshua to 10 years in Federal Prison. Joshua's defense team and the witnesses they called presented an extraordinarily compelling argument for Joshua to be granted probation and not compelled to serve time in prison. Joshua's testifying witnesses were; * 1. Both of his parents who made an impassioned plea for his freedom and future. * 2. Rev. John Padgett who affirmed Joshua's active, committed participation in nearly 4 years of Pastoral Counseling along with his belief in Joshua's desire and ability to function as a caring, useful person in society. * 3. Dr. Ron Hood, Joshua's Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Hood testified to Joshua's complete compliance with nearly 3-1/2 years of regular out-patient therapy. He further testified to the exclusion of pedophilia as a diagnosis, the very low probability of Joshua ever again engaging in such inappropriate behavior and the fact that imprisonment was totally inappropriate in this matter. * 4. Dr. Craig Ausmus, a family friend who has known Joshua since birth. Dr. Ausmus testified to Joshua's good character. Further, as a former Medical Officer for the Federal Bureau of Prisons he testified to the tremendous risk of physical, emotional and psychological injury this young man who never once in this life had raised his hand in anger to another human being would likely be subjected to if imprisoned. * 5. Col. Sharon Cooper, MD, USA (Ret) presented the most scholarly, eloquent and compelling testimony. A forensic pediatrician, Dr. Cooper is a faculty member at the University of North Carolina College of Medicine at Chapel Hill and an instructor at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on internet sexual exploitation of children and author of the definitive textbook on sexual exploitation of children. Her involvement in Joshua's case marked the very first instance in which she testified as a defense witness in a "sex offender" case having on numerous previous occasions testified for the prosecution and as an expert witness before the US Congress regarding internet child sexual victimization legislation. Dr. Cooper testified to the growing prevalence of children and adolescences viewing adult internet pornography and progressing to internet child pornography. She described such actions as child or adolescent sexual exploration as opposed to the sexual exploitation which occurs when mature adults view such materials. She went on to describe the excellent psychological care Joshua had received prior to coming before the Court and the low probability of him ever engaging in such inappropriate behavior in the future. She closed in strongly recommending against Joshua's imprisonment and described his potential usefulness in the free world educating other children and parents on the dangers of internet pornography. Following Dr. Cooper's testimony, closing arguments were presented. It appeared that at some point in the proceeding the Assistant US Attorney had a moment of enlightenment and recognition of the injustice she was attempting to impose on Joshua. In closing she altered her opening recommendation of 10 years imprisonment to a closing recommendation of only 24 months imprisonment. Unfortunately for Joshua and all those who know and love him her enlightenment occurred too late. It seemed the judge either heard not or cared not about her revised sentencing recommendation and defense testimony immediately sentencing Joshua to 8 years imprisonment. An obscene perversion of justice had been completed. The same federal justice system that had so grossly failed in their sworn duty to protect him when as a child and adolescence he had access to these illegal internet materials had now succeeded in his destruction. Since Joshua's sentencing, a search of similar cases across the US reveals that numerous individuals, all but one of them grown, mature, adult men have recently faced the exact same charge as Joshua. Each and every one was sentenced to some form of probation and none to imprisonment. Additionally a 65 year-old NASA scientist was arrested for accessing child pornography on a NASA computer. This Physics PhD was allowed to plea guilty to the simple charge of misusing a government computer and given probation. Insult added to injustice. Joshua reported to federal prison on July 1, 2009. A lamb led to slaughter to be locked away for the next 8 years of his young life in a cage like an animal with real animals. It currently appears that Joshua's last remaining hope is an outcry of public opinion against this perversion of justice. Please write your elected officials in Washington, write the US Attorney General and demand that real justice prevail for Joshua. In today's world of near ubiquitous internet access and pornography he could just as easily be your child. Statistics * 1. 90% of teens are exposed to internet pornography. (1) * 2. 90% of 8-16 year old internet users have viewed online pornography. (2) * 3. Average age of 1st exposure to internet porn is 11 years. (2) * 4. Largest consumers of internet porn are 12-17 years old. (2) * 5. 47% of computer users who view online porn are 12-18 year old females. (3) * 6. 20% of investigations into illegal internet materials involve 14-19 year old males distributing and trading child porn. (4) * 7. "Pedophiles often send child pornography and obscene materials to minors for the purpose of desensitizing the child to obscene behavior and to entice the child to believe that such sexual activities are normal." (5) o (1) Statement of former Attorney General John Ashcroft o (2) MSNBC survey o (3) Net Trends survey o (4) New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs Censorship Unit report o (5) US House of Representatives report 105-557 (End of family story.) Returning first to the point where I edited out the expressed perception of guilt from the parents, I did this primarily because of the anger I felt not just at Judge Richard L. Voorkees, who handed out this savage sentence, but at the 'hang all pedos' comments from some Americans on the web sites discussing his fate, and I hasten to add that while there were more of these than one would expect to find outside of America, there were refreshingly also many expressing shock at the savagery of this so-called 'justice'. I make several points in answer to the 'hang all pedos' argument. The world, mainly via the Internet and TV, has become increasingly eroticized. Practices formerly considered sub-human, such as homosexuality and simulated lesbianism, are now the diet of late night adult TV channels. A 'hang all pedos' ideology sits uneasily with a system of entrapment in which policemen masquerade as underage girls in chat rooms and the FBI offers illegal images of underage kids. Indeed, outside of America such an entrapment scheme would be considered criminal. Not only do those close to this case claim that Joshua was a victim of entrapment, it appears that like many of his peers he was using P2P file sharing, in which anything in addition to whatever adult porn he was looking for could be downloaded unknowingly. Finally, other youngsters are now being similarly criminalized for 'sexting' - texting explicit images of themselves to friends. These also are being classed as 'pedos' because of their natural sexual interest and curiosity. America has used child pornography, first to criminalize adults, and now to criminalize children. I sent Joshua's story to a colleague who is a British author and academic. Here is his response "I read with mounting horror and dismay the tragic and harrowing story of this young man. This is an account of a living nightmare which ought to awaken every parent in the USA and UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand - everywhere, in fact, where child porn hysteria has caught fire. It is being stoked and enforced by a kind of unelected junta, a coalition of zealots and fanatics who masquerade as guardians of decency and, even more perversely, as protectors of children. "Joshua's story demonstrates how unspeakably cruel and life-destroying their particular brand of compassionate protectiveness turns out to be in reality. Their zealotry chillingly authorizes the needless destruction of a gifted, gentle young man, in body and soul, in the name of fundamentalist extremism. The scandal is not that a young lad was interested in pornography - he was just doing what many young boys before him have always done; his misfortune was to have been born into the computer age, where the secret thought police could snoop on him and destroy his life. The scandal is not even that the contraband images he accessed might have been provided by law enforcement agencies in their alleged fight against contraband images, even though this possibility has a dark absurdity Jonathan Swift or Lewis Carol couldn't have done satirical justice to. The scandal is that a boy like this could be crushed by the State which is supposed to have protected him, simply for being naively sexual. For all the poisonous hot air about predatory paedophiles pumped out by these fundamentalist maniacs, it is transparently absurd to categorise this boy as such. He was just a sexual human being - like everyone else - who looked at stuff because it was there, whose curiosity led him deeper and deeper into a mire which might even have been created for entrapment purposes. "Every parent should be startled into militancy against this outrage; unless you can be totally sure that your son or daughter, perhaps especially sons approaching their teens, would never dare look at erotic images, you should be very afraid. I suspect that this means every parent: none of us, unless we are being stupidly and recklessly defensive, could ever be certain of this. It could be your child next, your child subjected to lethal public shame, incarcerated, falsely branded as a 'monster, all in order to further the careers of fanatical and pitiless zealots. "With the emergence of this kind of atrocity, which amounts to no less than the torture and imprisonment of youngsters by the State for being what they cannot help but be (sexual human beings), every parent should be demanding an end to this benighted witch-hunt. It is not about 'saving' children so much as conserving a barbaric moralism; sexual hate - the most malignant and murderous form of hate in circulation - can never, ever promote a good society. But it can effortlessly destroy harmless and invaluable young men like Josh with the tap of a judge's gavel. "I hope this young man is freed and compensated for the appalling suffering he and his loving family have been put through. Ordinary, loving parents have a duty now to protect their children from the clutches of ruthless ideologues who have hijacked the rule of law, feathered their own nests, and destroyed countless lives on the path to personal glorification. This terrible tragedy has to stop - no one is safe. "The more people get to see what is being done in the name of 'child protection' - the hateful scapegoating, the excessive and purely destructive punishments, the abhorrent cruelty - the better." (End of statement) An appeal from his Americans supporters. "I would very much appreciate you making mention of our "Free Josh" group on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=102549365377 where interested persons can visit/join, find some of Josh's letters from prison, photos and suggested form letters to be sent to various US officials demanding Josh's case be reviewed and reconsidered. We will soon provide you with the address of the website we are constructing, which should be up and running in the next few weeks." Finally, as a writer living in Ireland who has watched this dismal vista of the American penal system of Gulag, with its world's largest prison system, unfold over recent years and expand to Great Britain, I have mixed feelings about this story. First shock and anger at this callous judge and legal system, then sadness for Joshua and his family, but also a sense of inevitability. This is what many of us have been anticipating for years. Up to recently the 'hang all pedos' argument was being used to silence all critics of America's draconian SO laws, even those that allowed displacement into homelessness, shunning and shaming and other cruel punishments for life. Now, however, with no mother's son safe, surely the time has come, not just for reflection, but for revolt. America, which conquered Nazi Germany over 60 years ago, is now using Hitler's 'for the good of the children' mantra to implement its own Nazi fascist regime. [Note: Comments specified as (Editor...) in this article are by the original Editor, Brian Rothery of Inquisition 21st Century] ---------------------------------------- 13. A Great New Resource by Luis Martin A great new resource was recently made available to the RSOL community. With this resource, we can finally put the nightmare of keeping up with all the email discussions and mailing list messages to an end. If we all use this resource, we will no longer have to spend time organizing emails into categories in order to keep up with all of the different discussions. I am referring to the RSOL forum. The RSOL forum is a discussion forum available to all RSOL members. It can be accessed through http://www.rsolcc.org/forum/ (please email Luis_Martin@fastmail.fm for approval after registering). In the forum, you will be able to start discussion threads or comment on threads that have already been started. You can use this as a platform for brainstorming, planning, disseminating information, or even calling people to action. Virtually anything you had been doing via email can now be done more efficiently using the forum. The advantages of using the forum instead of relying on email are numerous. First, you will find that everything is much easier to organize. Unlike emails, discussion threads are naturally organized by topic and do not require you to set up advanced filters or spend time re-reading emails in order to catch up with where you were at in a certain discussion. Discussion threads also lend themselves nicely to multi-user discussions. You no longer have to CC half a dozen people and be CC'd on half a dozen responses; one discussion thread can be used by everyone simultaneously and all of the replies are organized into that one thread. Another advantage of discussion threads is that they allow new members to jump right in. A new member, once given access to the forum, is able to go to the appropriate forum page and view the discussion on whichever initiative interested him/her and within minutes be up to date and ready to go with what could have taken hours of wading through disparate emails otherwise. As new members arrive, they can quickly get up to speed on all the projects and initiatives you are working on. Finally, among the forum's many benefits is the increased sense of community that it will foster. As things stand now, it can sometimes be difficult for one person to know someone else unless they are working on a project together or are in the same state group. With the forum, it will be easier for all RSOL members to get to know each other. Everyone is invited to join the RSOL forum. To do so, please create an account in the forum and then email Luis Martin at Luis_Martin@fastmail.fm. In an effort to combat spam, the forum requires that registration be manually approved by a moderator. If Luis does not receive an email from you, it will be assumed that you are a spam bot and your request for registration may be ignored. Please email Luis as well as creating your account. ---------------------------------------- 14. Citizen lobbyists: This is your window of opportunity By Chris Dornin, a retired Statehouse reporter and an amateur lobbyist Here's a heads up about lobbying your state legislatures on behalf of reforming sex offender laws. The time to get started is now. The attached article in the August issue of the Economist is gold (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164614.) I hope everyone gives it to every lawmaker in your state. Or at least makes it a handout each time you meet with a lawmaker. They're more likely to read it as a personal favor to the giver. It's receiving a great response from the policy makers I've shared it with. Seven of our towns this week are going through panics over sex offenders moving into the community or about allegations against people who haven't been charged with a crime yet. Despite that climate, or maybe because of it, lawmakers on our side have agreed to sponsor a bill for us prohibiting towns from banning sex offenders. But a competing bill would establish a statewide 2,000-foot buffer zone from places where kids congregate. We're prepared to hold our bill until a non-election year if need be, and mobilize to block or amend the hostile legislation. The sponsor is an old friend of mine from my news beat willing to share plans with me and vice versa. Remember, all gains have to be incremental, if you can make any gains this year. The losses can be tsunamis if you don't see them coming. The District Court in Dover, NH, just shot down that town's residency restriction on sex offenders, but the local decision sets no statewide precedent. That gives us at least the high ground against the coming offensive, if we can't take the initiative yet. I'm encouraged that Democratic and GOP leaders alike widely, but privately, understand the sex offender laws are way out of touch with the data, but they're scared to be branded for re-election as soft on crime and sex offenders in what shapes up to be a tough political campaign next summer and fall. Anyone can understand their problem. It's not cowardice. Lawmakers tell me they welcome testimony from sex offenders brave enough to stick their necks out these days. Find them and train them to testify. If they can't testify, they can be almost as influential talking to their reps by phone or by email as constituents. If you already know the way around your Statehouse, take some articulate sex offenders on a walking tour to meet lawmakers and tell them what's going on. The reps will share what they hear with other reps. Any personal contact is hugely beneficial. Please start checking out your state legislative websites and learn to use them, because the window for filing bills is going to close soon in most states if it hasn't already elapsed. The earlier you spot the good and bad pieces of legislation, the better. After the deadline passes, and the one-line summary of bills is posted on line, you can find what you're looking for in half an hour by searching the list of submitted bills for terms like sex offender, predator and pedophile. Then network to the sponsors, both friendly and unfriendly, and to the key stakeholders. Keep watching for the proposed texts of the bills, which will be drafted this fall. Any work you do now behind the scenes will be far more productive than waiting until positions have hardened and political careers and credibility are on the line come January. Now is the time to meet your lawmakers. It's also the time to lobby your potential legislative enemies and keep them close and respectful. The bills haven't been drafted yet, and you can shape how they are worded. Even the enemy bills. Start with the bill sponsors. You can probably find their contact info at the legislative website too in a sortable Excel file you can download. It's worth reaching out to your judiciary, by the way. Now is the time. I learned that tidbit to my surprise last week from a state senator who said I should speak to the governor's legal counsel, the AG and the Supreme Court chief justice to find out where they stand. Apparently, it's pretty routine for lawmakers and lobbyists to do this. Any lawyers in your group can also do some powerful networking within the Bar Association. Favorable articles in your Bar Journal reach every judge. I fear the war on sex offenders is going to be won in court, one way or the other, and the courts seem to be the last to get what's going on. Or they're touchy about stepping on important legislative jurisdiction after all the landmark litigation in most states over state funding for an adequate education. That turf war almost got our NH chief justice impeached, and I'm sure the same lingering feelings run pretty deep in other states. The law journal articles I'm reading as preliminary research for a book against the war on sex offenders are running about 20 to 1 in opposition to the jurisprudence on sex offenders over the last 15 years. The law school academic community gets the reality that civil commitments, internet registries and residency restrictions are ex post facto laws and always highly punitive to sex offenders. Thus they are and should be found unconstitutional. The judges need to act on that growing consensus. You can help them understand the huge personal cost to these laws. Be patient, though. No judge wants Bill O'Reilly of FOX making him or her a daily spectacle. Many states elect their judges, so you can picture the pressure they feel. Be aware a judge can get censured for violating judicial canons if they have an apparent ex parte conversation with you on a pending case. The person in your group with the best access to judges, maybe a lawyer or lawmaker, should make the approach, based on an established relationship. Even general discussion on a matter pending before the judge could be construed as ex parte. One useful tip. The blogger and internet guru, eadvocate, has posted articles on his website documenting murders of sex offenders by state in the last 15 or 20 years. I believe you can also track those crimes up to the minute. He updates his site that often. There were five such murders in August, for example. A package of those news reports for your state would make a good handout at legislative hearings. Almost nobody in power knows about this sort of vigilantism. The mainstream press doesn't either. Do the math. The ongoing witch hunt has killed about 10 times as many people as the more famous witch hunt in 1692. Internet links to the articles would be helpful too when you're emailing stakeholders and policy makers. Lobby the opposition as dutifully as you would your allies. You won't get blind sided. You lose nothing by keeping them aware of what you're up to. Surprise is overrated in a legislative session that's almost a year long if you start now. As a precaution on the murders, I'd take the time to call the newspapers in your state that printed the articles to verify the stories are legitimate. Another way is to go to the newspaper's website and see if the story comes up in an archives search. Eadvocate comes with good references from RSOL members, but some lawmakers will ask if you took precautions against getting hoaxed. You may never have to show your proof of due diligence, but be ready if you need it. Better yet, surviving relatives of a murdered sex offender would make good witnesses in your legislature. You can find those people by using the published news accounts as a starting place. Maybe you can do the rest by Internet investigation. If not, the presiding police station, and the court record if a case went to trial, will have the full folder on each case, and it's a public document. Read it. You might have to go to some central archive for the oldest material. You might find some amazing stuff in there that lawmakers need to know. Cops like to discuss cold cases, too, by the way. They may not like sex offenders all that well, but they dislike vigilantes even more. Think of every person you contact in the Statehouse is somone to lobby. They can all help, and they have friends who trust their opinion if you change it. Give them the Economist article. If they read it, that's one more person inoculated against the O'Reilly Factor. Good luck. Email me if you have questions or shop talk to share. Chris Dornin in New Hampshire, cldornin@aol.com ---------------------------------------- END OF RSOL DIGEST #25 - September 2009

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RSOL Digest #25 September 2009 Part II

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 02.10.2009 Link to this digest: [0029]

The RSOL Digest - September 2009 #25 The RSOL Digest is available at http://www.rsolcc.org 9. The End to Endless Punishment 10. RSOL Virginia Takes A Stand --------------------------------------- 9. The End of Endless Punishment by - Terrence J. White Many are the vociferous, almost paranoid voices now calling for greatly increased punishment and monitoring of persons now or formerly guilty of sexual crimes against children. Each newly-reported crime brings renewed calls for increased punishment or monitoring, a punishment or monitoring often of persons whose offenses against society were either minor, or which occurred many years ago. The length of time in which the accused has dutifully tried to again be a law-abiding citizen, or the relative severity of the initial offense (or lack thereof), seem to matter little in today's climate of mass-hysteria on this subject. As is well-known from the field of psychology, reason and common-sense too often disappear completely when primal human instincts are aroused. This is particularly true regarding small children, or societal mating taboos. Constitutional guarantees of basic civil rights are unfortunately often held, in the minds of many persons not given to much thoughtful consideration, to be of little worth, and easily dispensable, when it comes to a hated, feared minority such as "registered sex offenders". Marc LunsfordMarc Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica's tragic murder some years ago caused him to take up the 'crusader cross' of anti-pedophile activism, is reliably reported to have testified before the United States Congress in March, 2009 using (inter alia) the following words: [My] job now is to declare war on child sex offenders and predators[,] and to get [Congress] to join me. Instead of them stalking our kids, we will stalk them. And instead of them being our wors[t] nightmare[,] we will become theirs... Sadly, Mr. Lunsford is only all-too-representative of a growing number of persons in our ostensibly 'enlightened', 'progressive', 'rational' society. These persons such as Mr. Lunsford even sometimes go so far as to express their wish that all "registered sex offenders" should be put to death, utterly ignoring in the process whatever civil or constitutional rights those hapless 'offenders' may once have enjoyed. Salen Witch TrialsWhile the rape, murder, or unwelcome sexual 'molestation' of any child is surely unfathomable and reprehensible to any sane and humanistic mind, such a liberalistic soul must also confess that 'two wrongs never make a right'; that no crime - however tragic or horrifying - ever justifies virulent hatred and persecution in return. Hate, violence, or pain should never be repaid with more of the same, because that makes an otherwise justifiable, ethical person into yet another unethical, brutal monster. Yet this is precisely what is presently happening. Those who have made mistakes - even serious ones, unless they shall have been demonstrated to be a true threat to their society - deserve the opportunity, by virtue of still being children of the Living God, no less than you or I, to remake and reform their lives. God made them, and placed them here on this earth. God pronounced his Creation "very good". This includes human beings. "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man," wrote Shakespeare, some four hundred years ago. Short of proving themselves without a doubt to be truly dangerous to society, then, who are you or I to contradict God's Will in placing such other persons here among us? They still deserve the chance, provided they never again repeat their tragic mistakes, to reintegrate themselves into society. This means, of course, reintegration upon an equal footing, with no further social handicap or stigma laid upon them. Yet sadly, our infantile, knee-jerk society does not at present allow this to happen. Too often, persons who have made mistakes such as relatively minor sexual offenses against children are treated literally as second-class citizens, from that day forward, to the end of their days. And we are here not speaking of those who commit far more terrible offenses against children, and who surely need to be locked away for life. No, we are speaking here only of those whose offenses were relatively minor, though surely regrettable. Too often, those persons continue to be literally brutalized by a society pathetically unwilling to forgive, much less forget. Too often, they get swept into an awful net more properly reserved (if it is used at all) for those probably un-redeemable persons guilty of far more terrible and serious offenses. Is this ethical, or moral, my friends? This writer submits that it is far from either. The body politic of society, being led and blinded far too much still by the primitive animal instinct of fear, is all too often very much like a half-blind, lame, slow-witted horse - too easily led and manipulated by those sub-elements within society who happen to have stronger than average wills, and correspondingly stronger than average desires to exert those wills, whether for good, or for 'evil'. Unfortunately for all of us, those elements with evil intent more often seem to predominate. "Lupus est homo homini" (Man is a wolf unto man), the Roman playwright Plautus recognized as long ago as a full two thousand years. Humankind "is the only [species] ... that preys systematically on its own [kind]," echoed William James, closer to our own era. Sadly, there seems to almost always be an element in every society which think and act toward their fellow-humans only in terms of cruelty, brutality and sadism. The Nazis were of course a text-book example of this unfortunate tendency. And vulnerable societal scapegoats such as "registered sex offenders" unfortunately seem to only give such savage brutes precisely the stimulus they need to justify (in their twisted minds) their heinous, barbarous acts of cruelty and sadism, acts perpetrated upon those least able to defend against them. What is one to do when such savage brutes have gained control of the very reins of government, are ensconced in the very halls of Justice? How does one defeat this tragic, awful human impulse toward brutalizing others? This writer submits that there is really only one practical remedy to this problem: they must be publicly shamed. One must call them out publicly, and name them for the monsters that they really are. And societal opprobrium must then be heaped upon them, in the same manner in which they have tried to heap it upon others. Nothing else ever really seems to work. But this must be done without resorting to still more hatred and abuse (as pointed out above). Otherwise, we are just as evil as they are. We know that our oppressors are immoral monsters (though the terrible irony is that this is precisely how they label us); we therefore must not stoop to their despicable level of immorality; otherwise, their labeling of us will become devastatingly accurate, and deserved. Such a process, though it may take ever so much time, and see ever so many precious human lives ruined or destroyed before it can take hold, is really our only legitimate hope: the only real beginning of the end of this endless, eternal punishment of one segment of society by another, more powerful, more ruthless segment. Yet there is more. In the following section, the argument may well seem to directly contradict what has just been stated (above). However, this writer submits that this is really not the case: The previous section just read suggests public shaming as perhaps the best way to combat the overwhelming tide of hatred, cruelty, and abuse being directed at "registered sex offenders" by a very vocal minority of our society; the next section merely suggests a better alternative to the message in the first one, not necessarily a contradictory one. Kindly allow a brief explanation: This writer's best answer to the seeming contradiction is, that one can publicly shame one's 'enemies' to the same degree that we could all agree that a truly dangerous child rapist would need to be locked away for life, for the good and safety of society. The first argument was addressed to concerns on a 'worldly', practical level. The following argument goes to a much deeper, spiritual level, and offers a solution which may in fact render the proposed solution of the first section quite moot. This writer would go further still, however: the "public shaming" should never be done on an individual basis, as is presently done to "registered sex offenders," but only on a group, or collective basis. Only this method will have the potential to rescue us from the apparent contradiction. An analogy: Jesus, in the Gospels, repeatedly called his contemporaries into question regarding their ethics and behaviors; yet he never (to this writer's knowledge) did so on an individual basis. Was Jesus guilty of judging and condemning others, and thus contradicting his ethical message? On a one-on-one basis, no. But as far as group-think, or group morals went, perhaps it can be argued that he did. Surely the essence of his timeless message was to promote ethical morals for individuals and for groups, and to condemn lapses in both levels, but not so far as to point to specific, individual failings. When reading what follows, therefore, it would be well to keep these points in mind. The Purpose of Suffering "Behold, I show you a more excellent way .." There is a way in which this suffering and punishment inflicted upon us, though not eliminated entirely, may at least be rendered somewhat more bearable. Though this is a more difficult path, it is nonetheless the "more excellent way," the way more to be desired than either gold or fine jewels. When once discovered, and fully realized within oneself, it becomes a source of bliss and tranquility - even in the midst of the cruelest of sufferings. The late mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell often quoted the ancient maxim, "participate with joy in the sorrows of the world." Most people, however, probably won't have a very clear idea what he meant. 'Theosophical' writer and sage G.R.S. Mead left us a valuable clue, in his "Gnostic Crucifixion," just what it was Campbell actually meant: "Let the disciple then first see," wrote Mead, "the suffering of the man [i.e., himself] through, not his own, but his Master's eyes." He will first only see the mystery, grasp it intellectually; he will not as yet realize it. When he realizes it, there will then be bliss indeed, for he will begin to become the Master Himself. And the Master is the conqueror of woe - not, however, in the sense of the annihilator of it, but as the one who rejoices in it; for he knows that it is the necessary concomitant of bliss, and that the more pain he suffers in one portion of his nature, the more bliss he experiences in another; the deeper the one[,] the deeper the other, and therewith the intenser becomes his whole nature. His Great Body is learning to respond to greater and greater impulses or 'vibrations'. The consummation is that he becomes capable of experiencing joy in sorrow and sorrow in joy; and thus reaches to the gnosis [i.e. revealed insight] that these are inseparable's, and that the solution of the mystery is the power of ever experiencing both[,] simultaneously. This is admittedly a very difficult thing to learn to do, and requires much practice and training. Why recommend it now? And how is it possible to achieve, given that it may seem so very improbable? It is recommended now, for the simple reason that times are now so very desperate, and the sufferings of despised outcasts so great, that perhaps they may be ready, through having been first humbled and reduced, to listen to such words of wisdom, and to actually follow them. Achieving it is possible, moreover, through tenaciously following one simple pathway: LOVE. This writer freely confesses that this pathway is not for everyone. It is in fact the way "straight and narrow," of which there are "few .. that find it." It is the discovery of the true 'Holy Grail'. It is the way of becoming a Mystic, or Saint. The majority in this suffering world will (alas) never find this pathway (and will thus continue to suffer greatly), but it is here offered to you, so that you may have the chance to learn and grow, and thus raise yourself above your own sufferings. Would that all could realize this sea-change of perspective within themselves, and thus put an end to the worst effects of suffering! Now, despite the way things may appear to some, this writer is no naive fool (certainly no 'Saint'). This proposal is no mere vain or pious posturing; he realizes the degree to which most people in today's cynical, even nihilistic culture will quickly discount such a proposal as offered here. Indeed, for many years, this writer too was among the most dubious and cynical of all human beings. It is for these reasons, then, that this writer asks your indulgence, in order to explain how and why the discovery of Love within oneself can (and will) lessen the force and impact of the suffering inflicted upon us from others. The lesson starts with one simple premise, and is found in sacred scripture: "God is Love." Nothing terribly controversial there, surely. Yet, to fully grasp the significance of this idea, one must deeply ponder it a good while. When one realizes LOVE within oneself, and creates a permanent home for it within one's heart and Soul, never forgetting to nurture it, and invite its presence, one in very fact has then allowed "God" permanent residence within one's heart, because "God is Love." This is harder to do, on a consistent basis, than might be grasped at first. This is why it was earlier said that much practice is necessary. But when a person has once felt the full force of "Love" (which is identical with "God"), one cannot easily forget the experience! It is a life-changing experience, if experienced properly and fully. Most people naively refer to being 'born again' in a wholly different context. Sadly, they have completely missed the point. The new "birth" is, in fact, a radical change in inner perspective on the so-called "outer" world. It is the discovery and internalization of Love (which is "God"). Next, one must begin to grasp the deeply fundamental idea that, as Campbell (again) also repeatedly said, you and the "other" person - even the one who persecutes and perhaps even kills you - are in fact identical - but only on a deeply fundamental, spiritual level. When one has fully grasped this idea, one realizes that one cannot then cause harm to another person, without also causing harm to oneself. All else follows from these two very basic, but supremely deep, principles. When one realizes that one partakes of the same spiritual substance with one's persecuting "enemies," that you are in fact one and the same as those "other" persons, on a deeply spiritual level; when one realizes that in order to fully and deeply love oneself (or one's "God"), one must also equally love one's 'enemy' -that same 'enemy' who causes pain and suffering (even death), one begins to feel God-like compassion for all the other people who are lost and wandering in a maze of hatred, confusion, and - above all - FEAR. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives away all fear," is also written in sacred texts. Where there is love, there must also be compassion; "ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est." (Where charity and love exist, there God is also.) Where love exists, habitually and consistently, fear can never find a permanent home. Where love and compassion exist, "suffering," as intimated above by Mead, almost ceases to exist. One recognizes the inner kinship with the "other person" causing the pain and suffering. One recognizes that all "persons" manifesting in this plane of reality are but seeming separate aspects of the self-same Deity, that God of this Universe, who manifests in multitudinous forms, yet mysteriously remains One and the Same. Certainly, the outward physical reality of 'suffering' may indeed continue to exist, but the inward effect upon your Soul - that spark of the Divine which resides within your heart - transforms that 'suffering' into an experience of veritable communion with God Himself. It is very hard, my dear friends, to describe this transformation, to one who has not experienced it. Like Whitman said, "not I, nor anyone, can travel that road for you: you must travel it for yourself." May these precepts find a gentle home in your heart of hearts, and may you discover how to relieve yourself of your pain and sufferings. You may not be able to very much change how others affect you, outwardly, but one thing is certain: you are definitely able to change your own inner perspective on that 'suffering'. The process of doing this is one of great spiritual growth. It is worth pursuing! Have faith - there is a better day ahead. Keep your inner eye of Wisdom firmly fixed on this idea and experience of LOVE, and you shall know no more fear, and your present 'sufferings' shall be sweet unto you, and of only a moment's duration. Take it from one who 'suffers' just as much as you do (yet whose experience of 'pain' has been greatly transformed and diminished). Does this writer suffer? Does this writer feel anguish of Soul? Assuredly yes: just as much as you (if not more). But the experience of it has been changed, in this writer's ken, much in the manner Mead described: sorrows have become sweet unto him, and no joy can be felt without a tinge of sorrow. And Mead was also certainly right in that the greater the degree of sorrow one can feel, the greater the degree of joy one can also feel. One cannot know great depths of joy, without also knowing great depths of sorrow and suffering. This, my friends, is the way to overcome woe: by coming to know Love, which is God, and by realizing these truths outlined here. May you too find this out for yourself, and no longer need to rely upon this poor writer's word. One final photo, to remind us that we all were sent by God to reside on this one planet (and that we have nowhere else to go.) ---------------------------------------- 10. RSOL Virginia Takes A Stand Summary by Alex Marbury RSOL Virginia, under the excellent leadership of Mary and John, had hoped to make public testimony at the Virginia Crime Commission (VCC) meeting on September 16, 2009, which was to consider sex offender laws among other matters. But the Commission postponed public testimony until its December meeting. Not to be easily deterred, RSOL Virginia rallied 23 of their members, plus the 2 leaders, and appeared at the hearing carrying signs that made clear opposition to the Virginia sex offender commitment and registry laws in their present form. The Commission, in addition to looking at other justice issues, considered the Civil Commitment laws, several different Sex Offender Registry laws, and the issue of 'sexting.' RSOL members held 5 large signs: #1 Teenage Consensual Sex = Lifetime Violent Sex Offender Status. #2 How Many Votes is My Family Worth? #3 1,200 New People Every Year. You Might Be Next. #4 Jobless and Homeless = Untraceable - Is that What you Want? #5 Recidivism Rates for Sexual Assaults Are 3.5-5.5% NOT 80 or 100%. Stop the Hysteria! In addition to the RSOL contingent, sex offender members of CURE attended and also reported on the meeting. CURE members were strong in their support of the RSOL Virginia action and praised RSOL for its outstanding organizational skill. Here is an edited summary of Mary's report to her group, with corrections RSOL sent to the Committee with regard to their power point presentations at the hearing: "Back on August 18, we asked all of you to join us for a united stand at this VCC meeting. We had no idea how many supporters to expect, especially since 8 supporters who were each bringing someone cancelled within 48 hours of the meeting. We met 23 of you and you all happily selected one of our visuals to hold during the VI. and VII. sections of the meeting, when sex offender legislation was to be reviewed. We learned that 2.3 million people are in U.S. Prisons today. That's 1 out of every 100 adult males. We also learned that 1 out of every 31 adult males are [sic] either on probation or parole today. $68 BILLION per year is spent on corrections. In Virginia there are currently 67,000 people in prison (state and federal), that's 1 out of every 89 adult males. In Virginia 1 out of every 46 adult males are currently on probation. The meeting dragged on longer than the two previous VCC meetings and by 1:00PM the committee was just beginning part IV. of the agenda and 3 of our supporters had to leave. By this point in the meeting, only 7 members of the 13 members of the VCC could listen to the rest of the speakers. In regards to section III. Civil Commitment one or two incorrect facts were presented by the so-called expert. In regards to topic VI. Sexting the numbers seemed REALLY low and in regards to section VII. the 2009 S.O. Bills, we counted 7 incorrect facts and we will be sending all the members of the VCC an e-mail giving them the correct data. During section VII, one of our supporters made an effort to point out incorrect information and he was immediately silenced by Senator Howell with the statement, "No comments are being taken until the December meeting". When we all held up our visuals it was very interesting how the last 7 VCC members (and their counsel) reacted. At first they looked shocked and scanned the variety of visuals and then once they realized what they said and that it meant we were all together they never again made real eye contact with the audience. The one Richmond news channel that also attended the meeting all of a sudden went into action and turned his camera into the audience to capture our signs. We want to thank all of you who were able to attend the September meeting. We know that many of you drove many hours and it cost you a day of work, the fuel and the parking and we are so grateful that you knew your presence was needed and came. The next VCC meeting is December 15 and public comments will be heard. We know its 10 days before Christmas and you may not be near Richmond but we need you to attend the December meeting and be heard. It could be icy/snowy weather in Richmond but we REALLY hope you will take this opportunity to take a stand." RSOL of Virginia RSOL LETTER TO THE Virginia Crime Commission (VCC) with CORRECTIONS TO CERTAIN "FACTS" PRESENTED AT THE SEPTEMBER 16, 2009, MEETING: Dear Virginia Crime Commission members, There seemed to be confusion at yesterday's meeting on how much it would cost Virginia to comply with SORNA/AWA and how much would be lost of the Byrne Grant. It will cost Virginia $12 million to comply with SORNA and Virginia would only lose $400,000 (10% Byrne Grant) if they do not comply. Only one case of a Virginia juvenile being charged for "Sexting" seemed to be known at yesterday's meeting. Also the conversation and presentation only included the juveniles. What about the 18, 19 and 20 year old boyfriends and girlfriends who receive these unsolicited photos or videos [who] should not face prosecution or being listed as a Sex Offender? Or what about the Loudon County case where School Administrator, Ting-Yi Oei spent almost a year of his life fighting for his career, his reputation and his life? (SEE - 'Citizens and Lawmakers Brace for More Sexting Can it Prompt the New "Scarlet Letter"'? By Bonnie Atwood. Capitol Connections Magazine - Summer 2009: Mr. Oei's case shows that Virginia's prosecutors do not always use good judgment as the VCC stated at yesterdays meeting and because of that, Sexting laws do need to be proposed in 2010 in addition to educating students of the dangers of Sexting. There are several incorrect facts from yesterday's Power Point Presentations and if you are to make an accurate decision when you vote at the December 15 VCC meeting you should have the correct data. First, as I brought to your attention during the meeting, using the Virginia Sex Offender Registry to harass or intimidate someone is currently only a misdemeanor, not a felony as it should be." The Sexting Power Point Presentation: Slide # 11 states "...a juvenile who is adjudicated delinquent of a sexual offense is not automatically required to be registered." RSOL CORRECTION: The state of Virginia requires ALL sexually related convictions to be registered. Slide # 12 states "Juveniles who are convicted as adults of producing or distributing child pornography must register as sex offenders for at least 25 years. Virginia's registration requirements for these offenses comply with the Act." RSOL's Correction: Virginia would be compliant with the 25 years if Virginia had a 3-Tier system which is recommended by SORNA. Tier 1 is the lowest offender and could petition after 15 years; also there is no requirement that the information for a Tier 1 be publically posted and as such could save the Commonwealth a great deal of funding. Tier 2 is a mid-level offender and could petition after 25 years and Tier 3 is the worse offender and would be listed for life. Virginia only has two classifications, Non-Violent=15 years which we all know has been revised twice by the General Assembly (G.A.) and Violent=Lifetime. So when this slide says Virginia complies with SORNA or AWA, Virginia actually exceeds the guidelines because the offender is Violent according to the Commonwealth and will never be removed. With AWA they'd have a chance to be removed in 25 years. Differentiation would allow more attention to be focused on those who do in fact pose a greater threat and require more attention. This may in fact prevent a situation like that which occurred in California. Sex Offender Registry Requirements of the Adam Walsh Act Presentation: Slide #7 states "Requires that any telephone number a registered sex offender uses, or intends to use, be added to the registry." RSOL Correction: This is not required by SORNA, but is required pursuant to the authority of the U.S. Attorney General (A.G.) to mandate additional information be added to registries. The A.G. recommends that the numbers not be made available to the general public. As I stated at both the 2009 G.A. House and the Senate Sub-committee hearings, "One must ask; would phone lines where only internal communications are utilized be included. In these cases the actual phone number may or may not be known and may not be accessible to the person to whom this new requirement would apply. If this is the case then how would the State Police verify this new information?" In my husbands case, the phone lines are too numerous to count and he knows of at least 3 in which it's a direct hotline to other facilities where no phone number is available. Not only would listing all this be an impossible task, but in some cases would be a violation of workplace security. Please try to imagine if this restriction were applied to you, could you actually comply with the requirements? If your answer is no, then how can you expect anyone to comply despite their best efforts? We do need to apply some sense to these requirements. The attempt to do this would hopelessly bog down the system as one can not anticipate all phones one might use. Slide #8 states "(SORNA) Requires that the registry information on "place of employment" include all places and physical job site locations, including volunteer work." RSOL Correction: This is not precisely required by SORNA - "...name and address of any place where the sex offender is an employee..." Employer addresses are required by SORNA but the employer name or company name is NOT required. In fact New Hampshire removed the employer name/company name two years ago from their registry because an employer will not hire an offender specifically because they do not want their company listed on the registry. Slides #10 and #11 [RSOL Virginia response:] As I stated at both the 2009 G.A. House and the Senate Sub-committee hearings, "As to changing the visitation time requirements regarding registration, the existing law of 14 days is more than adequate. Changing the law to limit the amount of days allowable would in some cases limit the chance for the registered to return to productive society. This is particularly evident in that most businesses will schedule training classes or seminars to travel over a one week period to take advantage of the airline discounts. Limiting the stay to a mere 7 days requiring registration would hopelessly confuse the ability to follow registration and actually create a situation where the registrant could have multiple listings and differing states of residency." Slide #12 states (AWA) "Creates a new requirement that a "substantial change in appearance" would also necessitate a re-registration in person within 3 days." RSOL Correction: This is not required by SORNA, nor by the U.S. Attorney General. As I stated at both the 2009 G.A. House and the Senate Sub-committee hearings, If this committee is to require that any significant change in appearance would require the registered to resubmit to a new photograph, than a "significant" change needs to be clearly defined and documented. What exactly is the definition of a significant change in appearance? Unless the authorities enforcing this law define exactly what constitutes a significant change and submits these defining changes to the persons affected, then how can we pass this bill into law? Would an unreported haircut be a crime or the gradual graying of ones hair that goes virtually unnoticed by the individual an offense? Changes of this type may be considered significant, but to the person on the registry they might not even be aware the changes have occurred until someone that hasn't seen them in many months' mentions that they look different. Perhaps going 4 days without shaving. What about weight gain or loss, what is the amount that would require a new photo, 5, 10, 20 pounds? What about a bad case of acne or eczema or a broken nose that didn't heal perfectly? Women typically will wear there hair in a different styles, whether it be up or down. When one's appearance changes on a day to day basis, dependant upon how they may have slept or if they've showered and shaved to start the day, who can state what constitutes significant under this bill? This bill is far too vague and is completely open to subjective opinion; and should not go forward. We ask that this bill be tabled until there is a clear list defining what is and what is not considered a significant change by the state. Without clear and precisely defined rules and regulations the state is setting the registered up to fail." Slide #17 states "Virginia currently prohibits retroactive application of certain offenses." If committed before July 1, 2006, a felony conviction under Section 18.2-67.5:1, a conviction under Section 18.2-91, or a conviction for possession of child pornography do not require registration. "This is in violation of SORNA, federal regulation, and the U.S. Attorney General." RSOL CORRECTION: As an audience member verbally pointed out, this is not correct. There are many people currently listed on Virginia's registry that were convicted before July 1, 2006 for this very crime. Interestingly this and many other type convictions has been successfully challenged in the Ninth US Court of Appeals in regards to juveniles convicted prior to SORNA and has been deemed unconstitutional. They went as far as to refer to the Registry as a punitive rather than just an administrative order. Slide #19 states "Under SORNA, a person convicted of sexual battery of anyone 13 years old or older must be on the registry for at least 25 years, if the battery was accomplished through force or threat of death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping. Under Virginia law, sexual battery of an adult will only result in registration if it is the offender's third offense." RSOL CORRECTION: This is NOT correct. My husband was convicted of sexual battery of a 15 year old without the above qualifiers, it was his first offense and he was told he'd have to register for 10 years and then 4 months later the Virginia General Assembly increased it to 15 years. Slide #20 states "SORNA requires juveniles over the age of 14 to be registered if they are adjudicated delinquent of aggravated sexual battery, rape, forcible sodomy, or forcible object penetration." RSOL CORRECTION: Currently, Virginia law only provides for the possibility that such a juvenile be registered; the Commonwealth must first file a petition, and the judge must agree that the specific facts of the crime warrant registration. Virginia lowered the minimum age for registration to 13 years old and attempted to lower to 12 years old unsuccessfully. Finally, I questioned a statement in the AWA Presentation, that SORNA specifically allows the Attorney General of the United States to expand or exempt the requirements that are listed in the federal statutes. So I e-mailed the lead counsel member to the U.S. Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C. whom we've met with and asked if this statement is correct. She responded back, "The statement you quote is extremely broad, and I'm not sure how to interpret it. SORNA does direct the AG to issue guidelines and regulations to interpret and implement SORNA. It also gives the AG discretion in certain areas, such as discretionary or mandatory exemptions from public disclosure and retroactive application of the law. But the AG on his own, with no statutory authority or mandate can't change laws that Congress has passed". So, this slide from your presentation is extremely misleading and should not be used again. Please take these truths to heart and vote as educated persons on these important decisions. No one likes to dwell on these issues but in order to truly protect all Virginian's you must fully understand these things. These changes would only add confusion, frustration, additional expense and burden not only to the registrant, but to the Commonwealth. The extra costs to the taxpayer due to the extra work involved with attempting to keep the registry up to date are limitless. RSOL VIRGINIA

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RSOL Digest #25 September 2009 Part I

By Kelly R Piercy <semperfidelas#gmail.com> Posted on 02.10.2009 Link to this digest: [0028]

The RSOL Digest - September 2009 #25 The RSOL Digest is available at http://www.rsolcc.org URGENT NOTICE: 1. SEX ABUSE THERAPISTS NEED EVIDENCE OF ROMEO & JULIET CASES: Geoffrey Birky of Ethical Treatment for All Youth (ETAY) has brought up his concern that ATSA (Assoc. for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers) seems to treat all juvenile sex offenders as persons who have abused someone - when there are many cases of consensual sex among teens and young adults that result in conviction of the older party (Romeo & Juliet cases). Please send Geoffrey ethical_treatment@yahoo.com and David Prescott of ATSA vtprescott@earthlink">vtprescott@earthlink any specific evidence of such cases. 2. URGENT REQUEST FOR VOLUNTEERS! The hotline needs volunteers to spend a few hours a week in this very important work. Contact Linda Pehrson, 877-594-2228, and press option one when prompted. The people who staff this important resource come from across the spectrum of organizations resisting the registry. The hotline is independent of any organization and funded by RSOL. Many of its volunteers are members of RSOL, SOSEN, and other groups. They need your help to help so many others. 3. Become One of the RSOLCC Minute Men The RSOL Correspondence Committee is recruiting Editors, Writers, Researchers, News Monitors, and Technical Expertise. contact Alain at alain360@fastmail.fm or Kelly at semperfidelas@gmail.com 4. Video Project Volunteers on both side of the camera needed. Contact Pat at pwpw63@yahoo.com 5. Coming Soon... Depository of Sex Offender Cases The Blue Wing Foundation has agreed to sponsor a web-based depository for sex offender cases, a project described by Texas Attorney Bill Habern in his interview in our last newsletter as a critical next step in RSOL work. The Depository will provide legal opinions relating to SO cases, as well as pleadings and motions relating to these legal challenges. We will be encouraging lawyers all over the country who have been involved in these cases to submit their materials for inclusion in the Depository and to be a resource for each other as new challenges to SO laws are mounted. So, start gathering your materials and we will let you know where to send them when the Depository is on-line. You can learn about Blue Wing Foundation on Twitter - Blue_Wing_Found . ---------------------------------------- Departments 1. Quote of the Month 2. Front Page a. Milligan Decision - Marshall Burns b. The Roman Polanski issue. 3. From The Top - Comment by Alex Margury -alexm60@fastmail.fm 4. Editorial - Kelly R Piercy semperfidelas@gmail.com 5. News in Review 6. Philosopher's Corner - A Simple Truth - Kelly R Piercy semperfidelas@gmail.com 7. From the States ---------------------------------------- Articles 8. FBI Tactics Exposed 9. The End to Endless Punishment 10. RSOL Vierginia Takes A Stand 11. Josua's Story 12. United Voices Against Ponography Laws 13. A Great New Resource 14. Citizen Lobbyist --------------------------------------- 1. Quote of the Month: The RSOL e-Magazine Uncommon valor was a common virtue - Sir Winston Churchill Polanski was "thrown to the lions," said French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand. "In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face." http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=433645>1=28101 ---------------------------------------- 2. Front Page a. Milligan Decision - Marshall Burns The opinion in the Milligan case is now posted online. You can download it at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/G039546.PDF. The decision is outrageous. "In our initial opinion, we concluded that Milligan will not be subject to the SPPCA.s residency restrictions and GPS monitoring requirements because he committed the offenses subjecting him to sex offender registration before the SPPCA.s effective date. The briefs on rehearing have convinced us that conclusion was premature. We now conclude the issue whether the SPPCA.s residency restrictions and GPS monitoring requirements are retroactive and will apply to Milligan is not ripe for adjudication. Later, if Milligan suffers actual harm from enforcement of the residency restrictions and GPS monitoring requirements, he may challenge their validity by petition for writ of habeas corpus or action for declaratory and injunctive relief." [pg 3] I say that retroactive application of this law is a declaration of war on the US Constitution. It is especially galling that the court first agreed it was unconstitutional and then succumbed to blatant political pressure to reverse its own decision. Marshall ******************** b. The Roman Polanski issue. Hollywood Defends Director Roman Polanski, September 30, 2009: Debra Tate (Sharon Tate's Sister, Roman's Ex Sister-in-Law) who is a Victims Advocate replied to Matt Lauer who said a lot of men in this country have served time in jail or in prison for committing the kind of rape that Roman committed, statutory rape (consensual sex) Debra said, "I believe our system is extremely broken on multi-levels. There is a lot of taxpayers dollars being used to pursue cases that do not need to be pursued especially in the state of California.It's a multi-million dollar broken system". She also said, "Roman can not be dealt with in a fair manner here in the United States, this matter would better be served in France". http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/33086200#33086200 ---------------------------------------- 3. From The Top - Alex Marbury alex360@fastmail.fm Ordinary People, Extraordinary Tasks We of RSOL are ordinary people - just plain folks, from all walks of life. A very few of us have Ph.D.s, a very few have published books, and an even smaller number have achieved "fame" in one way or another. Mostly, we are the lady down the street, the guy who works at the supermarket, the high school teacher as well as the high school honors student - from every corner of the U.S., and far more from small cities and towns than from the large city, the centers of learning and culture. We are more than 2000 strong now, with active groups in about 35 states, with more coming regularly under the dynamic leadership of Alain Levesque - whom you can see from the National Conference Videos is himself just a "kid," a university student. Many, though not all, of us are the family members and friends of people accused of illegal sexual activity. We are the loved-ones of the most hated people in America today. RSOL does not invite those convicted of offenses to sign our public statement, but we do encourage other forms of participation from people who have served their sentences and are trying to put their lives back together. Such people - from teens to adults, but mostly male - have been accused or convicted of 'sex offenses,' a catch-all term that covers everything from kids "sexting" on cell phones or having consensual sex with each other, and old men urinating in rest areas to serious crimes including child molestation and rape. Those at the more serious end are a handful. There is far more who have been falsely accused of such acts than who were in fact guilty. But, whether we are offenders or families of offenders, or are just civil libertarians who care about justice in America, almost all of us are working-class Americans who never were before involved in politics or social movements. We are 'just plain folks." Yet we face extraordinary times and tasks. We have the daunting job of exposing the extreme injustices and rabid violations of the U.S. Constitution that have scapegoated and permanently isolated and humiliated a class of people most Americans still view as 'monsters.' America seems always to need a scapegoat to blame for its problems. It is an uphill battle to challenge this trend, to say a loud "no" to scapegoating! Even more extreme laws continue to be passed in some states, though we have managed to stop the worst of them. In Virginia, thanks to the RSOL leaders there, not one new sex offender law passed this year. And in Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, Missouri, and many other states, some laws have already been blocked or amended in favor of civil liberty and justice. But these are extraordinary tasks in a very difficult time. This is not the first time that ordinary folks have been asked to perform extraordinary tasks in difficult times. There were those who finally stopped Senator McCarthy in his anti-Communist witch-hunt in the 1950s. There were those who refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War and who worked for peace in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps, most similar to today's movement to bring sanity and justice to sex offender laws, was the Civil Rights struggle of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Exactly fifty years ago, it was just as outrageous in the U.S. South to fight for human rights and equality for Blacks, as it is today to insist that sex offenders and their families are people, too, deserving compassion; to demand that such people are also citizens who must be afforded protection of the long-standing rights of U.S. justice, Those who fought the outrageous laws of segregation - refusing people service in restaurants, even forcing them to leave the city limits at sundown in some towns in America - were considered, in 1959 - fifty years ago - to be eccentric at best, 'commie' deviates and traitors to the American way at worst. Those who went along for the Freedom Rides in 1960, and faced armed mobs - and sometimes death - were just ordinary folks, too, rising to an extraordinary task. Those days were bleak and difficult - before RFK and MLK had begun to give the cause its heroic leaders. The ordinary Americans in the trenches of sit-ins and protests all over America in 1959 could not know their cause would eventually prevail. Yet it did! A black man is now President of the United States. Yes, racism still rears its ugly head, but it is beaten back down as soon as it appears nowadays. What seemed unthinkable in 1959, fifty years later is common practice. One day, those of us ordinary Americans who fight to reform America's sex offender laws and bring back the protections of habeas corpus, the Constitutional ban on ex post facto laws, the rights of privacy, freedom of travel, and the right to live wherever we wish - we will look back on these dark times as just a phase before we helped bring America back to her senses! Just as good, ordinary folks did in the dark days of the 1950s on matters of race and peace and the right of political association, we labor today for sex offender law reform in very dark times indeed. Yet, eventually our cause will prevail. It must, and it will! America will demand it. We ordinary folks who face extraordinary tasks in the sex offender law reform campaign will finally be able to move on to whatever the next challenge may be, to protect the rights of whatever scapegoat America chooses next. It is too bad this history repeats itself, but it always has. We can only hope that ordinary folks will be up to the extraordinary tasks yet again. ---------------------------------------- 4. Editorial - Kelly R Piercy semperfidelas@gmail.com Ephemeral - Adjective Lasting only for a short time [Greek hemera day] In survey and celestial navigation a particular tool used is the ephemeris. This is a table (a book actually) that gives the Right Ascension and Declination of a celestial body with respect to a fixed position and time. From that information and the local dtg (Date Time Group) and an observation of a celestial body, it is possible to know the exact position on Earth from which the observation is made. Today, we can make an observation of the state of society from a social, political, religious, ethical, and moral perspective. In our case, that observation is most colored by the perspective of the registry and the moral and ethical conditions that drive it. That observation seems static, it seems that we must accept an attitude of Comme ci, comme Asa, literally - like this, like that. Or, transliterated into the English, so - so, I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances. There is one constant in the Universe, that constant is change. There is, to keep Newton honest, an opposition to change, gravity. That is why we study theoretical physics, to understand how we arrived at this point and what effects will change the ephemeral constant. The gravity, of course, is the ponderous momentum of the registry and the attitudes about sex and sex offense in our society. The constant is that it will not always be what it is today. The value of the opposing force is dependent on how much we embrace typical American apathy. It is well defined that the only effective tactic to prevent the Earth from being devastated by a massive impact of a solar or extra-solar body is to deflect that bodies orbital trajectory. That does not require the massive application of a nuclear weapon, it only needs a small reaction mass at some angle to the bodies trajectory applied over a period of time. James Simon Kunnan observed that society, by its very nature is reactionary; without the revolutionary it would move backwards. (The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary. Amazon.com $25.01) Today we have our own counters to gravity, our own revolutionaries. Linda Gallagher struggles daily with her team to put Women Against the Registry on the streets to demonstrate that there is an active and courageous group of people who are not on the registry that oppose the registry. Terrence White is taking on the State of Georgia in a Federal Lawsuit that he began while he was homeless, using the library computers to file his motion and now awaits the answer of a Federal Judge with his Pro bono legal team. John and Mary brought 23 of their supporters to the Virginia Crime Commission committee meeting and quietly held up signs of protest while both John and Mary work tirelessly, giving their time and fortune to this effort both in Virginia and Washington, D.C. In addition, John and Mary are working with their members in Virginia to raise the funds to blanket every member of the important committees with Dr. Wright's important book on the failure of the registry. The original plan was to send every member of congress a copy of the book. Alas, John goes to work every day concerned that his registry status will cost him his job and Mary has been cut to part-time; the spirit is willing, the budget is not. This plan is probably one of the most effective if it can be accomplished and they need our help. They have asked their members in Virginia to donate, I am asking all of us to help. You can contact John and Mary at rsolvirginia@comcast.net and ask them how you can help. Mary Sue, the voice of Texas Voices, tirelessly works the Texas Legislature and has pulled together a team of attorneys who are taking our interests to heart. Lloyd and Alice are working New Mexico like their own ranch. In fact, legislators and other government officials are taking to wearing T-shirts so Lloyd can't button hole them and calmly insist they listen to the truth. Howard and Rita are undertaking a major effort to get the truth to the House Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and the United States Sentencing Commission on the irrational treatment given internet pornography and sexting. This mass mail, email, fax, phone, and lobbying effort needs every bit of support you can give. Bennie is doing a yeoman's job in Colorado while providing support, encouragement, and guidance to many other State Organizers and individuals. All while he fights his own battle for truth with the Colorado Legislature. 'Dolly and James', with Sarah's help, are knocking on doors in Ohio and visiting registration centers to get the news and truth out. Linda, Jackie, et al are working the RSOL hotline overtime and need help. It is not only the hours out of their day, it is the emotional cost as these volunteers feel the weight of every call. Alex is doing all of it and is involved in getting documentation of an emerging practice where persons ordered into treatment - and most disturbingly, their families - are being forced to sign statements confessing to things they did not do so the fanatics can support their voo-doo statistics. We must gather documentation and expose this with a complaint to the American Psychiatric and American Psychological Associations and the media. Alain has revived the Correspondence Committee, Minute Men. He needs Writers, Editors, Researchers, News Monitors, and Internet Technicians. I could go on and I would still miss the important work of Laurie, Paul, Joel, Tonia, Renate, Jane, Dennis and Donna, Luis, 'James and Dolly, 'Thomas' Sarah, Barbara, Fima, Sandra, Chris, Colette, Kimberly, Jill, Jennifer, Francine, Ruth, and so many others. The point is that we are all revolutionaries and we are all working to resist the reactionary tendencies of society. Every notation above contains a link to an email or website that you should write or visit and ask how you can help. That is one way for you to become a revolutionary. There is another way and it needs you to let Alex know your thoughts. Lynn is handling the RSOL Prison Project. Throughout the month, she replies to persons in prison with personal letters and sends the RSOL Digest to each of them. These men and women know that we care and we are fighting for their rights because of Lynn's dedication. She has been doing this with her own money and using a copy service to produce the Digest for mailing. It has become a large project and she asked if she could get some help with the costs. The RSOL Admin Team is taking money out of their own shallow pockets to purchase a laser printer for the project to ease Lynn's financial and time burden. Add to that this e-Magazine is wholly supported, from software to server, out of another shallow pocket of the Admin Team. The RSOL Forum and the RSOL website, the same. The questions are: * How would you react to RSOL establishing a Pay Pal link where you could go and send the occasional dollar to support these activities? * Will you respond to John and Mary in their goal to send a copy of Dr. Wright's book to every Member of Congress? * Will you contact Howard and Rita and get involved in their project to change the insane sentencing of persons who had no victim contact? * Will you join the dedicated group manning the RSOL Hotline? Will you contact Linda and tell her you are ready to take to the streets in protest? * Will you contact Linda at the hotline and volunteer to man the phones? You can write me at editor@rsolcc.org and I will post your response in the Letters to the Editor and forward it to the person most appropriate, or go directly to the links above and do what you are able. The time to act is yesterday. Today is not too late to start. If tomorrow comes, it can be shaped by what you do today. ---------------------------------------- 5. News in Review Another Homeless Camp -- or -- The Beginnings of Concentration Camps... Georgia, the Heart of Dixie, the place where the Speaker of the House proudly proclaims that his sex offender laws will make sex offenders run from the state, the place where a person on the registry cannot stop at a motel if it has a swimming pool, cannot join a church choir, cannot take their own children to school, cannot... cannot... Now has its first official sex offender camp. How much longer will it be before Representative Keen, waving the banner of Jessica Lunsford, has his way? Another revelation of the truth by AP Journalist Greg Bluestein USA Today Article And how many other people rot in prison and languash on the registry because, in cases claiming a sex offense, Guilt by Accusaiotn is the norm rather than the exception. Hofstra Rape Case Lie. FCI (Federal Corrections Institution or Federal Prison) America has expanded. It is now FCI Planet Earth. Something everyperson ever convicted of a crime understand is that you will never be out of prison in America, only released to a larger cage. The answer, for many, was to relinquish their heritage, to leave the country. Now... ask Roman Polanski. Polanski arrest in Switzerland We have all seen it and I refuse to publish it here. What I will publish is the name of the illustrator, the editor, and the publication that had the poor taste, complete lack of ethics, and bankrupt morals to run the disgusting suggestion that persons on the registry be lynched. I will also publish the name of every advertiser to that publication I can find. I encourage each one of you to contact those advertisers and tell them how disgusted you are with the illustrator, editor, and publication and let them know you will never purchase a product or service from them unless and until they publicly denounce this act of violence. Contact every link below and let them know how disgusted you are. Let's get this idiots job! Kirkland Parent Co.: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/ Ass.of American Editorial Cartoonists: http://editorialcartoonists.com/ Pres :Rex Babin: http://www.sacbee.com/babin/ Jeff Johnson: jeff@cartooniversity.com Kirkland Reporter: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/kir/ Advertisers: http://choiceinsurance.net/ http://www.madisonhouseretirement.com/default.aspx http://www.thomas-dentistry.com/ Kirkland Performance Center Drug treatment center Prep school BC Vacations Kia sales With the speed that the registry becomes more odious to a free society, it is no surprise that the lead story on this page is now moot. Where the Georgia Legislature failed to anticipate, the Georgia Department of Transportation has picked up the slack. http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/21134637/detail.html ---------------------------------------- 6. Philosopher's Corner A Simple Truth Over the past months I have used this column to draw from Kong Qi, Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, Hugo, Kunnan, and others. This month I want to draw on my own reflections. Early in my life I learned a simple truth. If I did not stand up for what I believed, no one else would. Later, during my time as a United States Marine I learned another valuable truth. Nothing is about me and alone, I am only another casualty. Life, the valuable part of life is about community and society can only change when a community joins together and struggles to create positive change. Still later I learned another lesson as I pursued a career in Research. I cannot know everything and in working at what I understand best and with others who work at what they know best the whole becomes greater than the parts. No, this is not going to be my usual pedantic ramble. It is a simple truth. We must stand for what we believe. We must work as a team. We must do what we do best and allow others to do what they do best. Yes, I am afraid that is it this month. Simple, is it not? ---------------------------------------- 7. From The Staes - Alain Levesque alain360@fastmail.fm Georgia - State Organizer: Kelly R Piercy All activities in Georgia have been on hold while the website is being re-designed. October will bring a major push to contact legislators and find an ally to propose new legislation based on the REAL Law concept. We continue our efforts to bring SB 157 back to the House in it's original form as passed by the Senate. We are confronting legislators with the evition of persons on the registry by the Georgia Department of Transportation after being directed to set up camp in the location by Cobb County Probation Officers. Illinois - State Organizer: Renate and Tonia Renate and I had the pleasure of meeting Dennis and Donna, the Missouri RSOL state contacts, this month. They set up a meeting with some of their supporters and invited us along. We threw some ideas around, had a bite to eat and walked away feeling as if we had a few new friends. I worked for weeks putting together information, articles and statistics regarding Romeo & Juliet laws and sent the packet of information to all of the state representatives who are in the Juvenile Justice, Criminal Law and Sex Offender committees (19 all together) asking them to incorporate the Romeo & Juliet law in Illinois. I included a disk that contained the entire 146 report titled "No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States." A copy of the entire packet was also sent to the our two Senators and our Governor. I recently learned that Illinois does have a Sex Offender Management Board that meets once a month. One of our supporters, David, was able to attend the September meeting and came back with a wonderful summary of the meeting. We have several supporters who will be rotating so that each meeting has an RSOL representative in attendance. We have obtained some wonderful help in Illinois and together we are sending out letters to all RSO s on the registry asking for their help and support. So far, we have approximately 18 counties being worked on. Through these efforts, we hope to get more people involved, whether it is writing representatives, attending the meetings or donations for postage. I have put together a packet of information for those who wish to attend the meetings of factual statistics and information that some state representatives are either not aware of or they simply refuse to speak the truth. With this information in hand, I believe any one of us will have an answer to any question that might be brought up. Indiana - State Organizer: Kimberly Hello All! Indiana has been full of ideas and work this month! Most all of the members have written to the state Senators and representatives and have gotten some good responses! Moving forward, our goal is to increase the awareness of regulations and laws pertaining to restrictions and reform for SO's. Writing to the state legislature on a continual basis has brought awareness of the infartions [sic] of these laws. As the state organizer, I would like to see the members come together and talk to one another for support and help in various needs. I am also asking the members to increase RSOL membership by talking to people in the same situations as we are and to build our alliances. We will be integrating pamplets into churches, prisons and jails. I have begun working with a self employed carpenter/contractor in Indiana to get the SO's involved and working to meet their probation requirements for having and keeping a job. I am looking in to housing needs with a prison ministry to find affordable housing that meets the registration requirements for SO's. I will keep everyone posted as to how this endeavor is growing. Thank you to all of you for all your efforts and hard work! Missouri - State Organizer: Dennis and Donna Nissouri monthly report, September, 2009 September was a great month in Missouri. We had our very first Missouri RSOL meeting. We also invited Tonia and Renate, the Illinois organizers. We were a total of 14. It was a time of sharing some good ideas, such as a shared billboard on the Illinois/Missouri border. Many supporters have already been in contact with various politicians and had done an enormous amount of research on their own. Their input was encouraging. Of course, the amount of support for one another was tremendous. This was the first of many more meetings to come. Missouri also had several supporters step up to be a part of the new Correspondence Committee for the RSOLCC. Dennis and I feel very fortunate to have so many people who are willing to do whatever they can. New Mexico - State Organizer: Alice and Lloyd Citizens for Change New Mexico September Report September has been an extremely busy month. Besides the usual membership, staff and SOMB meetings, we held a garage sale raising over $1,000.00, putting us in the black for once. We met with State Judiciary represenitives, as well as a victims group and the Governor to begin the process of reform legislation, and now have commitments to introduce and write the bill to remove those convicted before registry inception. We are also laying the ground work for long term reform. We continue to educate at every opportunity, including conferences, speaking engagements, etc. We are also making progress in creating a large, pro-bono legal team to address specific issues. Virginia - State Organizer: John and Mary RSOL Virginia: September, 2009 It's been a busy month so we'll share our top 3 projects/events. * September 16 Virginia Crime Commission Meeting (see Alex's article) * September 17 we met with a tax lawyer to inquire what our non-profit options are as an organization that lobby's for legislation reform. Our two main reasons to become non-profit would be to provide housing across the state to RSO's with families and for a class-action type suit. We hope to know if we can use donations for these two reasons and if we can in fact become non-profit in the next few weeks. Then the massive amount of paperwork, an approval process and forming a board of directors will follow. * Back May and June we had contacted Dr. Richard Wright and his publisher about donating copies of his book Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions to every member of the US Congress and Senate (550+ copies). The publisher could only give us their set discount which would have cost $12,000+. We are realists and know we could never raise that kind of money. So we have been rethinking the book idea because we believe this book should be mandatory reading for every Legislator before another Sex Offender law is passed. As of September 21, the book idea is back! If we only selected the members of the critical committees to give a book to, how many books would that be? * The Virginia Crime Commission has 14 members and 6 counsel members. * The House Courts of Justice Committee has 21 members. * The Senate Courts of Justice Committee has 15 members. * There will be a new Virginia Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General in January 2010. * The U.S Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC has 39 members. * That leaves 7 Virginia Congressmen and 2 Virginia Senators in Washington DC That's a total of 107 books, minus 3 to 5 because some members of the VCC are also on either the House or Senate Committees. 100 copies with a 40% discount would be $3,000 plus shipping to one location. We have asked our supporters for assistance with achieving this goal, we've given them a deadline and our plan for distributing the books and we will keep National posted. The RSOL Correspondence Committee, e-Magazine, Minute Men - The Editor The RSOL Correspondence Committee The e-Magazine is constantly on the prowl for articles and editors. We have many departments and many needs. In addition to writers and editors, there is a definite need for an Art Director to assist in locating images and animated gifs for articles and to help plan the publicaitons layout. The Minute Men are re-emerging. A new website is ready in beta version and will include contact information for all Federal Legislators and links to State Legislators for every RSOL Affiliate that provides that information. As the site grows, it will also contain links to the laws governing persons on the registry (as each State Affiliate provides that link or information.) Alain has made great progress in recruiting over 20 people for this project. The group is forming and assigning various responsibilities, i.e. Editor in Chief, Editors, Researchers, News and Media Monitors, Writers and Responders, and Technical Support. As the team develops, the site will include features such as FAX capability, pre-composed 'click and send email, pre-addressed email for writers to do their own composing, and anything else we can think of to flood the media and legislators with the truth. We will never have too many volunteers for this project. Contact Alain at alain360@fastmail.fm or Kelly at semperfidelas@gmail.com to join up (These are temporary contacts until an Editor in Chief takes over the reins.) Alain, so far, I have received monthly reports form Virginia and New Mexico. I thought I saw something from Shelley that seemed to be a State Report, but it was not listed as such. It was among one of those reply to all messes, if you have something, can you forward it please. ---------------------------------------- Articles ---------------------------------------- 8. FBI Tactics Exposed Class action marks 10th anniversary of the Landslide FBI raid. Brian Rothery, Ireland, Coordinator of the Operation Ore Group Action There may be no better way to tell the story of this great travesty than by first showing a very brief video clip. [eidtor: You man also view this video at its original site at http://www.obu-investigators.com/images/raid.wmv] These military type raids were the direct result of false information fed by American authorities, mainly the FBI and USPIS (US Postal Service) to the British police and via Interpol to police forces all around the world. The false information concerned what it was that the FBI allegedly found on the subscriber database of the notorious Landslide computers at Fort Worth Dallas when they raided them on 8 September 1998. Today, as this is written, it is the 10th anniversary of that fateful event which was to ruin the lives of many thousands worldwide. Another outcome is a class action against the British police, of which I am the coordinator. Called the 'Operation Ore Group Action' (a class action is a group action over here), this is about to reach the High Court in London, United Kingdom. When our case reaches the court, worldwide reverberations of that event of ten years earlier should be heard and, if there is any justice there, they should roll back on America, where the travesty originated. The test appeal, a 'sample appeal', will hopefully be followed by a raft of appeals and claims for compensation for false arrests, convictions, cautions accepted under intimidation and much more. The group action team will be presenting new evidence secured in America, never before shown to the defence. It is hoped that after the group action is underway, charges of perverting the course of justice will be brought against the British police and their 'experts'. Operation Ore was the extraordinary British response to the notorious Landslide case, but where the US authorities arrested only a little over 100 in America in connection with Landslide, the British, acting on false information from the US authorities, went after over 7,000, ruining most of them and their families. While the British were the worst by far in their response to the Landslide information, the US authorities through Interpol released the names of some 250,000 alleged subscribers to Landslide to the police forces of around 60 countries. One quarter of a million men and their families were thus affected by this travesty. Based on our estimate of British men who committed suicide as a result of the Landslide-originated police raids, thousands may have committed suicide worldwide. After the British class action commences, it is planned to expand it worldwide. The main plank of the class action is based on prosecution evidence, never before shown to the defence, which we, the action team, have obtained by travelling secretly to Fort Worth Texas. This includes both the Landslide records and the relevant FBI files. We will also be exposing lies told by the US authorities. The massive credit card fraud which we have uncovered has been up to now hidden or denied by the police. The British police are expected to claim that the US authorities hid this from them, but it was immediately apparent once we secured the evidence. The evidence has also provided clear proof that serious lies were told about its contents. None of this will be good news for certain individuals in the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the FBI and Terri Moore, a First Assistant in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. In a show trial Terri Moore gained new political status by prosecuting Thomas Reidy, the owner of Landslide, and obtaining an initial ridiculous 1300 year prison sentence for him, later 'mercifully' reduced to 180 years. I must be clear that our business in the class action concerns the thousands of men and their families wrongly damaged by the US-supplied false information, in operations such as Ore, not in clearing Reidy, but we have unearthed much key evidence that casts doubt upon, and contradicts, key FBI and USPIS evidence used against him, and exposes downright lies. In our 'Fort Worth raid' to secure the suppressed evidence, we even obtained an FBI video made on the day of the 1998 Landslide raid that shows the FBI interfering with the evidence on the day while still on the premises - for example accessing and viewing the records online. Now, lest some readers feel that our action is an example of democracy and justice at work, let me throw some cold water. First we are not there yet and second it is a miracle that we are where we are at all. Our situation is very similar to that of RSOL and its friends. Most, if not virtually all of those who are in our class action are broken and bankrupted. Just about all lost their jobs and businesses and many lost their spouses and families. Only mothers stood by a few. When I evolved into the position of originator and coordinator of the action, at first I could not find a solicitor to take it on. You have to reach lawyers through solicitors over here. It was so toxic that the legal profession did not want to touch it, reflecting the attitude of all the defence lawyers that had let their clients down during the Ore trials by either not mounting a proper defence or forcing them into plea bargaining to accept a 'caution' and registration (and ruin). Not one lawyer demanded to see the suppressed prosecution evidence that we were forced to mount a dangerous expedition to Texas to secure. One excuse the police gave for not producing it was that it contained 'awful images'. It actually contained list upon list of fraudulent credit card transactions. There was supposed to be a 'Click Here Child Porn' banner gateway that was used in court before shocked juries to convict hundreds and trumpeted over the media to shame all the accused. There was no such banner. The police swore there was no fraud. The database was rife with fraud. Let me pause briefly to explain how the Landslide con worked. I should say the 'con using Landslide' as Reidy tried to stop it but failed. Making it as simple as possible, a small group of criminal webmasters around the world, bought lists of stolen credit cards and in a sophisticated almost 'laundering' mode used the Landslide commission system to rob innocent card owners. They set up fake web sites and registered them on the portal of Landslide, so that if a transaction clicked through to their sites, they received an automatic payment from the portal owner, Landslide. Most of these sites had no images as they were fakes, but to reduce the number of complaints about fraud they charged small amounts only for each access, say $29, and gave the sites nasty child porn names - 'Sexy Lolitas' and so on. If you were bold enough to complain to the cops about a $29 'Sexy Lolitas' transaction they would probably raid you. Many of the transactions were made from countries such as Brazil, which the card owner had never visited. Many of the $29 paid for 'memberships' were for sites that the card owner did not then visit. Some were even multiple memberships for the same site, all obviously fraudulent, but accepted apparently unquestioningly by the British police. Suffice it to say that once we had secured the evidence our forensics experts pored over it. Returning to our trials and tribulations. We began with broken and bankrupted individuals, but eventually in 2006 I had the good fortune to find a good British human rights solicitor prepared to take on the class action. At that point, knowing we had to give him the material to fight with, we secured the evidence in a secret trip to Texas. The next problem was that, although our solicitor was about to provide a huge amount of pro bono support for expert witnesses, his own team and a good lawyer, we still needed to put up a substantial amount of money, the total of which I won't reveal here but will do so after our appeal. At this point, we began to experience a police backlash and a program of intimidation. One activist who had pre-dated me had his web site shut down and was returned to prison for 7 months. It will be familiar to RSOL readers when I say that several potential key activists cannot be seen to be working for what we believe to be justice for fear of being returned to prison by their parole officers. The web site for the campaign became Inquisition 21st Centruy, which I edit. Apart from being a retired journalist, I had two other advantages: I was somewhat outside the jurisdiction as I live in Ireland and I was not affected by Ore or one of its sister raids, such as the one in Ireland. However, that said, neither I nor the web site were to escape. In late 2006, within hours of announcing that were back from America having secured the prosecution evidence, Google de-listed the Inquisition 21 web site, greatly restricting our attempts to raise the substantial initial sum needed to begin the class action. This however was still just the beginning. The first expert witnesses I approached rejected the case immediately. All worked for the police and risked any future work by supporting us. We had one excellent expert who had formerly worked for the police but changed sides when he became disillusioned with their malpractices. Shortly after we announced him, he was arrested, tried and convicted of perjury for 'miss describing' his qualifications. He received a suspended sentence, but it temporarily wrecked his work and his chances of representing us. Ironically, he was again raided by an over-confident police force for a second time and our privileged evidence (our actual case against the police) seized, so that they now knew our hand. The High Court ruled the raid to have been unlawful, ordered the return of the material, and in effect restored the status of our expert. The Inquisition 21 web site, de-listed by Google for 7 months, was also hit with illegal material in what was possibly an attempt to discredit me and the class action. Complaints sent to the British 'independent police complaints authority' were either ignored or brushed off. Recently a second active member was raided and his laptop with more of our evidence seized. It should be clear from all this that it's almost impossible to put right a miscarriage of justice once the police and prosecution have been involved in it. When that miscarriage of justice involves going against a current moral ideology, such as sex abuse, it is even more likely to be impossible to put right. Over the years that we struggled to get permission to appeal the Operation Ore travesty, we received little or no assistance from the media and none from a single member of parliament (MP). On the contrary when we began we faced a hostile and at times vicious media. That we have turned that around completely is a considerable success. In addition to all this, there is no witness protection program for those who try to report police crimes to the police. The key message here has to be that the justice system is flawed and programmed to reject attempts to put right miscarriages of justice - indeed, the greater the miscarriage, the greater it seems, in the words of Lord Denning, is the 'awful vista' that one must accept by admitting the truth. So where are we? Mainly in a wonderful place in one of the few countries where the police state has not yet quite enveloped the Judiciary. We have managed to obtain the evidence, forensically examine it and get a professional team to present our submission to the Judiciary, where it is at least now beyond the reach of the police and prosecution, and where an august body will eventually give their verdict on it.

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RSOL DIGEST #24, AUG 09, Part II

By Alex Marbury <alexm60@fastmail.fm> Posted on 31.08.2009 Link to this digest: [0027]

RSOL DIGEST #24, AUGUST 2009 PART II (THE ENTIRE DIGEST IS ALSO FOUND ON THE RSOL E-MAGAZINE, http://www.rsolcc.org ) SUMMARY OF ARTICLES IN PART II - Interview with Atty. William Habern; Origins of the Sex Offender Registries, Marshall Burns; Juvenile Offenders, Geoff Birky; Yellow Star, French Wall ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attorney Bill Habern Kicks Some Butt,¨ title proposed by Mary Sue Molnar, RSOL Texas Voices Coordinator, marysueintx@yahoo.com, interview by Alex Marbury AN INTERVIEW WITH TEXAS ATTORNEY BILL HABERN August 2009 Alex Marbury We had a similar interview with Atty. Habern in the December Digest. Bill has continued to fight for the rights of all Americans, including sex offenders. He has taken certain sex offender issues on as his cause. We need to support him and find one or more lawyers like him in every state! William T. Habern spoke at the First National RSOL Conference, at the Texas site. We are proud to have him as an RSOL Signatory. He is a criminal and constitutional lawyer of the first rank whose firm Habern, O’Neil and Pawgan LLP has offices in Huntsville and Houston, Texas. Q #1, ALEX MARBURY: Mary Sue Molnar, our fantastic Texas Voices coordinator, introduced you at the recent RSOL National Conference in Austin, July 11 (simultaneously held in Boston). A. What was your experience at that conference? B. What was your number one message to participants there? C. What advice do you have for RSOL in terms of future conferences? BILL HABERN: A) My experience at the conference was a very positive one. Scott Pawgan (one of our partners) and I both went. We met the families and got to visit with them about the issues they face and the economic realities that were being driven by Texas parole policies. Folks have to realize what is really going on is not so much the protection of society because the numbers I have seen reflect there is a less than 7% recidivist rate for these offenders. This is really a funky money game and it works like this. The offenders pay and those state and private persons connected into the money train (the counselors, therapists, and government agencies) get paid. Once on sex offender supervision, there is no incentive to release sex offenders from those conditions which drives the financial wheels of the train. It’s a financial train to no where. The state is kicking those who are already down. After all, what kind of chance at a meaningful life exists when the State tells you which bridge you can live under if you reside in Miami? B) My number one message to this membership is that you can not give up. I ended my talk at the conference suggesting that when a big dog is attacking you and is seriously attempting to cause you bodily harm, ya gotta do what you can to protect yourself. I suggested one pick up a 2x4 and just keep beating that dog till the problem no longer exists. Aggressive fighting back is what I think must be done to the governments, agencies, and service providers who are riding on this money train. They are the one’s involved in doing this harm to particularly non-threatening sex offenders. I believe serious predatory sex offenders should not be paroled. But for most of those sex offenders I see, they just gotta keep beating that dog until the harm disappears. C) RSOL future conferences: These conferences are a great idea, and I urge them to continue. I would suggest, now that the first one is over, that in the future the conferences be for a day and a half. Maybe start at noon on a Friday with that Friday afternoon session being directed at new members who have never attended one of these sessions before and who are not familiar with the basics of dealing with legislatures, local government lobbying, and the basic publicity work that must be done to accomplish obtaining realistic approach to what is currently not at all realistic policy. During that basic session, cover the fundamentals such has how to organize local and state wide political movements, explain what the ideals of the organization are, why and how to get involved, and suggest specific things new members can do even if they are short in their financial abilities. Let the new folks know we need them and where the state organizations are today vs where things were when they started out. Give them a sense of the fact the efforts are certainly moving forward. There is no doubt that in Texas Mary Sue Molnar has certainly caused positive change here. The primary progress her movement has caused is to stop the legislature from passing any more of these absurd laws which make it impossible for low risk sex offenders to have any quality of life. Finally at the end of the first day have one major speaker who can do a real RA RA kind of presentation. Make the second day for new AND old members. This is the time to present new ideas, spread success stories and ideas for between the organizations attending. Then have the final speakers. Overall what you did last conference needs to be continued. I have been speaking at various legal seminars around the country for years, and for a first time effort, I thought all of you connected to RSOL did very well. Q #2: ALEX M: Mary Sue has called your recent sex offender cases in Texas, “kicking butt” and a victory. Among other things, she notes that the judge ordered the state to pay all legal fees and costs to the plaintiffs you represent that brought the complaint against the illegal way the Parole Board was imposing sex offender conditions on those without any sex conviction. Could you summarize (a) where the case now stands (we understand the case must be tried again because of the Judges “prejudicial comments” before the jury when the parole board’s ex lawyer was testifying), but that the court nonetheless ordered the whole procedure used by the parole board was unconstitutional anyway. (b) what are the important issues at stake in these cases. RESPONSE: Bill HABERN: FACT SUMMARY OF THE GRAHAM CASE: This case arose because about 30 years ago when our client, Mr. Graham was a very young man, he had been a drug dealer and generally a bad guy. He went to collect a drug debt and the woman who owed the money did not have funds to pay the bill, so he took possession of her old beat up car, some furniture, and when she could not pay the balance of what she owed, he told her he would trade sex for the balance of the debt. The woman did participate in the sex, but when Graham left, she called the cops and filed charges of burglary, car theft, and rape. Graham made a plea deal where the rape was discharged under what is known as a “plea in bar” which in Texas is not a conviction. He had to enter a plea to the rape, but under the “plea in bar” rule, it is not a conviction in Texas. These sentences, including the plea in bar, was long ago discharged and terminated. However, Mr. Graham’s criminal activity and history continued. Graham went back to prison for another burglary, was paroled, then returned to prison again when he and his brother in law got into a fight where a gun was discharged, but no injuries were sustained. This was a 25 year sentence for attempted murder which is the cause of Graham now being on parole. When Graham got to prison on the attempted murder charge, he decided to change his life. Otherwise he realized he would die in prison. For the next twelve years Graham went to every rehab program the prison offered, he started studying the bible by correspondence courses and became a model inmate and minister, and was again paroled. However, he was not placed on sex offender supervision as he had no sex offender convictions. He was put on special intense parole supervision because of his history. He opened a business and was doing well for four years. He went to his P.O and ask if the special parole conditions could be lowered since he was a good parolee and his business was growing. He was also very active in his church. He needed to be allowed to move around more freely. His P.O. was trying to help him reduce the severity of the parole conditions when they found the old “plea in bar” case. From finding that case, instead of reducing his parole conditions, they increased the degree of his supervision and put him on sex offender supervision. Once that happened he lost the business he had started and done so well starting up. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM In Texas, the 5th Circuit Appeals Court in New Orleans has ruled in Coleman v. Dredtke that before the parole board can put someone with no sex conviction on sex offender supervision there must be some sexual event present in that person's past criminal history. Of course Graham did qualify. Then, the parole board must conduct a proceeding where they find that person is a current “threat to society because of his current inability to control his/her sex impulses.” The opinion notes that such person should be given due process during the process of placing one on sex supervision. However, the court did not spell out what due process was to be applied. We had long been of the belief that what Texas was doing was not complying with the minimum requirements of due process, and that is what we charged in our law suit. At the time in Texas the parole board had what they called a due process policy, but it was far below the standard set by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The parole board was not giving sufficient notice of what the board would consider to the offenders, therefore the offender could not make an informed response to that information used against them, nor were these offenders being allowed an opportunity to appear with counsel before the board before the vote was taken. Thus the due process problems with the board’s policy (which began in 2004) meant there was totally insufficient notice. No reasonable right to respond and no one gets a hearing. Also please keep in mind that Graham’s only sex wrong took place almost 30 years ago, and he was successfully out of prison over 4 years before the parole board found the old “plea in bar” that was not a conviction . Graham and his wife came to see our law firm about his being placed on sex supervision, and we believed he had a good case. We agreed on the fee which provided that in the event we were awarded attorney fees the client would get some money back. Now, taking on one of these civil rights cases is not like getting ready to try a typical DWI. These cases can go on for several years, and come with considerable stress and expense for both client and lawyers. As I stated in my speech at the ROSL conference in Austin, I am about to be 71 years old. I am not some young hot shot East Texas gun-slinging lawyer type. I may have thought of myself that way in my younger years, but not today. At my age, I am much more the coach than I am a player in the court room doing battle. Today I consider myself much more the producer or general manager of these events, but I come to court with own team of lawyers who really believe in what we are doing, and we come to court to fight as hard as we can. This time my team consisted of the same team captain I have used in all the past cases. Richard Gladden is my old friend and my favorite young criminal and constitutional lawyer from Denton, Texas. Richard, his late father Don, and his older brother Greg have all been known in Texas as top notch, serious constitutional and criminal lawyers. I particularly think Richard and I work very well together. In this case we added one more to the team, Scott Pawgan (who is board certified in criminal law in Texas) is one of my firm’s partners, but he had never tried a federal civil rights case to a jury. We decided to let Scott be lead counsel so he get a taste of experience with all the issues that arise in a civil rights case as the case develops. THE TRIAL We asked for a jury since we were allowed to go after damages against the Chairman of the Parole Board and the director of the Parole Division which is the sister agency of the Parole Board. The court allowed us to pursue those damages. We were in the 4th day of the trial and things were going very, very well. Judge Sam Sparks of Austin, Texas is about my age, has been a federal judge since 1991, and this man totally stays in control of his court room as well as any federal judge I have appeared before in my 38 years of practice. Several times he got the jury out of the court room and expanded on questions from several of the state employee witnesses we called about the policy we were attacking. He certainly understood what was going on. Finally on the last day of trial the State put on the ex parole board lawyer. This was done after the Court had suggested (outside the presence of the jury) such a move was a dangerous thing to do. Nonetheless, the ex board lawyer got on the stand and testified about issues the correctness of which gave the court serious concern. Finally the judge, in the jury’s presence, had enough. His frustration with the witness resulted in his comment that was something like, "No, this lady is wrong, she's wrong, what she is telling the jury is not the law and I am the one who will be telling the jury what the law is, this woman is wrong.” The State made a motion for mistrial because those remarks were made by the Judge in front of the jury. The results were a strong possibility of prejudice to the State. The court had to grant a mistrial. However, when Judge Sparks announced the mistrial he also announced that as a matter of law (meaning there is no legal question about it) what the parole board policy has done to Mr. Graham and about 650 other parolees violates the 14th Amendment. That finding gives us the victory we have hoped for and a good chance to get costs and attorney fees, plus still allows us to go after the damages we seek at the next trial. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS CASE: I believe the important issues in this case are that in arena of the 5th Circuit the issue of due process required before a person who has no sex offenses can be placed on sex offender supervision, there must be some serious due process afforded that individual, and that must include notice, a chance to respond, and a hearing. It has always been my opinion, ever since the original Coleman decision of 2004, what the court meant was what it said. Before one with no sex offense can be placed on sex offender supervision, that person must be found to be a current threat to society by reason of his/her inability to control one’s sexual impulses, and must be given due process prior to that determination. I think this almost implies such persons display all the tendencies of being a sex predator to be placed on sex supervision without a conviction. I also believe if they are a sex predator, why in hell are they paroled in the first place. We will see what happens when the case is retried and I am sure the State will appeal. Q.#3 ALEX MARBURY: Do you think RSOL could and should establish a sex offender legal defense fund at the national level, and if so could we list your email as the contact person for lawyers who wish to be part of an RSOL Legal Defense Committee, to consider a Legal Defense Fund for sex offender cases that test important state and federal provisions of the law? RESPONSE, #3: BILL HABERN: WE ARE NOT YET READY FOR A NATIONAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND FOR SEX OFFENDERS. WE NEED TO FIRST GET ORGANIZED AND CREATE STATE FUNDS! I do not think it is time yet for a legal defense fund nationally, or in Texas, but that day will come. In Texas Mary Sue has done a wonderful job, but her organization has no financial basis. In fact, I think she and her husband have been the money behind the Texas Voices organization. That will not do, and unless a financial base is established for the organization, I believe it will be doomed. The first priority is that there must be state organizations that are headed toward self sufficiency before an organization goes national with a Legal Defense Fund. There must be dues, the ability and the effort to gather and accept donations, and the beginning of a solid financial base. Otherwise the future of this movement is extremely limited to the financial ability of whoever is currently paying the bills. Once there are state organizations with hope of financial survival, then comes the next step. That would include state legal defense funds. It is my opinion. I do encourage a national organization, However, each state has different state laws, so each state must fight its own battles until the Constitutional issues currently working their way through the courts reach the point where legal precedent is well enough established to act as national guide posts for those having issues to litigate in this area. In the world of legal history, the rights of sex offenders is just in it’s infant stage. We have to have established precedents that are constitutionally settled before we go national. That will take a few years. THREE VICTORIES ALREADY I said in my talk at the RSOL Conference that when our firm started filing these cases about two or three years ago we had no guide posts and we were plowing new fields. We now have three victories, and our friends from the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin, Scott Medlock and Jim Harrington, have also won a big case called Meza that along with our case, Jennings v. Owens et.al. are companion cases pending at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Coleman case which started all of this. The Jennings and Meza cases cover some of the same issues our Graham case covers. None of these cases have been argued at the appellate level yet, so we do not know if our victories will stand. Judge Sparks mentioned that now in Texas there are about 12 of these types of cases filed in federal courts. We are only in two of those pending cases, and I have no idea if the other cases are filed by parolees pro se or if lawyers are involved. Certainly there are similar actions filed in other states. NATIONAL SEX OFFENDER CASES CLEARING HOUSE NEEDED All of this wonderful work RSOL is doing is too new to start talking about a national Legal Defense Fund. HOWEVER, there does need to be a national clearing house to file and store the records from these legal battles as they come through the judicial system. I can not tell you how many Public Service law firms have called or communicated with our law firm about getting copies of our pleadings in our first case, Grant v. Collier, where we were able to stop the parole board from terminating parental rights for sex offenders without due process. That issue also needs some appellate consideration. Such law suits are popping up everywhere in the country. It is my suggestion that the national RSOL should start a clearing house for lawyers who want to do one of these cases. Gather up all the pleadings, responses, discovery, trial motions, and appeals briefs with a directory of what each case is about so lawyers have a central place to go to see how other lawyers who have already fought the battle did the work. That would be a great help. All of that information is already public anyway. When you hear about a case, call the lawyer and get his public case file, or contact the clerk of the court and get that information. Most if it can be collected from the web. (NOTE FROM ALEX: We need a laywer to set up this clearing house! Any volunteers?) HABERN’S RESPONSE: I don’t think you need a full time lawyer. Get a couple of law students working under a lawyer’s supervision. I think that is all you need. NEXT STEP: FORM STATE LEGAL DEFENSE FUNDS WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT. Each state should have a legal fund. However, it should be controlled by each individual RSOL state organization, not the national organization. Each state has different laws, and each set of laws needs to be tested. I will say this about the national organization, and particularly a national legal defense fund. You need an independent national director. Generally I think RSOL needs one who may not have a criminal history. The national organization needs an executive director who can speak without fear of accusation of having been a wrong doer in a past life. One who comes to stay, and does not plan to leave if that person has a brother, son or sister who is a sex offender, and that particular problem gets resolved. I have seen too many prisoner support groups fail because an excellent spokesman was the parent of an inmate, and once that inmate was released, the parent quits the organization, and the organization fails. A national director should be a full time job for an organizer who can be a national spokesman, and plans to make a career out of it. That does not mean that there is no place for ex offenders in the organization. I do not mean that at all. I am talking about the National Director. These cases will be going to the Supreme Court and funds will be necessary in the due course of time to help support these efforts. I am fortunate to say I have been on a team that won a Supreme Court case in my younger days, and three of us had to pay the cost of that adventure for that out of our own pockets. Believe me, I am glad I was on that team, but I'll never do that again. The issue you raise about money is very important and needs serious consideration, but it is too early for a national legal defense fund. You first need to establish financially secure state chapters, then state legal defense funds, and then go national. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Q #4 ALEX MARBURY: What do you think should be the number one priority for RSOL for the coming year? RESPONSE - BILL HABERN: PUT THE STATE GROUPS ON A FOOTING THAT MAKES THEM MORE THAN JUST FAMILY-SUPPORT GROUPS. I believe the state organization’s next priority should be to get each state on a financially solid operating basis. This will be a difficult thing to do, but it must be done. I have already suggested that leaders should not be folks who will leave the program when their loved-one is no longer under the watchful control of a parole board. I refuse to be a part of any family support groups where the leaders get their family members out of the difficulty they are fighting to overcome, and then drop their activity and support for the group. Those are the people you do not need as administrators. People who agree to administer these groups SHOULD NOT FORGET WHAT HAS HAPPENED. IT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN THROUGH THIS CRAP THAT NEED TO STAY AND ADVISE THE NEW ENTERING MEMBERS. The fight for civil rights does not end when a case is won. The fight for civil rights must be continually renewed and defended. If I thought Mary Sue would be leaving Texas Voices when her loved one is off parole, I would stop having anything to do with her! She's not that kind of woman. I have abandoned several inmate support groups because much too often the leaders of the programs leave when a loved one is released from the system. An organization that allows that to happen is bound to fail, and those who run State agencies know and count on that happening. HABERN MIGHT TAKE A COACHING JOB! FOR LAWYERS DOWN IN THE TRENCHES! You ask if I would head up a legal advisory board on legal matters for PSOL. I still am thinking about that one. I learned during this last trial I am too old for the stress that comes with a serious federal jury trial where everyone in the room has their guns out. After a full day in court you spend a night in conference at the hotel. Three hours of sleep a night is just not enough anymore for me. My age and health are a consideration. I can still produce, but trial work is serious, serious business. The pressure is best suited to younger guys. I’ve already said I am now much more the coach rather than a player. I am looking for something else to do besides being "of counsel" to my law firm. If RSOL can get financially organized and satisfy me that it will become a solid and ongoing organization at both state and national levels, there is no doubt that this is the current area where civil rights lawyers need to be down in the trenches with the troops. I might be interested in a coaching job with RSOL, but we have to see first if this movement can afford to play each season, year in and year out. I think getting each state on a solid financial ground should be the next immediate goal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTHER IMPORTANT ARTICLES A. ¨The First US Sex Offender Registry, California 1947,¨ by Marshall Burns, RSOL signatory from California, and webmaster and researcher for RSOL´s sister research site, http://www.rsol.org/, rsol@mburns.com Origin of the Sex Offender Registries by Marshall Burns, Ph.D. [This article is adapted from a new report just published by SOL Research. To see details of the legislation and statistics discussed here, along with copious online references, please go to www.SOLresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/origin.asp .] Most people think the sex offender registries were only recently established. The fact is that the registry of today is the direct descendant of a program that started in the 1930s. Originally intended to keep Mafia gangsters from setting up shop in Los Angeles, it later became a tool for harassing homosexuals in the McCarthy era. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a quasi-government agency that publishes information about the registries, has a Web page called, “Sex-Offenders: History” that starts with, “Prior to 1994 few states required convicted sex offenders to register their addresses with local law enforcement.” This is true, but it gives the impression that the history of government tracking of sex offenders started in the 1990s. That is far from true. GANGSTER LAW In 1931, the United States was gripped by the Great Depression and Mafia kingpins exerted a reign of terror over New York, Chicago, and other major centers in the Northeast. Los Angeles County district attorney Buron Fitts proposed an ordinance to keep organized crime out of the area. The idea, called “convict registration” or the “gangster law,” was to require anyone who had been convicted of certain crimes to register with the sheriff if they lived in the county or visited for more than five days. When the measure finally passed in both the County and the City of Los Angeles in 1933, it covered conviction for any felony as well as lesser drug or weapons charges. Many other municipalities in California and other states soon adopted similar laws. In the meantime, the country was also experiencing growing anxiety about another kind of crime: sex. A tug-of-war was building between social liberals who viewed consensual sexual activity as a private matter that was no business of the law and moralists who believed that growing sexual license was ruining the society. Military and police operatives began using subterfuge to entrap homosexuals in lewd acts. Consensual homosexual activity between adults was a felony, with long prison terms often followed, in many states, by indefinite civil commitment that could keep the “pervert” locked up for the rest of his life. In 1938, the Los Angeles Police Department established its Bureau of Sex Offenses. The bureau began keeping careful records, with fingerprints and photographs, of sex offenders, and operated a clinic for performing psychiatric evaluations of people arrested on sex charges. LAPD Chief James E. Davis explained the need for the bureau on “the theory that each minor sex offender is a potential major sex criminal.” Two years later, the Los Angeles Times reported that the records had been used to select a suspect to look for in the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl. THE P.T.A. ADDS SEX The next month, the local chapter of the Parent-Teacher Association conceived a plan for combining Chief Davis’s sex offender index with the convict registry. The organization passed a resolution at its conference on April 4, 1940, asking the city council to add certain sex crimes to the list of those that required registration. The crimes listed were child molesting, consensual oral sex, and indecent exposure. In its letter to the city, the PTA stated that “the safety and morals of our children are menaced through an alarming increase in cases of indecent exposure and lewd conduct.” Although the Chief of Police and the Police Commission endorsed the proposal enthusiastically, it is not clear that there had actually been a significant increase in sex crimes, according to statistics published by the Police Department during the period. As the PTA proposal went through the process of being turned into law, the city added more sex crimes to the original suggested list. When the ordinance passed and was signed by the mayor on September 25, it included rape, loitering around children, and consensual anal sex along with the crimes first proposed by the PTA. Thus the innovative convict registry in 1933 to keep gangsters out of Los Angeles, seven years later also became the world’s first sex offender registry. This happened at the suggestion of the local chapter of the PTA, based on a false claim that sex crimes in the city were dramatically increasing. The crimes covered by the registry included consensual oral and anal sex, which were illegal at the time, even between husband and wife. Ironically, at a conference of the same local PTA chapter a few weeks later, the keynote speech stressed the importance of personal freedom in a democracy. “We must maintain our freedom to think for ourselves instead of as some dictator tells us, to listen to what we want to hear rather than what a dictator wants us to hear, to choose our education and our work according to our choice and our abilities.” This was stated in contrast to the rising tide of fascism in Europe at the time. Later in the meeting, a resolution was passed to send commendations to city officials for passing the ordinance to add sex offenders to the convict registry. In the spirit and attitude of the day, it probably seemed perfectly natural for the measure to include oral and anal sex, thereby affirming that the personal freedom lauded was not to include the freedom for people to decide on their own how to make love. While it is true that these laws even applied between husband and wife, they were almost always used to prosecute pairs of consenting men. FROM CITY TO STATE TO NATION-WIDE Although the initiative to begin the original convict registry had been taken by the County of Los Angeles and was copied by the City, it was the city that instituted the sex offender provision. The county did not follow suit immediately, but several years later, the new district attorney proposed that either the county or the state ought to adopt a similar measure. The California Legislature followed up on the suggestion. In July 1947, the state added Section 290 to its Penal Code to require anyone in the state who has been convicted of any of a list of particular sex crimes to register with the local police. The list of crimes was somewhat further expanded from that used by the City of Los Angeles, and now included seduction by promise of marriage, incest, and lewdly influencing a person under 21 to become delinquent. Penal Code Section 290 remains to this day the law governing registration of sex criminals in California. As of August 2009, the list of registrable crimes for adults has grown from the eleven shown here to 169. (Juveniles have their own list of 61 crimes.) Arizona followed California’s lead and set up a sex offender registry in 1951, as did Florida later in the 1950s, Nevada in ’61, Ohio in ’63, Alabama in ’67, Mississippi in ’87, and Montana in ’89.. By the early 1990s twelve states had established registries. In 1994, the federal government required all states to have one, with a three-year deadline to avoid a financial penalty. The remaining 38 states then stepped up quickly and in August 1996 Massachusetts became the last state to set one up. A national registry was established that same year to combine the data from all the state registries. And what happened to the gangster law that got the whole thing started? It was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 1960. The court determined that since the state had made laws about registering people for a selected set of crimes, that took jurisdiction to do so away from local governments. Since the state government had decided (and maintains to this day) that registration should only be for sex crimes, the City of Los Angeles and other municipalities are no longer free to impose their own ordinances that require registration by violent felons or any other criminals they wish to keep track of. GETTING THE QUEERS Although the registrable crimes included anal and oral sex, which were typically only used against homosexuals, arrests on those charges were fairly uncommon. However a change in the law in 1949 turned the registry into a tool of homosexual persecution. In that year, the legislature added lewd vagrancy as a registrable crime. This was represented by Penal Code Section 647(5), which specified that a “vagrant” included “Every idle, or lewd, or dissolute person, or associate of known thieves.” (“Dissolute” means, essentially, immoral.) This vague statute section had always given police great latitude in dealing with anyone they considered undesirable. In particular, it was commonly used to charge men found hanging around in parks, restrooms, or dark alleys looking for or having clandestine encounters with other men. Statistics from the annual report of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1950 show how the addition of lewd vagrancy began to swell the registry with homosexuals. Over 90 percent of registrable charges filed by the LAPD in that time were for “sex perversion,” which meant primarily for homosexuality. With the addition of lewd vagrancy to the list of registrable crimes, the terms ‘sex offender’ and ‘homosexual’ became largely synonymous. In the 1940s and ’50s, hatred of homosexuals was rampant, bitter, and openly expressed. Both government officials and the public were loud and crude in their condemnation of, interchangeably, sex offenders and homosexuals. There were often repeated calls for castration, lifetime incarceration, and death of sex offenders and/or homosexuals. The government and most employers instituted programs to identify and eliminate homosexuals from their ranks. CONCLUSION What started out as an effective tool for keeping Mafia gangsters out of Los Angeles was over the course of two decades transformed into a tool for persecution of homosexuals. [This article is adapted from a new report just published by SOL Research. To see details of the legislation and statistics discussed here, along with copious online references, please go to www.SOLresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/origin.asp .] --------------------------------------------------------------------- B. ¨Juvenile Sex Offenders – Branded for Life?¨ by Geoffrey Birky, Ethical Treatment for All Youth (ETAY), http://www.ethicaltreatment.org JUVENILE SEX OFFENDERS – BRANDED FOR LIFE? Amid calls for more punitive responses to children and teenagers who violate sex laws, it's important to get out the message that while some juvenile sex offenses are violent and clearly harmful, "juvenile sex offenses" include a very wide range of behaviors. Among these are: - “sexting," where middle and high school students send sexually suggestive photographs of themselves to each other - romantic/sexual relationships among underage teenagers - un-coerced sexual experimentation among children - streaking, public urination - childish pranks These are documented at the following sites: http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/JSOcases.asp http://www.ethicaltreatment.org/media.htm http://www.ethicaltreatment.org/stories.htm http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2007/12/child-sex-offenders.html Elizabeth Garfinkle at the Berkeley School of Law recently wrote in the California Law Review that studies show that "the majority of adolescents found guilty of sexual offenses used no force at all...The lack of a clear distinction between consensual and nonconsensual illegal sexual behavior results in an often arbitrary distinction between perpetrators and victims...Many child sex offenders are victims of sexual abuse themselves. Many more engage in common sexual behavior, sometimes healthy, sometimes inappropriate, that they will most likely learn to manage. Megan's Laws stigmatize and isolate these children, limiting their opportunities for normal growth and exacerbating the kinds of vulnerabilities that lead to future criminality, both sexual and nonsexual...By applying Megan's Laws to juvenile adjudications, states throw out a century of juvenile justice jurisprudence and scholarship to protect an even older tradition of fear about childhood sexuality. In so doing, lawmakers perpetrate irreparable damage to the very children they claim to protect." For the reasons given above, over 50 national and regional mental health, child welfare, and offender treatment organizations have gone on record objecting to the placement of juveniles on sex offender registries (see http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/legislation/sexoffender?OpenDocument). The American Psychological Association's statement of opposition to such measures can be found at http://www.apa.org/ppo/ppan/sexoffenderaa06.html . Nationally recognized juvenile justice expert and Berkely law professor Franklin Zimring has also written a book on the topic entitled "An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending." An executive summary can be found at http://www.adjj.org/downloads/4424American%20Travesty.pdf . These children and teenagers are often subjected to abusive sex offender "treatment" regimens that may include repeated and detailed disclosure of sex acts and fantasies, humiliation, and self-identification as sexual and/or psychological defectives. Some programs use lie detectors, emotionally or physically intrusive sexual interest testing (sometimes including plethysmographs attached to genitals during exposure to sexual material), ammonia aversion treatment, and other sexual arousal reconditioning methods similar to those used on gay men 50 years ago. Documentation of these methods can be found at http://www.ethicaltreatment.org/dontshoot.htm and http://www.ethicaltreatment.org/theissue.htm . While many professional organizations such as the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) have recently started to advocate more humane treatment approaches, individual programs continue to use these methods. In addition, the official policies and literature coming from the treatment profession have yet to acknowledge the existence of juveniles labeled as sex offenders for un-coerced sexual behavior. For example, in spite of the fact that laws in most states label non-coercive underage sex as sex offenses, and in spite of the sexological literature showing that much illegal sexual behavior among children and teenagers is common and non-pathological, ATSA's public policy literature on the topic of juvenile offenders continues to use the terms "sex offenses" and "sexual aggression" interchangeably (see http://www.atsa.com/ppjuvenile.html) and recommends that "treatment be mandated for juvenile sexual offenders whenever possible." Currently, juveniles in the U.S. who commit non-sexual crimes, even violent ones, are not treated as harshly as those who violate sex laws. Current laws and many treatment programs publicly humiliate, ostracize, and severely harm even non-violent youth. Laws banish them from housing, education, and employment, and prevent them from becoming productive citizens. For more information, see www.ethicaltreatment.org. Geoffrey Birky Ethical Treatment for All Youth www.ethicaltreatment.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- C. ¨Yellow Star,¨ by French Wall, RSOL signatory from Maine, former Editor, The Guide Magazine, www.guidemag.com Editorial from The Guide September 2006 The Yellow Star By French Wall Sixty-five years ago this September, German Nazis made it compulsory for Jews to wear a yellow Star of David. Holocaust survivor Victor Klemperer, writing in I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years, recalls the introduction of the mandatory Star as the darkest moment of the entire Nazi regime. Klemperer suffered countless indignities, saw and endured horrific abuse, and heard of unspeakable atrocities throughout the Nazis' rise to power and their subsequent subjugation of much of Europe. One of a handful of German Jews who escaped the round-ups and deportations to the death camps (his wife Eva was an "Aryan," thus deferring his fate), Klemperer miraculously survived the firestorms following the Allied incendiary bombing of Dresden and then months on-the-run as a destitute and starving displaced person. And yet he remembers the mandate requiring display of the "Jewish Star" with singular abhorrence. What was it about a bit of "yellow cloth, at the center in Hebrew-like lettering [the word] 'Jew,' to be worn on the left breast, large as the palm of a hand" that seemed worse than beatings, worse than confiscation of all one's property, worse even than the fate awaiting those who disappeared after a visit from the Gestapo? The Star was meant to mark its wearer as "other," a non-citizen. The Star signaled to hooligans and vigilantes that its wearer was a sanctioned target for torment. The Star made it impossible for its wearers to go about any civic life without constant fear of violence and death, for themselves and any of their companions. The Star meant abandonment by employers, neighbors, and friends-- all legitimately fearful of what their association with a known "enemy of the Reich" would mean to them and their families. The Star signaled that its wearer was a de facto "outlaw," fair game for anyone wanting to indulge their sadism or anti-Semitism. In short, the Star was mean to denote that its wearers were sub-human, deserving no more consideration or legal protection than "the vermin" that they-- according to relentless state propaganda-- were. It may be true that those ignorant of history are destined to repeat it, but current events confirm that knowledge of history is no guarantee of avoiding repetition of past tragedies. Enter a post office, police station, registry of motor vehicles, or other civic office in today's United States and you will likely be confronted with posters of so-called "sex offenders," required to register, often for life, with the state. Faces, addresses, and employment locations are all prominently displayed. You will read signs telling you that even more information about these men (and women, mostly garden variety prostitutes) can be found on the internet, part of the new nationwide effort supposedly to protect the Homeland and its children from such "predators." But of course, "protection from predators" is not the goal of sex-offender registries, any more than "protection from Bolshevism" (the stated excuse for promulgation of the 1941 Yellow Star regulation) was the Nazis' purpose. If public safety were truly the goal, why list those whose "crime" was offering a blowjob-for-hire to a willing adult? Or those who were caught masturbating in the woods near a highway rest stop? Or those who never violated another's consent nor did any physical harm? If "protection" were the real aim of tracking and publicizing offenders and their whereabouts, wouldn't it make more sense for registries to list arsonists rather than flashers? Why should society need protection from those who suck young men, but not from those who kill them? No, the goal of sex-offender registries is not protection-- just the opposite. Sex-offender registries, like earlier Yellow Star regulations, are intended to create outlaws stripped of jobs, housing, family, and friends. Such state-created monsters can then be targeted for vigilantes' violence and self-serving politicians' self-righteous invective. Today's sex-offender registries signal, as did the 1941 Yellow Star decree, a breakdown in the rule of law. For those fighting to rebuild a US Constitution and Bill of Rights so shattered in these past years, no greater sign of progress will be than the abolition of sex-offender registries and their odious effects. French Wall ---------------------------------------------------- END OF AUGUST 2009 RSOL DIGEST #24, Part II

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RSOL AUGUST DIGEST #24, Part I

By Alex Marbury <alexm60@fastmail.fm> Posted on 31.08.2009 Link to this digest: [0026]

RSOL Digest #24, August 2009 PART I NOTE: THIS DIGEST IS IN TWO PARTS BECAUSE OF LENGTH ALL DIGESTS ARE NOW ALSO FOUND IN THE RSOL E-MAGAZINE, http://www.rsolcc.org IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS: 1.The RSOL e-Magazine began last month publishing the contents of the Digest ON THE FIRST of each month. Go to http://www.rsolcc.org each month to read the Digest, see photos, and read letters to the editor and other important new articles. 2. THERE IS A NEW RSOL FORUM also in the e-Magazine. GO to the e-Magazine and click on FORUM. This is where it will be easier for groups of people to discuss a new article or some other topic, rather than sending long strings of copied emails!” 3. VIDEOS of the First National RSOL Conference are on this site as well! Go to http://www.rsolcc.org and click on the banner announcing the Videos! AS OF THE NEXT DIGEST, Sept. 2009, the Digest will ONLY be published on the e-Magazine AND later on the Digest tab of the homepage. We´ll send a short summary to all rsol participants in our data base on the last day of each month. Thanks to Kelly Piercy, e-Magazine editor for this excellent new RSOL journal. 4. RSOL NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW! Send your contributions! If everyone involved in the struggle against unjust sex offender laws gave just $1, we´d have far more than we need. RSOL participants alone, at $1 each, would bring in nearly $3000. We need some quick cash to continue the Support Hotline, pay for RSOL and related websites and for the prisoner project. PLEASE SEND whatever ou can. Make checks payable to Paul Shannon, and send by regular mail, c/od Indochina Newsletter, 2161 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140. Donations, NOT tax deductible. THANKS! ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1.INTRODUCTION a. Quotes of the Month b. Other Special Announcements c. From the Senior Editor – ¨A New Level of Struggle¨ Alex Marbury, alexm60@fastmail.fm 2.NEWS FROM RSOL A.After the National Conference: Summary of Admin Team Decisions A National Lobby Conference in Washington, DC Next Spring Regional RSOL Conferences - SW and Others New RSOL Literature – PDFs and Print Versions RSOL Needs Your Help NOW – Send Your Contribution! B. A New HOUSING COMMITTEE for RSOL! - Verna Bronersky VBronersky@osteopathic.org C.Fighting APPLE´s I-Phone Sex Offender Finder – contact alain360@fastmail.fm D. A PROPOSAL FOR A VIDEO E. News From the States – Alain Levesque 3. ADMIN TEAM MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS a. Philosopher’s Corner - Kelly Piercy b. ¨Are Sex Offenders Ready for Civil Disobedience? (A Discussion of a Range of Strategies for RSOL¨ – Alex Marbury, Bennie Walton (RSOL Colorado Coordinator)and Greg, an RSOL participant c. ¨Attorney Bill Habern Kicks Some Butt¨ – suggested by Mary Sue Molnar, Interview with Alex Marbury 4. ARTICLES AND ESSAYS A.¨The First Sex Offender Registry – California, 1947¨ – Marshall Burns B.¨Juvenile Sex Offenders - Branded for Life?¨ - Geoffrey Birky, Ethical Treatment for All Youth (ETAY), http://www.ethicaltreatment.org C. ¨Yellow Star¨ - French Wall - from the Guide Magazine, www.guidemag.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION a. QUOTES OF THE MONTH ¨However practical and just the case for (sex offender law) reform, it must overcome political cowardice, the tabloid media and parents’ understandable fears. Other countries, though, have no excuse for committing the same error. Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful ones.¨ THE ECONOMIST, August 6, 2009 (NOTE: RSOL´s Mary from Virginia has given an interview to a major Swedish newspaper which sites the ECONOMIST article as a reason for Sweden NOT to follow the U.S. example!) ¨You don´t have to sell off humanity for public safety.¨ Dr. Jerome Miller, 1st National RSOL Conference, Boston, July 10, 2009 ¨Violent offender legislation is often ineffective, can target the wrong people, and leaves the community no safer than it was before.¨ Andrea Casanova (mother of Alexandra Zapp, murdered by a convicted sex offender; Founder, The Ally Foundation), Boston Globe, August 12, 2009 ¨The language of the levels of offenders in a registration system reminds you of nothing so much as the levels of classification of the third Reich.¨ Dr. Richard Pillard, B.U. School of Medicine, at the First National RSOL Conference, Boston, July 10, 2009 ¨As an article in the ECONOMIST put it recently, ´The registry is a gold mine for lazy journalists.´ It is also an unofficial ´hit list´.¨ Violet Blue, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 13, 2009. ¨Public flogging is public flogging, no matter in what century it occurs.¨ Ronie Dean, RSOL Participant, email August 14, 2009. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b. Other Special Announcements 1.RSOL Retreat is being considered for theS.W. States (others may come) – Telluride, Colorado, August 2010. Look for details. Contact Lloyd Swartz, rs2477@cybermesa.com . 2.Congratulations to Illinois state contacts, Rene and Tonia – for leafletting the ACLU parade this month - see the photos on the e-Magazine. Email them your congratulations - GVR123@aol.com, or toniat@sbcglobal.net 3.Shirley Parrott, an RSOL signatory, is proposing a video to lnclude interviews with persons on the registry who should not be there – juvenile offenders, Romeo and Juliet cases, false accusation cases, misdemeanors, retroactive cases from years ago. If you are willing to be interviewed or to help her plan the video, email her at offendertruth@gmail.com 4. Congratulations to John and Mary of Virginia - Not ONE new sex offender law has been passed in Virginia in the legislative year 2009, the first time ever! That is thanks to the good work of Mary and the nearly 100 RSOL Virginia members who have lobbied tirelessly. Congratulate them at rsolvirginia@comcast.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- c. INTRODUCTION BY THE SENIOR EDITOR Alex Marbury ¨A New Level of Struggle: Changes in Sex Offender Laws Will Come!¨ When we first started this campaign to reform sex offender laws in the United States, our prospects were pretty grim. As a few scattered volunteers began the work of www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org, increased restrictions on offenders were being put in place in every state. Each month saw more stringent if not impossible residency limitations, keeping former offenders away from their own children, the banning of computers, requirements to give up passwords for cellphones and even bank accounts, and extreme restrictions on interstate travel. Offenders were banned from parks, zoos, libraries, and under some conditions, even from churches. The media were almost of one shrill voice – sex offenders were seen as monsters to be rounded up – stashed away behind barbed wire in so-called civil commitment centers if possible, and if not, shamed and isolated by the ominpresent internet registries which severely limited work and housing options. That was just over two years ago. From four volunteers, RSOL has grown to a strong organization with a diverse administrative team, strong state groups in about twenty states, and contact organizers for every state; more than 800 public signatories, and about 2000 other non-public participants. We held our first national conference in July – with 130 activists at two sites, Boston and Austin. Contrary to the experiece of some other similar groups, our conference was not disrupted by fanatic protesters. As we organized, we saw court cases won in several states to roll back some of the worst laws – thanks to the good work of RSOL members like Attorney Bill Habern in Texas. State legislatures in a few states amended some laws in favor of slightly more moderate approaches, again with lobbying by RSOL affiliates. Nationally, the first Congressional Hearings on the Adam Walsh Act drew not only the usual cries of ¨protect the victims¨ (with which we do not disagree) but also moderate voices, like that of RSOL´s own Laurie Peterson, to protect the civil liberties of offenders, and the wellbeing and safety of their families. Editorials in the Atlanta Constitution and other major newspapers called for reform. This month, the esteemed international journal, the Economist, in its lead article and an editorial, laid out virtually the whole RSOL agenda – calling for America´s punitive sex offender control system to be completely overhauled. As one might expect after two decades of hate and hysteria about ¨evil sex offenders,¨the enemies of reform did not just give up. They reasserted their agenda, and a number of controversies and strains in our own movement began to emerge as well. So far, these have been contained by thoughtful people with cool minds and reconciliatory hearts. It is no wonder that, despite our growth and gains, many people are asking, ¨When will we see real change?¨ Like the cries in a previous age, people ask ¨When does the revolution begin?¨ It won´t happen over night. Like previous movements for social change, as ours matures, it must explore and adapt a wide range of tactics and strategies. We must resist the temptation to proclaim one particular brand of reform the true one, or one particular group of offenders as the ¨really deserving¨ ones. We need all our forces – we are far too young and too small to afford in-fighting and splits. We cannot afford divisions between conservatives and liberals, feminists and men´s groups, gay and straight, Christians and Pagans or Atheists, or personality and inter-group turf rivalry. All of us have to focus on one goal: slowly but surely, reforming America´s truly offensive sex offender laws. First and foremost, that means revising the state and federal registries, with the ultimate aim of abolishing a public, internet registry of shame, replacing it with the Canadian model of a registry for the truly dangerous, and kept in the hands of law enforcement. First and foremost, it means demanding that offenders who have completed their sentences and parole, NOT be re-confined in shameful camps called civil commitment centers. Rather, it means we must work steadily to improve therapy and rehabilitation efforts, and provide housing and jobs for those who come out of prison or parole, not make these simple human needs more difficult or impossible by public humiliation and residency restrictions. It means that we vigorously investigate and exonerate those who were falsely convicted. One place to start, since opinion polls show the most support for this and since it is perhaps the most grievous aspect of the current system, is to stop criminalizing consensual sex among minors, and so-called ¨sexting¨ among teens. One state has already done this, and others are considering it. Finally, it means refusing to be cowed into silence by the shrill voices of those who demand ever more restrictions. In just over two years, we have come from a time where most people assumed that America´s sex offender laws would keep getting more and more severe, to an age when some change is now expected by most people. We can now assert, ¨These laws WILL change.¨ Not tomorrow or next month, possibly not next year, but soon. Change is now within our grasp. Let´s not lose our nerve as the attacks on us spike upward. Let´s not lose our unity, as frayed nerves under pressure lead us to say things we should not have said to one another. Toward those who continue to insist on repression of former offenders and their familes, we must shout proudly: ¨Not in America!¨ Toward each other, in all our diverse communities, we need a different tone - ¨We are family, and no-one will divide us!¨ Alex Marbury ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. NEWS FROM RSOL AND ASSOCIATED GROUPS --RSOL HOUSING COMMITTEE RSOL is proud to announce the formation of a Housing Committee that will explore the possibility of providing low cost housing for registered sex offenders and their families, across the country. The committee will hold it's first meeting, by telephone conference call, this month. The committee is looking for RSOL participants with experience in Community Development Housing Corporations, nonprofit housing groups, real estate or general contracting. To join the committee, or to offer ideas or expertise please contact Verna at VBronersky@osteopathic.org --¨FIGHTING APPLE – I-Phone´s Sex Offender Finder PROTEST APPLE´S OFFENDER LOCATER PROGRAM RSOL and other groups are considering an action against the APPLE computer company in Cupertino, CA, with offices also in New York City,to protest their outrageous ¨Offender Locater Program,¨ which allows users of the I Phone to choose a program that helps them find all sex offenders near their home, or in any other specific area, and shows the offenders´ photos and other information (taken from the registries). Although Apple temporarily took down its paid version of this because such information is public and cannot be legally sold, both the paid and free versions are up again in the I-Tunes store. Please write your own letters to Apple, and go into your local Apple stores to lodge protests, and if you want to be involved in a wider protest, contact Alain, alain360@fastmail.fm --------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. NEWS FROM THE STATES, Alain Lévesque, alain360@fastmail.fm In our effort to have a presence in every state of the country, The RSOL Admin Team assigned "Neighboring State Contacts" (NSC) for every state that did not currently have RSOL-affiliated groups. Some of our current state organizers agreed to be listed as the NSC for a neighboring state, a title that they will have until we can find a "real" organizer in their neighboring state. You can find on our website the list of state contacts and neighboring state contacts for every state of the country (+DC): http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/groups/index.php. Three new state organizers joined the RSOL team in August. In Arizona, the person who was temporarily the Neighboring State Contact, Lloyd Swartz from New Mexico, successfully found a local resident to become state organizer¬. Anyone wishing to get involved in Arizona may contact Tina: reformsolawaz@yahoo.com. In Ohio, our long-time organizer Mark will continue to work on his excellent website (www.constitutionalfights.org) and has agreed to remain as Ohio contact, until our two new contact people are confirmed. Finally, in South Carolina, a devoted mother of a registered man offered, with great enthusiasm, to assist our current organizer Henry. To help us change the laws in South Carolina, be sure to contact both Sandra (rsolsc@yahoo.com) and Henry (jhin3@hotmail.com). I may soon announce new organizers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Don't miss next month's report, which will not be sent by email but will be accessible on the RSOL E-Magazine (www.rsolcc.org). And now, here are your news from the other states: From ALICE in NEW MEXICO: "This month we are having our monthly meeting again next Sunday, the 23rd. We expect the usual 20 or so people. This week we are processing another 150 letters to RSOs in the Albuquerque area. We had a leadership meeting last Saturday, Aug. 15th which is promoting the attendance at coming RSOL meeting. We are planning a large yard sale for September 19th to raise funds. At this event there will be an information booth with displays and literature available to the public." From LLOYD, also in NEW MEXICO: "Citizens For Change New Mexico has managed to network with a couple of victims groups, and is now sitting on a related criminal justice committee. Another avenue for education and preventing bad legislation. We are also attending a sexual violence workshop this week. Our work on "Nuts and Bolts" formation work has kicked into high gear. Monthly membership meetings have gotten so large we started monthly staff meetings as well to deal with detailed business, and lessen the time for primary meetings that have been known to hit 3 hours.We have 4 permanent staff members. A large fund raising garage sale at a church in September is being preparing for, and will have an educational booth at as well. Due to increasing fund raising we are working on bi-laws, incorporation and treasury. CFCNM.org website construction continues. A SO specific legislative subcommittee meeting followed by SOMB meeting on August 26 will be a critical time to learn about proposed legislation, and see if we can probe to introduce new legislation, with a focus on "save the Budget" as well as "save the children by slimming the registry". Legislation is formed September through November, so we will be back in the game again soon. We are also planning a fall legal subgroup, likely at the ACLU office again. We are actively seeking speaking engagements. We assisted in finding someone to organize Arizona and are attempting to slowly work toward regional organization." From KELLY in GEORGIA: "We are still continuing with our lobbying effort towards the 2010 legislative effort. In that effort, we are sending the URL with a summary of the important Swiss Study that finds viewing of images is not a precursor of or lead to interaction with a minor, and Jill Levison's collateral damage report with summaries of those studies. In addition, we are sending each legislator the URL to the video of the Boston Conference, asking them to pay particular attention to the presentations by Dr. Pillard, Dr. Miller, Dr. Berlin, and Wm. Habern, Esq." From FRANCIE in MICHIGAN: "It has been a very productive month. I finally made my petition on line (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reformsolawmich ) and have almost 100 signatures in just a little over a week. I plan to use this to present to the legislature and state senate to propose to change the current sex offender law and registry. So many people have responded positively towards this! I also wrote our state Governor and the parole board. I wrote a couple of news stations and also papers. I had an interview with a freelance reporter for our local paper, The Oakland Press, and she will have an article out in the next 2 weeks. She took down the details of my son´s case and was going to talk with court officials. She took a picture of me holding my son´s picture with the park in the background just to get the effect of the park issue for sex offenders. I think if we keep pulling together, we can get something done soon." From JENNIFER in KENTUCKY: "As the new coordinator in Kentucky, I have been working on formulating the Kentucky priorities and goals. I also began contacting supporters and reviewed the state registry to determine how to contact registrants to form a RSOL group in Kentucky. There are several obstacles to overcome in building a group of supporters which will be the first task to achieve. Thank you to Kelly Piercy from Georgia for his mentoring me and all others who have offered help and great advice." From TONIA in ILLINOIS: "Renate and I drove up to Springfield, IL and participated in the ACLU parade. We put between 250-300 flyers and brochures on every car windshield (the RSOL link was on each one we used). When we got to where we were meeting everyone, I sat down with the attorney for the ACLU and told her about mine and Renate's sons and their situations. She's a new young attorney, but I was quite surprised that she had no idea that RSO's could not go to church. She said she was going to look into that - we'll see if she does. We must have given out over 100 cards to people on the sidelines of the parade it was great. After the parade, when we were walking back to our car, put one of my brochures on every state cop car I could find (ha ha). On a different note, we both met with Sue, her husband and her son P.J. in early August. They spent the weekend with Renate and we all had a great time hanging out, shopping and bar-b-queing. It's always nice to meet someone in person who is going through the same situation as we are. We are plan another meeting in September or October and have been sharing ideas of what our next steps might be." From KIMBERLY in INDIANA: "Hello Everyone! What a wonderful group of people RSOL has! I am the new state organizer for Indiana. I received such an overwhelming response from RSOL members when I joined on, it impressed me so much! So thank all of you for your warm welcome! But, we need to move on! The first thing I did, when taking this position, was open a line of communication to all Indiana members! I believe in the power of numbers! Indiana has a lot of plans for the upcoming year that I am truly excited about! Here are some: 1.)Establish an open line of communication and trust with all Indiana members. 2.) Write letters of welcome to RSO's in Indiana to build a bigger state and national membership. 3.) Correspondance to all State and Local leaders, including the costs of compliance with SORNA, The effects of the AWA towards the convictions of teens, lobbying to abolish SO registries. 4.) Organize "pass the flyer" campaigns, which involves taking the parent flyer's to local churches, schools and local teen "hang outs", throughout Indiana. 5.) Communications to ACLU regarding Civil Rights Violations towards RSO's. 6.) I would like to move towards creating "Heartland RSOL". A regional group hopefully consisting of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio. 7.) Create a website for Indiana! Any help would be greatly appreciated! 8.) Correspond with Federal Legislatures for Law Reform on SO issues with the help of the RSOL Organization. I'm excited to see our membership grow and become One Big Powerhouse! Peace, Love and Prosperity, Kimberly DuBina" From BENNIE in COLORADO: "Members of the Colorado CURE group and the Colorado RSOL group are participating in a possible law suit. We are currently making efforts to gain the necessary monies to move the suit forward. Members of the Colorado RSOL are still attending SOMB meetings along with members from CURE. This is relatively new for the CURE members. I contacted the Governor of Colorado who has yet to grant me a few minutes of his time. I put forth a question to the CURE and RSOL members, asking them, if there were 200 people, would they march on the state capital. I received a response from a few people, suggesting to me that we are not yet ready to make a commitment that needs to be made, to start showing the local media, the governor, and the legislature that we are serious." From LAURIE in NEW HAMPSHIRE: "NH is in the 'off' season for legislation. Something unrelated to the efforts of the NH group, but closesly tied with our efforts is a win by the NH ACLU to defeat a town ordinance in Dover NH on residency restrictions! I was aware of their efforts and have supported them at other towns when considering enacting these restrictions and we are delighted that their court challenge was successful!" From MARY in VIRGINIA: "In August: We were interviewed by a reporter from a country that is considering instituting a Sex Offender Registry but after he read the Economist article he wanted to speak to someone unjustly stigmatized a "Sex Offender". John and I traveled to DC for the sixth time to meet with assistants to members of Congress. We've now met with assistants to nine out of eleven Virginia Congressmen, one out of two Virginia Senators and a counsel member to the U.S. Judiciary Committee. We've asked all of RSOL of Virginia supporters through e-mail, snail-mail and a posting on our web-site to stand with us at the Virginia Crime Commission meeting in Richmond on September 16. We've asked them to bring their significant others, children, parents, neighbors and clergy members to participate in a unified call to action." From DENNIS in MISSOURI: "Donna and I met with an aid to the congressman in our congressional area. Meeting went well. He said to get back in touch with him after Labor Day. I'm trying to build a trusting relationship with him. He's going to find out who our friends are and who's not. I feel a little optimistic at the moment. Donna and I are having a get together with our supporters in mid Sept. Had many letters sent to USSC from our supporters, family and friends." From JANE in MAINE: "On July 10th and 11th we had the privilege of attending the First ever National RSOL conference. Maine had 5 members in attendance. Two people rode to Boston with Calvin and me, and the 5th person arrived on Saturday. While there I meet a 6th person from Mainem who has agreed to join us. The conference was extremely well planned and the speakers were informative and very helpful. I am still gathering my thoughts and ideas, trying to put everything in order, I came home on overload! Which is a good thing. I have so many ideas to use in the next year for Maine. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone from the other state groups and finally meeting Paul and Alain. One of the talks I got the most practical information from was Laurie Peterson's talk to how to lobby effectively. The legistlative sessions I attend this past spring left me feeling like a fish out of water and Laurie's imformation will allow me to feel more confident. I also found useful was the small group workshop. I would like to see more of these types of oppurtunities at the next conference. Riding down to the conference with the other couple gave us plenty of time to talk and get to know each other. I have been in touch with them since coming home and we are planning to have our first meeting of CFC Maine in early August, but we are looking for a place to hold it. Everyone attending the confernce came away recharged and determined. We are all looking forward to the next confernce. Hopefully in DC, as one of the small groups suggested.¨ From KELLY for the RSOL CORRESPONDENCE COMMITTEE: "We are working closely with Alex to publish the Digest and additional articles in this month's edition of the RSOL e-Magazine. The RSOL Forum can be reached through the e-Magazine by a convenient link at the top left of every page. If you wish, there is space to get noticed in the e-Mag. Just send us your non-soliciting advert and we will insert it within our engaging articles. Remember to include images or graphics if you have them. Let the world know you are here and have something to say. Submit your articles to the editor at editor@rsolcc.org. While you are at it, go to the RSOL Forum and communicate, network, and read what others have to say." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.ADMIN TEAM MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS a. Philosopher´s Corner, Kelly Piercy, semperfidelas@gmail.com HUGO, NEWTON, STANDARD OIL OF CALIFORNIA AND THE JOYS OF ORBITAL MECHANICS ¨Man is not a circle with a single center. Rather he is an ellipse and the foci are facts and beliefs.¨ Victor Hugo – Les Miserables So many times we have been told and so many more times we, the collective we, do not listen. Today it is popular to cite Hawthorne when we discuss our plight. It is a cognizable parallel. Possibly Hugo strikes closer to the mark. If you haven’t read Les Miserables, you have missed the closes parallel to our issue that has ever been written. The circle and the ellipse; I know because it is a demonstrable fact opposed to the ‘I believe’ statement. Oh the joys of orbital mechanics… Is God defined by the physical law of the Universe or does God define the physical law of the Universe? But that is a discussion for another time in another venue. We could inspect the equation of a circle as compared to that of an ellipse. What we would find is that they differ only by the terms ¨a and b¨. In fact, a circle is a special form of an ellipse, just as a square is a special form of a rectangle. Hugo knew this and he knew that man is not a circle, a perfect symmetry with a single center. Man is an ellipse with two gravitational centers, fact and belief. The closer these foci can be brought the more ‘centered’ is the man, the more rational the society. In Les Miserables, we see a clear definition of what happens in a society where in these centers are widely separated. We see what happens when one focus gains gravity by a government that has usurped the power of the masses, when the oppressed live in apathy and fear, when the ‘registered’ must constantly evade, having no place to rest. Indeed, Hugo strikes true in his comparison. We indeed live in a society that has become an exaggerated ellipse. Fact and belief are so far separated, and belief has gains so much mass that the orbit of reason threatens to tear itself from its dual focus and become a perfect circle with a single center, belief. At a time in my career, I worked for Chevron Oil Field Research Company. One of the annoying things I had to do was to handle proprietary technical support for the Operating Companies of Standard Oil of California. This was not something that made someone who dedicated his life to pure research happy. I recall receiving a particularly difficult sample from Chevron Central (Midland/Odessa.) I completed the analysis and sent a report. A few weeks later, I received the same sample with a different identifier and a new request. I found the same results and returned a second report. When the sample arrived with a third identifier and request, I called the Operating Company and suggested that if my data did not fit their theory, it might be best for them to go down hole at $1,000.00 a foot (thank the powers that be it was an On-Shore well) and explain to Corporate why they did not find any oil. Does that have anything to do with this discussion? There is a joke among researchers: If the data does not fit the theory, for god’s sake, change the data! It does fit. Hugo explains that man, society, is an ellipse. Newton demonstrates that in any gravitational system an orbit is an ellipse due to gravitational effect and that if one effect becomes so massive the orbit will center on that mass. That is where we are. The mass of the ‘I believe’ has become so large that mere truth has no value in our struggle. The data has been changed to fit the theory. What is the answer? How do we force the orbit back to a semblance of reason? The French had an answer. Who of you will stand the barricade? Do we few stand alone? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b. ¨ARE SEX OFFENDERS READY FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?¨ (A Discussion of a Range of Strategies for RSOL) by Bennie, RSOL Colorado affiliate, G., an RSOL sex offender participant, and Alex Marbury. Contact Bennie – lostjustice@comcast.net , or Alex – alexm60@fastmail.fm ¨A DEBATE ABOUT RSOL STRATEGIES: Lobby One Senator at a Time, or Start Massive Civil Disobedience? Or both?¨ Are we ready for mass demonstrations, public lobbying, or even civil disobedience, or must we start smaller than that until we have the numbers? This debate was started by a Colorado sex offender who wrote our Colorado RSOL state organizer to propose massive refusal to register by sex offenders. This reminds one of the massive refusal to register for the draft that finally led to the end of the Vietnam War! Here´s G´s initial question - What If Thousands of Sex Offenders Refused to Register, and then Bennie of Colorado´s thoughtful but moderate response, and finally my own contribution! Let the Debate Begin! --------------------------- Hi Bennie - We have exchanged a few emails over the last 3 or 4 months. I am a sex offender. I have a question for you. I have been emailing back and forth with a few other sex offenders who are doing what they can to bring attention to the Adam Walsh Act and the effect this unconstitutional law is having. One of the guys brought up an interesting point: there is stength in numbers! If every sex offender in the country refused to register, the government could not arrest and throw us all in prison for it. The prison system nation wide is already maxed out. Florida was just ordered to reduce their prison population and given 2 years to do it. If there was an organized move to do this, what effect do you think it would have to bring attention to what is going on. (Signed, G.) ----------------------------------- Hi, G - Organization is a very big IF. I have already expressed to members of RSOL that it will take something like a civil rights march, a beginning, but that we are not ready for it because far too many people labeled as sex offender are unwilling to come out of hiding so to speak. There are only a few people in comparison to the numbers of people labeled as sex offender who are standing up and speaking out. Yes, a mass demonstration on Congress or even by state could bring attention, but I doubt any significant movement initially. A single (small) demonstration would do nothing but harden the hardheaded. Before we can even consider a mass demonstration particularly in Washington, D.C., significant numbers of people would have to come out of hiding, and those supporters would have to be willing to demonstrate as well, just as was done in the civil rights marches that finally brought needed change. The best we can do now is to make every effort to change the minds of state officials and congressional men and women from each state by all the methods we are currently using until the numbers are there to get local and national news networks to start talking and interviewing, Then we can build on that. As long as the major local and national news networks continue to ignore the plight, the fight is one senator, one representative, one state official at a time. Bennie ------------------------------------------------------------------ To G and Bennie, This is a very interesting discussion about mass action, mass lobbying and perhaps mass civil disobedience (refusal to register). I feel as though I´m re-living history, that we are repeating the stages of the anti-war movement of the 1960s!!! You both (G. and Bennie) make interesting points, and your points all have merit. It´s a chicken and egg kind of thing. You can´t get a movement going until you have masses of people, but you can´t get masses of people until you show that you have a movement. As one who was active in the anti-war effort (during the Vietnam war) and the civil rights movement before it, I faced these same concerns. I stood with about 100 others in one of the first demonstrations in front of the White House against the Vietnam War, and we felt dwarfed by the support for ¨our boys in action¨ which at that point represented 80% or more of the American people. A few years later, I marched without about 200,000 past the same point, and then a year after that, I looked from the U.S. Capitol at nearly a million marching down Pennsyvania Avenue. We had to start somewhere. The notion of refusing to register is a powerful one! But people must be willing to go to jail again for that. In the case of sex offenders, that usually means going BACK to the dreadful horror of imprisonment as pariahs. It will be harder today to get those already stung by imprisonment to consider resistance, than it was to persuade the young, idealistic 18 year olds to refuse to register for the draft back then. There was a group during the Vietnam War called Resist, which got people to refuse to register. A few resisters were jailed, but eventually thousands refused to register and, as G points out, there weren´t enough jails to hold them all! Thousands more went to Canada, where there was no draft and where there was strong opposition to U.S. war policy, to avoid registering, When there were enough who refused to register, the whole system of the draft collapsed! And then US involvement in the War in Indochina could not contiune. We are in the very beginning of a long struggle. The struggle to end the war in Vietnam took years. I´d be surprised if our struggle took less than that. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Canada again has a more enlightened policy than the U.S.A., US-Canadian immigration agreements have been put in place to prohibit another similar flight north by those refusing to register. The collapse of the sex offender registration system may take even longer than the collapse of military conscription. Everything we can do at this point is valuable! The approach of ¨one state Senator at a time¨ is one good strategy, a meeting in Washington with Congresspeople is another, as are Class Action Suits by sex offenders and their families forced to comply with impossible conditions. Demonstrations at local Registry Offices, or at Oprah´s TV studio, or at the Apple Computer HQ, whether with a dozen people or a thousand, is yet another valid approach. We also need a concrete proposal to ¨resist registration¨ altogether! Our own ¨RESIST!¨ That´s one more powerful strategy. The approach of RESIST during the Vietnam War was called the ¨Charlottesville Pledge,¨ which began in Charlottesville, VA. The idea was to get people to sign a pledge which said, ¨As soon as 10,000 other draft age men sign this, we will all refuse to register for the draft.¨ Then one day, there were more than 10,000! And the jails couldn´t hold them. Maybe a similar pledge could be started among rso´s - to get thousands of sex offenders to refuse to register, or to un-register, or to commit civil disobedience in some way. When an agree-upon number of verified signatures were there, the fact could be unveiled in massive action in DC or NY or CA. All of these things are worth thinking about! I don´t think demonstrations of even just a dozen people will harden the hard-headed. Others among those who must register and their friends and families will take notice, as will the whole American society. The next demonstration will attract a hundred, then a thousand. Finally, the unjust sex offender registry system will collapse under the weight of its own injustice. All such tyranny (and that is what the sex offender laws are) eventually does tumble down. Not this year, probably not next year – but one day soon! Alex Marbury -------------------------------------------------------------------- END OF PART I, RSOL DIGEST #24, AUGUST 2009

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RSOL Digest #23, July 2009 PART III

By EDITORS:Mary Sue Molnar, Kelly Piercy <marysueintx@yahoo.com,semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 07.08.2009 Link to this digest: [0025]

PART III - RSOL DIGEST, #23, JULY 2009 ----------- Who is listening? - Kelly R Piercy semperfidelas@gmail.com Revolutions are funny things. Somehow those we remember are the ones that have met with success. I wonder how many remember the name of Boudica or Vercingetorix? They both lead great revolutions against Roman occupation. And they both ended up like the Houston Oilers. Just a sidebar in history, they came to the game with all the support of their people, and like the Oilers, lost the 'Big Game' and slipped from memory. There is another thing about revolutions that needs to be recognized. After the American Revolution, everyone did not live 'happily ever after'. The Federalist Papers did not spring from some bonhomie among political scientist wanting to dialog about the philosophy of the new nation. The Federalist Papers were a heated debate between two powerful factions with very opposite views of the shape of this new society that was born from a bloody war. In fact, many Americans either willingly fled the new nation or were forced off their land by the victors. Why was this? Because even among those who fought against the supposed tyranny of their overlords, there was disagreement. The disagreement and factionalization did not exist only among the populace, it ran all the way to the top, even Washington's position was in doubt. The Declaration of Independence almost failed at the last minute because of disagreement with the why and what of the revolution. Revolutions are not pretty and they are generally a series of devastating losses by the revolutionaries. Case in point, the American Revolution, The Viet Nam War, The risings of the English and the alliance in Europe against Rome. Yet, in every case, revolutions succeed. What does any of this have to do with communication? This column is generally about how we communicate between ourselves and with those outside our movement. Mostly we discuss words and language, and tact and diplomacy here. That sort of writing is probably what is more fitting in this space. However, some comments from conference attendees inspires me to ask a different question and take this column in a different direction. Who is listening and what are they hearing? For the most part, our most effective listeners are our most entrenched opponents; Absolute Zero, Perverted Justice, and the rest. What are they hearing? Mostly that we cannot seem to form a united front and we do well enough at arguing with ourselves, thank you very much. Another answer is, a very small fraction of those we represent. Certainly, we receive many emails asking for help. Sadly we receive too few emails asking how the sender can help us. Our websites blanket the net as we form more and more factions with the desire to take the lead and become the victor in the battle. Some sites claim large volumes of 'hits' and 'visits'. Yet nothing changes, registries exist even to the Territories of the United States and are insidiously spreading around the World. Some efforts by our State Organizers, notably Virginia and Texas, have slowed or stopped the progress of further restriction. There is still debate among the states about the AWA, but it is mostly the states asking the fed to relax the rules so they can be in compliance without enduring further costs for more legislation. So, who is listening? It would seem very few, and what is being heard is not what is being said. I spent some years working in International Field Service. During that time I learned a very important lesson about communication. I am not responsible for what I say, I am responsible for what you hear. We are responsible for what those who allow the registry hear. What are they hearing? Are they hearing that we want 'sex offenses' to be stricken from the law? Are they hearing that we want our particular 'offense' ignored because the effects of the registry make our life difficult? Are they hearing that it is the 'victims' fault because 'she lied about her age', or the parents fault because 'they were not taking proper care of their child'. Probably. How many times have we talked to one of our comrades and heard this: "Before this happened to (me, my son, etc.) I believed everyone on the registry was a _______." It recalls what I heard about myself when I returned from the Southeast Asia War Games. How many times was I called a 'Baby Killer' by the multitude that opposed what my parents, society, and government told me was the right thing to do. Now, the registry labels me worse, a 'Baby Raper'. I never killed a baby, I never raped a baby. In fact, in my two years as a Participant, Southeast Asia War Games, I never held or touched a Viet Namese adult, let alone child, in a way that could be construed as sexual. I have never been charged with touching a child or adult in any way that can be construed as sexual, I have never even been accused of 'chatting' with someone who portrayed themselves as a minor. Yet there are those who still label me 'Baby Killer' and more that now label me a 'Baby Raper". Why? Because the supporters of the registry control the language. So, who is listening? It would seem many are listening, but they are not hearing our message. This column is about teaching communication skills. At least that is what it is supposed to be about. Not this month. I do not have any advice. I offer no solutions. I only listen to commenters who urge us to a louder voice through a dual approach in increased informed lobbying and street activism. Our RSOL conference showed the emergence of our strength. Are there more than 130 of us? Will we step up and be recognized, let our names and faces go beyond the anonymity of the registry and into the streets and to the offices of legislators and executives. I am concerned that we must, and we must do it with reason, truth, passion, and courage if we expect those who listen to hear. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment from the Guest Editor Mary Sue Molnar marysueintx@yahoolcom Many times, the stress of "registration" and working for reform seriously affects our daily lives. It's important to laugh a bit, balance the bad with the good. Hope this helps tilt your mouth into a smile. FIRE!!! Reported by the North County Times (July, 2006): The arson registry list, which is maintained by the California Department of Justice, has 3,761 offenders registered statewide as of June, 2006. The arson registry list is managed by the Sex Offender Tracking Program and is significantly smaller than the sex registrant list, which has 108,000 offenders statewide. Texas Voices members, Cathy and Gerry wonder whether the conditions and restrictions imposed upon registered "arsonists" are similar to those unrealistic and unnecessary restrictions imposed upon registered "sex offenders". The following terms and conditions apply to those who are required to register on the statewide Arson Registry: ( Go ahead, have a good chuckle...) No outdoor flames at your place of residence. Offenders are prohibited from burning trash and/or brush, owning a Barbeque pit, and participating in any outdoor activity including campfires, wiener roasts, and bon-fires are out of the question. Residency restrictions: The offender may not reside within 2500 feet of any wooden structure (including structures with wooden decking, shingles or a boardwalk), a forest, a sawmill, a fire department. (Exposure to restricted areas may excite pyromaniac tendencies and significantly increase recidivism risk). The residence in which you reside can only be constructed of brick, steel or mortar. If you are unable to comply with the living restrictions you may be required to move to a desert area. Offenders are prohibited from purchasing lighters, cigarettes (don't even think about lighting one up), ash trays, matches, candles (no more birthday cakes), fire starters, lighter fluid, etc. The offender shall not come within 500 feet of a fire safety zone. Fire Safety zones include Burger King or any restaurant where there may be flame broiled food, businesses for the sale of propane, oil refineries as there is a continuous flame of poisonous gas. Offenders are prohibited from attending the Circus, as flame-throwers and fire-eaters are common attractions. Offenders shall not attend movies that may have pyromania explicit activity or content, (Towering Inferno and Back Draft are just 2 examples), no funny car or top fuel dragster races as the cars are powered by jet fuel and flames are emitted by these vehicles. An Offender whose home is equipped with a gas stove, gas heater, gas water heater, gas dryer, fireplace, and or wood burning heater will be required to move or replace all of these with electric appliances or devices. These rules are subject to change depending on the mood of your probation/parole officer. Probation/parole officers have full authority and can check your home, car, belongings, and breath for any odor of smoke. Any violation could result in revocation and loss of all of your constitutional rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Quotes of the Month "...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..." Samuel Adams "Unconstitutional Sex Offender Laws are like a dog you beat with a2x4,you beat that dog, and it just keeps coming back....We are going to keep beating that dog with a 2x4. Civil Rights Attorney William Habern, First Annual Reform SexOffender Laws Conference July 11, 2009 A People united cannot be defeated. Caesar Chavez ------------------------------------------------------------------ RSOL CORRESPONDENCE COMMITTEE – Kelly R Piercy, semperfidelas@gmail.com The RSOL Correspondence Committee is the home of the RSOL e-Magazine. The Monthly Digest is published at the RSOL e-Magazine in full after it is released via email. In addition to the monthly Digest, the e-Magazine publishes essays, summaries of news, editorials, studies, and reports dealing with the registry. We are not going to replace the valuable and timely information found at the RSOL website,http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org, or go to the depths found at SOLResarch, http://www.solresearch.org . The e-Magazine is the place to add dimension to the valuable efforts of RSOL and its affiliatesand ‘sister’ sites. The e-Magazine is a place for you to peruse the digest and other articles at your leisure. As each month progresses we will add articles and information throughout the month with the new article appearing on the 2nd of each month.Still, there is more. The RSOL e-Magazine is the home of the RSOL Forum. Yes, we have our own forum. RSOL signatories can click the FORUM button on the Home Page and enter into a safe and secure, moderated forum exclusive to us. You will have to register and it may take a day to confirm your RSOL membership (this is for your own security), then you will be able to share ideas, news, projects, and communicate with other members. Finally, when you go to the forum, you can download a very useful RSOL e-Magazine Toolbar. There are many useful features to this tool bar, including a ticker that can alert you to important news and events. State Organizers can submit messages as well as the important news from the RSOL Admin Team. This is not only your place to be informed and communicate, we welcome essays, and reports from the membership. If you havesomething to say, submit it to editor@rsolcc.org. An Editor will read what you write and work with you to format it for the e-Magazine. ‘Finally’ came two paragraphs ago, but there is still more. Linked to the RSOL e-Magazine is Pat Winchild’s new project, The Battleground. This link will take you to the Writers’ Bureau. After a certification process accomplished writers will be passed into a page packed with links where well written email, letters, and faxes are needed. This group of writers will concentrate our message on identified targets from blogs and forums to elected officials. Take the time to go to the e-Magazine at http://www.rsolcc.org and join us in opening avenues of communication. ------------------------------------------------------------------ News From the States Alain Levesque, alain360@fastmail.fm Dear friends, Needless to say July 2009 was a very important month for RSOL, if not THE most important month in the history of our organization. Almost everybody who attended the conference in Boston or Austin agreed to say that this historical event was a huge success! One of the main goals that people brought up at the conference was for RSOL to have affiliated groups in every state of the country for 2010. In order to reach this goal, I launched a third recruitment campaign when the conference was over. As a result of this campaign, we now have 3 new affiliated state groups: in Kentucky, New Jersey, and South Carolina. In Kentucky, Jennifer became our new state organizer. She was present at the Boston conference, and told me personally at the end of the conference that she wanted to become the state organizer for Kentucky. Anyone in Kentucky wishing to get involved may contact Jennifer at rsolkentucky@yahoo.com. In New Jersey, Terry (justice.4.all@live.com) accepted the task of being our state contact. She will mostly be working online, replying to emails and gathering information, but she would like to eventually have a real lobbying group, and is looking for all the help that she can get. In South Carolina, Henry (jhin3@hotmail.com) takes on the job of being our temporary contact person. He will be answering emails from SC supporters until we find a permanent organizer. In addition to these new groups, 3 other RSOL supporters became organizers in already affiliated states. In Florida, Colette Barnett (rsolfla@yahoo.com) is joining forces with our current organizer Jody. In Missouri, Donna and Dennis Conlin (rsolmissouri@yahoo.com) offered to replace our previous organizer. Finally, in Indiana, Kimberly Dubina ( rwsmom@verizon.net) took the reins of Indiana RSOL, a group that had been inactive for a few months. Jennifer, Terry, Henry, Colette, Dennis, Donna, Kimberly: welcome aboard the great RSOL family! And now, here is your news from the states: From DENNIS and DONNA (our new organizers) in MISSOURI: "Well, not too much to report!! We have sent out about a dozen letters to Missouri sol registrants, and will be sending out more each week. We are in the process of setting up a meeting with a lobbyist who we know, and we have contacted Congressman Russ Carnahan's office with the hope of a meeting in the near future. We have emailed all 25 Missouri supporters to introduce ourselves. We have had 3 get back to us so far. They are encouraged and look forward to our first meeting. We know it's not much to report, but it's a start!" From SHELLEY in OREGON: "I am excited to have John Martinez, former Maryland RSOL Coordinator, now residing in Oregon! He is on the western side of the state in a metro area while I am on the east side in a more rural locale. Other strong RSOL supporters reside in his area and I hope to work with them to tie the state together. He brings with him experience not only in dealing with RSOL-related issues but also appears to have some tech knowledge and ideas which I am sorely lacking. Wish us luck!" From ANTHONY in ALABAMA: "Alabama continues to defy logic regarding our sex offender laws. In our recent sessions, there were laws passed banning residency within 2500 feet of colleges. High schools and below were always included but now they are including colleges and universities... I have asked for a meeting with both sponsors of this law but so far have not gotten any response. We continue with a ongoing letter campaign but have had little response from the efforts. Even as other states have wins in various battles, our incredibly Conservative state here in the heart of the south doesn't appear to be willing to even consider looking at our existing laws or even entering into a dialog regarding them. We are still fighting the fight in Alabama. Hopefully persistence will prevail." From MARY and JOHN in VIRGINIA: "In July, Mary attended the National Conference in Boston, a great experience! We also wrote to the Governor, Lt. Governor Attorney General and Social Services in regards to the multiple supporters in the past three weeks that have advised us that Virginia Social Services ordering the "Registered Sex Offender" to evacuate the premises with children. Some of these RSO's have lived at these addresses with their wives, fiancees and girlfriends for more than five years and they were not given any advanced notice to leave and the Registered Offenders are not being given clear reasons or statutes that require they vacate. RSOL of Virginia has asked for the statute that Social Services is currently enforcing across the Commonwealth this summer and what the process of notification has been up until today. We came to the end of our idea to get Dr. Richard Wright and Springer Publisher to donate copies of Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions to every member of the US Congress, Senate and to President Obama. The best we could get was a 45% discount plus shipping to one location and we were willing to hand deliver each copy but it would have been $5200 plus shipping, so we have thrown in the towel (sorry). We sent out the RSOL of Virginia semi-quarterly newsletter to the numerous Virginia Supporters without access to the Internet." From LLOYD in NEW MEXICO: "June was time to start ramping back up after a short break from the 2009 legislative session. We began working on a web site www.cfcnm.org . We updated our legislative educational binders, thanked the NMCDLA for hosting a conference on our issues, continued planning for fund raising, and began passing hat for funds each meeting. Secretary, Treasurer and Web site master were assigned. Support group changed leaders as well. July saw not only the Boston event, but a SORNA event we set up our first ever vendor table for as well, but were kicked out later. We are also attending a conference on preventing sexual violence in August. We are continuing to brain storm ideas for legislative reform in 2010, and have a basic time line to follow, as well as some key support I believe." From TONIA in ILLINOIS: "Illinois has not given up! Throughout the month of July, Tonia has been dealing with another injustice for her son, as he has violated probation by continuing to see the girl he was told to stay away from. Renate has also had some issues with her son recently who has been feeling somewhat depressed lately (mostly due to the restrictions of the registry). Both of these young men are doing better and Illinois should be back in full force very soon. Tonia and Renate have been handing out flyers and brochures and will continue to do so in hopes of educating the public. They have also been in contact with several reporters in praise of descent articles that have recently been published. They have both signed up to participate in the ACLU State Fair Twilight Parade on August 13th in Springfield, Illinois. The theme of the parade is "An All-American Fair, showing our support for All-American values like free speech, privacy and due process." They have also been in contact with a wonderful mother, Sue, also from Illinois, and have plans of getting together the first weekend of August. The future months are looking very promising for Illinois. These two are not giving up the fight." From KYLE in IOWA: "During the month of July, the Iowa Coalition for Sex Offender Rehabilitation (Iowa CSOR) added a news blog resource to its website, which will help visitors to the site stay informed on sex crime cases, sex offender legislation, rehabilitation programs for sex offenders, and public discourse on all these subjects. The news blog can be accessed by clicking on the "Media Room" section of our website (iowa-csor.org) and selecting "News Reports." As Senate File 340, Iowa's version of the Adam Walsh Act, went into effect on July 1, Iowa CSOR members spoke out in opposition, contributing to news and editorial pages in several Iowa newspapers, including the Des Moines Register, Sioux City Journal, and Cedar Rapids Gazette. As the group continues to build its membership base this summer, the first board of directors meeting has been scheduled for September." ------------------------------------------------------------------ ESSAYS Tet Kelly R Piercy, semperfidelas@gmail.com Tet and the Person on the Registry - Kelly R Piercy, semperfidelas@gmail.com There are many myths and rumors that somehow seem to gain the value of truth with their re-telling and the momentum given by media hype. So often facts are ignored because they are presented with the rigor required by science and mathematics. It is not uncommon to hear people say that science bores them and that they hate math. It is a wonder to hear complaints to keep something simple when an argument is presented with scientific precision and mathematical accuracy. One has to wonder how much simpler a presentation can be made when a mathematical proof begins with the basic facts and builds, step by step, to a solid conclusion. Can it be that the proof violates the irrational 'I Believe' statement? Let us follow an example from history (no groans please, History, contrary to popular belief is not the conjunction of His-Story. The word comes from the Greek: Gk. historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry".) After World War II, a leader emerged in Viet Nam, then part of French Indo-China, and approached the United States, President Truman to be exact, and asked our nation to help throw off the yoke of colonialism. Of course, given our alliance with the French and Truman's limited understanding of global economy, we failed to act except to offer limited support to the French. France, though a modern nation and proven military power (see the History of the French Foreign Legion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion), was also a battered and tired nation sick of war. In succession, its vast colonial empire collapsed. The loss at Dien Bein Phu has become a cliche' in the annals of defeat (see: http://www.encyclomedia.com/dien_bien_phu.html .) Dien Bien Phu let to the popular resolution of war in the middle of the 20th Century, Partition. A Partition that was promised to be resolved by a fair election in 1956. Of course, the United States, having picked up the gauntlet from the French and seeing defeat in any election, did not allow an election to take place (see: A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann, and America in Viet Nam, by Neil Sheehan.) This history is plain from that time. Presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon continued to feed the might of the United States into Viet Nam and at the same time, support puppet governments that represented the minority Catholic population of the southern partition of Viet Nam. In the beginning, the fact was that the totalitarian military juntas of the south, backed by the military might of the United States dominated the conflict. In the early 60's the Kennedy Administration expanded the role of the United States to military adventurism. That adventurism became imperialism under President Johnson as first the Marine Corps and then the Army, backed by the Navy and Air Force took over the conduct of the war from the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN.) The myth began to grow through biased media reporting that we were losing the war. Even its proponent, President Johnson stated that he would not let American boys die for Asian boys as he sent more American boys to die for American interests. The excuse became that Viet Nam was actually being fought as a contained analog to the greater cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. The truth is that the United States military was winning the ground war in the south and the air war in the north, with the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin never rising to the level of contest for the Navy (simply put, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was not. A Navy Destroyer on active deployment is not threatened by a Coastal Patrol Boat.) In November, 1968, President Nixon gave his 'Great Silent Majority' speech (see: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixongreatsilentmajority.html .) According to the President, the vast majority of Americans were in support of the war in Viet Nam and clearly believed in the myths that supported it. That may well have been true. After returning from the Southeast Asia War Games, this writer (then a United States Marine) had many opportunities to ask why he was sent to war and then blamed for the war on his return. In fact, most people were dismayed at the question. Most looked askance at me and the underlying tone was that I personally lost the war and it was my fault there ever was a war. Yet, many who exercised their vote and participated in the economics of American society claimed they believed in the war, but My impression, these people were 1.) uninformed, and 2.) did not really care one way or another. The 'Great Silent Majority' was actually the 'Great Apathetic Majority'. A look at history reveals that prior to the events of January, 1968, the majority of Americans did not care one way or the other about Viet Nam. Most Americans could not place Viet Nam on a globe, let alone a continent. Then came the Tet Offensive. Tet is akin to the Christmas/New Year season in Western Culture. Somehow, nations that are trying to destroy each other find a way to de-escalate during these holiday seasons. In Viet Nam, the opposing sides agreed to a cease fire for Tet. Of course, this makes no military or political sense, but that is a discussion for another time in another venue. Immediately after the opening of the cease fire, the Viet Cong (VC), backed for the first time by major elements of the North Viet Namese Army (NVA) struck. Here are the salient facts about that offensive. The Viet Cong attacked and gained entry to the US Embassy in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City.) The attack resulted in the attackers gaining the ground floor of the Embassy and being killed to a man by the Marine Embassy Guard and Army Military Police. The Embassy staff was never in any real danger. Elements of the NVA and Viet Cong seized control of Hue, the ancient and symbolic capital of Viet Nam. This force rounded up government officials, government functionaries, Priests, Nuns, teachers, and any others on secret hit lists and committed mass murder against these people. Elements of the First Marine Division assaulted through Hue and destroyed the VC and NVA, recapturing the city. The US Army fell under siege at multiple locations and responded by taking the offense and destroying the forces arrayed against them. The VC and NVA struck targets the length and breadth of the southern partition and met with counter-strikes from the US Air Force and US Navy while soldiers and Marines held every position, not losing a single outpost. The net result was that the VC was crushed and never acted as an effective force in the field again. The NVA was severely pressed and never mounted a major offensive again. To lend closure to the military disaster suffered by the VC and NVA, the elements of the First Marine Division at Khe Sahn destroyed the better part of eleven NVA Divisions (http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/vietnam/tet.htm .) At least the military net result was complete and utter victory for the US backed puppet government of the southern partition. The actual result was that every one of those Viet Cong and North Viet Namese Regulars who fought and died, won a resounding victory. Across America the apathetics woke up. They realized the truth. They saw the horror of the war America was fighting in someone else's backyard. They realized that the lives of so many innocent people were not worth the cost we were visiting upon them. They understood the truth Daniel Elsberg told them (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg .) They saw through the lies the government was preaching and realized the tyranny of the puppets we propped up in the government of the southern partition was visiting on their own population. The Great Power represented by 'We The People' rumbled and the government tucked its tail between its legs, blamed the military and the individual Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine and found an 'Honorable Peace'. So, what does all this review of history, and it is a review as opposed to a revision, mean to us? We are an insignificant minority in America. We represent something America hates because our government and media need us to be hated. Arrayed against us is the cumbersome and seemingly invulnerable American 'Justice System'. Nevertheless, like that individual VC, we have something on our side that all that is arrayed against us lacks. The will to fight and the truth. I have sensed this. Like 1967, the truth is starting to flare up. Is our Tet just around the corner? It is what we need, we must find our Tet. We must find those who will take the same chance the VC took. It is not time for despair. It is time for us to look up and stand up. Do we have the courage of that man and woman in 'black pajamas'? Somewhere we must find it. It is time for us to let our neighbors, who know is as decent people, know that we are also registered people and help them to understand that they have been lied to by their government and media in search of votes and to sell soap. ---------------------------------------------- END OF JULY 2009 DIGEST, NO. 23

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RSOL Digest #23, July 2009 PART II

By EDITORS:Mary Sue Molnar, Kelly Piercy <marysueintx@yahoo.com,semperfidelas@gmail.com> Posted on 07.08.2009 Link to this digest: [0024]

EXCERPTS from other Conference Participants ---------------------------------- Jennifer Van Waes (RSOL Ky Contact) 1) Dr. Miller stressed that the issues surrounding SO registration are very racially based, yet there was no minority representation in the room at the conference. So, somehow we need to work on getting minorities involved both on the personal and group levels. How do we reach minority groups with the message? Perhaps some contact with the NAACP or some other action group working on the issues of the disproportionate numbers of incarcerated minorities is in order. 2) We discussed having a capacity building workshop in DC, possibly to time with a child welfare event that will be occurring in Jan or Feb. I got to thinking about that - I don't think that it is a good idea to hold our event at the same time. I think that would only serve to perpetuate the notion that SOs are a subversive group and we would be seen as trying to undermine child welfare, not promote it. RSOL hasn't been around long enough to have gained any trust from the child advocacy community and that would lead to some real misperceptions about the organization that could truly hinder our progress if we are not careful. 3) In respect to that same topic, we should find some child advocacy group that also sees the destruction that the SO laws are causing and partner with them. 4) What about seeking out Patti Wetterling as a supporter? I've read that she was instrumental in the passing of Megan's Law, but has come out saying that it has all gone well beyond the original purpose... just a thought. Thanks for a very informative conference! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Barbara McClamma (Florida Signatory) (In an email to Laurie Peterson, copied to Paul and Alex) First of all, I want to express heartfelt gratitude for ALL the work that you and others are doing! That being said, I will respond to your request for feedback as best I can! First of all the technology glitches did not distract me from the information that was being disseminated - at least not for me. I thought the Friday night lecture by Dr. Miller was informative but not especially meaningful to my reason for being there. (She comments that others told her the same thing.) While it helps to have the background on various deviancies, and historical perspective from such a credible person, I am more interested in where we are NOW and where we will go from here. Sat. morning with Dr. Berlin continued with additional information, again helpful. It IS meaningful to have accurate information from such reputable speakers as Dr. Miller and Dr. Berlin, for sure but perhaps less time could have been spent on this and more discussion on their presentations! The Texas link, both speaker (Bill Habern. Esq.) and the state leaders (Mary Sue et al) was VERY informative to me and also uplifting in terms of forward movement for the cause. I want to especially thank you, Laurie, for your presentation, your knowledge, organizational skill and commitment that is evident through your work, not just your passion! I look forward to receiving the Power Point and studying it further. The small group sessions gave good direction for next steps. You all did an excellent job keeping those of us who were speaking from a particular 'platform' under control so the time was not hijacked by any one person. Paul, is especially masterful at this!!! This is a tough challenge and you all met it well! I met some wonderful new friends! My next challenge is to determine how I can best serve meaningfully and get information to family and friends who really want to help. Specific info on laws that can be addressed through written letters will really help us both statewide and nationally with some suggested wording, realizing that 'canned' letter writing is not effective and talking points are VERY helpful! We have lots of family and friends and while they are very supportive, I am seeking ways in which I can garner their support in a structured and specific way. I hope this is somewhat helpful. My best to each of you and again thank you! Barbara McClamma. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter Howard (Massachusetts participant, and organizer of his own website, http://www.rightsandlaw.net) Note from Alex: personal comments about his own involvement and interaction with some of the Massachusetts organizers have been omitted.) I'd like to applaud the effort made by RSOL in organizing its first National Conference, but I was quite disappointed. I have a few suggestions for future RSOL events where people are traveling from all over the Country to attend. As you know, the video feed was lost because of the mishandling of the system that was deployed. Leaving a mouse on a podium that is controlling the video technology is a big no-no). I watched in horror as the key-note speaker was playing with it, and then menus began popping up on the screen, and sure enough, a menu was arbitrarily selected, and BAM, there went the video feed. That didn't need to happen and could have been avoided. Autonomy may be a good idea in the minds of some, but in the case of RSOL, it has proven to be detrimental to the morale of other people/groups that have, and continue to make positive contributions to the mission of eliminating S.O. laws altogether. (Mr. Howard felt the Friday keynote speaker rambled and was not focused.) I don't think that anyone in this effort needs to hear the same old war stories to reinforce our disgust with the situation. What's needed is GENUINE PROFESSIONAL activists who have won serious battles in the past who can inspire us to take the necessary steps to accomplish our goals THROUGH OOPERATION. Your conference seemed more like a conference to "celebrate messengers," rather than as an "inspiration into action for the cause of restoring Justice to former offenders." For me, the conference was a waste of time and money. I expected a lot better from RSOL. I would rather have heard from Paul, Joel and Laurie than the speakers. Motivating people into activism is a very serious business, and what's needed are PROFESSIONALS. There are groups out there that "train" people how to be activists, and they are very successful. Perhaps your organization should find a way to employ these groups to conduct training events to better handle the work ahead of us all? With only better decision making, (the conference) would have been a fantastic event. Changing the public's beliefs will be the MOST difficult task ahead of all of us. The public will not have any sympathy for the civil and human rights of "vicious sex offenders." (sarcasm) I believe the best approach is to be armed with "better solutions" than the current laws as they exist today. This will of course require "genuine experts" with big reputations to clearly point out how irrational this nonsense is, and they can't do that by hiding in the wings in fear of the aftermath of being rational. I also think that choosing a scripted panel to pose questions to the speakers is not the way to go. The questions I heard posed were indeed scripted, and honestly, unrelated to the reform effort as far as "action" is concerned. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Dobbs New York City Attorney and long-time Gay and Civil Liberties Activist (Note from Alex: Bill has given some initial critique, but has not yet sent in his full evaluation. Here are some of his key ideas, summarized by Alex and others who have seen them or talked to him.) KEY ISSUES: Why was there no evaluation session where participants could give their own feedback at the conference. Why was there not immediately a mailing to all attendees - a listserve - asking for evaluative comments? It was clear that most RSOL leaders and others present were not prepared to make presentations. Too much emphasis on experts. Participants and panelists often strayed into telling personal stories. It was very difficult, with a couple of exceptions, to understand clearly what the RSOL affiliated groups are doing, from the reports given. RSOL is clearly not ready as an organization to face the public or legislators, though that is clearly what is needed. Suggestion: How about a second conference on further skills building - public speaking, writing, presentation of key ideas for reform, and still more lobbying. The lobby session was good, but probably needed to be simpler and assume less understanding of lobbying by participants. (The following is from an email to Paul Shannon.) Post-conference release: Was there any 'news' at the gathering? Conferences don't usually draw media interest although this was a first national gathering on a hot topic. Does RSOL and/or affiliates (great to hear that the number of states with an affiliate is zooming) have a press list? If not, time to get a press crew going. No doubt there's a conference summary planned and that might be dressed up for the website as a release... RSOL letter publicity: reaching a particular number of signers might be of interest or perhaps when there are high-profile signers. More newsworthy might be a local or national event in conjunction with the letter. Something like a press event (or even protest) outside a key registry supporter's office, when a registry repeal bill is introduced, in connection with a lobby day for reforming sex offender laws, etc. The RSOL letter coupled with the successful in-person national gathering signal RSOL's substance. That's important when reporters/producers pick their sources and make decisions about coverage. Media going forward: the media is a crucial way to influence public opinion. RSOL should incorporate media strategy and work in its overall campaigning. I would suggest a very simple beginning, monitoring coverage. Affiliated groups could post clippings etc to an email list. Other projects and work might spin off of that. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The First National Conference to Reform Sex Offender Laws Comments from - Patricia Winchild, Co-coordinator, Maryland RSOL I left for my trip from Baltimore to Boston in early July for the First National Conference to Reform Sex Offender Laws with a little hope and a lot of questions. Who would be there? What would the people be like? What could be accomplished? Attendees came from all over the U.S., i.e. California, Florida, New Mexico and many other states. Texas was there by video cam. Suffolk University felt like a good place to be. It was large, comfortable and it seemed appropriate that we were in the heart of Boston, a city known historically for America's rebellious beginnings. Signs of that history were all around us. People were in the streets dressed like Minutemen and militia and Boston was a boisterous, busy city. It was inspiring and felt like we were about to have our very own Boston Tea Party. Dr. Pillard, a psychiatrist from the Boston School of Medicine, who is also part of the conference's co-sponsor, The Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, introduced Dr. Jerome Miller, a social worker trained at the renowned Menninger Clinic, was our keynote speaker. He reminded us of the fact that we were also in the land of Salem, a haunting, historical memory of our not-so-proud past. Dr. Pillard recalled that in the name of protecting it's children, a society almost destroyed itself. Perhaps the ghost of Hester Prynne was stirred by our mission. Dr. Pillard brought up the popular myths about sex offenders that, like all Big Lies, when they are repeated enough, tend to be regarded as accepted truth. The myths? 1.Sex offenders are beyond hope. Dr. Berlin, our authority on this subject, quickly dispelled this lie. 2. The recidivism rate is very high. Actually, the rate for offenders is much lower than the average person coming out of prison for other crimes. Dr. Miller's talk was entitled "De-Mythologizing the Sex Offender: Replacing Hysteria, Slander and Dehumanization with Research, Justice and Common Sense". He spoke about the hysteria beginning in the 1980's regarding sex offenders and how the related laws have become more and more Draconian. Dr. Miller's style of storytelling was somewhat reminiscent of Native Americans. Like a wise and eloquent uncle with a warm, quirky humor, he both educated and delighted us. He reviewed America's shameful history of the law being used to disproportionately punish the poor, people of color, and those who were "different". He mentioned books such as "Last One Over the Wall" and "Afro-Americans in the Criminal Justice System". A B.B.C. writer, Marisa Warner's book "Boogiemen and Monsters" was suggested as one that demonstrates that the boogieman of our times is the pedophile. Dr. Miller described the "moral panic" that has been sweeping across our society with the sex offender laws, how racism, classism and sexism, especially against men, has been part of that. Some might be surprised to learn that miscegenation laws in Virginia were still operating even up until very recent years. Richard Nixon once said though he didn't support Roe vs. Wade, he could understand the necessity of abortion "for hildren of mixed race". In discussing the "research" done to prove some fallacious claims about sex offenders, Dr. Miller gave an example of methodology that coerced participants into saying things that supported what the researcher was trying to prove that would negatively reflect on those with sexual problems. He also talked about the tendency of some writers to make victims of sexual abuse all sound like it was impossible to become a survivor. One of the attendees announced afterwards that she is a "survivor" and proud of that and strongly resents those who have tried to tell her she will never overcome what happened to her in the past. Dr. Miller said the truth about victims of sexual abuse is that some recover; some do not. Though it may be part of human nature to want a quick fix to problems, the U.S. may be especially inclined to be this way. The National Enquirer, is, after all, the most read paper in America. Perhaps it has to do with our profit-driven, increasingly tabloid-type news programs that give sound bites rather than more thorough investigation of the news. Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite both warned about the dangers of this any years ago. The personal, family and societal problems that we humans have are very poorly addressed by our current style of reporting in the media and the content chosen. Corporate media cares more about ratings (i.e. money) than what we need to understand about our society and the world. Resolving personal and societal problems takes time, thought and resolve. It's easier and more popular to dramatically make war on a problem. Making war on a societal problem may sound good but it mostly gives us a false sense of security while masking the fact that nothing significant changes. Exceptional horror stories about sex offenders have been used as if they were the rule. In fact, Dr. Miller pointed out that giving these laws names of the most horrific examples has helped to hide that these cases were exceptions, rather than what is typical. The effect this has had is to heighten fear and rage in people and this is fodder for vigilantism. When people are blinded by these emotions, they are much easier to manipulate. Some television and newspaper coverage of the issue of sex offenders have been a type of public mass porn, with a growing number of people attracted to the coverage of it almost like an addiction. The program "To Catch a Predator" is a good example of this. If you watched this show regularly, you'd probably believe that most sex offenders are strangers. But this is false. Most sex abuse happens within families or by someone known to the family. "To Catch a Predator" also had one very good example of how someone with money rarely pays the price for their behavior. One show used a young, attractive policewoman to seduce a man who flew in to meet her. His lawyer used the fact that she was an undercover officer to get him off. And what was his community service? He helped police entrap other "potential" sex offenders. Dr. Miller suggested that many of the men who showed up for the show were more pathetic than dangerous. The war on sex offenders was compared in some ways with the war on drugs. Both have targeted primarily low-income people, and people of color. Dr. Miller said that one major ill effect, among many, of the hysteria and panic about sex offenders has been the deterioration in the mental health profession. Dr. Miller added that the worse a clinician is, the more probation officers might like them. The goal of probation used to be to help those on parole be successful in the community. Now, the goal has become increasingly to get them back in prison. In fact, in some states, a parole officer gets more points for accomplishing this. As a social worker, Dr. Miller lamented that not enough social workers have been on the right side of this issue. The sex offender issue has become like a tidal wave that not only sweeps up a targeted group of dangerous men but also engulfs more and more men (primarily) who are not dangerous at all, especially to children. Hysteria has blinded too many to the truth and has fed a mob mentality. And the mob has been ruling the day. Media personalities, like Nancy Grace and opportunistic politicians may have led the way but overly zealous prosecutors wanting to make a name for themselves have jumped on the bandwagon. And of course, too many attorneys who do not care whether their client is innocent or not, do even better financially if they can get their clients to take a plea, because then they have less work. So, for a less scrupulous attorney, it's in their best interest to encourage a client to take a plea. (And there are ways to do this without directly doing it.) We now know too that many people who are not dangerous and even the falsely accused do just that. Those who do are usually acting out of having limited funds and the legitimate fear related to the very real possibility, in the climate we are living in, of a legal lynching. Many people do not understand an innocent person taking a plea or someone who commits a crime but not the type that should put them on the registry, taking a plea . If they really understood what has been happening in the U.S. since the more recent versions of sex offender laws began and really understood the raging hysteria since, then maybe they would. If you or anyone you cared about were either falsely accused of sexual abuse of a child or even if you were guilty of something, just not hurting a child, then, you would get it. One might ask, what country is this? What year is this? We were reminded that the socio-political atmosphere since 9-11 is most certainly a part of this picture. But other forces are at work as well. Dr. Miller pointed out the importance of understanding how our prison system has become more and more of a business. The bigger the prisons, the more funds and political power go to certain states. And the Supermax prison system is the best example of that. He explained how the Supermax prison has been scientifically designed to accomplish the goal not of rehabilitation but of breaking down a human being, to drive someone insane and thus become more manageable. The system, he says, has been very successful at this. The critical question Dr. Miller asked is "How much should we have to sell off our humanity in order to ensure public safety? " One undisputed fact is that prisons make people worse. The phrase "college for criminals" is more true today than ever in the U.S. The last figures about the sex offender registry is that about three-quarters of a million people are on it. And it's been growing exponentially. One aspect that is rarely addressed about the dynamic of power between those who control and punish and those who are punished is that people in power may not be so psychologically sound of mind themselves. Dr. Miller told the revealing story about the last hanging in England. It was of a mentally retarded boy. A reporter talked to the hanging judges' assistant, someone who had worked with the judge for many years. This man told the reporter that the judge had always brought changes of underwear with him to work for years because during the hangings, the judge "creamed his pants". The sadistic aspects reinforced in those who use the law for more personal reasons than are obvious may deserve closer consideration. Dr. Fred Berlin, our next prominent speaker from Baltimore's John Hopkins Hospital Sex Offender Clinic, told clinical stories that demonstrated the tremendous complexity of human behavior regarding sexual disorders. He made it easier to see sex -offenders as individuals and thus human beings. Contrary to what we hear in the media, he spoke of the great diversity even among those with problems in this area. There is much to suggest that most sex offenders were also abused themselves as children. This was not said as an excuse, Berlin said, but as something to help explain how they became who they are. He reminded us that sex offenders are not a homogenous group the way they are usually portrayed in the media. He distinguished between someone who is a true pedophile (small minority on the registry) and those who are now incorrectly labeled as such. At Hopkins, treatment is provided and if needed, special supervised housing is available. If the person is a repeat offender, they go to prison. But, unlike the media's versions of these stories, unlike law enforcement's, distinctions are made . Too many talking heads have used the word "predator" to describe the most diverse sex offenses, offenses that before the Adam Walsh type laws would have been misdemeanors but now are automatic felonies. What is abominable is that the same excesses in the media and in politics has been what has pushed the Justice Department to permit these extraordinary excesses in legislation. So now, large numbers of those who are not dangerous are lumped together with a small number who are a true threat to children. But, even in this small group of sex offenders, Berlin explained there are men who can and do control their impulses and seek treatment to do so. The popular myth is that this is not even possible. Dr. Berlin talked about those who even desire and seek chemical castration. Some are people who have never hurt a child and want help so they never do. There are some who may have touched a child inappropriately or had child porn on their computer but never harmed anyone. The registry has become a legal tool that does not help us understand who is dangerous and who is not. The way it functions presently is as a weapon that is bludgeoning the civil rights of people who are not dangerous but are considered to be so just because they are on the registry. Dr. Berlin and our other speakers talked about the importance of our prioritizing our fight. While eradicating the registry may be our most important goal, getting rid of public notification is likely a more attainable one. The contradictions in the criminal justice system were discussed. The law is used to treat sex offenses as a crime. But when an offender was ready to leave prison, they were ordered for mental health treatment. Dr.Berlin says it is not fair to "have it both ways". It is either a crime or a psychiatric illness. This confusion makes aftercare more difficult. Should there be a civil commitment because the person is a patient or a criminal? In the past, the way this was handled was that people were convicted but they were still able to work, and live in the community when they got out. Now, more and more people are losing their jobs, their support systems and it is pushing many underground. This actually causes more of a problem for public safety for our children. What incentive does someone have to make amends, move on and become a law-abiding citizen if they can never put something behind them? Almost all other criminal convictions provide a new chance for someone re-entering society when their prison time is completed. Do we really believe that people can make mistakes, learn lessons and redeem themselves? Only a very small number of those on the registry are repeat offenders. Yet these are the people who the public has been encouraged to fixate on and judge unfairly anyone included in the wide net the new laws for sex offenders cast. Hate and fear have been growing in proportion to the size of the sex offender registry. They've become more popular to target than murderers, rapists and serial killers. Dr. Berlin made a comparison of the problem of sex offenders with those suffering from alcoholism. It's hard to believe, he said, that not long before A.A. and especially the Betty Ford Clinic, many alcoholics were regarded, if not the same as sex offenders, still with great disdain by the general public. Berlin suggested there needs to be more treatment centers and housing for people with sex disorders, the way it's been handled in neighbor countries like Canada and Great Britain. And their much lower rates of sex offenders reflect that their methods are working. He described the etiology of sexual problems that distinguished between pedophiles and those who committed a sexual offense but were not pedophiles. He made the distinction between what is the pedophile's fault and responsibility and what is not. He made it very clear that anyone who has an urge to harm a child has a responsibility to get treatment or be sent to prison. Ironically, the very legislation set up to protect children is actually now acting as a deterrent to people who need treatment the most and would be willing to get it. One offender for a crime over twenty years ago spoke and said he went to Dr. Berlin's Clinic and it "saved my life". He also had just had his name removed from the registry. Texas keynoter, Attorney William Habern gave an informative and spirited talk titled "Sex Offender Civil Rights: From Where we were To Where We Are Going" Laurie Peterson, a young, smart and savvy self-taught lobbyist gave the talk "Lobby Techniques and Experience for Sex Offender Laws at State and National Levels. The talks all energized us and reinforced a common commitment. I know they made us all feel more powerful and dedicated to this righteous cause. At least two, maybe three books are coming out of this conference from professional writers in attendance. One of our California speakers, Nancy Irwin, psychotherapist, has good media connections and an extremely impressive speaker. She could easily be someone we see on Rachel Maddows' show or something similar. Kelly Piercy from Georgia has been a tireless activist with WAR (Women Against the Registry) and our RSOL I.T. expert, par excellance. After the talks, we broke up into four smaller groups for discussion and planning with the challenge to come up with at least one goal to bring back to RSOL that we can do for the coming year. The ideas were all very exciting that the groups came up with. Hearing them, it becomes clear how successful this conference was and why Paul Shannon deserves a big thank you from all of us for his hard work. The group I was in was led by Laurie Peterson . We came up with the plan for a second conference in the spring to coincide with a large child welfare conference in D.C. Laurie is an amazing person and no one could be in the same room with her and not be motivated... it is just not possible. She makes you feel like you can do it. Even more, she makes you want to try, even at something as intimidating as lobbying. Her enthusiasm and confidence were contagious. We plan to meet for two days next Spring in Washington, D.C. to get trained by Laurie. Then that Monday, we will visit as many legislators and congress people as possible armed with our packets and our lobbying know-how and wow them . Another big plus of the conference was being able to share all the resources. RSOL will be the clearinghouse for this. SOSEN (Sex Offender Solutions and Education Network) is a very valuable resource and important link for us. And now, we have a national 800 hotline that we can refer people to. I met so many great people, it was exhilarating. One was Jeff Birkey, the only other Maryland attendee besides myself, and our speaker Dr. Berlin. Jeff and I plan to go to churches together (another group suggestion) and hopefully, get them to join us and be a resource for sex offenders and families. Jeff has an excellent website called ethicaltreatment.org, for youthful offenders with a wealth of information on it. Another person who was extraordinarily impressive with her smarts and vitality was Mary, Virginia's Stat