Defending freedom requires unpopular positions
Michael Silence and Adam Kleinheider both have posts on a subject that is critically important. It is about our freedom.
Tennessee State Sen. Jamie Woodson’s office has introduced legislation to the Tennessee General Assembly that would require convicted sex offenders in Tennessee to provide all electronic communications information to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
On its face it doesn’t sound so bad does it?
Michael Silence writes, “Wow, am I conflicted on this one. On the one hand I’m a father of a princess who will be four in March. On the other hand, I have consistently decried the loss of civil liberties, privacy and individual freedoms.
Adam Kleinheider writes, “First They Came For The Deviants…”, alluding to the fact that is doesn’t take long to lose freedom.
Any of you every wonder if we allow the Constitution to be discarded for child molesters or sex offenders that someday soon it might be discarded for us?
If this is a condition of probation then fine. That is a legal contract. People can surrender their rights with a legal contract. That is a completely different issue.
But if a person has served their full sentence this should be unconstitutional.
“Governor Woodson”, I don’t think so. Ms. Woodson, your homework assignment is to study the United States Constitution. You should be ashamed. How misinformed can you be?
I hate to go all ACLU on this but defending the Constitution is one of the most important things any America can do. And it means making some unpleasant positions. The Constitution must apply to ALL citizens. The moment we allow it to be vacated for certain groups of people is the day we allow the Constitution to be destroyed.
I find this to be repugnant. This is how you lose your freedom. It starts with a law to control the worst of the worst. In the end, there is no personal freedom or rights.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
AC summed it up: first they came for the deviants.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Unbelievable. The Constitution is being sh*t upon because a bunch of moron lazy-assed parents can’t be bothered to watch their kids.
On a side note, I have to wonder just how much money RM technologies stands to make from this law.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I sympathize, but one thing that complicates the issue is that child molesters and sex offenders cannot be reformed. Studies show this. Unless you lock them up or cut off the offending body parts (and even that doesn’t always work), they will go on to commit crimes over and over. Perhaps the best solution for all is to simply throw away the key.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Not good. I know she is a Republican, but is this for the “Childreeeeen”? Or cracking the door on losing all privacy rights for all? Actually I raised a daughter… and I paid close attention to her internet contacts, if she wanted to meet one, daddy went along with his .45 , just in case. (only 2 times) and both guys were really decent young men.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Perhaps the best solution for all is to simply throw away the key.
If that is what it takes for our freedom to be protected. Fine.
They let them out to save money. There isn’t enough money is this world to take our freedom. The bean counters can go to Hell.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
But if a person has served their full sentence this should be unconstitutional.
Two questions. And they really are honest questions even if I’ve worded them so poorly they don’t sound like it.
1) Why should the end of incarceration be defined as the completion of the ‘full sentence’?
2) Incarceration is itself a revocation of the right to liberty so why is the revocation of other rights for having committed a crime unconstitional?
January 16th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
1) Why should the end of incarceration be defined as the completion of the ‘full sentence’?
2) Incarceration is itself a revocation of the right to liberty so why is the revocation of other rights for having committed a crime unconstitutional?
This isn’t about the rights of child molesters. This is about our rights.
Never allow bureaucrats the chance to take our freedom.
Do you want a country with classes of people with different rights? Because you will never be free under that rule.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Isn’t what the law defines their sentence in the first place?
I could understand the complaints that this is some sort of postfactum law by adding further punishment to preoccuring crimes, but last I checked this sort of thing isn’t exactly original, nor is it a particularly new and frightening display of government power. Felons being prohibited from owning arms, even if they committed their felony before the law was passed, for example, have been upheld by the courts for a good while. You could call this some sorta violation of the right to privacy, except it’s no more so than most preexisting sex offender registry laws.
Then again, I guess I just don’t hold that high of an opinion on the secrecy of information tossed along electrical lines screeching at some monolith of a faceless company in the first place.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
OK, maybe I misread something, I thought only convicted child molesters were the only ones effected.
If that is true, how is saying that we should not let ‘bureaucrats’ take away *these* rights from criminals because they might be taken away from us any different from saying we shouldn’t let ‘bureaucrats’ take away the right to liberty (which is what incarceration is) because then then right of liberty might be taken away from us?
It seems to me that to be consistent you would have to argue against having jails. What am I missing?
January 16th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Name one area or power the government has assumed that it hasn’t later expanded and mis-used.
Thought so.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Here is another side of the story from Michael Silence’s blog:
January 16th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I could understand the complaints that this is some sort of postfactum law by adding further punishment to preoccuring crimes, but last I checked this sort of thing isn’t exactly original, nor is it a particularly new and frightening display of government power. Felons being prohibited from owning arms, even if they committed their felony before the law was passed, for example, have been upheld by the courts for a good while. You could call this some sorta violation of the right to privacy, except it’s no more so than most preexisting sex offender registry laws.
Slippery slope isn’t it? The problem is the sentencing laws. While we were sleeping they have morphed into a Constitutional Twilight Zone.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
You could take out a couple of words from this article and substitute the with, Lautenberg Gun Ban, Section 658 of Public Law 104-208, Misdemeanor assault and it would read the same.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Any of you every wonder if we allow the Constitution to be discarded for child molesters or sex offenders that someday soon it might be discarded for us?
Seems great minds think alike, again…
http://tinyurl.com/2gbrde
January 16th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
and it’s for the children!(tm)
You have to love that. Right up there with “reasoned discourse(tm)”.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Uncle, I strongly disagree. When it comes to child molesters I want to repeal both the prohibition against ex post facto laws and cruel and unusual punishment. Round them all up, whether in prison or out, and douse them with gasoline and set a match to it.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:23 am
I wrote the post, not Uncle.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Sorry, #9.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Number Nine, that’s a great example of why a good number of judges and individuals need their ass kicked. I’m not too convinced by the slippery slope argument, especially given that this is well-treaded law.
Also, double jeopardy is irrelevant in these cases; we’re not talking about a retrial, nor a second judgment on a given offense.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:26 am
So is this law to be applied retroactively post conviction or is it to be applied at conviction?
If it is to be applied post conviction then I would agree. They were given a sentence, and once that sentence has been handed down it should not change. If this is the case, I believe this would be unconstitutional due to ex post facto.
If it is to be applied at conviction then this would just be a part of the sentence just like any other form of punishment. If this is the case, it wouldn’t be unconstitutional unless it was shown to be cruel and unusual.
To the point of Mindy and her son: This is the problem I have with registries in general. It’s not the concept that is the problem, but how it is applied in practice. In most of them, there is no way to know if the person on the list was a 40 year old man sodomizing a 9 year old or an 18 year old getting a hummer from his 17 year old girlfriend. The two are not at all the same, but they are punished as if they were.
For the 40 year old pedephile, stigmatizing them for life would be proper punishment. For the teenager getting blown, this is cruel and unusual punishment.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:46 am
If they can’t be trusted with guns or on the internet, they can’t be trusted to be alive. Give them a neck-tie party and an unmarked grave.
And this does violate the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
A little more on ex post facto:
United States
In the United States, ex post facto laws are prohibited in federal law by Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and in state law by section 10. Over the years, when deciding ex post facto cases, the United States Supreme Court has referred repeatedly to its ruling in the Calder v. Bull case of 1798, in which Justice Chase established four categories of unconstitutional ex post facto laws. The case dealt with Article I, section 10, since it dealt with a Connecticut state law.
However, not all laws with ex post facto effects have been found to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retrospectively.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Doe (2003) that forcing sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet does not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, because compulsory registration of offenders who completed their sentences before new laws requiring compliance went into effect does not constitute a punishment.[2]
Another example is the so-called Lautenburg law where firearms prohibitions were imposed on those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses and subjects of restraining orders (which do not require a criminal conviction). These individuals can now be sentenced to up to 10 years in a federal prison for possession of a firearm, regardless of whether or not the weapon was legally possessed at the time the law was passed. Among those that it is claimed the law has affected is a father who was convicted of a misdemeanor of child abuse despite claims that he had only spanked his child, since anyone convicted of child abuse now faces a lifetime firearms prohibition. The law has been legally upheld because it is considered regulatory, not punitive – it is a status offense.
See also: Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, Bouie v. City of Columbia, Rogers v. Tennessee, and Stogner v. California
January 17th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
This is one of those rare and weird areas where I find myself agreeing with #9 about something. 🙂 Let’s not forget that fully 40% of the Bill of Rights concerns itself with protecting the rights of the accused and the convicted. It’s that way for a reason.
Believe me, I have no sympathy for sex offenders of any stripe, but that doesn’t mean I think The Scarlet Letter is a good idea, either.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Did your blog forget to “fall back?”
January 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
This is one of those rare and weird areas where I find myself agreeing with #9 about something.
Is it that rare?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I guess we’ve really ever only corresponded on those issues where we disagree, so I guess that might be skewing my perspective. But my general feeling is that we don’t agree on very much. 😉
January 18th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Remember when you advocate abusing the constitution to get those other guys, to the people in charge you are those other guys, they just may not have gotten around to you yet. Of maybe you incandescent light bulbs just haven’t fallen out of favor, yet. But when they do, we need to be able to get you and you have already established the precedent that violations of law and constitution are ok if most people agree with it to you other guys.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:15 am
That should read “….to get you other guys.”