Friday, December 19, 2014

Links of Interest:


Who knew it? Online services can block illegal images.



December 18, 2014
This article from Business Insider reports that Google is going to use a database of “digital fingerprints” of online images of child pornography to block the content...
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Commissioner Mike Moore: Dangerously Uninformed


December 15, 2014
An article from last week’s Laker/Lutz News highlights just how dangerous an uninformed legislator can be. In the article, Commissioner Moore makes several statements...
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Contacting your Legislator


December 15, 2014
Many of our members write to us regularly and suggest we contact the lawmakers and ask them to do something or to oppose a proposed law or ordinance. Chances are, if it’s...
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First-time child porn sentences too severe


December 14, 2014
Our own Gail Colletta contributed this one:...
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Jessica’s Law promised more than it could deliver


December 14, 2014
Jessica’s Law, the ballot measure to harness sex offenders, began eight years ago with a promise – one that parents whose daughters have disappeared, as well as law enforcement...
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International Megan’s Law


December 14, 2014
International Megan’s Law has been placed on the legislative calendar. https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/4573 Here is the summary: International...
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International Megan’s Law: Misguided and Ineffective Policy


December 12, 2014
International Megan’s Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking (HR 4573): Misguided and Ineffective Policy On May 20, 2014, the United States House of Representatives...
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Backlash from Sex Offender Lottery Win


December 11, 2014
As predicted, the rash of backlash and stupid comments following Timothy Poole’s $3MM lottery win are pouring in. Every major news network has reported on it, as if no one...
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ACLU 2015 Priorities Survey

Forwarding so you, too, can have a voice:

Please take just a few minutes now to respond if you haven't already. Your answers are critical to guiding our work moving forward. We want to make sure your feedback is included as we plan our 2015 strategy.



Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Do You Believe in Karma Mike DeForrest?



Posted by on December 10, 2014 in Articles

Just over a month ago, Orlando reporter Mike DeForrest ran a series of reports for WKMG 6 to “out” local registrants who were working in the community.

The registrants were not committing crimes or doing anything illegal, they were simply working to support their families.

After publicly outing the registrants and shaming their employers, the registrants lost their jobs.

One of the registrants named in the story was Lake County’s Timothy Poole.

FAC wrote about the series in this post and concluded by saying, “The real shame should not be on the head of the registrants who were working hard, doing a good job and trying to live a law abiding life to support their families. The shame should not be on the head of the business owners, who were willing to give a human being a second chance… good for them!  The shame should be on vigilante reporter Mike DeForrest and Click Orlando for creating hysteria where it didn’t exist and leaving at least two families without an income tonight.”

Anyhow, in an incredible twist of fate (call it Karma, if you will), Timothy Poole just won three million dollars!!!

That’s right… here’s the same station’s report from today announcing that Timothy Poole had won the lottery!

We sincerely hope that Mr. Poole will take some of his winnings and invest it in challenging some of the draconian laws being passed.

(For response :https://www.facebook.com/MikeDeForestLocal6)

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Florida Action Committee Recent Posts

Another FL Police Officer Caught Molesting Children

December 2, 2014
Florida has its fair share of Police Officers and Teachers caught molesting children. This week in Port St. Lucie another police officer was caught having a sexual relationship...
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16 Men Sentenced in Florida Sex Offender Sting

December 2, 2014
From News4 Jacksonville, which might as well be called the ‘Sex Offender News Network’ – given their vigilance in reporting on sex offender stories, comes the...
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Growing awareness of the limited efficacy of local sex offender residency restrictions

December 2, 2014
This new Wall Street Journal article highlights the new awareness of enduring problems with sex offender residency restrictions.  The lengthy piece is headlined “Cities and...
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Florida corrections secretary is resigning

November 25, 2014
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews is resigning at the end of the month. Crews notified Gov. Rick Scott on Monday of his...
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I take care of schizophrenics and sex predators. I’m completely unqualified.

November 24, 2014
This Washington Post article from today, highlights just how little it takes to operate or work in a mental health facility. It also references the Miami Herald’s 2011...
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Local child sex prosecutions at record rate

November 24, 2014
TAMPA — A defense contractor from Riverview is spending 30 years in prison for forcing a 16-year-old girl to have sex with him and using his computer to record their encounter. A...
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Sex Offender Redemption: A story on Miracle Village

November 24, 2014
SEX OFFENDER REDEMPTION A colony of child molesters and sexual predators moved to a small town that didn’t want them. This is the story of what happened when they started showing...
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Almost 150 Registrants STILL Living Homeless by Railroad Tracks

November 21, 2014
Over a year since we reported it and a month since the ACLU lawsuit was filed, there are almost one hundred fifty registered citizens still living homeless by the railroad tracks...
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Florida’s Civil Commitment Center Run by Geo Group is For-Profit

November 21, 2014
That’s correct, the Florida Civil Commitment Center located in Arcadia, Florida is run by Geo Group, Inc./Correct Care Solutions, a for-profit private corporation. This...
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Internet Identifiers – What the California Courts Found and What it Means to Florida

November 20, 2014
In 2012, the state of California added a provision to their Sex Offender registration requirements that provided: sex offenders register “any and all Internet identifiers” within...
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California Can’t Enforce Online Tracking of Sex Offenders

November 19, 2014
California can’t enforce a law to combat sex trafficking because it tramples on free speech rights of sex offenders by requiring them to report online activities, such as their...
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Tampa: 8 On Your Side discovers incorrect, missing sex offender data

November 18, 2014
The following story was reported by Tampa’s WFLA. Apparently the City’s Police Department Website had inaccurate locations for sex offenders. One showed a registered...
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MUST SEE: Does the Sex Offender Registry Protect Children?

November 18, 2014
Of the more than 8,000 people listed on Maryland’s sex offender registry, the vast majority have never been convicted of touching a child or assaulted another person. Instead,...
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Sign ACLU Petition to End Mass Incarceration.

November 17, 2014
Please take a minute to support the ACLUs effort to end mass incarceration and also support an organization that supports FAC. Here is their plea:       While you...
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9 Investigates: Low percentage of those arrested in online sex stings get on sex offender list

November 17, 2014
More exposure for the extortion that was taking place throughout Florida with these “sex offender stings”.   9 Investigates: Low percentage of those arrested in...
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Transient Sex Offenders Continue To Be A Problem

November 17, 2014
News media and the public continue to complain about the transient homeless sex offenders being such a big problem but they ignore the cause… Residency Restrictions....
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Florida lawmakers tighten limits on sex offenders

November 17, 2014
FLEMING ISLAND, Fla. – Florida Lawmakers have passed numerous laws punishing those convicted of sex crimes and this year added more laws designed to keep the worst of the...
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Miami-Dade pushes Florida to require lifetime GPS for ALL registrants.

One To See Change Past Posts

One to See Change Blog List

"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.


But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?


All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution


Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
* * * *
“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”