Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Join us for the ACLU of Florida Broward Chapter Annual Meeting


Dear ACLU Supporter,

Over the past year, our state has encountered numerous challenges to personal liberty. Every step of the way, the ACLU of Florida has been on the forefront of these challenges, pursuing litigation and working on grassroots advocacy to expand freedom for all Floridians.
The Broward Chapter of the ACLU of Florida would like to invite you to celebrate a year of work that has gone into safeguarding Florida for the past year, as well as to kick off the initiatives we'll be undertaking soon. You are invited to the ACLU of Florida Broward Chapter Annual Meeting on Saturday, February 2nd.

Our keynote speaker will be Paul Singer, Political Editor of USA Today, who will be speaking about the changing nature of the press/media (media as advocacy, citizen journalism) in contemporary society and its impact on public discourse. Singer is a former Associate Editor at Roll Call and created their influence/ethics/investigations unit where his investigations resulted in at least two ethics investigations of sitting Members of Congress, and led Congress to cancel wasteful projects.

Board elections will be taking place at noon and our speaker will begin his remarks at 1:00 P.M. The meeting is free and will take place at the Jim Ward Community Center.
This is a special opportunity for you to meet with your fellow civil libertarians and learn more about the state of civil liberties in Florida. Please join us on the 2nd.

Thank you for standing in defense of freedom.
 
ACLU of Florida
www.aclufl.org


 Broward Chapter Annual Meeting 
February 2nd, 2013
12:00 P.M. - Elections
1:00 P.M. - Keynote Speakaer Paul Singer
Jim Ward Community Center
301 Northwest 46 Avenue
Plantation, FL 33317

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Sex Offender Laws: Collateral Consequences - Killings and Murders




December 2012:

Introduction:
Our specialty, what Lawmakers have ignored. Collateral consequences of their laws. So far 432 deaths without counting suicides and related deaths, and we are still counting!

Sex offender laws! The cry, protect the public! Lawmakers fail to consider the collateral consequences of their laws before enacting them. Protecting the public should not mean excluding prior sex offenders, and their families, which may well be further punishment. Today's sex offender laws place former offenders, no matter what their offense level was, at a greater risk of being killed or murdered. We have documented when that has occurred, 432 times!

Changing burdensome laws, politicians and the media, all voices behind growing incidents of violence towards former sex offenders. These voices unknowingly manipulate the public into a -nongovernmental force- mind-set seeded by "sex offender" (like now defunct CIA mind control experiments). The public then declares war on those labeled "sex offender" in ways that disorder their lives, and makes lives a burden often dangerous. Many are driven over the edge. All a grand scheme to evade constitutional protections? Constant media and political attention influences the public? We believe so! Now our research. Readers can form their own opinions!

Daily we reviewed news articles for reports of deaths, suicides and vigilantism related to sex offenders or offenses, documenting those in our blogs. We do believe there are many more articles not published. In addition, folks close to our project alert us to those they find. Frequently we gather more than one, and other credible sources, so we have as complete a story as possible in our blogs. It is important that readers understand our definitions they are all explained in our definitions section (link below).

We must point out that, to our knowledge there is no other research which has delved into this topic, especially with so many unknowns and limitations. Given the uncharted waters of this research we hope it is instrumental and influential for future researchers with similar aims. This report comes with a caveat, traditional norms and definitions may not apply, nor reveal subtle nuances specific to this population. Some may dismiss or distinguish these nuances, but an open mind is necessary in uncharted waters.

...continued...
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Links of Interest


https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-public-sex-offender-registry-it-harmful-families-and-children/lQpfXHrm

http://reformsexoffenderlaws.org/rsol_legal_fund

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2013/01/report-on-the-us-sentencing-commissions-first-public-meeting-of-2013.html

Florida Action Committee

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This story is getting  big play on NPR. It's called, 

Online 'Shaming' A New Level Of Cyberbullying For Girls. 


It's a good report highlighting how girls grow up being  bullied and objectified for being sexual BUT in this story, no one mentions the penalties for online distribution of this porn.  These girls are underage and the boys that are interviewed who distribute the images are unapologetic. NO discussion about the penalties for the crime. 

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/07/168812354/online-shaming-a-new-level-of-cyberbullying-for-girls


It would be interesting to see how many young men are in prison for this. 
Have a good day.

Patricia.
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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

RSOL CREATES LEGAL FUND

To make a onetime donation please follow this link: http://reformsexoffenderlaws.org/rsol_legal_fund
 
The message we consistently hear from all across the country is: “I’m just one person. What can I do?” Individually there isn’t a great deal you can do, but if we pool our resources, we can be powerful. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are more than 750,000 persons listed on sex offender registries nationwide. If only 10% of the total RSO population were to make a one-time donation of $5.00, we would have $375,000.00 for this legal fund.
 
A fund in that amount would provide the flexibility to support litigation efforts already underway or to selectively initiate new challenges against the various registration statutes around the country. For example on December 20, RSOL sent a press release to 130 news outlets, and a few legislators, primarily in PA, announcing that it would soon challenge sections of Senate Bill 1183 (Pennsylvania’s new sex offender registration requirements) on multiple constitutional grounds.
 
Constitutional challenges to AWA and other legislation and laws that affect our advocacy are meeting with some success. Just look at what is happening in CA and a few other states. This doesn\'t just affect PA or any one state. A victory anywhere is a victory for us all; we are truly all in this together.

And let us not forget the murders of Gary Blanton and Jerry Ray, and the overwhelming outcry from you. The leadership of RSOL considers this situation to be a crisis and that we cannot wait any longer for other organizations to step forward and save us. Many have suggested that a lawsuit against Washington State should be initiated. Due to the number of deaths that have occurred there at the hands of vigilantes, that idea certainly has merit.
However, the selection and prioritization process will involve input from both legal professionals and state affiliates with priority given to litigation that would provide benefit to the greatest number of registrants.
 
We need your financial support! If you have thought about making a donation to our legal fund, or encouraging your constituency to do so, this is an excellent time. There is a legal fund PayPal button on the website, or mail checks to RSOL Legal Fund, PO Box 36123, Albuquerque, NM 87176.
 
Donations to the legal fund go directly to this and other challenges by RSOL. Please help us help you and your family!
 
To make a onetime donation please follow this link: http://reformsexoffenderlaws.org/rsol_legal_fund
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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:
* * * *
“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.”