People on the sex offenders register will be forced to give their email addresses to the police. The police will then pass these on the networking sites who will block that email address. People failing to comply will face up to 5 years in jail.

Several things are wrong with this proposal.
1. The police already have the email addresses of those on the register - but it takes seconds to create a new one, so the reality of monitoring and controlling this is far from easy.

2. This is, in effect, preventing certain people from pursuing lawful activities. It is creating a duel legal system. "One law for us - another for them." Therefore, legal activity become illegal, but only for some.

3. It enables people to be jailed on assumption of intent. This is a very dangerous precedent.

I'm aware that some would argue that this is only for "dirty pedos" and they deserve to be treated like scum, outscast from society.
BUT
Once this legislation has been passed, it paves the way for government to impose similar rules on other groups. If the law is changed for one person, it is changed for everyone. If basic freedoms are removed from one group, they can easily be removed from others. This has been shown many times in the past. It's about government exercising uncontrolled power.
The treatment of sex offenders is the initial template. Government knows it will not be questioned, because of the popular myths created around sex offenders.

This is not about defending "fkn pedos". It's about defending the right of everyone to be treated equally under the law; for people who act lawfully to be protected from the assumption of guilt.

If we forbid criminals to act within the law, then they will be forced to act outside of the law. It we tell them there is no way for them to be re-integrated into society, that they will never be accepted as anything other than criminal scum, then what options do we leave them? Why should they bother to try and change. Imposing conditions with no incentive for compliance is completely nonsensical.

For those who say "But think of the children", I say I am. Our children today will inherit the system of tomorrow, and they will be the ones who suffer the consequences of unjust laws and reduced freedoms. They will be the ones who are jailed on assumption, where there is no burden of proof, no protection against wrongful conviction and no opportunity for rehabilitation.

This government interferes with today and fails to consider the consequences of tomorrow.

I dare say some will dismiss this thread because it's on a site run by a "sex offender". Well, I'm not a sex offender, but even if I was, if words are true then it matters not who says them.

Fully agreed, JC.

Of course the object is NOT to protect people and to "control" former sex offenders - its a cosmetic exsercise to pander to the tabloids to show that the Gov is doing something (and the fact that this measure can be used - for an entirely different purpose at a later date) - is merely a bonus !

completely unworkable and headline grabbing crap.

It will be as effective as the gun amnesty, which of course has stopped all gun crime in London, Birmingham and Manchester.

Perhaps they should just ban men from the internet as women are no danger to children ?

mikemacca wrote:

Perhaps they should just ban men from the internet as women are no danger to children ?

Then the "new" problem would be ... how do we stop men posing as women ?

Completely agree and I have no idea what good the sex offendor register serves anyway except for serious repeat offendors who can be monitored anyway. Anyone who commits a crime has a police record as it is and look at all the palava over the latest missing child that ended up as totally connected with the home.

But 2 sets of laws for people are as un-democratic as it gets.

2 classic examples: a person can murder a young child ( or 2) and it's not sex related, be tried and sentenced and finally released and have no controls over them except the usual probationary restrictions.

A guy of 17 has sex with his 15 year old girlfriend and is caught-he becomes a registered sex offendor-a man pees against a tree and is caught-he becomes a registered sex offendor because he exposed himself.

## I use the peeing against a tree case as this is what happened to someone I know. Rushing home from the tube-in his suit, an accountant and an urgent call of nature just couldn't hold it any longer, he stopped to pee against a tree. A group of young kids in a field thought he was exposing himself and aware of "stranger danger" rushed to a house, police called-man arrested.

Result: charged with exposing himself to group of young children-local newspaper goes bananas over dangerous pedo in their midst-he is fired from his job-he cannot pay his mortgae-his 2 kids are harrassed at school and humiliated ( a clear case of authorities calmly allowing his children to be abused). He has to sell up and move to another town and start life all over again. Kids and wife traumatised, stand by him but there's always that doubt. One simple act and his life practically destroyed along with his family.
**
This registery and the continued restictions are no different than the beginning of the Nazi era-Jews wearing yellow stars-gays with pink, Gypsies with green and so on until it turned to something worse.
**
Plus it's unworkable-it's already in place in the USA where it's politician's Tough On Law & Order driven and groups like Civil Liberties are already suggesting ways around it like registering 100's if not 1000's of free email accounts and swamping the authorities with them.

And yes-when tabloids tire of pedo bashing and it's no longer a saleable commodity-these laws will be used to justify other abuses against liberty. The Nazis and every dictator knows it-you must always have a hated group in society through which you can pass draconian laws.