Hartford Goes South Park

The epidemic of stupidity that's coming out of the State House in Hartford is threatening to engulf the entire State in a cesspool of ignorance that will not easily wash clean. The fine line between farce and maliciously moronic legislation is being tested (daily).

Steven Goode of the Courant reports that,

A bill proposed by a city legislator calls for residency restrictions for registered sex offenders that would make it virtually impossible for them to live in Hartford.

State Rep. Kelvin Roldan's bill, which went before the judiciary committee Monday, would make it illegal for registered sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of a public or private school or day care facility.

According to Hartford police, 547 — or 96 percent — of the 568 registered sex offenders living in the city are within 2,000 feet of a school or day care provider. If the bill is passed, the restrictions would not apply to those who already live in permanent housing within the restricted zone. It would affect anyone living in a temporary shelter with 60- and 90-day housing limits and any offender who moves into the city after Oct. 10.

Roldan said the law would help keep registered sex offenders out of situations that might cause them to commit another crime.

"This is all about the safety of our children," Roldan said.

But Public Safety Commissioner John Danaher said he believes the provision could cause problems for police and other agencies required to keep track of offenders.

"It is our belief that it would create a situation that they would have no place to live, causing them to go underground," said Danaher. "It would create a problem for law enforcement because we want to be able to know where they are."

Right. It's all about the safety of -cough- our children. So where oh where will these people go? UNDERGROUND???? I don't think so. They will go to suburbia. That's right, the place that has no social service infrastructure or police forces who can deal with keeping track of these social misfits.

This law like so many of the "not in my back yard" legislations is evil. Evil like the episode of South Park called Night of the Living Homeless. Wikipedia's synopsis may have been the template for this legislation.

While talking to the survivors, who have clearly become paranoid, Kyle finds a pamphlet on the ground, which advertises South Park as a "haven for the homeless". He realizes the Evergreen townspeople got rid of their homeless by convincing them to migrate to South Park. The children realize that they must get rid of the homeless because, as Kyle reasons, their parents are as stupid as the people of Evergreen, and South Park would fall apart just like Evergreen did.

The law I would like to see introduced is one that would ban bad legislators from coming within two hundred miles of CT. The air would smell so much sweeter.

More Bad Anti-Porn Legislation Proposed

In IT Professionals Would Be Required to Report Child Porn Under Proposal at Capitol by Susan Haigh, WTIC reports yet another example of sugar-coated, feel-good, bad legislation being considered by a legislature than is clueless.

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) _ Computer technicians would be obligated to report child abuse just like doctors, teachers and others who work closely with children, under measures being considered by lawmakers in two states.

At least five states _ Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota _ require computer technicians to report child pornography. Connecticut and California are considering legislation that would go a step farther, adding technicians to the list of ``mandated reporters'' who notify authorities about any type of child abuse and neglect.

``Computer usage is a very real part of our culture and daily activities,'' said New Britain Police Sgt. James P. Wardell. ``Laws must change and evolve to reflect this ever-changing technological advancement.''

Officer Wardell is correct, the laws must change but not in this way.

Laws that assume that content found on any computer is the direct result of activity by the owner are out of touch with the "ever-changing technological advancement" officer Wardell cites.

As we've seen in the Julie Amero case, computers now perform life-cycle activity that may be completely unknown and uncontrollable to the user. The fact that an image, link, or even program exists on a computer may be wholly co-incidental to the owner's experience, intent, and lifestyle. To apply the legal concept that possession is 9/10th's of the law would be a miscarriage of justice in every case. In fact the activity of the technician could very well contaminate the customer's drive.

Add to the confusion of how one would acquire the expertise to know without a shadow of a doubt that any image is a real person under the age of sixteen and you have an Orwellian recipe for disaster.

No law is better than a blind, dumb one. Certainly images that suggest existing criminal activity should be reported as a matter of professional and civic duty.On the other hand, requiring the Computer community to suddenly report every instance of pornographic material found on private computers exposes parents of teens and the teens themselves to odious social harm.

The fact of the matter is that young boys will seek out pornographic materials unknown to teachers, parents, and others. This is a natural curiosity that accompanies becoming a man. In a 2005 article called, The secret life of boys, Pornography is a mouse click away, and kids are being exposed to it in ever-increasing numbers by Bella English, the Boston Globe tells us the facts about pornography and teens.

Those who work with adolescents agree that parents who discover their child is downloading porn regularly should be firm without shaming him. Kendrick likens it to obscene rap lyrics or suggestive videos that parents forbid. ''You can say, I understand how you can be very curious about these images, but we don't support people who think of women in these ways. . . . We don't welcome them into our house, not through the boombox or your iPod, not through the radio, or the television, and not through the Internet."

Kendrick might want to add cellphones to that list. Companies such as Playboy and X-rated film producers have announced plans to bring ''adult material" to cellphone carriers, which they ultimately expect to be even more lucrative than Internet porn.

Today, one-third of children between ages 11 and 17 have their own cellphones. The number is expected to increase to nearly 50 percent in two years.

Kids and porn

According to a poll released in March by the Kaiser Family Foundation:

70 percent of teens ages 15-17 say they have accidentally come across porn while using the Internet.

25 percent of the boys admit they have lied about their age to access a website.

76 percent of the teens say their schools have Internet filters on the computers.

33 percent say their home computer has a filter.

Family Safe Media, an outfit that sells Internet filters and other blocking devices, has also compiled research on the topic. It has found:

The average age at which a child is first exposed to Internet porn is 11.

The largest consumer of Internet porn is kids between ages 12 and 17.

12 percent of all websites are porn sites.

25 percent of all search engine requests are for porn.

The article is worth reading. And once you read it, you have to ask yourself if you want every Skippy computer technician turning a mom, dad, or teen to police for felony investigation. And you also have to ask yourself if you want to arm the Skippy's of the world with the power to destroy a family or individual by planting such material on a drive. Political and corporate reputations could be washed away by the simple accusation. And once again, the material may be co-incidental, automatically generated, or planted with few clues as to the truth.

This suggestion for a law is a bad idea and it should be rejected.

Sex offenders off the radar

I got another issue of The Journal from CABE full of pablum about the State Department of Education. This is a lot more important (I'll get back to the flotsom later).

Katrina sent sex offenders off the radar
Governors urged to track 2,000 evacuated offenders

Friday, December 30, 2005; Posted: 4:52 p.m. EST (21:52 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Governors in states that accepted Katrina evacuees are being urged to locate about 2,000 registered sex offenders who fled the Gulf region during the hurricane's mayhem and may have vanished from legally required tracking.

The unexpected consequences of the Bush administration's bungling of Katrina continue to ripple through our communities. Couple this with a recent WFSB I-Team news investigation of the Rocky Hill Veteran's facility.

It says,

An I-Team investigation...Dangerous conditions at Connecticut's Veterans Home in Rocky Hill, and we discovered much more than just health hazards.

Our investigation also uncovered convicted felons -- even sex offenders living inside.

It's a report that has the government backpeddling -- even before they see the story.

Our I-Team undercover camera captured decrepit bathrooms, dirty walls and ceilings, and floors falling apart inside the state veterans' home.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to residents' fears for their health and more importantly, safety.

Veterans and other sources tell Eyewitness News the home has admitted a growing number of veterans with more violent pasts.

"Rocky Hill essentially has a prison in its backyard at some level," said Richard Browne a former resident at the Veterans Home. "And it's not being taken care of."

Richard Browne lived at the home for 10 months beginning in June of 2004. He says in his short time there he noticed a growing number of fellow veterans on probation and parole.

This facility is being expanded. The feds have an obligation to provide the community with an inventory of what our veterans are being subjected to as well as to the quality of people residing there. Here's why (aside from the painfully obvious);

On December 28,, 2005, the Chronicle wrote an op-ed piece called, Field Trip Offers a Real Education.

The field trip was by Windham Middle School students to the Rocky Hill Vetran's Home. It discusses parental opposition to the field trip and that the Windham Middle School Staff "stood their ground. The students visited the home."

The op ed goes on to say, "These trips are historically well supervised with plenty of chaperones, from both the school and veterans home staff. Threats are not an issue."

Excuse me? Threats are not an issue!

As a school board member I would have voted, NO - not on my watch. I do not know the psychology of the threat that exists but I would be loathe to parade anyone's middle school child into the imagination of a potential threat. I disagree with the Chronicle editorial and with the administrators who allowed such a trip.

I would like to see the State Department of Education issue a policy guideline that suggests proibiting the exposure of students to facilities that house sex offenders. This isn't an issue of respect for veterans this is an issue of public safety that all of the platitudes about real-world experiences cannot justify.

Furthermore for the safety of the residents, any expansion of this facility should conform to strict State of Connecticut guidelines for residential eligibility.