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2005-07-30 Home Front: Tech

No Longer Science Fiction: Lifetime GPS Monitoring

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Posted by Anonymoose 2005-07-30 16:20|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I vote for Gitmo released nuts to have Lifetime GPS Monitoring. (Include a small but fatal explosive incase they try to remove it.)

Posted by 3dc 2005-07-30 17:17|| 2005-07-30 17:17|| Front Page Top

#2
Kansas City civil-rights attorney Arthur Benson already is challenging Missouri's lifetime sexual offender registry.
"While these laws are often couched in terms of protecting the public against repeat offenses, at heart they are vengeful, punishing acts," Benson said.

I'm having a hard time seeing the problem with them being "vengeful, punishing acts". Aren't we supposed to punish criminals?

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-07-30 20:17|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-07-30 20:17|| Front Page Top

#3 At what point do you stop punishing criminals? The way many sex laws are now prosecuted is almost random. A child molester might plea down to a misdemeanor; but a different prosecutor may brand a man who pats a stripper on the bottom as a lifetime sexual offender (I knew one). There is no rhyme or reason to it, and no justice when an evenly cruel punishment is the only standard. Irrational justice is no better than mob justice, just slower. Pandering to the sadism of the mob.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-07-30 20:38|| 2005-07-30 20:38|| Front Page Top

#4 Moose, it sounds like your problem is with the arbitrary application of the laws, not with the laws.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-07-30 20:40|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-07-30 20:40|| Front Page Top

#5 I would be leery unless they word it very tightly. At least one drunken barhopper who peed in the street was convicted of "exposing himself to a minor."

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-07-30 20:51|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-07-30 20:51|| Front Page Top

"While these laws are often couched in terms of protecting the public against repeat offenses, at heart they are vengeful, punishing acts," Benson said.

Well, yeah.

And your point....?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-07-30 21:40|| http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2005-07-30 21:40|| Front Page Top

#7 Robert Crawford: exactly right. When a law is so arbitrarily prosecuted that individuals common sense tells us are dangerous are let go, and unlucky fools who commit petty offenses are branded for life, what kind of punishment is merited? The public wants, the public deserves, to have awful criminals taken out of circulation. But do we really want the equivalent of the death penalty for spitting on the sidewalk, if some prosecuter has a bizarre agenda against sidewalk spitters? A good law, haphazardly applied, is injustice. And a good idea, perhaps, using GPS to track vicious sex offenders, can itself be perverted to awful ends. Will a precendent be established for the worst of the worst, that can then be extrapolated for far lesser offenses? I might remind that within a year of its passage, some of the anti-terrorist legislation was already being abused to prosecute drug cases. It may have been effective, but it was not the original intent, nor could it have passed in the first place for that purpose.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-07-30 22:10|| 2005-07-30 22:10|| Front Page Top

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