MySpace and Kentucky Sex Offenders:
Put Kentucky down as another state that is deluded into thinking that sex offenders are going to comply with registering their online identities.
Tuesday afternoon at the capital rotunda, the state met with a MySpace official to put an end to this ongoing problem with the help of a new measure called Senate Bill 65.
The new law, requires sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses on-line.
However if a sex offenders gives authorities a fraudulent e-mail address they will be sent back to jail.
The new law will also help sites like MySpace cross-reference Kentucky’s sex offender registry with their own data base.
I hate to sound like a broken record or a skipping CD for that matter, but this law is all bark and no bite. This will not stop sex offenders from using fraudulent e-mails. The threat of jail rarely stops sex offenders as it is. And again, this does nothing about the sex offenders who have never been caught.
Instead of making laws about MySpace, how about making laws that keep sex offenders in jail longer?
Thanks to Jessica for the link.
Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding:
I was actually going to pass on this story, but I got a request from new reader Alyric. And I am nothing without my readers. So on with the show…
What happened is a high school kid in Kentucky was arrested for making terroristic threats against students, teachers, and police. He says that it’s all a big misunderstanding and that the writings that were found that the charges were based on were a work of fiction about zombies…
“My story is based on fiction,” said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. “It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”
On the surface, it seems like the local police may have over-reacted. But hold on one second there. The police state something different altogether…
The arrest came after a tip from a family member that Pool was trying to “recruit a gang to take over the school,” Detective Berl Perdue said.
“He didn’t have a gang, but he was attempting to organize one,” Perdue said.
Police said writings in which Poole tried to persuade other students to take part in the takeover were found.
Sarcasmo put it best…
I should say – in all fairness – I have not read the story in question – and it may be that he has, in fact, written a story that is obviously about his attacking his classmates and teachers using a complex metaphor system a la Animal Farm – or by changing the name of “Mr. Smith, the English teacher” to “Mr. Smoth, the English teacher” – but that’s not the feeling I got from the news story.
So without reading the actual writings, I cannot honestly give an opinion one way or the other on this. However, in too many instances where kids have been arrested in plotting to bomb or shoot their school, they claim it was just fantasy and that’s usually after the weapons and explosives have been found. I’d rather err on the side of caution than end up with a bloodbath.