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DC - International Megan's Law passed by U.S. House of Representatives

Congressman Chris Smith

Original Article

05/20/2014

By Brendan McGrath

A local congressman is pushing a bill that would bring Megan’s Law, which has led to the creation of registries for child sex offenders across the country, onto the world stage.
- Not everybody on the online sex offender registries (hit-lists) are child sex offenders!

The International Megan’s Law, sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.), was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives today.

The bill is named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old from Hamilton who was killed by a repeat sex offender living nearby her house 20 years ago.

“Sex offenders around the world are now able to cross borders and oceans easily to carry out their horrible designs against children under the cloak of anonymity and then disappear before a child is able or willing to reveal the crime,” Smith said today.

Smith has introduced versions of this bill multiple times over the past few years, including in 2010 when it passed the House, but it has never made it through the Senate.

This bill, H.R. 4573, was introduced two weeks ago and was passed unanimously by the House Foreign Affairs Committee before being passed by the House today.

The legislation is not just intended to prevent U.S. offenders from hurting children overseas, Smith said, but also to establish a reciprocal relationship.

“The International Megan’s Law would establish the model needed for the U.S. to persuade other countries to take action to stop both child sex tourism within their borders and protect children in the United States and elsewhere,” Smith said today.

Megan Kanka’s parents, Richard and Maureen, called the proposed law a “step in the right direction.”

“We must not only show the world that we will not tolerate these perverted acts in the United States but internationally also,” the Kankas said in a statement.

If the bill is passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Barack Obama, it would provide a legal framework for the Angel Watch Center, which is currently a one-person operation in the federal Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement agency that notifies destination countries of intended travel by offenders with a serious registered sex offense against a child, Smith’s release said.

“The stories of the victims are tragic — ruined childhoods, devastated families, lifetimes of memories of assaults and sometimes worse,” Smith said.

The bill also would work to establish better lines of communication to effectively share information about the travel of child sex offenders between federal agencies, the release said.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2010 that said that in fiscal year 2008 at least 4,500 passports were issued to registered sex offenders by the U.S., the release said.

DC - Pentagon punished nearly 500 for sexual harassment

Original Article

05/15/2014

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military fired or disciplined nearly 500 workers for sexual harassment in a 12-month period, and nearly 13 percent of the complaints filed involved repeat offenders, according to new data.

The Pentagon on Thursday released its first formal report on sexual harassment amid months of criticism from Congress over how the department handles sexual assaults and related crimes.

According to the report, there were 1,366 reports of sexual harassment filed in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, involving 496 offenders across the services and National Guard. Officials acknowledged that much like sexual assault complaints, incidents of sexual harassment are vastly underreported, and they said there will be a concerted effort to increase reporting.

Sexual harassment involves unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is tied to a person's ongoing employment or interferes with the person's work.

The report reveals that in the vast majority of the cases the victim was a young, lower-ranking woman and the offender a senior enlisted male service member, often in the same unit. The most frequent location of the harassment was a military base.

More than half of the complaints involved crude or offensive behavior, and another 40 percent were described as unwanted sexual attention. Most involved verbal behavior.

Nearly 60 percent of the complaints were substantiated and the punishments ranged from court martial and firing to pay cuts, rank demotions, letters of reprimand, and other administrative actions.

The report noted the link between sexual harassment and sexual assaults, saying that surveys have indicated that up to 30 percent of the women and 19 percent of the men who said they had been assaulted reported that the offenders had sexually harassed them before and/or after the attacks took place.

The report also said that the military services are aware of the large number of repeat offenders and "are taking appropriate action."

Officials said they hope to use the data to begin to resolve any problems with department policy or programs.

See Also:

• Government child porn & other sex crimes

DC - White House Rolls Out Guidelines to Stop Sexual Assault With Star-Studded PSA

Original Article

And as usual it excludes men who are abused by other men or females, and the fact that most sexual crimes occur in the victims own home.

04/30/2014

By ANN-MARIE ALCÁNTARA

Vice President Joe Biden, Seth Meyers, Steve Carrell and other stars all have the same message in a White House public service announcement: stop sexual assault across America.

The PSA, uploaded to YouTube Tuesday, is part of the White House's new website, NotAlone.gov, a sexual assault resource page and just one of the recommendations from the First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, also released Tuesday.
- It won't protect anybody!

The task force was launched in January by President Obama, with a mandate that within 90 days, the group should release steps for colleges to take in response to sexual assault across the U.S, particularly in colleges and universities.

That mandate was met on Monday, when the task force released its recommendations for U.S. colleges and universities. They include: requiring colleges to offer confidential counseling for sexual assault victims, asking schools to conduct a "climate survey" to assess sexual assault occurrences on campus and providing special support and training for school officials in handling sexual assault cases.

Part of the recommendations included the creation of NotAlone.gov, a website that allows sexual assault victims like search for services nearby, helping them understand legal terms in “plain English” and other types of information that can be misunderstood or hard to find.

The task force report also called for the PSA released Tuesday, aimed at “enlisting men as allies.” The video, which includes the actors mentioned above as well as Benicio del Toro, Daniel Craig, Dulé Hill and President Obama, says in no uncertain terms: if "she doesn’t consent or can’t," it's sexual assault and a crime.

Sexual assault cases across the U.S. are consistently reported as being mishandled, like the recent cases at Dartmouth College, Brown University, Florida State University and other schools.

One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, according to a White House press release.

"Colleges and universities need to face the facts about sexual assault," said Vice President Joe Biden in a statement. "No more turning a blind eye or pretending it doesn't exist."

DC - DHS Official: US Not ‘Routinely’ Notified When Sex Offenders Enter the Country

Original Article

04/04/2014

By Melanie Hunter

(CNSNews.com) - A Homeland Security Department official testified Friday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security that U.S. authorities are not “routinely” notified when foreign sex offenders enter the United States.

“We can receive information on foreign criminal records, and in fact the NCB (National Central Bureau) is the vehicle through which 190 countries can communicate, and there are … registered sex offenders, but routinely, that information actually would not come unless there’s a specific case or a specific law enforcement inquiry,” Alan Bersin, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary of International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer, told the subcommittee.

The hearing was called to examine the issue of passport security in light of the recent revelation that two Iranians boarded missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 using stolen passports.

Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) asked whether INTERPOL would be alerted if a sex offender from Germany, for instance, flew into the U.S.

“If somebody in Germany who was a sex offender … got on an aircraft and was flying into the United States, would they be sharing that kind of information through INTERPOL with us – not just talking about terrorism, but other kinds of threats to security here in the United States? Just so I understand sir how the information sharing works through the organization,” Miller asked.

Shawn Bray, director of INTERPOL Washington, said “that type of information can be received from Germany” and other countries.

“We routinely receive information regarding traveling sex offenders, generally registered sex offenders in many of the countries that have a registry for that, but certainly from countries that may be just simply notifying us that a sex offender from their country is traveling,” Bray said.

That information is then relayed to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials “so a determination can be made as to admissibility in the United States.”

“There’s information regarding criminals, terrorists, modus and operandi that are transmitted on a daily basis,” Bray added.

According to Bersin, however, “when a German gets on an airplane to the United States, CBP knows that he’s coming, but the German authorities don’t know that he’s coming, and unless that German sex offender or murderer— unless that record is in the FBI database, we have no routine insight into what is in the criminal data records of other countries.”

“That’s the issue that— Mr. Bray is entirely right— that if there’s a specific case or specific inquiry, NCB would receive that information, but the point is it’s not a routine data exchange, because we don’t have routine access to German criminal records anymore than they have routine access – unless there’s a case – to our criminal records,” Bersin added.

Dennis Sobin - New Anti-Registry TV Spot Features Activist Sound Bites

Video Description:
This short video was made when activists from across America converged in Washington, DC. They were there to support returning citizens and celebrate the landmark court victory against government registries that upheld opposition website IdiotsRegistry.info. Contact Dennis@SafeStreetsArts.org

DC - Eric Holder makes case for felons to get voting rights back

Original Article

02/11/2014

By Adam Goldman

(Full Speech) Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday called on states to repeal laws that prohibit ex-felons from voting after their release from prison, urging reforms that could allow millions more former convicts across the country to cast ballots.

In a speech at Georgetown University Law Center, Holder said: “It is time to fundamentally reconsider laws that permanently disenfranchise people who are no longer under federal or state supervision.”

Holder said that current laws forbidding felons from voting make it harder for them to reintegrate into society. He pointed to a recent study, which showed that felons in Florida who were granted the right to vote again had a lower recidivism rate.

“These restrictions are not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive,” Holder said. “By perpetuating the stigma and isolation imposed on formerly incarcerated individuals, these laws increase the likelihood they will commit future crimes.”

Holder does not have the authority to force states to change their laws, but his request could influence the debate to restore voting rights. His appeal is part of a broader effort currently underway by the Justice Department to reform the criminal justice system, which U.S. officials say often treats minority groups unfairly.

The attorney general said that after the Civil War, laws that prohibit ex-felons from voting were a way for post-Reconstruction states to keep blacks from casting ballots. Today, an estimated 5.8 million Americans are not allowed to vote because of current or previous felony convictions. Of those, nearly 38 percent are black.

The Justice Department said that 23 states since 1997 have enacted voting-rights reforms. They include Nebraska, Nevada, Texas and Washington state.

In Virginia, former governor Robert F. McDonnell enacted a policy last year that allowed those with non-violent felony convictions to have their voting rights automatically restored. But critics say the effort still leaves many disenfranchised.

Virginia is one of four states where voting rights are not restored automatically when felons are released from prison.

The Justice Department said that 11 states, including Florida and Kentucky, restrict voting rights for ex-felons. Holder said that 10 percent of Florida’s population is disenfranchised.

Voting-rights activists are trying to change the law in that state to make it easier for “returning citizens” to vote. The push could become a campaign issue in Florida’s gubernatorial election this year.

In Kentucky, a bill to restore felon voting rights to those not convicted of certain lascivious or violent crimes gained momentum last month in the state legislature.

“These laws deserve to be not only reconsidered, but repealed,” Holder said.

According to a 2002 academic study on voter disenfranchisement, former vice president Al Gore might have prevailed in the 2000 presidential election had ex-felons been allowed to vote nationwide.

Dennis Sobin Interview - Creator of The Idiots Registry

Idiots Registry