Operation Game Over

I saw this article on Polygon:

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/19/37...

and here's a link to the press release that inspired the article:

http://www.longislandexchange.com/pr...

The Operation Game Over initiative is a brainchild of a New York Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman, that is targeting sex offenders by requesting companies to ban any account information tied to the email address of a registered sex offender. I find myself on the fence leaning towards this initiative being extremely abusive to those who have been labeled as sex offenders. Considering the average increase in age of those involved in online gaming, I speculate how much this will help prevent sexual abuse. Then coming from end of human rights post obtaining a level 1-3 sex offender status, it seems weird that people are being forbidden from a distraction that seems less harmful than a walk through a public park, or shopping at any physical store.

Without a doubt, the initiative is flawed, but I'm curious to see where people stand with this. What are some of the common restrictions for sex offenders, and how does this compare to it? Again, I find it strangely harsh and abusive, but I don't have kids and I've never been exposed to any sort of sexual abuse in my lifetime.

EDIT:

I accidentally excluded some key phrasing that was included with my letter to the AG. Separating sexual abusers and pedophiles from the sex offender pool, this is extremely unfair. Many laws are outdated in dealing with the various degrees of sex offense that's possible. My statements apply more to the pedophiles and abusers that exist in the online gaming pool.

If you can chat with minors, you have an opportunity to re-offend.

Predators go where their prey is.

Does this include sex offenders who have not commited crimes that relate to children? If so, that seems to be overkill. I mean, they still committed a crime and that's something they'll have to deal with forever, but a couple consenually getting it on in a park at midnight who got caught seems like they shouldn't be included with legislation to avoid child predators.

I'm not surprised considering we live country where there are people living under bridges because they are registered sex offenders and that's the only place that's far enough away from schools and playgrounds.

The logic of the law just seems flawed. If the Internet is really "the crime scene of the 21st century" for sex offenders then wouldn't it make a lot more sense to prevent them from having email addresses and Internet access rather than simply banning their Xbox Live account? This just screams "what about the children."

I'm also quite familiar with that situation. What also strikes me as odd, as I learned on Savage Love, is that anyone recognizing that they have the issue of being attracted to children and proactively seeks the help of a therapist for that issue so they can control it and not be a threat, is required by law to be reported to the police. It's crazy.

Can americans (and possibly other countries as well, though I'm not as well acquainted with it in that context) please STOP labelling all "sex offences" as paedophilia. I mean, come on. It's in the friggin' word!

It's very frustrating - even in this very nascent thread!

(I'm not a sex offender but I feel the association overpowers the conversation and willingness to address these issues).

[edit]

Demosthenes wrote:

Does this include sex offenders who have not commited crimes that relate to children? If so, that seems to be overkill. .

Yes. Even in the UK the term "Sexual offender" is a broad term and does not equate to paedophilia. This is just the way these ridiculous laws are managed to be pushed through by pandering to the lowest common denominator: i.e. "think of the children". Same as it ever was. Next up: All gamers (short-hand for violent videogame players) are sex offenders (short-hand for, well, anything!)....

Duoae wrote:

Can americans (and possibly other countries as well, though I'm not as well acquainted with it in that context) please STOP labelling all "sex offences" as paedophilia. I mean, come on. It's in the friggin' word!

That was not intentional in my description and has been corrected.

...did... people not know that sex offender doesn't exclusively something related to underage children?

Can't you get a sex offender status (though I think temporary) for exposing yourself for a bathroom emergency in a public place (like behind a bush if a cop sees you?)?

Demosthenes wrote:

...did... people not know that sex offender doesn't exclusively something related to underage children?

Can't you get a sex offender status (though I think temporary) for exposing yourself for a bathroom emergency in a public place (like behind a bush if a cop sees you?)?

Sure can. I have a friend of a friend that has to go through the "I'm a sex offender" script because he did this while drunk.

My question then being, does this legislation account for that? If not, that's pretty irresponsible for the legislature, but it probably falls under "think of the children"... which is really sad.

Demosthenes wrote:

Can't you get a sex offender status (though I think temporary) for exposing yourself for a bathroom emergency in a public place (like behind a bush if a cop sees you?)?

To be honest, I can't even imagine how this is a sex offence....

SuperDave wrote:

That was not intentional in my description and has been corrected.

Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to nip it in the bud because paedophilia is such a charged subject that it clouds any rational thought for most people when discussing what is and isn't appropriate. What we're dealing with here is from the range of a shoplifter for stealing a snack/employee stealing minor stationary to a bank robber who took millions not being allowed to live near a bank. That's a hugely over-broad range but it appears most people's knee-jerk reaction is to veer off into the "The bastard stole $10 million? no way *I'm* letting him off the hook!" territory.

If they want to make it so these people can never re-integrate into society, then they are doing a fine job of it. I guess when you get released from jail, they can just deposit you under a bridge because that's where you'll spend the last of your days as a modern version of a troll. Even if they are convicted pedophiles, at what point does punishment cease being about justice and more about revenge?

SuperDave wrote:

that is targeting sex offenders by requesting companies to ban any account information tied to the email address of a registered sex offender

Ineffective. Given how easy it is to get an email address these days, it wouldn't be hard for an offender to get a new email address that the law doesn't know about and do their thing. But I don't know how law enforcement deals with offenders, so maybe there's already a penalty for slipping the e-leash?

This sounds a lot like a reverse COPA to me.

Demosthenes wrote:

My question then being, does this legislation account for that? If not, that's pretty irresponsible for the legislature, but it probably falls under "think of the children"... which is really sad.

Why do you want people with penises to be able to play games? What about the children?

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

My question then being, does this legislation account for that? If not, that's pretty irresponsible for the legislature, but it probably falls under "think of the children"... which is really sad.

Why do you want people with penises to be able to play games? What about the children?

My problem is, I would hear someone say that seriously... look at them for a second wondering what's going on inside their brain, then ignore them... which allows them to go after more impressionable people.

Demosthenes wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

My question then being, does this legislation account for that? If not, that's pretty irresponsible for the legislature, but it probably falls under "think of the children"... which is really sad.

Why do you want people with penises to be able to play games? What about the children?

My problem is, I would hear someone say that seriously... look at them for a second wondering what's going on inside their brain, then ignore them... which allows them to go after more impressionable people. :(

This world wasn't meant for intelligent people. People like us, who can hook their Kinect up to a bush and piss at it while a 12-year-old tells us how awesome Certis is.

Before the advent of Romeo and Juliet laws, there were several instances here in Arizona where male teens caught having sex with female teens of the same age were prosecuted under the statutory rape laws. They were also branded as "sex offenders."

Sadly, they would have their email addresses would be targeted as well.

Can this even be enforced? Getting a new email address is a matter of 10-20 seconds. I just don't see it working.

I'd be more comfortable with this if our laws regarding sex offenders were reasonable, but no one's ever won an election by going easy on sex offenders.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'd be more comfortable with this if our laws regarding sex offenders were reasonable, but no one's ever won an election by going easy on sex offenders.

I'd be ok with it if it only targeted those sex offenders who were convicted of predatory crimes against children... and even there a full online suspension seems a little ridiculous given that the average gamer age is something like mid 30s now, isn't it? Why not be able to play, but have their accounts disabled for voice chat and messaging?

Less ok with the idea that those people who are sex offenders, but were not predatory towards anyone at all (i.e. Rev's example, my example, or any other number of things that can earn you that label that don't involve attacking kids) will also be affected by this. Raising Hope did a pretty funny episode about how the entire Chance Family, by the end, were labeled sex offenders for all pretty minor misdemeanors.

Most wrote:

Can this even be enforced? Getting a new email address is a matter of 10-20 seconds. I just don't see it working.

Same with a new WoW, Steam, PSN, Live account.

Now, for certain offenders, as a matter of the probation or parole, I can see value in confiscating and ensuring that computers, online capable consoles, online capable smartphones, are not on the premises. But there is not a lot of money ever put into probation and parole in the first place.

Yes, many offenders use the web and web services to find children, sex slaves, prostitutes. Having Blizzard do the state's job in it, rubs me the wrong way.

If I haven't said this before: message the Attorney General. Politicians and those in political power respond to complaints if they come en masse. If I see this try to be passed as a state or federal law, I'll be emailing my local representatives and Senators too.

KingGorilla wrote:
Most wrote:

Can this even be enforced? Getting a new email address is a matter of 10-20 seconds. I just don't see it working.

Same with a new WoW, Steam, PSN, Live account.

Now, for certain offenders, as a matter of the probation or parole, I can see value in confiscating and ensuring that computers, online capable consoles, online capable smartphones, are not on the premises. But there is not a lot of money ever put into probation and parole in the first place.

Yes, many offenders use the web and web services to find children, sex slaves, prostitutes. Having Blizzard do the state's job in it, rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah, I guess it's supposed to be more of a disincentive than a preventative, in the sense that if your computer is siezed (which is probably quite likely if you're registered offender) and evidence of playing games is found, it's something that could be used to either pile on to existing charges or justify sending a person back to prison.

Honestly, registered sex offender status is the closest thing we have to leprosy in this culture. Granted, in many cases it's not blameless, but it certainly seems to give the lie to the idea of the criminal justice system as rehabilitation.

necroyeti wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:
Most wrote:

Can this even be enforced? Getting a new email address is a matter of 10-20 seconds. I just don't see it working.

Same with a new WoW, Steam, PSN, Live account.

Now, for certain offenders, as a matter of the probation or parole, I can see value in confiscating and ensuring that computers, online capable consoles, online capable smartphones, are not on the premises. But there is not a lot of money ever put into probation and parole in the first place.

Yes, many offenders use the web and web services to find children, sex slaves, prostitutes. Having Blizzard do the state's job in it, rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah, I guess it's supposed to be more of a disincentive than a preventative, in the sense that if your computer is siezed (which is probably quite likely if you're registered offender) and evidence of playing games is found, it's something that could be used to either pile on to existing charges or justify sending a person back to prison.

Honestly, registered sex offender status is the closest thing we have to leprosy in this culture. Granted, in many cases it's not blameless, but it certainly seems to give the lie to the idea of the criminal justice system as rehabilitation.

Yeah, minus the bathroom emergency in a public place, I'd say all of the things you can do to get that tagged to your are choices... but not all of them are out to get a vulnerable group of people offenses either that this law is supposed to be targetting.

Any crime of sexual assault or sexual predation can land you with that label. It often is part and parcel with a plea bargain-register as a sex offender, take probation, avoid prison.

It is not handed out evenly. Mary Kay Latourneau was not required to register as a sex offender until her 4th offense with her under aged lover.

We are kind of getting away from the core issue here.

The AG is asking for private corporations to do his own department's and law enforcement's job. These corporations are not encumbered with the same legal and constitutional burdens of his own department. Additionally, his own resources should be going to this, as I said.

I've been watching reports on this for a few months and find it sick. A politician abusing those in a broad category to gain votes if he ever needs to be reelected. Sexual Predator is too large an umbrella to carry out like this and if you wish to create laws like this you must also provide evidence of why this is helping and not hurting the kids since this pretty much takes away a predators free time wasting and puts them back out on the streets with time to thing and plan and those whom hard children, will harm more.

SuperDave wrote:

I'm also quite familiar with that situation. What also strikes me as odd, as I learned on Savage Love, is that anyone recognizing that they have the issue of being attracted to children and proactively seeks the help of a therapist for that issue so they can control it and not be a threat, is required by law to be reported to the police. It's crazy.

I personally have never heard of this but the fact that we are putting people in jail for trying to get help is what will drive rape and child abuse up. So technically those in charge of creating laws are creating those sexual predators since those whom need help will be less likely to get help when getting help requires that they get punished for the rest of their life for crimes they did not do.

Pretty much, is there a place where I can sign a petition against both of these because they're not helping our country become a safer place, if anything they're helping it become a more dangerous one.

Just my two pennies.

I don't feel that bad making life hard for the level 3s - for the most part they're the worst of the worst and often completely unrepentant (my understanding was one of the reasons an offender is labeled level 3 is they've refused long-term treatment).

I feel a lot more sympathy for level 1s and 2s who've served their time and are making a good faith effort to reintegrate into society. I especially feel bad for level 1s who have been given essentially a scarlet letter for life sometimes for comparitively minor behavior - dating a high school girl in one's early twenties, streaking, flashing,

jdzappa wrote:

I don't feel that bad making life hard for the level 3s - for the most part they're the worst of the worst and often completely unrepentant (my understanding was one of the reasons an offender is labeled level 3 is they've refused long-term treatment).

I feel a lot more sympathy for level 1s and 2s who've served their time and are making a good faith effort to reintegrate into society. I especially feel bad for level 1s who have been given essentially a scarlet letter for life sometimes for comparitively minor behavior - dating a high school girl in one's early twenties, streaking, flashing, going wide stance ;)

Hell, I read somewhere that some poor bastard has been labeled a sex offender for pissing on his tire at the edge of a road.

Malor wrote:

Hell, I read somewhere that some poor bastard has been labeled a sex offender for pissing on his tire at the edge of a road.

Indecent exposure, you'd be less comfortable, but more legally well off, to piss your pants in an emergency.

To reiterate, I got no issue with predatory sex offenders being kept from public places (real or virtual) where children are, though I do see the problem of them now being forced out of a digital realm and possibly being predatory out in the real world instead.

I just really don't like people who have no predatory behaviors/crimes being kicked out of online gaming for a witch hunt. Seems really really stupid.