Predators and Internet Idiots

I read an interesting article this past week reporting that Virginia's attorney-general (Robert McDonnell) plans to create a registry for the state's convicted sex offenders to keep track of their email addresses and instant messaging screen names. According to his plan, when the offenders have registered their information, this information will be passed on to networking sites such as MySpace to prevent the sex offenders from using the sites and, thus, ostensibly, prevent them from interacting with minors.

Yes, that's right. For some idiotic reason, McDonnell actually believes that he can regulate the internet, as that is essentially what he's proposing. However, he's not alone. Two idiots of the U.S. Senate (John McCain and Chuck Schumer) are proposing a similar thing at the federal level.

There are so many ways that this is stupid that I'm not sure where to begin. Thankfully, a Post editorial already points out some of them. The most important problem is the obvious loophole: you can always just get another email address. It seems that our out-of-touch political leaders believe that every person is given a single, unique email address (and IM screen name) when he/she is born and that this one email address sticks with you throughout your life. Therefore, it's only necessary to find out that information, register it, and share it with networking sites. Yeah, could someone please inform these idiots that email addresses are a dime a dozen and that you can put in any name you want for an email address and that, therefore, it's impossible to keep track of them? I have had at least 8 email addresses during my life -- and I know I'll have some more. For some reason, the Post is only mildly critical. Really, they should have taken the senators and McDonnell to task for even suggesting such a stupid proposal.

So, as the program is completely unenforceable in the first place, that raises the second major problem -- it's a waste of money. I doubt it would be that expensive (relatively speaking), but the government is chock full of these small programs put in place for very small issues. And, yes, I'm calling this a small issue. As the Post editorial points out, there's no record (or even anecdotal report, apparently) of any of these networking sites leading to a known sex offender committing some sex crime with these children. So, the problem is that we're throwing money at a so-far non-existent problem in such a way that we could never prevent the problem in the first place. Great.

Finally, the third issue is that we, as a society, have become obsessed with sex offenders, and this only reinforces our obsession. We seem to think that child molesters are everywhere, and those online maps showing where sex offenders live only reinforce the idea. The reality about sex offenders is much different than what McDonnell's proposal suggests. Most sexual abuse of children is NOT committed by random strangers, let alone by strangers on the internet (Dateline's "Sexually Salacious Ways to Catch a Predator", notwithstanding). Most child sexual abuse is committed by family members or close family friends. Despite that fact, many Americans have come to live in fear of their children being abused by random strangers. Why is that? I believe that it's due to the nationalized, 24-7, sensationalistic media that we now have. When one child is New Jersey is molested and killed, the whole nation hears about it for days and days. While such events are truly awful and horrific, their over-exposure warps people's understanding of the threat such events actually pose. In a nation of 300,000,000 people, statistically speaking, we can expect all sorts of things to occur at least once a year. Yes, anytime someone says that there's a one-in-a-million chance of something occurring, then we should expect it to happen to 300 people in this country a year. Unfortunately, our media warp these things -- we panic about bird flu (ever killed in this country: 0) and hardly blink an eye at the regular flu (annually killed in this country: ~60,000).

So, what should be done about online sexual predators? Well, the government should not be involved in every aspect of life and this is one of those areas where the government can do little to prevent the bad stuff from happening. HOWEVER, people (i.e. parents) can prevent these problems easily. Unlike offline predators who can kidnap kids and molest them, online ones can only do harm WHEN people do stupid things. Do you ever notice on Dateline's "Sensationalistic, Ratings-catching Ways to Catch a Predator" that the men are lured by the underage girls willing to have sex with them? The few stories I have read about men actually meeting and engaging in sex acts with underage kids reveal that the kids (usually young teenagers) agree to meet and have sex with the men. This does not reduce the moral repugnance of the men's actions, but it does call into question the parenting of these kids. Why are these kids engaging in sexual banter online with these men? Moreover, why are they agreeing to meet them? Parents, rather than worrying about the online sexual predators out there, should be worrying about whether they've done a good job raising and educating their kids. At some point in their lives, their kids will, most likely, meet creeps and losers of all stripes, whether it's online, in school, or as adults.

In one of the news stories from the D.C. area about a case like this where (I think) the guy was convicted of statutory rape, the judge also criticized the teenage girl and parents involved. This, of course, created a giant backlash against him, but, frankly, I had to agree with him. To criticize the girl and her parents and say that what she did was stupid and dangerous does not mitigate the guilt of the adult male involved. It just merely reinforces that we all (yes, even teenagers) have to be responsible and careful and this girl was anything but.