OnceFallen's Opposition Statement to SB 1226 & HB 1301

http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/#Senators

http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/representatives.aspx
In response to the FAC Call to Action, here's my letter I'm sending in the mail to the FL legislators (Except Lauren Book, because what's the point?):

From: Derek W. Logue
Registered Citizen Advocate
Founder of OnceFallen.com

To: Members of the Florida Legislature
RE: SB 1226 & HB 1301

Dear Florida State Legislators,
I am writing you today to oppose both SB 1226 and HB 1301, similar bills which will have a detrimental impact on the lives of thousands of individuals.

These bills will impact both the ability of free humans to travel as well as shackle individuals with costly and ineffective electronic devices that will cost the state tens of millions of dollars. I will address each of these parts individually.

REDUCING TRAVEL REGISTRATION

I am an advocate for the restoration of individuals forced to register for life as “sex offenders.” I live in Cincinnati, Ohio but I have taken numerous trips to your state in order to assist those on the registry improve the quality of their lives. I have engaged in a peaceful protest right outside the State House while Lauren Book completed her march across the state in 2015. I have visited (and stayed at) the homeless registrant camp on multiple occasions in order to report on conditions at the camp as well as provide much-needed supplies to the camp.

I know for a fact that “Senator” Lauren Book came up with this idea of lowering the time I can visit before registering specifically to try to deter me from visiting Florida to help the homeless registrants of Hialeah, the camp a law named after her was responsible for creating. Unfortunately, Senator Book has become a master of using the law as a weapon of vengeance against those who are forced to register. It is important to keep this in mind since I am currently engaged in a legal battle with Lauren Book. She is filing vexacious litigation against me trying to prevent me from exercising my 1st Amendment right to protest and speaking out against her reprehensible actions. This bill is just another attempt to bend the law to her will. Justice isn’t supposed to be about vengeance!

Of course, even if this bill passes, I will continue to engage in protests against the Book family, as I already live in a state that requires me to notify my travel plans, so forcing registration when I . Quite frankly, I would not want to visit your state much less live there, but many registered humans have ties to Florida and this would impact them as well. I am well aware of the fact that only 45% of those listed on your registry actually live in Florida communities. However, you force individuals to register for life even if they haven’t lived in Florida for years. You are also one of the only states that allow registry info to pop up on a Google search. This encourages vigilante violence against registered citizens. I have endured vigilante violence, including harassment by associates of Senator Book.

It also raises concerns that individuals not publicly registered in one state will have their registry information plastered all over the Internet. For example, Washington and Massachusetts are among the states that do not post registry info online. If one were to visit from those states, then they would be forced to register for life and be placed on the internet even though their conviction state does not do either.

Finally, it should be worth noting that there is already a lawsuit in the works over keeping out-of-state registrants on the Florida registry, so passing this bill will add the number of people eligible for this costly class-action suit.

ELECTRONIC MONITORING

When I had visited the homeless registrant camp (Lauren’s Kingdom) in Hialeah, I was shocked to see the number of homeless registrants wearing these bulky, uncomfortable, radioactive devices. Imagine the time it takes recharging your smartphones, only with that smartphone strapped to your body. I imagine it would be hard to do things like go job hunting or shop for groceries while recharging. Imagine trying to find a place to recharge at a homeless camp. Who is paying for this? Your constituents, that’s who!

I am concerned the GPS devices are costly and ineffective in reducing sex crimes, as well as constituting such a great burden to both law enforcement and to the former offenders who have served their time and are struggling to successfully reintegrate into society.
It was estimated back in 2007 that the cost of GPS is around $10 per day per device. (I imagine that number is higher now.) If the law was applied to 6,660 offenders currently on the list, the state will have to shell out $24.3Millions dollars per year just to maintain the devices by the $10 a day rate. The chances of passing the expenses onto former offenders is unlikely, as most former offenders struggle to find steady employment in a slumping economy and employers hostile to people with criminal records.

The use of GPS devices should be reconsidered, as the technology suffers from numerous limitations. Among the common technological problems: “Geometric Dilution Of Precision” (GDOP), meaning if the angle of the receiver to the satellite is too small, the satellite may give a false reading; satellite visibility- buildings, metal, and other terrain obscures the signal; speed limits- if it is going above a certain speed, it will not work; and temperature limits- will not work in extremes of temperature.

Washington state did a test run with “passive” devices (passive devices merely record where the person has been and must be uploaded to read, whereas active devices send out constant signals), and found 4000 “notices of violation,” the vast majority of which were false alarms due to technical difficulties [Jonathan Martin, “GPS tracking beset by problems of terrain, technology, and time.” Seattle Times, Sept. 28, 2005].

The batteries could fail to charge, be defective, or possibly leak or even explode. What about the health concerns? There is growing evidence that these radioactive devices can negatively impact your health. The overall health of those struggling with homelessness is already poor to begin with, so these devices can exacerbate an already existing problem.

GPS use also raises a number of ethical and constitutional issues. One senator who voted against the Wisconsin bill stated it would create a “big brother bureaucracy” and was unnecessary [Steven Waleters et al. “GPS tracking for sex offenders OK’d.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 25, 2006]. Most states are imposing the devices on all offenders, even low-risk offenders. It raises questions on the limits states can invade in the private lives of freed citizens. There is also a question of whether the devices violate the fourth amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

With all the concerns and limitations regarding GPS, it makes little sense to pass such sweeping legislation. Both the state and the offender will be burdened with the number of false alarms, as noted in the Washington study. Furthermore, GPS does not monitor the offender’s actions, just location, and can easily be removed by an offender who is determined to re-offend. In other words, GPS will not prevent crimes, but places an undue burden on the registrants who cannot afford to pay and state taxpayers/ constituents who will end up footing the bill. . Former offenders are concerned of being “branded for life,” a mark of infamy which lowers his chances at successful rehabilitation and reintegration. Such expenses would be better spent on prevention, treatment, and reintegration programs that are proven effective in reducing sex crimes in general and reducing recidivism rates for registrants.

THEREFORE, I strongly urge you to not advance this terrible piece of legislation. Both of these bills will end up costing constituents millions of dollars without offering any benefits. For those who are religious, remember, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:20. This is not about preventing sexual abuse but about vengeance and harming an unpopular group of people. That was why we created a Constitution in the first place. No victim advocate turned State Senator should advance laws based upon hatred and revenge, lest we return to the days of inquisitions, trials by ordeals, and witch hunting.

_____________________________
Derek W. Logue of OnceFallen.com
Registered Citizen Advocate
iamthefallen1@yahoo.com
513-238-2873

Ron Book, Lauren Book, Florida Governor Rick Scott, and the GEO Group connection

On April 22, 2015, members of the Anti-Registry Movement will be at the Florida State House at the corner of Monroe and Alapachee in Tallahassee, FL. We will be protesting the efforts of the Book family as they help promote Florida's "Scorched Earth" policy. 

There are many reasons to protest the Book family, but there is one major detail that most of us have not considered. At last year's event, Gov. Rick Scott gave his blessing to Lauren's Kids. Rick Scott is a major supporter of the private prison industry, so much so he hosted a $10,000-per-seat fundraiser at the home of GEO Group's president, who lives in Boca Raton. A number of people protested Scott's fundraiser because they understand just how bad private prisons run by GEO group can be. 

Last November, Lauren Book opened a political committee called Leadership for Broward. It had raised $423,750 -- much of that from Ron Book's past and present clients, including the GEO Group, who donated $25,000. So Ron Book and Lauren both have connections with the GEO Group. 

GEO Group has been immersed in a number of controversies over the years and has been sued hundreds of times. "Violence abuse and death" apparently run rampant in GEO Group private prisons. Perhaps one of the most egregious cases involves Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, sued in 2012 in federal court. Federal Judge Carlton Reeves wrote that the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk." 

Among the conditions described in a report against the facility in 2012:

• Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called "among the worst that we've seen in any facility anywhere in the nation."
• Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.
• The prison showed "deliberate indifference" to prisoners possessing homemade knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
• Some guards had gang affiliations — a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling.

The former mayor of Walnut Grove was convicted of witness tampering after telling a female inmate not to rat him out for having sex with her. He served only seven months. 

There are lots of lawsuits against GEO Group but this one stands out because of the level of sexual abuse rampant in this case. I want you to wrap your minds around the concept of Lauren Book, "Sexual Abuse Survivor/ Educator/ Advocate" pocketing $25,000 from a corporation that ran an institution with the most rampant sexual abuse cases in the entire nation! This is right up there with that Oprah Winfrey orphanage controversy from a few years ago. 

This is also something that bothers me because I was inside a facility called the "Eufaula Adolescent Center" for a year, a place that was closed in 1996 for similar issues. My only reason for being sent to such a horrific place was because I was abandoned by my family as a teenager and became a ward of the state, and no foster homes would take teenage boys in my area. Thus, I was in this hellhole for over a year for no reason at all. I was not a juvenile delinquent, nor was I ever charged with a crime. Info on the facility is sparse, but over two decades later, I still remember the abuse and maltreatment I received at that place. My time there made me distrusting of the police and the courts. Imagine that-- a kid never in trouble with the law but dragged through the courts and the police simply for being abandoned. But I guess that does not matter to most people. 

Lauren Book claims to stand up for children, yet she takes money from a corporation that abused children. That is hypocrisy at its finest. That is simply another reason I will be joining those protesting in Tallahassee on April 22. 

What a "Scorched Earth" policy really means

"With the stroke of Governor Scott’s pen, our state today sent a strong message – Florida is scorched earth for all those seeking to harm our children." -- Don Gaetz, Florida Senator

"We want to make Florida scorched earth for these sexually violent predators... We want to make our laws the toughest in the nation."-- State Senator Rob Bradley.

If you are a person who feels semantic arguments are valid, as I am, then it irks you when terms and phrases are used in an improper context. I wonder at times just how much thought FloriDUH legislators put into their so-called "scorched earth" policy for Registered Citizens. 

Just what does "scorched earth" mean exactly? In the most basic of definitions Scorched Earth is a military strategy in which a retreating army destroys any and all resources that the retreating army feels might be useful to the enemy army-- food, fuel, even people. Despite a ban on destroying food supplies per the Geneva Convention, the practice is still employed today. It is a desperation tactic by a defeated and retreating army. 

Does this mean that the FloriDUH legislature is admitting they are losing the "war on sex offenders?" 

At any rate, military terminology and tactics against American citizens, no matter how undesirable you may view them, has proven to be a disservice. You see, in times of war, civilian casualties are to be expected, so dropping bombs in a residential area and blowing up schools or an aspirin-manufacturing plant is considered acceptable. War tends treat every citizen of a foreign nation, or simply those with ties to that nation, as an enemy combatant. This leads to hastily-made blanket policies, like the mass "internment" (concentration camps) of Japanese Americans during World War II, a policy never overturned by the US Supreme Court. In times of war, rights can be taken away and "martial law" can be imposed. 

The imposition of military tactics and terminology has been damaging to American citizens. Since the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964, Americans have endured a "war on crime," followed by a "war on drugs," a "war on terror," and a "war on child abuse," of which a "war on sex offenders" becomes a relative extension. The problem with the militarization of culture is the promotion of violence that tends to follow. After all, the militarization of our police forces has only led to the increased police brutality that has in turn led to greater distrust of the police by many people in society. The war on drugs did not stop the cartels, it merely filled up our prisons with non-violent 

Just as with other wars, the "war on sex offenders" has a marked "enemy." Because the military mentality is a simple "us versus them" mentality, society can turn a blind eye to a little corruption from a sheriff running entrapment stings because he's targeting alleged online predators. But the label "sex offender" is a granfalloon, an association of diverse people whose only relation to one another is an arbitrary label given by the government. A "sex offender" can indeed be a rapist or child molester, and some can be pedophiles. The term "sex offender" can also mean anyone forced to register as a "sex offender" even if we are discussing a 10 year old child, teens having consensual relations with each other, married men having sex with their wives in a secluded area of a public park, teens taking nude selfies, or some guy who grabbed the arm of a 14 year old girl to chastise her for stepping in front of his moving car. 

"If it saves just one child" should have always end with an asterisk, because the "one child" obviously does not include the kids landing on the list. I suppose those "save the children/ just one child" types see a few kids on the list as acceptable casualties in this "war on sex offenders." They find it hard to let even one person off the registry even if that person landed on the registry as a child. Hell, they might even echo the sentiment of one US attorney who successfully added a 10 year old kid to the list, declaring this was the "best thing" that could have happened to the kid. Or, perhaps they could be the audience members cheering Erin Brockovich as she justifies adding a 10-year-old to the sex offender list. 

Treating a social issue like a war is a great disservice. Preident Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" eventually became a war against the poor, not a war to reduce the poverty the poor experiences. Declaring a "scorched earth" policy is not going to resolve the issue of sexual abuse; it merely adds to the growing number of "acceptable" casualties. I doubt FloriDUH will see a marked decrease in registered citizens or sex crime rates (because most sex crimes are committed by people with no previous sex crime arrests) despite their "scorched earth" policies. perhaps it is time they eliminate the military rhetoric and use a solution based on facts and evidence rather than political bloviation. 

We can only hope that soon the Florida legislators realize their asinine "scorched earth" tactics are merely desperation tactics of a losing army. 

If we truly want equality, then REGISTER Kaitlyn Hunt, not 'free" her

Kaitlyn Hunt's Mugshot

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” -- Abraham Lincoln

I have been thinking about this subject all weekend, and I am going to say something rather controversial and spoken from a completely selfish prospective.

I say prosecute Kaitlyn Hunt to the fullest extent of the law. Sentence her to prison time, then add her cute, white, blonde face to America's sex offender registry. Sacrifice one of our exalted pretty white girls to the false idol of the sex offender registry.

Let Kaitlyn Hunt live the life I have had to live for over a decade. Have a dozen US Marshals bang on her door at dinner time in their SWAT attire just to have her sign a piece of paper stating she lives at her residence. Kick her out of one home by proclaiming it is one yard too close to a place where children congregate. Deny her housing and employment, forcing her to live off the good of charities and the government. Bye bye nursing job dreams, Kate! Notify the neighbors. Send fliers in the mail, or go door-to-door. Plaster her in a mugshot magazine. Create an anti-Kate webpage and harass her. After all, this is an "equality" issue, right?

Lets get something straight here. I would not wish life on "The List" on anyone. Do I really want Kaitlyn Hunt on the registry, suffering as I have suffered? Not really. HOWEVER, maybe that is what it will take to get people to realize the horrors of the public registry.

All these "Free Kate" sycophants weren't around when thousands of teens and barely-18 adults were being added to the Megan's fLaw Registry all across the USA. They weren't around to protest when a nine-year-old kid was added to Delaware's sex offender registry.

Yet, the homosexual activists have claimed this case as their own. "Stop the Hate, Free Kate," they say. The media will likely pressure the DA to get Kate off. Quite frankly, I don't think the prosecutor will go through with it. But the pro-gay movement is barking up the wrong tree. Kate is an anomaly. There are thousands of heterosexuals on the list for consensual sex, but you don't hear the gay activists mention that fact.

In 1692, we killed 19 people in Salem after accusing them of "witchcraft." The infamous Salem Witch Trials were only stopped after the daughter of the Governor of Massachusetts was accused of witchcraft. It seems the rich only care when it is one of their own facing the accusations. What will it take to end the modern Witch Hunt called the public sex offender registry? This could be the case.

Anyone else see the irony in this statement?

A series of rare but high-profile sex crime and missing person cases, most notably involving young, cute,
preferably blonde females (hence the term "Missing White Girl" syndrome) has been the catalyst for America's obsession with sex offender laws. For years, laws have passed without one iota of thought to the consequences. Now, one of America's exalted children is facing the very laws designed to exalt her. Florida's "Romeo and Juliet" statute is woefully inadequate and does not cover this case. The moral panic caused by the sex offender registry has led to the ever-expanding list requiring more names and faces.

Kaitlyn Hunt has become collateral damage in the "War on Sex Offenders."

The only solution to end this war is to end the public registry. Simply reforming the registry is not enough. It would only take one "R&J" offender committing a subsequent sex crime in life to undo any mere reforms of the registry. Abolishing the registry is the only way to ensure there will be no more Kates. Think this is a "gay rights" issue? Think again.

It is not about homosexual rights.

Here is an article that breaks down the Kaitlyn Hunt case apart from the things told to us by the parents:

http://supporthonesty.net/

The Kaitlyn Hunt saga is not just about gays, it is about the sex offender registry

Over the weekend, the Internet has been abuzz last the story of Kaitlyn Hunt, an 18-year-old Florida girl arrested and charged with “felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child between 12 and 16” for having a consensual relationship with a girl three years younger than her. So far, the news media has made it a point to stress this girl’s sexuality. However, this tragic story is not about discrimination against gays, but our growing obsession with Predator Panic.

[CLICK HERE for one of the many articles on the Kaitlyn Hunt case]

Across the USA, children as young as age 9 found themselves listed on public sex offender registries. Behavior that may have been seen as nuisance behavior is now criminalized by an ever-growing industry whose sole mission is to place as many people on a public registry as possible. The sex offender registry was originally intended to be a private list for law-enforcement, with only those proven to be a high risk of re-offense listed in the event of a rare stranger abduction. Today, the registry has over 700,000 names, including thousands of kids under the age of 18 who have engaged in consensual relations with each other or sexting. 

The state of Florida does indeed have what is called a “Romeo and Juliet” provision, which allows individuals convicted of certain sex crimes, consensual sexual contact between minors and someone less than four years of age older or younger, granted the “victim” is at least 13 years old. If, by some chance, this girl is convicted, she would qualify for the Romeo and Juliet provision. However, the law is written in such a way that Kate would have to actively petition the court to be removed from the registry.

[CLICK HERE to review Florida's Romeo and Juliet Law]

We have proven that having a publicly accessible registry does nothing beneficial to society. This girl is charged with “sexual battery” for an obvious mutual sexual relationship. To use that term implies sexual violence. The registry does not differentiate between a case like this and somebody who has committed a real sexual offense. Florida is one of the worst states for the treatment of those on the registry, putting signs in yards, forcing registrants to live under bridges, and allowing a number of violent vigilante groups to exist. 

This case is only one of many across country. No doubt it is somewhat unique because of the angle, but we have kids as young as 10 years old on the public registry in Texas. Over the years, there've been a number of high profile cases, from the 12-year-olds convicted in Utah of having consensual relations with one another to Ricky's story, which brought the issue of criminalizing teen sex to national prominence.

It is sad that after all these years there are still a number of people supporting the notion of adding kids to a registry. Even sites devoted to support for Kate have been attacked by trolls demanding she except her punishment.

[CLICK HERE to see more criminalized teen sex stories]

To me, there is only one common sense solution that will prevent cases like this from occurring in the future. We must abolish the public aspect of the sex offender registry. I hope that this is the case that becomes the proverbial straw breaking the back of the camel.