If One Registry Is Good… (Updated)

All the good people think the Sex Offender Registry is fabulous.  The good people are defined as those who aren’t on the sex offender registry.  We know that they think it’s fabulous because legislators across the country keep expanding it to include people who are neither sex offenders nor threats to anyone anywhere ever.  Why?  Because every expansion brings them more adoring good people.  That means votes, campaign contributions and smiles. 

But just like laws named after children, it becomes increasingly difficult to find virgin territory for politicians to exploit in their zeal to protect us from the next threat that will destroy life as we know it.  One direction is the attack on “digital drugs,” given that cartoons of pornography worked out so well.  Hey, if people are stupid enough to buy into it, why not?

There’s another direction to consider, however, and it follows along the line of SORA.  Consider the National Sexual Harassment Registry.  From the Proactive Employer :

There’s been a lot of discussion this week about the launch of the eBossWatch ”National Sexual Harassment Registry”. This registry, modeled after the FBI’s National Sex Offender Registry, allegedly provides information to help people avoid sexual harassers. According to Asher Adelman, founder of eBossWatch:

“The eBossWatch National Sexual Harassment Registry will send a strong message to those intending to sexually harass their employees or coworkers that they will be publicly held accountable and will suffer serious consequences for their abusive actions. Now anyone will be able to search our national database and will instantly know if their potential boss or job candidate has been the subject of a sexual harassment complaint.”

There are a variety of problems with this. So many, in fact, it’s difficult to know where to start. First, the people listed in the registry are deemed “harassers” by eBossWatch, even though the site’s disclaimer states that this might not be the case.

As one might anticipate, it’s another website California, where any allegation of harassment is enough to taint a person as a sexual harasser and get one on the list, but there’s no assurance of getting off if it turns out to be utterly frivolous, a lie, whatever.  The disclaimer, naturally, makes all the requisite excuses to avoid libel while doing as much harm to people who are merely accused, malevolent, erroneous, improper motives aside. 

But you’re no sex offender.  You’re no sexual harasser.  What do you care.  Of course, some Slackoisie employee may get miffed if you refuse to let them leave when they need work/life balance, and put you on the list anyway, but what are the chances of that happening?

Given experience recently with the workplace bullying crowd, some of whom may be a wee bit overly emotional and sensitive about their grievances, it’s a natural for a new registry.  Every wrong, whether real or imagined, can land a new name on the list.

How long before legislators come to appreciate how ripe this Registry idea is for their re-election campaigns?  Already, drug offender registries are gaining popularity. creating yet another underclass of unemployable, hated individuals.  For every crime, there can be a registry.  For every perceived wrong, there can be a registry.  The potential is endless.

And until one’s name pops up on one, the good people cheer.  Hooray, we’re safe from the evil people!  Our children are safe. Society is safe. 

Whether one frames this concern as a slippery slope, initiated with the most despised in society, sex offenders, and then spreading throughout as a means to attack any putative group against whom somebody has a beef, or as the freedom of the internet to smear at will, the potential for abuse is patent,   That there’s mileage to be had is without question.  It seems like everybody hates somebody, so why not create a Registry to make them a public enemy, inform their neighbors.  If you’re really lucky, get them murdered for their wrongs.

Whether these smear websites are run privately or become part of the institutional retribution of government in a legislative effort to pander for votes, the harm they do is enormous.   Just as the sex offender registries have already grossly exceeded their initial purpose, rounding up people whose offense isn’t even sex-related and pose no threat and destroying any chance of leading a law-abiding life, each of these offers the opportunity for absurdly wrong accusations, incredible and permanent destruction of lives and the creation of classes of people who will live in perpetual internet taint.

But hey, as long as you’re one of the good people, why should you care?  It’s not like anybody would put you on a registry, right?

Update:  Rick Horowitz raises yet another ripe opportunity, the Gang Registry.  I wonder if the Boy Scouts count?  After all, they’ve got their colors.

18 thoughts on “If One Registry Is Good… (Updated)

  1. Peter Ramins

    We will eventually come full circle with the “National Adulterers’ Registry and Database Act” (NARDA, gotta have a catchy acronym) which, in addition to adding philandering spouses to a list and registry and searchable website, will require them to stitch (or come on, technology has changed: screen press) a scarlet “A” to all their clothing.

    And the majority of voters will see nothing wrong with this, because, well, they don’t intend to get caught.

  2. SHG

    I realize you think you’re funny. You obviously didn’t get my message the other day that I don’t. 

  3. SHG

    No one ever does, but they sure cry like a baby when it’s their turn.  Oh, the injustice of it all when it’s their name on some list.

  4. Peter Ramins

    Of course then we’ll have “Adulterers’ Camps” springing up under overpasses and in lightly wooded lots on the outskirts of cities because we can’t have them living close to schools or churches and PLEASE keep them out of MY neighborhood.

    But wait, maybe forcing a bunch of adulterers into living in a very constrained set of locations was a bad idea, because, come on – we KNOW they FORNICATE and that’s practically against the law! Better ship ’em off to some island somewhere, out of sight, out of mind.

  5. Lorraine Fay

    I have long thought this whole registry idea was a slippery slope. A grand larceny registry? Armed robbery registry? Business burglary registry? DUI registry? Speeding registry? Herbal incense registry? On and on and on.

  6. Windypundit

    There used to be a famous list of people and organizations that had done business with apartheid South Africa that illustrated some of the worst features of these lists: The people who added you to it were anonymous, they didn’t have to explain why, and there was no defined process for removal or review.

    I think both the no-fly list and the list of terrorist organizations work that way, and I assume that gang databases work that way too.

    There are lots of private or semi-private lists as well. Checkfree maintains (or used to maintain) a list of troublesome bank customers which banks would search before issuing checking accounts. Since it contained no credit information, it wasn’t covered by the usual sunshine laws. Good luck getting off a list they don’t even tell you exists.

    I’ve also heard of police organizations that run databases for sharing information about militants and troublemakers. Since these were private, they weren’t subject to much oversight.

  7. SHG

    I’m constrained to disregard your comment because you are on the list of known anarcho-syndicalists with photographic tendencies.

  8. Jim Keech

    I would ALMOST support a patchouli users registry, but they give enough advance warning on their own.

  9. Ernie Menard

    This, the publication or assembly with intent to publish lists of persons that have ostensibly committed some anti-social act is something that could be legislated. [At least the class of victims would be smaller than the anti-nasty workplace legislation].

    I realize that causes of action do exist for at least some of the list possibilities that commenter’s have offered. For example a person whose name was included on the fictional NARDA [“National Adulterers’ Registry and Database Act”] could have a cause of action for Defamation per se in those states where adultery remains illegal.

    I think that this issue is worthy of well thought out strictly interpretable legislation. This would be a very difficult piece of legislation to compose. I actually sat down after first reading this post and attempted an off-the-cuff iteration. Even an off- the-cuff outline is difficult because to paraphrase Scott’s comment on what should be the obvious – a law has to be written so that when taken to the logical extremes the law limit’s itself to the objective of the legislative intent.

    I believe that for a time I was on an unpublished word of mouth list. The title of the list would have been, “He did something, but we don’t know what.”

  10. common sense

    Let’s not stop until we get a BAD POLITICIANS Registry!! Any politican who gets elected on family values but has an affair, any politician with a DUI, any politician who displays unethical behavior, any politician who does not pay or is late paying taxes, etc. It would be as large as the sex offender registry in a matter of days! All sarcasm aside, I work in a large University System, and I have seen, first-hand, the lives of older teens and young 20-somethings, who made terrible mistakes but are not threat to children, absolutely ruined by the bloated, ineffective list and restrictions that build politicial bases for pandering politicians. The public is educated by Nancy Grace.

  11. Albert Nygren

    I agree 100% with your article. With this trend toward registries, innocent people can, by false claim and innuendo have their lives ruined.

    An instance where someone could have their rights taken away without due process recently came to my attention in MN. MN has a “shall issue” law for acquiring a permit to carry a handgun in MN. In order to get a permit to carry you must do several things and meet certain qualifications.

    Certainly it is reasonable for felons to not be allowed a carry permit as one of their punishments is that they are no longer legally allowed to be in possession of any kind of firearm.

    Another thing that will disqualify you from getting a permit is if you are a member of a “gang” and are on the “gang list”. Now, emotionally I agree with that but what if the gang member has never been convicted of a crime? That doesn’t make any difference, no permit. No due process.

    To me the most egregious part of the law is that there is another list. That is the associates of gang members list. This list is for people who are not gang members but have been seen in the company of gang members.

    I certainly understand the desire to be careful and not give carry permits to people who might use a gun during the commission of a crime. But what about due process? Isn’t this the case of a person being denied of a statutory right without ever being convicted of a crime?

    How did this situation come about where people are denied rights because they might commit a crime? When I was a boy in the 1940’s I was told in school that some of the principles in our justice system was that you could not be arrested for thinking about committing a crime. That would be in the realm of having “thought police”. A person was also not supposed to lose rights because they “might” commit a crime in the future. If that were the case, the government could put anyone in prison because how could anyone prove that he would not commit a crime in the future. If there were laws like that then we would not have any Liberty at all. It would be just like it was in the days of Kings who could put anyone in prison just because they wanted to.

    But isn’t that the case with some of the sex offender laws? That some people have served their sentences and are not on parole but are restricted from living near schools and things like that because they are considered a high risk for a repeat offense?

    In that case a person has lost some of their rights because they might commit a crime in the future. Again, that means that none of us are safe from the government. We might be safe from a reasonable person in office but the person who now is in the office of the President doesn’t meet that criteria.

    I know that some of these people have a mental illness that is difficult to treat and possibly impossible to cure. But this trend of putting people on lists and then denying them their rights without due process is a slippery slope that leads to complete loss of Liberty.

Comments are closed.