Just to clarify, Live Journal has an equally stringent privacy policy. See para XVI i of their Terms of Service.
OK. Carry on.
Nothing. But “debate” seems pretty far removed from what a lot of folks are doing in here. What I mostly see is a lot of bitching about the administration of the board, which is not “debate.” Note the substantial difference between the “Was it wrong to disclose a registered sex offender’s name and address?” line of discussion in this thread and the parts that go “The admins of this board don’t give a shit about the whole thing, they don’t CARE that we’re concerned over the way this place is run, and they probably wouldn’t even have done jack shit if we hadn’t kept at them.”
Really? To me, this was something of a tangent, and not really what the thread (as it has evolved) is about.
Even with such kvetching being tangent to the core issues, some good came of it: I appreciated that Arnold coming into the thread to put a word in for his colleagues.
What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not referring to any provision, section or subsection, I haven’t the faintest idea about American law. I merely said that
TubaDiva should have been aware at the time that her action could cause ‘legal concerns’ which it obviously did. I think you were reading through your ass…
Ah, I think I see the problem. I don’t know how it works in Wales, but in the US, legal concerns usually result from being concerned about the law–and the law is written with sections and subsections.
Perhaps you were saying that her actions caused concerns which were not illegal? We may have misunderstood.
Daniel
My take on Avenger’s statement regarding “legal concerns” was this: his impression was that, at the time of her posting SM’s info on LJ, TD did not know whether or not her actions would make her or the Chicago Reader vulnerable to a winnable lawsuit.
I think that’s a point worth considering.
Why would the Chicago Reader have been consulting lawyers about the subject if they were not ‘concerned about the law’? Do they have some kind of charitable benevolence towards the legal profession that causes them to entirely unnesesarily pay lawyers fees? I expect that there was some area of the law that caused them particular concern, I don’t need to know what that was for it to be blindingly obvious that the concern existed. Same as if I see a house with smoke billowing out of it and a load of firemen standing around spraying water into it, I would feel comfortable saying that the house was on fire, without knowing exactly where the fire was concentrated.
I did not know that. If it’s true, that sucks. Still, if a RSO is clearly trying to entice a minor on the net I can’t imagine the cops wouldn’t take it seriously. Of course they could have fucked up (which wouldn’t be terribly surprising), but does that give someone the right to take matters into their own hands? And where does one draw the line?
It’s not that simple. Last I heard, the scum mentioned in the link still has a penchant for hanging around schoolyards.
You’re putting the horse before the cart. They were threatened with a lawsuit, so they may have consulted with an attorney to determine whether there was any basis for that threatened lawsuit. That’s a long way from being concerned about any particular law.
commenting only on certain specific information in this thread:
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Depending on your jurisdiction, “RSO” can encompass many different acts, not simply “child molestation”. For example, a client of mine (Female) was required to register on the sex offender registry, her crime was running a phone sex business out of her home. (yes, I saw her criminal record, yes, I saw the registry, no I"m not going to give out links - believe me or not as you choose). OTher folks I"ve worked w/ who had to register included a 17 year old who got his 15 year old g/f pregnant, another who was convicted of “seduction” defined in State of MI as the “seducing or debauching an unmarried woman”. Sex offense laws in MI include physical contact of breast, groin, buttocks, thigh, so a quick squeeze on the leg can get you a CSC conviction (second or fourth degree, depending on other factors). I suggest to you that making generalities about folks having to register may not always be accurate.
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again, depending on jurisdictions, some one can be required to register, yet not be on supervision. IME, if you’re not on supervision, all this talk about can “RSO do such and such” is moot. Here in MI, IME, while on supervision, there probably will be all sorts of regualtions about what they can and cannot do. However, once they’re off supervision (parole or probation) the only requirement generally is “must register, notify of change of address w/in x amount of time, must confirm address even if not moved every so often”.
YMMV.
Dang. This is a long thread. Maybe we should change the name to "What Would TubaDiva’s Suspension Be Like If It Had Been Imposed By Different Dopers?"
A business is ALWAYS concerned about the law, period. Many businesses have lawyers on retainer, or permanently on the Staff, who are there to answer questions and work on legal matters. They get paid whether they’re checking out specious claims of “lawsuits” or playing Half Life 2.
I consult my lawyers nearly every week on some subject or another. I have 6 to choose from, in fact. I am employing one right now on my project just to provide a sanity check on some International finance regulations. That doesn’t mean I believe I did anything wrong, it means I want to make sure I don’t do and will not in the future, through ignorance or accident, do anything wrong.
I’m concerned about the law right now. I’m also concerned about the salad cream I ate with asparagus for dinner, as well as the price of coal and airline tickets to Phoenix. None of that means there’s anything unusual. Consulting a lawyer is not prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, at least not outside of the Court of Assholery.
If someone threatens you with a lawsuit, what will be your response - to seek and employ legal counsel, or to say “I haven’t done anything wrong. I have no need to worry about lawyers and such.” If it’s the latter, good luck with all that…
Let me try an analogy of my own: what you’re seeing is smoke coming from a cooker, and speculating that sometime in the next hour there may or may not be a fire in the house.
Right. Of course I was not claiming it was. I merely opined that TubaDiva should have been aware at the time of her actions that they could lead to ‘legal concerns’ and Minty Green started demanding to know which law I was claiming had been infringed.
I don’t see that you are disagreeing with me then. TubaDiva took a course of action that she clearly hadn’t consulted a lawyer in advance on despite the fact that it should have been clear that there may, at least, have been a possibility that there could have been implications. Is that not the exact kind of situation where you are saying that you would always take that precaution first? Isn’t that the exact kind of situation where you are questionning the judgement of someone who doesn’t do that?
I’m not in any way qualified to decide whether any actual laws were infringed, broken or slightly bruised, but I don’t need to be legally qualified for it to make me doubt TubaDiva’s judgement.
I understand what you are saying. It seems different from the way you said it earlier, but that doesn’t matter so long as everyone communicates.
As to asking lawyers first, I can no longer comment on what actually happened and the specific events involved due to conflict of interest. Speaking purely for myself and not saying anything specific about this situation, yes, I would have had some legal guidance or legal precedent or prior legal advice to follow. Whether or not this applied to this case and person(s) involved is not something I’m at liberty to discuss.
Making a right turn at a red light could also lead to “legal concerns,” but we would be goddamned idiots if we consulted an attorney at every intersection – which cuts against your pointless point that Tuba Diva didn’t consult with a lawyer before posting. What I was addressing was the repeated statements or implications of various posters who asserted that she had violated the law by posting a registered sex offender’s publicly-available information from a state sex offender registry. When it comes to what is or is not legal, I’m a put up or shut up kind of guy.
For what purpose are convicted sex offenders required to register with their local police?
Do the local police have to make this information available to the public? If so, why?
First Hypothetical: You are new to a neighborhood. You have three children under the age of ten. A man previously convicted of child molestation lives next door. Would you be grateful if this information was shared with you by another neighbor or would you be outraged that your next door neighbor’s privacy had been violated? If no one cautioned you and your little girls were molested, how would you feel about the neighbors who said nothing?
Second hypothetical: You live in a neighborhood where a convicted child molester also lives. A new family with three children under the age of ten moves in next door to him. Do you wait until the molester behaves suspiciously? Do you ask the police to inform the new neighbors? Do you caution the new neighbors yourself? Do you say nothing and hope for the best?
I am skeptical about what anyone says about contacting minors in email after a SO conviction. I knew a guy who was accused but never convicted or even tried. Yet a judge ordered him not to take a job or participate in activities where he would be in contact with minor children. The laws may vary from state to state, but if a judge can do that without a conviction, I can’t imagine such leniency in other cases where there have been convictions. I could be absolutely wrong, though.
Do the right thing, Tuba, and resign as Administrator. This isn’t your first bad call. It’s just your biggest mistake to date, but you have a list of them. You also have an inability to admit when you are wrong, even when it is obvious to everyone else on the planet. Resign, Resign, Resign. That’s called accountability. It’s admitting you were wrong and taking action to make ammends. In your case, resigning is the only way to achieve this.
Not a chance. he was the lowest risk of sex offender, the odds of him striking over the internet were probably insanely low. This is likely just a cover for the administration violating member’s privacy and banning people out of personal dislike.
Taking this issue public had little to do with purported intents. The entire matter could have been handled in private to achieve the same ends. For every sycophant who tries to justify the activity, there’s still plenty readers who know that it does not follow. It was a fucking mistake. The response to that mistake was minor cover-up (can a cover-up be public? --sure) and a request to STFU about it. Add this up with previously sketchy decisions and it seems clear, contrary to minty’s ideas, that “they don’t care” is actually presenting something of substance.
They don’t care. They don’t want to run this place like a business, they want to find a way to tolerate our existence with the minimum amount of effort. Our mods and admins care in an abstract sense, they like the SDMB, they like the dope, the whole ignorance-fighting quest and all that, until push comes to shove, then it is a stew of half-assed apologies (at best), lame cover-ups, and a disregard for paying customers.
I don’t know what forums people read that they don’t care if people leave, but since the switch to pay, and surely before, some people I respected (even if I didn’t like them) have left. I’m pretty sure that is going to happen again come renewal time.
The SDMB is a lame attempt at a public forum for discussion and ignorance-fighting at this point. Every time there is an upheaval there is this kind of outcry, I know it can be said. But it can also be said that every time there is an upheaval people do leave. Eventually everyone will reach their limit of tolerance if the behavior of the administration remains the same.
I have no intent to attribute ill-will to anyone. A place like this will always undergo changes. If it were just some random walk perhaps the odds would say that the overall SDMB would remain true to itself, but there have been a pattern of choices over the 4 years I’ve been here that suggest otherwise. There is nothing that this situation that by itself warrants a re-evaluation of what the Dope means to me, but this is not an isolated event in an otherwise spotless history, now, is it? The Lynn/alderban thing was the real eye-opener for me. Of course I was concerned then, but it was just one event, just one straw. This followup event is just a straw. But sooner or later, there are just too many straws. Maybe Left Hand of Dorkness sees it as acceptable behavior, and amazingly because he’s been told it is acceptable by the very people we should be questioning. If that is who will be sticking around to provide discussion, if that is the path we are heading down, if calling a spade a spade doesn’t pass muster for discussion… well, enjoy yourselves, because I no longer can enjoy you. I don’t know where I can go to read and participate in the kind of interesting discussions I’ve had here in my time, but signs indicate that will be happening here less and less anyway even if I were to stay. Less fresh blood, a steady leaking of people…
I of course wish I had the option of withdrawing my membership but remaning a member of the community. That choice was restricted last year by tying posting privileges to membership rather than other desired benefits. But if I just give the boards my money and a stern finger-shaking, well, that is hardly anything. This past year was a trial period for the pay-to-play. Trial is over.
Maybe I’ve not added enough content to make my disappearance register except maybe on a few radars. Maybe it won’t mean a thing. Maybe some will be happy to see me leave and dance on my grave by buying up some other memberships as has been suggested. I’m not doing this for the approval of Lord Ashtar, or to see where I stand with any particular poster. I do it because it must be clear that the message is meant for the Reader. To me, you’re not worth the money anymore, no matter how much content I get from GQ, no matter how interesting the discussions are in GD even still. You’ve made enough choices I disagree with over the years without clear indication of shaping up. I know it isn’t the Reader’s job to please me, so I am not asking for anything at all. I’m just not paying up next time around. We’ll have to go our separate ways, perhaps for now, perhaps for good.
It doesn’t matter if Tuba resigns or not. The choices were made, wrongly IMO, and so I am doing the only thing I can to respond to that. If the SDMB was my employee, I’d fire it. If it were my boss, I’d quit. But it is a product for sale, and I’m no longer buying. The SDMB I signed up for was worth an easy $10 a month which I would have gladly paid just to have some trivial bonuses like PMs and configurable titles. The SDMB I leave isn’t worth $7 a year.