Listless in Maine
The Canadian Privacy Law blog reports a CBC story about a young Nova Scotia man who killed two residents of Maine. He apparently found all of their information via the state's sex offender registry.
I'm sure some people have no sympathy for the deaths of the sex offenders. But, they'd done their time and certainly didn't deserve to be murdered. It's unfortunate that interesting privacy cases always involve someone with a dubious background. If it was a database of convicted bribe-taking Congressman and lobbyists, I'm sure the outcry would be loud and shrill.
The sex registries are controversial, although becoming extremely popular in the United States. The conflict usually centers around the idea that once someone has paid their dues, done jail time or whatever else was mandated by the courts, that they should be like everyone else (more or less). Some of the requirements put on sex offenders seem to imply that they have a permanent stigma attached to them, that they've never truly paid their debt to society.
In some areas, convicted sex offenders have to go around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and introducing themselves as rapists, molesters or whatever other term might be appropriate. Many states have been eager to adopt the registries that publish current personal information about any residents that have been convicted of a sex crime.
IMHO, this smacks of death-by-psycho. Forcing this information into public databases (many accessible on the Internet) virtually tags these people as future victims. I'm not even sure it helps society so much. I've had a few friends that have found out that a convicted sex offender had moved into their neighborhood. They were terrified, having their kids play in different areas and watching the felon like a hawk.
Society should think long and hard about ever using erosion of privacy as a penalty for a crime. Only the most primitive of peoples attack their enemies by undermining their dignity.
Posted on April 19, 2006
