
Supreme Court Says People Can’t Be Banned From The Internet - ForFreedom
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170620/10455137631/supreme-court-says-you-cant-ban-people-internet-no-matter-what-theyve-done.shtml
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yaakov34
People are commenting here without reading or understanding the ruling [edit:
I should say that headlines like the one techdirt gave their article are also
misleading; they are playing up the "banned from the internet" angle]. What
happened is that North Carolina passed a law making it a crime for someone
previously convicted of a sex crime to access social media sites (unless the
site completely prohibits access except by adults, which most sites do not
do). The court ruled that this law is unconstitutional on First Amendment
grounds.

The court did not rule that "no one may be banned from the internet" an so on.
A specific person can still have conditions attached by the courts to his
release; for example, it's common for judges to impose conditions like "no use
of computers" on convicted malicious hackers as part of their probation. This
hasn't been made illegal. Restricting internet access of current prisoners
certainly hasn't been held illegal. What's been held unconstitutional is
criminalizing a priori certain modes of speech by a broad class of people.

EDIT2: Since this is apparently attracting a little bit of controversy, I want
to add that I did not express any opinion about whether it's good to ban
people from using computers or whatever; I just wanted to describe what the
ruling says. I am actually not a fan of the general concept of not restoring
people's rights after they serve their punishment, although I think it's
justified in specific cases.

~~~
btilly
OMG, another terrible "think of the children" law.

Did you know that 1/4 of all sex offenders offended as juveniles and are not
particularly likely to reoffend as adults?

Did you know that well under 5% of "convicted" people actually were convicted?
The rest plea bargained out of a combination of not being able to afford
trial, and facing much worse potential penalties if they tried to fight it.

Before heaping more punishments on people who have been through our
(in)justice system, we need to fix the system so that its results are more
believable.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Edit: Misread parent.

~~~
acjohnson55
I think you may have read that wrong. I think he's saying that full 25% (the
ones who offended as juveniles) are unlikely to be repeat offenders. The
remaining 75%, convicted as adults, are presumably a much bigger concern.

~~~
btilly
Exactly right. In fact adult pedophiles have extremely high recidivism rates.

It appears that pedophile is as much a sexual orientation as homosexual, and
is as hard to change. But where gay people do no particular harm except to the
sensibilities of conservatives, pedophiles do a lot of damage.

However a 12 year old who sends a naked picture of themselves to a friend is
treated by the law in the same way as a pedophile. Ditto an 18 year old whose
17 year old girlfriend's mother gets unhappy. As a father whose children are
hitting puberty now, this fact is very scary.

I warn my children, but one mistake could destroy their lives, and there is no
shortage of people who it has happened to.

~~~
rhizome
_In fact adult pedophiles have extremely high recidivism rates._

Got any support for this? I'm finding contradictory information.

~~~
btilly
First hit in Google was
[https://www.smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec1/ch5_recidivism.html](https://www.smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec1/ch5_recidivism.html)
which makes the following key points.

1\. The measured recidivism rate will depend on time frame. The longer the
frame, the higher it is. Most studies use a shorter time frame.

2\. Most sex crimes do not get reported. Most studies rely on reported crimes
because it is obviously easier to get data for them.

3\. Most re-arrests are for non-sexual offenses. But a non-sexual crime when
carried out by a pedophile may have a sexual motivation.

That said, in the largest available long term study, the 10 year rearrest for
another sex crime is 20%. The actual re-offense rate is certainly much higher.

Making it personal, I was abused as a child. I know two other people who that
person abused, and I have strong evidence that there were many more before
that. However looking at his legal history, you'd only see a single arrest and
conviction for public indecency in the 1960s.

I have seen surveys indicating that the most unusual thing about this example
is that he was arrested and convicted at all. That perfectly fits with what
I've heard from other people who were abused. Most of the abusers were serial
offenders, few were convicted.

Moving on, visit [http://virped.org/](http://virped.org/) to get an idea of
how hard it is to be a pedophile who is attempting to never offend. I fully
respect their attempts to be better people, but won't be letting my children
be around anyone who I suspect is in that group...my reasons should be
obvious...

~~~
rhizome
I'm sorry for your experience and I won't dive into your response to it, but
as to your points they're all incredibly hand-wavey and #2 & #3 are especially
magical thinking. This isn't to say that they aren't so, but unless it's
possible to prove them they're pretty tenuous reasons with which to shape
policy.

~~~
btilly
Think of it what you will. But to #2, googling randomly,
[http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_...](http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-
packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf) claims that only 12% of child
sexual abuse is reported to the authorities, and cites a study on the topic.
The majority of such studies that I've seen are based on surveys.

On #3, anyone with experience in how the legal system works will agree that
while how often it happens may be hard to quantify, but it certainly does
happen. And probably not very rarely.

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ransom1538
After a prisoner has served their said time [for felons]:

1) remove their right to vote [in florida 1/4 african americans can't vote]
[i]

2) force them to divulge they are felons to all new employers

3) force them to tell their neighbors they are criminals [sex crime cases
which often only involve one witness testimony]

4) garnish their wages

5) seize their property [drug cases]

6) place them on parole to increase mental fear [at any moment they can return
to prison without trial]

7) force them to provide random urine tests and body searches [creates anxiety
for people with addiction]

8) force them into community service mixed with other felons

This is a system designed to create crime.

[i] [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-
bl...](https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-black-
citizens-cant-vote-a-new-referendum-could-change-that/)

~~~
kasey_junk
6/7/8 are not after a prisoner has "served their said time" its an alternative
to that.

~~~
mschuster91
Oh no, 6/7 are not just alternatives.

Parole after release is common (e.g. you're sentenced to X years, get released
earlier at Y years and are now on parole for X-Y years). Depending on country,
a simple traffic ticket(!) can be a parole violation, so you get why this is
an issue.

Same goes for alcohol and drug testing, again often used in combination with
parole.

~~~
kbenson
> e.g. you're sentenced to X years, get released earlier at Y years and are
> now on parole for X-Y years

I think that's exactly what was meant as an "alternative" to serving their
time. You state it yourself, they were sentenced to X, but only serve Y behind
bars. They are offered the choice of some years outside prison but with
restrictions _instead of_ that time in prison.

~~~
mschuster91
The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts. Making
"everyday crime" (like loitering, jaywalking, speeding, "driving with a broken
light") a possible breach of parole defeats this purpose and thus is no
alternative. It's keeping someone in constant fear.

~~~
kbenson
> The point of parole should be to prevent future criminal acts.

I think you mean the point of enforcing the rules of and revoking parole is to
prevent future crime? Sure. But parole, which is specifically something handed
out for good behavior in prison and is _in lieu of prison_ , is still better
than prison. They are still serving a sentence, and it's not as bad as it
would be in prison. There's lots of problems with how we treat felons and
restrict their futures, but I do not consider strict parole rules part of
that, given it's during the time allotted for their original sentence. Just
because they are out of prison, doesn't mean their punishment is complete (in
this case).

Put simply, in all cases I can think of, parole is better than prison, and
that's what it should be compared to, because that's the other option (no
parole). Comparing it to being completely free for the purpose of deciding
whether it's fair is nonsensical to me.

Edit: s/Comparing it to not being/Comparing it to being/

------
dis-sys
This is now interesting. Apparently prisoners in the US and many other
countries are not allowed to have Internet access. In the US there is a system
in place that allows inmates to communicate text only emails. I don't think
you can call that plain text messaging "the Internet" in 2017.

With this supreme court ruling, how prisons in the US are going to allow
inmates to have access to the real Internet? I mean you can not ban those
inmates from accessing the Internet, right?

~~~
denzil_correa
Ban != Access

You can NOT ban someone from the Internet but you may deny access to Internet
in prisons.

~~~
haggy
I'm confused by your statement. If "Ban != Access" then what's preventing
courts from simply denying access (not a "Ban" under your assertion above) to
people outside of prisons as well?

~~~
Qwertious
Suppose a state doesn't bother to install an internet connection in the
prison, and confiscates phones with mobile data. This is denying access.

Suppose someone is caught with an internet phone in jail and is hauled in
front of a judge. If it's _banned_ , then they can have their jail term
increased.

~~~
haggy
Yea I understand the "If you're in prison" side of this but I feel like
asserting "Ban != Access" makes the general public (i.e not in prison) side of
this MUCH fuzzier.

------
elkos
If I recall correctly Kevin Mitnick was banned from using a phone or a
computer quite a while back. Right?

~~~
ionised
Well they had to.

They couldn't very well give him the opportunity to initial a nuclear attack
by whistling down the phone could they?

------
brandonmenc
re: sex offender lists and sentencing

The implication is that the people on the list are still a threat. If that's
true, shouldn't they still be in prison?

~~~
Tomte
No. You don't get thrown into prison for being a threat. You get there for a
specific action.

~~~
Udik
On the other hand, you can only be considered a threat as a consequence of
specific actions you took in the past. When you get out of prison that means
that, according to the law, you're no longer a threat, and there shouldn't be
any reason or justification for limiting your freedom or shaming you publicly
by putting your name on a list.

~~~
piptastic
Actually, being put under probation after release means you are still
considered a threat.

~~~
belorn
While I can't speak of US law, being on probation in Sweden is just an other
name for a shortened sentence. The general idea is that you spend a portion of
the prison time outside, but under strict conditions.

------
bitwize
What's gonna end up happening is law enforcement is going to strike deals with
the major sites like Facebook and Twitter, which _are_ the internet now, to
ban anyone on the sex offender rolls -- and nothing much of value will be
lost. These companies are not ready for the shitstorm of outrage that will
ensue when it is discovered that they are _allowing_ predators to communicate
with children.

~~~
kodt
Isn't it advantageous for law enforcement to keep as many criminals as
possible on social media? Many criminals these days are caught because they
boast about their illegal actions (or live stream them) on Facebook.

------
jorgeleo
This is interesting... then what happens to the concept of 3 strikes and out?

~~~
Navarr
3 strikes is not law, it's policy of some ISPs. They can still do whatever
they want.

~~~
belorn
Its voluntary system in the US, while law in several other countries.

~~~
Navarr
Other countries also aren't beholden to US Supreme Court rulings so...

------
ericfrederich
Are prisoners people? Should inmates have access to the internet?

------
cronjobber
Does this apply to seizing domains?

