MySpace won't give names of sex offenders - MSNBC

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said “it’s sad that MySpace is going to protect the privacy of sex offenders over the safety of children.

Then again, I always say, "Perspective is a burden only to those who have it." (No, I really do say that... Ask anyone who knows me.)

It should come as no great surprise that when any class of citizen becomes involuntarily disenfranchised from their civil liberties, you can bet yours is just as likely to be the next one up at bat. Something I suspect MSNBC readers like 'USAF_Intel' didn't think about when giving into their personal (or professional) instincts.

I dare say nobody likes the notion that any portion of our society has devolved to the point that they are willing to prey on our children. However, if they're online, then they're on the outside (of prison), which means they've paid their debt to society. This in turn means that they (once again) have the same civil liberties that you and I do (although probably somewhat diminished by persistent court orders regarding the offender's PHYSICAL proximity to the class of their prior victims). Otherwise, they're entitled to the same protections as the rest of us, including your children.

As a professional in the information security industry, I walk this line nearly everyday; the line between the interests of the individual and those with the power to abuse it; between those who flagrantly ignore our social norms and those who are tasked to insure normalcy. As the Valerie Plame case has recently revealed, far too many people in positions of authority wield it with enormous impunity.

If people wish to be concerned about something, then perhaps they might consider the cavalier attitude of law makers (as seen above) at circumventing the laws that supposedly apply to them as well. I'd bet that that most attorneys wouldn't care to be openly subject to the sterotypical perceptions about attorneys, even though a great many of them are fine examples of what attorneys should always have been. If that were the case, I suspect we'd likely have a lot fewer lawyers these days.

Granted, having one's own privacy violated is far easier to endure than having one's child violated, I agree. But violating a sex offender's right to privacy as a citizen restored will not prevent them from violating your child. If you're so inclined to condemn the Internet as a haven for predators, then I suggest you go outside right now, and whack down all the bushes in your neighborhood becuase they might afford a predator a place to obscure themselves. Trust me, our world would become a rather barren place.

It is not our government's job to raise our children for us, nor is it MySpace's responsibility to do the government's research work for them (on the cheap, I might add, since background checks are not free). Far too many lazy and/or overworked parents have abdicated that responsibility at a great cost to everyone's civil liberties thus far.

We each should endeavor to remember that those same laws which were created to protect 'you from me' are already working overtime to protect us from ourselves. It's time to stand up, speak out, and protect our rights. Even if it means protecting those of others you can't abide. And when you do, you'll be preserving the rights of those children you're so worried about as well.