The benefit to the innocent outweighs harm to the guilty
A group of Oregon sex offenders has gone to court to block the state police from listing the offenders' names and addresses on the Internet, as permitted by an act of the 1999 Legislature.
A lawyer for the offenders says that the decision to list the names on the Internet is an action that the offenders should have a right to contest, as when the state labels an offender as "predatory." The offenders are being denied due process, says the lawyer.
This is a legal fishing expedition. While there are legitimate (though not compelling) arguments to make against the list, the due process argument is a red herring.
Listing the names is not a new designation or penalty. It is simply a decision to make more easily available a public list based on public records. The difference is that the list will be accessible and searchable, making the information easier to use and the names
of offenders easier to find.We can sympathize with someone who has served his time and paid his debt to society, and feels that society is demanding a pound of flesh in continuing to make this embarrassing, damaging information public.
But embarrassing or damaging as it is, it's a fact. And the offender is the one to blame for his actions, not society, not the state police and not the Internet.
Sex offenders are sometimes predatory and quite often a risk to repeat. That risk to society and the advantage of informing people about offenders outweighs the harm to offenders, who may be trying to anonymously start a new life.
Our greatest concern is about mistakes. A wrong name or address could harm an innocent person. The state needs to make sure it has reliable information, and that it quickly corrects any errors. But this is the information age, and this is information the public
has a right to have.Rites and rights
Editorial writers and cartoonists already are caricaturing the 2000 presidential election as a case of the bland leading the bland (with the exception of a possible run by actor, rogue and bon vivant Warren Beatty).
We must confess to a similar shortage of enthusiasm about the race. But before we all yawn and tune out, we should cast our eyes across the sea and take a look at the voters of East Timor, who welcomed a chance to vote in a national election this week with
a turnout of more than 98 percent.This is a story about not just East Timor, which has for more than 20 years been an unwilling part of Indonesia, but also about Indonesia, where new democratic leaders promised to let the East Timorese decide their own destiny.
And they did. The choice this week was whether East Timor will become its own country; East Timor was a Portuguese colony until invaded by Indonesia in 1975.
It's cliche to note the contrast between the fervor with which new democracies greet the rites of their new rights and the way Americans take those rites for granted. But it's worth pausing nonetheless to remember how lucky we are to have the luxury of greeting
elections and transfers of power with casualness and calm.For voters in places like East Timor, deciding their own fate in democratic fashion is no yawning matter. It's worth braving long lines and the even violent attack to participate in deciding their future. We suspect those people long for a day when participating
in such events can be taken for granted.Contact your representatives
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Editorial
Board |
| Robert L. Hunter,
Editor |
| Julie Wurth,
Managing Editor |
| John N. Reid,
Executive Editor |
