Reginald Fields, Plain Dealer (OHIO)
Columbus- A state lawmaker is promoting a Cuyahoga County company's idea for a new electronic device that could warn people when a sex offender is near.
The personal alert system, called Offendar (short for offender radar), would be about the size of a key fob and would vibrate when an offender wearing a monitoring bracelet is within 50 yards.
State Sen. Tim Grendell, a champion of lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key legislation, has invited the Chagrin Falls company behind the technology to demonstrate it today during a Statehouse hearing.
"If there is someone in your area that the state has decided should be wearing an ankle bracelet, you have no idea," said Jerry Pignolet, one of the principals in Offendar LLC. Offendar "is not going to deter him, but it gives you an opportunity to gather your family, get in the car and lock the doors." [Ed: Extraordinary! These are dangerously stupid people!]
But David Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, said the system plays on fears in the community while penalizing people who have already served time in prison for their crimes.
Singleton called Offendar "utterly ridiculous and absurd."
"What are we trying to do, make it impossible for people to get on their feet again and be productive citizens?" he said. "This is crazy, and I'm outraged by it, because it doesn't make my daughter any safer."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said Grendell shouldn't waste state taxpayers' time or money on such a system.
"The assumption that someone once did something bad and is still a danger to everyone else is simply false," said Jeffrey Gamso of the ACLU. "It's going to keep people scared, when the majority of these people are unlikely to ever offend again." Full Story
State Sen. Tim Grendell wants to test 'sex offender radar'
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So many people who with so much time to surf the internet joined together to harm so many people by use of so many internet company's being forced to post sex offender information through laws created by the ignoring public who for a short wile put faith in government law makers to allow them to place their safety in the hands of government instead of just looking after ourselves and our own family's. [See "M" the move] Now the many sex offender who have made an effort for years to just get on with their lives in the face of unconscionable public humiliation need a class action suite against the federal government. Federal responsibility for what has happened in this country due to federal involvement. Any creation of isolation by any communication of media in any country is directly eroding or democracy. America is the land of the free. Americans are free to do good or bad. When America posted face on the internet the American federal government denied them the right to forgiveness and I do not think any American, government official or internet surfer today knows the day and the hour nor do they have that right to denie forgiveness.
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