Oh, no! Criminals on MySpace!

Puh-leeze. So, there are people who are registered sex offenders who also have a profile on MySpace. You know what? There might be people who have served time for murder on there, too. Oh, but wait... it's only sex offenders who are required to carry their crimes with them all of their lives.

Yeah, I have a problem with the whole idea of registering sex offenders. They have served their time. If they have such a huge tendency to commit similar crimes again, how about we make their sentences longer? What a crazy idea.

The article states:
Wired News ran the names of randomly selected registered sex offenders in San Francisco and neighboring Sonoma County through MySpace's user search engine, and turned up no fewer than five men whose self-reported names, photographs, ages, astrological signs, locations and (in two instances) heights matched those of profiles on the state's online sex offender registry.

and

All of their online profiles, which understandably make no mention of their crimes, were surprisingly easy to find.

Ok, so then anyone can do the same. I don't think the people at Wired News have some sort of special skills that allowed them to find these profiles.

The article also points out that these people are not breaking any laws by having profiles on the site. Of course the don't include their criminal history in their profile. Other types of criminals probably don't either. And, OMG, they MISPORTRAY (which according to Merriam-Webster isn't a word?) themselves!!! Shock! Horror! I'm sure NONE of the teens using the site do THAT!

Blech!

MySpace
sex+offenders
rant