Background investigation release form

[CecilOne]

Originally Posted by mcrowder

- the background checks that you all seem to feel are horrible invasions of privacy can be performed easily, quickly, and WITHOUT your consent, should someone choose to do one.

And that is exactly what is wrong, wrong, wrong.

[mcrowder]

Originally Posted by CecilOne

And that is exactly what is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Look! At that thing way over there! It's my point. You missed it entirely.

You may be right that it's WRONG WRONG WRONG. I'm not arguing that.

But it is true. And it has nothing to do with signing a form for a background check. If I knew extremely minimal information about you, I could run a background check on you at minimal cost. I would not have to get a signed piece of paper from you, and I would not be breaking any laws. If you think it is a horrible thing that I can do this, then by all means do what you can to fix the situation, but it is what it is.

So ... asking you for your permission is truly a moot point. There is no loss of liberty by asking for your permission - I can do it anyway.

In fact, the more I think about this... an association that was running checks for the right reasons would be smarter to simply ask, voluntarily, for permission to run a background check. And then, to save money, don't bother running the checks on anyone who gave permission, and ONLY run them on those that didn't. As long as no one knew that was your policy, it would work.

All that aside, though... all I'm saying is that since they can get your info anyway, asking for it is not a hinderance to you, and it's entirely possible that the mere act of ASKING permission will chase away someone who really DOES have no business working as an authority figure over children.

[CecilOne]

Originally Posted by mcrowder

If I knew extremely minimal information about you, I could run a background check on you at minimal cost. I would not have to get a signed piece of paper from you, and I would not be breaking any laws. ... snip ...
So ... asking you for your permission is truly a moot point. There is no loss of liberty by asking for your permission - I can do it anyway.

... snip ... all I'm saying is that since they can get your info anyway.

1) And that is exactly what is wrong, wrong, wrong

2) Not saying you are wrong, but what you describe is

3) Invading privacy is wrong, hindrance or not, especially without permission. The permission does make a difference.

[wadeintothem]

Originally Posted by CecilOne

1) And that is exactly what is wrong, wrong, wrong

2) Not saying you are wrong, but what you describe is

3) Invading privacy is wrong, hindrance or not, especially without permission. The permission does make a difference.

Criminal Records are public record and have nothing to do with a "right to privacy"

[greymule]

http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/reg_sexoffend.html

The link above is for the New Jersey sex offender registry. It gives names and mugshots of 2,173 sex offenders in New Jersey, as well as 41 fugitives. I do not know exactly what criteria get somebody listed, and obviously not every offender is known.

The lists also includes names of people who are incarcerated. However, it does not contain the name of Jesse Timmendequas, who is on death row at the moment. (It was his crime that prompted the politicians to pass Megan's law.) However, I see that a Paul Timmendequas made the list. Since that name is hardly common, I suspect it's a relative.

I looked through a lot of mugshots, but I did not recognize any umpires.

In a strange coincidence, considering what we've been talking about, on Saturday night there was a home invasion a few miles south of me, near the College of New Jersey. Three guys broke into a house, beat up and robbed a 58-year-old wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet, and forced him to call his wife and another woman and have them come home, where the three "sexually attacked" (newspaper's term) the women. When the criminals left, they took one of the women with them and ended up throwing her out of the car onto the street adjacent to the park where I do 30-40 games a summer. (Nobody has yet been apprehended.)

Update: The paper this morning says the police have caught one of the perps. He's a 16-year-old member of the Bloods. The veteran is to be released soon from the hospital after treatment for a "savage beating about the head and face."

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by greymule

http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/reg_sexoffend.html

The link above is for the New Jersey sex offender registry. It gives names and mugshots of 2,173 sex offenders in New Jersey, as well as 41 fugitives. I do not know exactly what criteria get somebody listed, and obviously not every offender is known.

Not a big fan of Megan's Law, either. It is intrusive, is a complete slap in the face of any correctional system's existing mantra of rehabilitation and, worst of all, make no allowance for exceptions.

Another government-supported, Gestapo-like tactic to placate the unknowing masses. I'll see if I can find it, but there was a blurb in the USAToday a couple months ago where a 12yo boy was convicted on a sex-crime charge because he grabbed a girl of similar age's rear end.

After the conviction, it was noted that, by law, this 12yo was required to register as a sex offender.

HELLO...Hello...hello? IS THERE ANYBODY IN THERE?

[greymule]

make no allowance for exceptions

Government uses a club, not a scalpel. Jeffrey Dahmer? Sex offender. Twelve-year-old who grabs a girl's rear end? Sex offender.

Guy caught with a trunk full of smuggled fully automatic weapons? Firearms violator. Guy has a trigger guard a quarter inch too narrow on the shotgun grandpa gave him 20 years ago? Firearms violator.

Incidentally, if that 12-year-old kid has to register as a sex offender, then so should more than half the male population of the United States, including a significant portion of the Congress and more than one former President.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by greymule

make no allowance for exceptions

Government uses a club, not a scalpel. Jeffrey Dahmer? Sex offender. Twelve-year-old who grabs a girl's rear end? Sex offender.

Guy caught with a trunk full of smuggled fully automatic weapons? Firearms violator. Guy has a trigger guard a quarter inch too narrow on the shotgun grandpa gave him 20 years ago? Firearms violator.

Incidentally, if that 12-year-old kid has to register as a sex offender, then so should more than half the male population of the United States, including a significant portion of the Congress and more than one former President.

... and the entire male population of Italy

Incidentally, (to mcrowder and others who take the position that signing the form is harmless since it is not actually required to gain access to the same information) there is a big difference (as a matter of principle) between me giving someone permission to discover personal information and them doing it anyway. There is a big difference (as a matter of principle) between something being legal and something being right. There is a big difference (as a matter of principle) between something being declared constitutional by a specific set of 9 members of the black-robed priesthood and something being actually allowed under a plain reading of the constitution. Defending our liberty is not a one-time event but a continuing battle.

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this
ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment]
To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn
around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless
field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

"Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of
government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by
slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"In a free country, every power is dangerous which is not bound
up by general rules."

"The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body,
like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming
advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is
engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of
that which feeds them."

"It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it."

--Thomas Jefferson

Obviously we are well beyond the single step Mr. Jefferson feared.

[bigsig]

Jefferson owned slaves didn't he?

[LMan]

Originally Posted by bigsig

Jefferson owned slaves didn't he?

Yes, but not one of them failed a background check.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by bigsig

Jefferson owned slaves didn't he?

When one resorts to character attacks, one obviously has no response to the actual issue at hand or is conceding the debate on the issues. Most modern politicians are very good at this kind of "debate" and the Clinton Administration raised it to a high art form.

[greymule]

Jefferson owned slaves didn't he?

Yes. There was slavery on the North American continent when Jefferson lived. There was also slavery everywhere else in the world except Europe, which didn't need it since it had a feudal system that accomplished the same thing. Slavery still exists in, among other places, Africa and the Arab world. So it turns out that America actually was among the very least offenders when it came to slavery.

Though the founders of the country had neither the political nor the military power to abolish slavery, Jefferson helped create a Constitution that was instrumental in ending it.

While we're bashing Jefferson, let's remember that he

a. did nothing to advance the cause of gay rights
b. nominated no women, blacks, or Latinos either to his cabinet or to the U.S. Supreme Court
c. did nothing to protect the rain forest or reduce carbon dioxide emissions
d. favored the death penalty
e. saw nothing wrong with prayer in school
f. created no government agency to protect workers from environmental hazards on the job
g. is not on record for ever having supported any labor union
h. believed in God
i. helped found a nation that has become the envy of the world, and crafted the principles that have produced wealth and liberty beyond anything that anyone had dreamed of in his lifetime

Yeah. What a rat.

[bigsig]

Originally Posted by Dakota

When one resorts to character attacks, one obviously has no response to the actual issue at hand or is conceding the debate on the issues. Most modern politicians are very good at this kind of "debate" and the Clinton Administration raised it to a high art form.

Tom,

Perhaps I was being too subtle and that’s what caused you to miss the point. Jefferson, revered and quoted earlier as the person who helped define these great concepts of freedom and privacy in our Constitution, lived in a time when it was perfectly acceptable for him to own slaves. (It’s not character assignation if it’s true). Obviously a despicable and abhorrent concept by today’s standards and clearly interpreted as Unconstitutional. The point is times change, and the interpretation of the Constitution changes based on societies values at the time.

Technology has made it possible to access all kinds of public information today that wasn’t even dreamed of 20 years ago. THAT DOESN’T LESSON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PEOPLE WHO ACCESSS THIS INFORMATION TO DO THE RIGHT THING! But to say no one should have access to that data is like saying we should ban certain books, or not have security cameras, or not xray people’s private luggage. You have the freedom of speech, but it doesn’t give you the right to scream fire in a crowded theatre. You have the right of privacy, but it doesn’t supersede the publics’ right to security or the protection of a child.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by bigsig

Perhaps I was being too subtle and that’s what caused you to miss the point. Jefferson, revered and quoted earlier as the person who helped define these great concepts of freedom and privacy in our Constitution, lived in a time when it was perfectly acceptable for him to own slaves. (It’s not character assignation if it’s true).

It is a character attack if it is used to attack the points being made by attacking the person. Truth of the charge has nothing to do with it. We are supposed to accept, by your charge, that since Jefferson owned slaves and that since slavery is viewed as abhorent and is now unconstitutional that his thoughts on liberty have no merit? What complete drivel. And why is it when I disagree it is assumed that I "missed the point". I got the point. I disagreed with the point.

Originally Posted by bigsig

The point is times change, and the interpretation of the Constitution changes based on societies values at the time.

In the case of slavery, the interpretation of the constitution was not changed. It was amended. Would that people today would have the courage and integrity to actually attempt to amend the constitution if they think parts of it are outdated. Instead, they use the courts to change it by judicial fiat. It is a violation (not an interpretation), of the constitution, IMO, for the "commerce clause" to be used as the open door for damn near anything the Congress wants to do.

Originally Posted by bigsig

You have the right of privacy, but it doesn’t supersede the publics’ right to security or the protection of a child

Yes, it does (or it should). This "for the children" as the excuse to dispose of individual liberty is the argument of scalawags and power mongers (or perhaps merely the timid). My right to privacy can (or should) only be invaded with just cause and proper warrants. The ridiculing of the "right to privacy" by some conservatives as not being in the constitution is something I strongly disagree with. For sure, the words are not there, but it is impossible for many of the other rights to exist without it.

[mcrowder]

Originally Posted by Dakota

It is a character attack if it is used to attack the points being made by attacking the person. Truth of the charge has nothing to do with it. We are supposed to accept, by your charge, that since Jefferson owned slaves and that since slavery is viewed as abhorent and is now unconstitutional that his thoughts on liberty have no merit?

Talk about missing the point. NO, that's not what we are supposed to accept. We are supposed to accept that the notion of liberty THEN and the notion of liberty NOW can be and are COMPLETELY different things.

And why is it when I disagree it is assumed that I "missed the point". I got the point. I disagreed with the point.

Because you missed the point.

It is a violation (not an interpretation), of the constitution, IMO, for the "commerce clause" to be used as the open door for damn near anything the Congress wants to do.

At least you include IMO in there. Yes, this is your opinion. Doesn't make it gospel. Many will disagree with your assertion here.

The ridiculing of the "right to privacy" by some conservatives as not being in the constitution is something I strongly disagree with. For sure, the words are not there, but it is impossible for many of the other rights to exist without it.

Good for you. I applaud it, being a liberal myself. But we don't live in the same world we did 200 years ago, 50 years ago, or even 8 years ago. We liberal minded can close our eyes to reality and insist that ANY infringement of rights, even for the public good, is bad. Or we can be realists and see that in SOME cases (and as an aside, I DO believe that the government has overstepped here in several cases ... just not this one), the giving up of certain privacies IS helpful to the overall protections of our way of life.

I'm all for protecting a person's right to privacy, right up to the line where that right infringes on the safety or rights of others, especially those unable to protect themselves. How can we, in good conscience, invite children to participate in an organization, and tell them to respect authority, without at least doing the very minimum in ensuring that those in authority deserve to have it and are not likely to abuse it?