Google Search: Can I get arrested for entrapment on a restraining order

That's where one recent page view to my blog came from. Someone had something in mind which lead them to search whether or not they could get arrested for entrapment on a restraining order.

Most people think entrapment is tricking someone into committing a crime that they otherwise weren't going to commit. That's the meaning of the slang use of the term. It's not the meaning that determines whether or not you get charged with entrapment.

Entrapment is legally defined as The act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit.

Even though you're a slime if you're considering trying to trick whoever you have a restraining order against into unwittingly violating it, if you face legal repercussions for that, entrapment won't be one of them.

However, if it can be proved that you lied to get that restraining order, you could face other repercussions, including criminal charges.

It's illegal to file a false complaint with police, so if the police were involved in obtaining an order you got based on lies, you could be culpable for any lies you told to them.

It's illegal to lie under oath, so if there's already been a hearing to determine whether you really needed a restraining order or not, and you lied to obtain a favorable verdict, you could be criminally charged for that.

It's illegal to file a false charge, so if you claim your target intentionally violated the restraining order, and it can be proved that it was you who initiated contact, you could be charged for that, too.

In some states, the proximaty limitations stated in the restraining order go both ways. Therefore, if it's proved that you initiated contact, if that's part of your state's law, you could be arrested for violating the restraining order.

Even if you don't face any criminal charges for initiating contact with an individual against whom you have a restraining order, if your target can prove you did that, it could be used as grounds to demand the order be lifted, because if you're initiating contact, you're obviously not afraid enough to need a restraining order. In fact, you might be enough of an abuser that maybe your target needs a restraining order against you.

To recap, no, entrapment isn't a charge a private citizen will face, but if you're considering attempting to trick the target of your restraining order into a criminal violation of it, you're a walking, talking piece of shit for that, and you could face other criminal charges and other repercussions.

A tale of two faces

In May of this year, A Voice For Men published an article by Paul Elam about Women Action Media's successful crusade to get facebook to censor images they considered anti-woman. As Paul pointed out, the policy change statement facebook released in response to WAM was pulled from the WAM complaint word for word.
The result? A policy statement that was vague on most of its wording, with its only specificity being in language denoting that the rules wouldn't apply equally between the sexes.
 
Disturbing as it is that WAM decided to take control of speech on facebook, even more disturbing was that unequal approach. Their letter and the statement inspired by it spelled out a policy which would censor speech then spelled out why speech advocating violence against men was exempt.
Their excuse?
Violence against men don't real.

It wasn't long before facebook's administrators showed exactly how this broadly worded policy was going to affect speech, removing one AVFM image because its text criticized a feminist claim, and showed evidence against that claim, and another simply because it contained criticism of feminism. 

In my last post, I talked about the attitude it would take to report as offensive an image of a poster advertising a rally for men and boys in crisis. The choice to take offense at the idea of helping men and boys overcome disadvantages they face is, itself, a manifestation of hatred. Fortunately, this time facebook's administrators didn't cave in to the hateful individual(s) who reported the image. Unfortunately, previous actions by facebook administrators have demonstrated that it wasn't because the image was good. It was because the image didn't openly and directly criticize feminism.

They have decreed that it's not just hateful to post images glorifying violence against women and girls. It's also apparently hateful to post images which criticize feminist political ideology and the behaviors that are based on feminist ideology. It is not, apparently, hateful to post images glorifying and outright advocating violence against men.

All of the above images were reported to facebook. Facebook declined to remove any of them, stating of each "Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the photo you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn't violate our community standard." I was provided with a link to the community standards page. While AVFM's account was suspended for a day while their image was investigated, I got a reply back about my report within a couple of hours.

Reading the standards outlined on the page, I cannot see anything which indicates that the removed AVFM images should be reasonably considered more in violation than should be photos of battered men on a page advocating castration and other physical abuse.


This is not just a simple double standard. In adopting and executing feminist-led policy, facebook has become a vehicle of both censorship, and hatred. The policy isn't "you can't advocate violence against and hatred." It's "You can't say anything feminists don't like, but we'll ignore actual celebrations of violence when men are the target."

With this discrepancy in their handling of speech, facebook's administrators have given a clear demonstration that their new policy is based not on morals but money. With that in mind, I've hatched an idea, and composed a couple of letters. WAM posted a list of organizations which pulled their advertising from facebook to pressure the site to cave to the organization's demands. I think those advertisers should hear from us, as well.

Love It Love It Love It
Desire Books
Specialty Natural Medicine         
Jump! Magazine
Down Easy Brewing         
Nationwide UK 
eReader Utopia         
Matt Miner Comics
House of Burlesque
Candypolis
Grow Your Own Theatre
Capturing Childhood
J Street
Nissan UK
WestHost
Zappos 
Zipcar 
Dove (To contact Dove, you have to contact Unilever.)
Audible 
Vistaprint 
FinnAir
Ocado
David Lloyd Leisure  


Letter to facebook advertisers:

You recently participated along with multiple organizations in a successful effort to bring censorship to Facebook. Following the success of that effort, the site updated its policy to bar users from posting images advocating gender based violence, and other communications determined by facebook staff to be "hate speech." Since the policy was adopted last spring, it has been used to remove images based not on the stated criteria, but on whether or not they fit in with specific political ideology.

Images which don't depict or advocate violence, but which criticize specific political beliefs, statements, or actions, have been removed as "offensive." Images advocating violence against men and posts containing hate speech targeting men are not removed when reported using facebook's complaint system. These include graphic depiction of injuries, and pages and posts advocating castration.

This means that while your ads will no longer be displayed on pages or next to images which feminists find objectionable, you will still be funding pages that advocate violence against men, contain statements of hatred and bigotry against men, and contain images depicting injuries to men described on the page as the result of said violence.

In working with Women Action Media's campaign to censor facebook, your organization has openly supported adopting a policy deeming the type of speech shown to you in the protests you received unacceptable, including depictions like the ones facebook is refusing to remove simply because men are the subject instead of women.

Do you support gender-based discrimination? Are you in favor of silencing political speech? That is what facebook's uneven execution of their new policy is. The site has determined that women are to be protected from potentially offensive speech, but men may be openly and aggressively targeted by it. The site has determined that one political ideology is to be protected from dissenting speech, while other ideological beliefs may be challenged or even openly slandered. Since you supported WAM's advocacy, your name is now associated with facebook's discriminatory attitude and censorship of political speech.

I urge you to reject that discriminatory association. Don't let your organization be used to impose a system of selective censorship. Tell facebook that association with your organization depends on equal application of their policy, and their support of free political speech. Their standards should apply equally and identically to both sexes, and should not include censorship based on political ideology.

Facebook should hear from us, too. I thought providing a link to their feedback page would assist in that, but you can't get to it unless you access it from your account so that facebook knows exactly who is contacting them. Instead, in the upper-right corner of your facebook page, click once on the little gear symbol, then once on "report a problem." When the "report a problem" pop-up shows, click "send feedback."
You'll see in the address bar the same link I've included on every mention of the site in this post (https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/), followed by a 15 digit number. The page will request a category for your feedback. You do not have to select a category.
Letter to facebook:

Earlier this year, you responded to an organization called Women Action Media by making changes to your policy on speech. According to your public statements, your new policy bars users from posting images advocating gender based violence, and other communications determined by facebook staff to be "hate speech." However, you have not executed your new policy without undue discrimination. Since the policy was adopted last spring, it has been used to remove images based not on the stated criteria, but on whether or not they fit in with specific political ideology.

Your stated policy calls for removal of hate speech and images advocating violence. It does not state anything about removal of speech or imagery which either states or dissents against a political viewpoint, but you have removed political statements that do not contain hatred or advocate violence, labeling them "hate speech." Images advocating violence against men and posts containing hate speech targeting men are not removed when reported using facebook's complaint system. These include graphic depiction of injuries, and pages and posts advocating castration.

This is a clear demonstration of political bias, and a gender based discriminatory attitude among facebook's administrators.

Do you support gender-based discrimination? Are you in favor of silencing political speech? That is what the uneven execution of your new policy indicates. You have determined that women are to be protected from potentially offensive speech, but men may be openly and aggressively targeted by it. You have determined that one political ideology is to be protected from dissenting speech, while other ideological beliefs may be challenged or even openly slandered.

This policy creates a hostile, discriminatory environment for male users, their friends, and their families. You may not be aware of this, but as many of your male users have faced intimate  partner and sexual violence as your female users have, only your male users have fewer options for support and recovery.

This means that your policy of tolerating images depicting violence against men is even worse than your previous policy of tolerating images depicting violence against women. You took steps to end the latter. You have no reasonable excuse for continuing to tolerate the former.

It also means that when you censor political speech which relates to the struggles faced by disadvantaged and abused men, including speech which debunks politically popular beliefs, you're contributing to the discriminatory social environment faced by men, particularly those who have been victimized.

Reasonable execution of your stated policy would not allow for this. Don't let your organization be used by a group with a political agenda to impose a system of selective censorship. Please instead commit to equal application of your policy, and your support of free political speech. Your standards should apply equally and identically to both sexes, and should not include censorship based on political ideology.

True colors

Does this picture look like hate speech to you?

It was flagged as a violation of facebook's community standards. Facebook took the image down and suspended A Voice For Men's account while investigating, then eventually restored everything, but the fact remains that someone on facebook flagged an image advertising a rally for men and boys in crisis as offensive.

Think about that for a moment.

Somewhere in the ideology this person has espoused is such deep hatred for the male half of the human race that the idea of helping those among them who are facing crisis was intolerable. In other words, someone found something about advocating for men and boys offensive. It's hard to tell exactly what it would be. There's nothing on that image to which one could legitimately object.

Maybe she is in favor of discrimination as long as men and boys are the victims. Maybe she prefers to see them suffer. Maybe the offensive part was the line, "Men's rights are human rights," because she doesn't consider men human. Or maybe it is simply that she is offended that anyone would acknowledge men and boys at all.

Whatever the reason, taking such offense shows a sick level of spiteful bigotry. Reporting it as hate really is nothing but projection by the "offended" party.

But of course, misandry doesn't real, right?

I guess we all must be imagining shit like this.

Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, via Sherrod Brown

*CORRECTION*

Just found out from a friend that the bill referred to in this post passed at least 6 months ago - it takes effect March of 2014. I'm going to leave the post as written, including the typing errors in the Senator's letter. However, this tells me that he's not just sending autoreplies - he's got nothing but lip service, and apparently that's all it takes for most people who write to him, because nobody has alerted him to the fact that he's sending a 6+ month outdated letter out to his constituents. In the meantime, since I hadn't mailed any letters yet, I'll have a chance to correct the parts that assume the bill hasn't passed yet, and ask that the bill be repealed.
This post has been updated on A Voice For Men.


I recently wrote to several federal political office holders about the issues with the current policy the federal departments of Education and Justice have foisted onto America's post secondary education institutions.

It's been a few weeks, and I've received a reply from Senator Sherrod Brown. It looks like yet another autoreply, but it tells you exactly where he stands on the issue.

Ohio voters, take note - men's rights activists will get no help from this senator. He belongs to the feminist lobbyists who advocated for the discriminatory law and policy in the first place.

I do intend to reply to this letter with a breakdown of why I'm not happy with what my senator has sent me. I don't expect my reply to have a lot of influence, but I'll post it here, in hopes that I can motivate others to write either Ohio's senators and congressmen, or other politicians.


The letter I received:

Dear (my actual last name:)

Thank you for getting in touch with my office regarding sexual harassment on college campuses.

Today, one of out of five women will experience sexual violence while attending college. In too many instances, sexual harassment or sexual assault cases are left unreported or the assaulter is exonerated of any charges.  

The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act or Campus (SaVE) Act would ensure colleges and universities are doing their part to minimize sexual crimes on campuses. It would require all institutes of higher education participating in a title IV program, except foreign schools, to include their policies and procedures for handling sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking in their annual security report. Additionally, the legislation would promote awareness and prevention across campuses by requiring schools to provide transparent information to their student body on programs and assistance related to sexual crimes.

We have a solemn responsibility to protect young people from harm and to ensure those who are guilty of a sexual crime are held accountable. Should the SaVE Act come before the Senate, I will keep your views in mind.

Thank you for your advocacy.

                         Sincerely,

              

                         Sherrod Brown

                         United States Senator

This is the bill he was writing about.


Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act text

Campus SaVE act summary

This pretty much goes along with what the Department of Education had tried to mandate using threat of denial of federal funding. The difference is this would make it federal law.

It would significantly change the wording of the Higher Education Act of 1965, adding stipulations requiring colleges to substitute college disciplinary boards for courtrooms in cases of allegations of sexual misconduct. It also mandates both the use of the preponderance of evidence standard instead of beyond a reasonable doubt as a standard, and that these institutions allow the accuser to appeal a not guilty verdict.

In other words, it reduces the standard of evidence, and allows for double jeopardy.

There is absolutely no good purpose for this design. The only thing this will do is allow accusers the ability to railroad through at school accusations which would not hold up in court due to lack of evidence.

This is a false-accuser support bill.

   
Senators  Sherrod Brown and Robert Portman will be receiving letters and phone calls from me on this topic, as will the House representative for my area, along with a few other representatives.

I've recently learned of a bill which may soon be under consideration to be voted into law. The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (S. 128, H. R. 812) presents significant danger to anyone seeking higher education. If passed into law, it will apply the following mandates to post-secondary educational institutions

• That there be an on-campus disciplinary hearing whenever there is an accusation of sexual misconduct.
• That the hearing must be held using a lower standard of evidence for conviction than is used in a court of law, even though heavy penalties with long term effects (such as being banned from campus) may follow a guilty verdict.
• That accusers be notified of a right to not contact actual law enforcement regarding the accusation.
• That in the event of a not guilty verdict, an accuser can subject the accused to effective double jeopardy by appealing the verdict

This combination provides would-be accusers with a means to bypass law enforcement, bypass the legal system, bypass the right of the accused to due process, and use college disciplinary boards as an easier means to secure conviction and potentially seriously life-impacting punishment. This will include false accusers who can get friends to testify, and it will include accusers who can look convincing while bringing a word against word case.

Instead of protecting students from a dangerous environment, this bill will create one. It will place students in jeopardy of having their academic careers and their future employment prospects easily destroyed by false or exaggerated accusations. 

The first thing to understand about sex crimes and false allegations is that we are never going to eliminate either the incidence of innocent people being penalized, or guilty people escaping the justice system, because sex crime cases can be subjective, lawyers can be sneaky, and mistakes can be made with any case.

What we can do is ensure that the reason innocent people sometimes get penalized is not because they were denied their right to a fair trial, and the reason guilty people sometimes get away is not because their initial conviction didn't have to be based on any real evidence and a deserved conviction was overturned because the initial handling of the case didn't involve a thorough investigation.

We have a legal system for a reason. We would not want a law dictating that university curriculum be written by trained chefs, or that restaurant menus be designed by doctors, surgery done by attorneys, or city infrastructure designed by interior decorators. Why should we accept a law dictating that legal issues be handled by educational institution administrators? This is not their job. They do what they do because that's where their expertise is. It is ridiculous to cut the legal system out of the equation when there is any accusation of sexual abuse.

Even if we decide that these administrators are so qualified, the procedures laid out in this bill would deny those accused on campuses across the U.S. the right to a fair trial. Instead of having their cases heard before a qualified judge and/or jury, students accused of sexual misconduct will be subjected to trial by educators, with a reduced standard of evidence, and even if found innocent, they'll face double jeopardy as their accusers will be allowed to appeal the initial decision and force them to go through the experience a second time.

This is a major departure from the constitutional guarantee of due process, and a violation of student rights. It will create on post secondary institutional campuses a legally hostile environment which can interfere with students' focus on their studies, and their ability to obtain their education in peace.

I strongly urge you to vote against this bill. Do not participate in the attack that this is; an assault on the U.S. justice system, and the right of citizens to due process when accused of a crime.

Part of that letter is based on my previous post, "The Nature of the Allegation."

I'm hoping others will join me in writing to your senators and state reps about this issue, before these bills are even introduced. I don't mind if people copy mine verbatim, but if you write your own, I'd love to see them posted in the comments section under this blog.

You can find your state's senators' contact information here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

You can find your state's  house representatives' contact information here:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

If you happen to write or call and get an interesting response, please feel free to share that in the comments here, too. I think everyone interested in the outcome of this bill would also be interested in knowing what their representatives have to say about it.

FYI (if you're a teenager's parent)

In response to this Desert News article, a couple of redditors pointed out the embarrassment "Given Breath" blogger Kim may have caused her sons with the letter she wrote and published, admonishing their female peers to stop posting sexually suggestive "selfies" on facebook. As one of them astutely put it, "this kid will never get laid in HS."  
 
I think Kim set her toe on the right track, but I think she really missed the train with what she wrote. That astute observation on reddit makes a point. The letter probably is embarrassing to the boys, and it could be socially damaging. However, that's not Kim's biggest lapse in judgement. .

Frankly, having been a high school girl who hung out with other high school girls when the legal environment was not as dangerous for boys as it is now, I'd say high school is a minefield of girl bombs for today's boys, because girls don't understand the consequences their decisions can have for their dates.

Not that embarrassing your kid is a great way to go about it, but probably the best thing that can happen to a kid who wants to date girls is for his parents to make sure that he's an adult before he gets laid, and that he's informed enough to be very, very picky about who he trusts enough to make himself as vulnerable as he'll be when he does become sexually active.

For a guy, heterosexual dating without judgement is like juggling hand grenades.

There is good and bad in Kim's letter - she got that girls are responsible for telling people who they are, and that appearance is part of that for a girl just as much as it is for a guy, and she's right to let girls know that they'll be vetted for character before they're allowed to associate with her sons.

Dads have been doing that with regard to their daughters' potential dates for generations.

Maybe she shouldn't have embarrassed her son with a public lecture like that. Maybe it isn't as embarrassing or limiting as it looks. Regardless, one problem I see with it is that she's not writing to all of the right people.
Sure, girls need to realize some things - but so do their parents.

So do the parents of other boys.

And so do the boys themselves - a concept that everyone seems to neglect to grasp.

Sexual selfies of both sexes - and I'm not talking about pictures that are just meant to be attractive, but genuinely sexually suggestive, overly revealing images - communicate some things people don't realize they communicate.

"I am aware that I'm a sexual being, and I'm enjoying toying with aspects of that." 

That's a very adult, very assertive and possibly aggressive statement for a photo to make. What's important about it is that in posting a "look at how sexy I am" photo in a public forum like that, the poster has made everyone the target. Not just friends, not just family, not just "safe" people - everyone. Classmates he or she doesn't hang out with or even trust. Flash game friends. Anyone who, for whatever reason, might ever look at his or her social network profile.

What does that say to the viewer?

"I'm exploring my sexuality at an age during which I'm likely to underestimate the potential consequences. I'm likely to be unintentionally or even intentionally careless in how I go about that." 

Such carelessness on a social networking site may lead the viewer to suspect that the poster might be that careless in general.

Even worse, the fact that these images make it onto such a teen's public social networking profile unchecked says something particularly dangerous:

"My parents aren't keeping good enough track of me. I'm not receiving enough guidance or supervision to keep me from putting this where everyone can see it, even though I am underage."

Of course that should be a red flag for other kids' parents. 

As a parent, you don't want your kid strongly influenced by kids who are both loosely supervised, and exercise poor judgement. Failing to monitor that situation is like letting your kid play with a viper. It doesn't matter whether the viper is malicious or not. If your kid gets poisoned under that circumstance, it's still your fault as a parent for not doing a better job watching out for him.

Something else that a teen isn't mature enough to realize, but an adult should be is that where and how the image is posted carries a message.

An adult posting a sexy shot on an adult site is celebrating his or her sexuality in a forum dedicated for that - an adult sharing with other adults in a setting where what's being communicated is intended and understood. That's fine, and should be accepted for what it is. An adult has the capability of understanding and choosing to accept the potential consequences (there's no genuine privacy on the internet) of his or her choices.

A public profile photo on a social networking site tells anyone who views your profile "This is part of how I define myself." How prominently displayed on your profile the image is tells how much of yourself you define in that way. When the image is of an overtly sexual display, it doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong to make judgements about the person based on the image, and it doesn't matter whether people have a right to their own sexual development or sexual nature. It's not an appropriate message for parents to allow their kids to send.

This is not to disparage having or sharing sexy photos in general. I would be the epitome of hypocrisy if I did that - but it is an adult decision, one which should be made by adults ready to handle it, not made by high school kids and sure as shit not targeting (whether intended or not) classmates at one of the most emotionally and sexually vulnerable times in their lives.

Parents should be aware of that vulnerability regardless of the gender of their kids. We've gotten all kinds of messages about girls' vulnerability - very little has been said about how vulnerable boys are. Everything that is true about the vulnerability of high school girls is just as true about boys... but boys also face legal vulnerability to which girls are not subject.

Parents with sons should monitor what their sons are exposed to. Parents with daughters should teach their daughters to be mindful of their male peers' vulnerability, just as they expect those kids' parents to teach their sons to be mindful of their female peers' vulnerability. We also have to teach our sons to be as mindful of their own vulnerability as we teach our daughters to be of theirs - and to vet potential partners based on character. Understanding the implications of public profile images - their own, and others' - is one aspect of that. That kind of parental protectiveness isn't something that should be reserved just for girls.

Just because a kid is male doesn't mean he isn't still a kid. Boys deserve the same parental consideration and concern that has always been dedicated to girls.

Honey Badger Radio: Feminism's Pimp Hand