SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The U.S. Congress has passed a bill that would require the passports of registered sex offenders to include a "special mark" [themarshallproject.org]:

Legislation requiring the State Department to identify registered sex offenders with a special mark on their passports received final passage in the House of Representatives on Monday night and went to President Obama's desk. The White House has not indicated whether President Obama plans to sign the bill.

Called "International Megan's Law [congress.gov]" by its sponsors, the bill provides that offenders' passports contain a "unique identifier" — as yet unspecified. Critics call it a scarlet letter [washingtonpost.com]. "Who is going to have a unique identifier added to their passport next? Is it going to be Muslims? Is it going to be gays?" asks Janice Bellucci, a civil rights attorney [sbsun.com] who has fought against sex offender registries. Supporters say the bill will help prevent sex trafficking, since sex offenders "hop on planes and go to places for a week or two and abuse little children," the bill's sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., told NJ.com [nj.com]. Multiple requests for comment made to Smith's office were not returned.

In drafting the bill, Smith and others drew upon a 2010 GAO report [gao.gov] that found that about 4,500 of the more than 16 million U.S. passports issued each year go to registered sex offenders. The report included a selected list of registered sex offenders who received passports in 2008, with detailed descriptions of their crimes. In a rebuttal printed as an appendix in the report, the State Department noted that there was no evidence anyone on that list had traveled in order to commit a sex crime, and that it already has the authority to deny passports to people convicted of sex tourism involving minors and those whose probation or parole terms forbid them from traveling.

Co-published at Vice [vice.com].

Original Submission