Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Let's go and round up a posse

There's a new tool out there to help you protect your children against nefarious types in your neighborhood and its called FelonSpy.

According to the website, FelonSpy is:

a small group of dedicated community activists who are committed to making sure that you do not fall victim to any crime, not rape, murder, robbery or even petty theft. We help because we can and we care because we have all been victims of crimes ourselves, and by all that is holy by the grace of God, we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe.

We are former law enforcement officers, information technologists land developers and community leaders, all of whom have given up our posts in pursuit of this noble, sometimes misunderstood quest to label the underbelly of society by their actions.

This merry band of do-gooders has set about to track down everyone in the US with a criminal record.

We track virtually everyone with a criminal record including sex offenders, ex-cons (felony and misdemeanor), and those guilty of some of the more serious traffic infractions. You have the right to know who your neighbors are. We hope to track persons accused of crimes but acquitted in the future, but at this time we do not have sufficient funding to expand our database that far.

Ask too many questions and who knows, we might be tracking you next.

Apparently someone over at FelonSpy doesn't understand that a person is innocent unless proven guilty. Just because a person has been arrested doesn't mean they did anything wrong and this cavalier attitude that being accused is tantamount to being convicted does a disservice to everyone.

And what's up with that little threat at the end? Does it mean that anyone who questions FelonSpy's motives is a criminal?

And then there's this gem about the "obstacles" they face in updating the information on the website:

We hope to continue rolling out coverage city by city, state by state and nation by nation, but there are many places where we run in to obstacles. Some of these obstacles are “legal challenges” from the likes of attorneys, courthouses, law enforcement, those A-Holes at the ACLU and “the law” in general.

The website claims it doesn't encourage vigilantism, but how about this blurb from the main page?

You deserve to know where felons are and should have access to free public criminal background check systems. Remember, safety starts with good information, even if it ends with a loaded .44 caliber pistol. While FelonSpy.com can’t help you get a gun, we can certainly help you figure out which direction to point it in.

But then they issue the following disclaimer on another page:

Our data is not guaranteed, nor “official”, nor legally binding. Still, I think you know it’s pretty good, because it is. You can see how much work we dedicated to making it right, so we’re pretty solid, but not “guaranteed”.

You should never use this site as cause to be a vigilante, even if you have been a victim and have a good 30-oz bat or unregistered firearm handy. Everyone loves a hero, there is no denying that, but if you rely on government records to put your hit-list together, it’s going to come back around to bite you in the butt every time, no thanks to “the man”. Use the database collection from this site instead as a general guideline and nothing more, and that’s our “disclaimer” (wink, wink).

Who runs FelonSpy? According to Whois Source, the registrant for that domain is something called USCCFF out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Registrant:
USCSFF
4519 Country Trails Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30309
US
(404) 812 3345

Domain Name: FELONSPY.COM

Administrative Contact:
Petterson, Frank
4519 Country Trails Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30309
US
(404) 812 3345

Technical Contact:
Petterson, Frank
4519 Country Trails Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30309
US
(404) 812 3345

Interestingly enough, our intrepid Mr. Petterson is also the registrant for the pit bull fighting site, puppyprofits.com (I won't provide a link to the site due to its subject matter).

2 comments:

MotoPhoto said...

I found this post via a Google Alert feature. I'm pretty sure that is the same site I ran across a few months back. I noticed when I ran my neighbor's address several times I got different "felons" showing up at different locations. It appears the data posted is randomly generated. I've seen the official sex offender registry for my area and not one of the known offenders appeared on the "felonspy" site. So, it appears they not only fail to understand the presumption of innocence but they fail to appreciate correct data. I'm not sure what their angle is but the site is NOT a public service and is most likely part of a scam.

Paul B. Kennedy said...

Thanks for the comment. I love the irony that this Petterson guy also owns a dog-fighting site.

Talk about your glass houses.