Making Noise

Making Noise

Sometimes reading the paper is just not good for one’s blood pressure. I bought today’s paper and right at the top was a headline “Googling lands in court”. Ok, Google always seems to be in some kind of stir so curiosity being one of my traits I started reading. The first line stopped me cold. It read, “In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a … County Judge has ordered that a young woman’s Google searches must be turned over to the man accused of beating and raping her”. It went on to say that the state Supreme Court refused to rule on the constitutionality of the order because the alleged victim (and the D.A.) waited too long to appeal. Get this; they only had seven days to appeal!

You can guess what is going on. The accused rapist wants to use her Google records in an attempt to prove that the rape, strangulation, and assault was consensual. He wants all of her Google searches and their results, all the websites she visited, and all of her e-mail for the last five weeks. In other words, a desperate fishing trip to find anything the dirt bag can use as a defense for being a piece of s…!

Fortunately the D.A. is on her side saying he can only get the information legally if he has a search warrant and he can only do that if he believes it necessary for the D.A.’s office to do so to further the criminal investigation. Google, by the way, refused to comply saying to do so would be a violation of the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act.

Oh, and get this, the accused also faces rape charges in another case! What a piece of work.

I have been harping on the subject of what we can do. I am sure the people of that county know who this judge is. This would be the time for men and women who are concerned about this judge’s actions to see what could be done to get him off the bench. The people in that county need to MAKE NOISE!

As an example, another article in the same paper stated the Oregon state parole board was not going to allow the victims of a serial rapist (he admitted to 9 assaults during the 70’s and 880’s.), speak at his parole hearing. The reason the board gave was that they felt the two women did not qualify as victims because even though he admitted to the crime, the statute of limitations had run out so he was only convicted for the rape of a 13 yr old girl in 1986. This was not a state or federally required definition, it was an administrative “rule” the board adopted in 2010.

However, less than a week before the hearing they reversed their decision and will now allow two of the women to have their say. Why? According to the article it was due to the fact that the women threatened to sue and public pressure.

Public pressure, exactly what I have been campaigning for. If violence against women is ever going to stop we all have to express our rage to the members of the enforcement and judicial members of our society. We have to let them know that it’s not just the victims who find easy treatment of convicted abusers inexcusable, it’s all of us. We need to MAKE NOISE!