Proposed Maryland bill would criminalize love letters

[bugman7]

[ADMIN NOTE: THIS TOPIC WAS BEGUN IN MARCH 2009 AFTER A MEMBER POSTED HERE ABOUT THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE'S ATTEMPT TO PASS A LAW THAT WOULD EXPOSE MANY THOUSANDS OF WOMEN TO ABUSE BY EXEMPTING CUSTOMERS OF MATCH.COM, YAHOO PERSONALS, EHARMONY AND OTHER DATING GIANTS FROM THE REQUIREMENT IMPOSED ON A FEW, SMALL COMPANIES TO PROTECT WOMEN.  

THE 2009 BILL DID NOT BECOME LAW, BUT THE MARYLAND DELEGATES ARE TRYING AGAIN AND THEY ARE IGNORING THE CONCERNS ABOUT MANY WOMEN WHO MEET ONLINE.  A DISCUSSION ABOUT IT BEGINS ON PAGE 4.  SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE AND SELECT PAGE 4 IF YOU WANT TO BEGIN READING THERE.]

Maryland men who date or otherwise communicate with foreign women may need to visit their local police station if a Maryland bill (HB 596) passes the General Assembly.

Folks this bill is the most draconian legislation ever introduced in an American legislature. The language of this bill appears to be extracted directly from Joe Stalin's Communist manifesto complete with long prison sentences for the ever increasing and always more insane list of minor transgressions the VAWA mafia cartel can manufacture.

The bill was recently introduced into the Maryland General Assembly and would require clients of International dating sites to obtain a copy of their police records and submit their fingerprints if they use the services of an International dating site.

The bill was introduced by Delegate Benson who is closely aligned with various Women groups.

 Last year the same legislation to "regulate marriage brokers" was sponsored by a whopping one third of the entire MD legislature. Fortunately the bill expired before the 2008 legislative session ended.

Click on the link below for all the draconian details.

http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/bills/hb/hb0596f.pdf

[bronxman]

Not far behind is this from Georgia. 

http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2007_08/fulltext/hb1325.htm

In addition to fingerprints, the American man will be subject to perjury.  Yep.  Maybe the TJC-NOW is waiting for these state laws so they can really throw the book at somebody.

(a) Each international marriage broker shall:

(1) Obtain the client´s criminal history information and require the client to provide the client´s criminal history information, in writing and signed by the client under penalty of perjury;

(2) Require the client to provide the client´s marital history information, in writing and signed by the client under penalty of perjury;


Wrong as the law is, the IMBRA is somewhat manageable for American male customers but these state laws are not.  Dating agencies are just not going to get business from men in these states and soon it will be all states.  The message the lawmaker is sending to men (along with the feminists who push them) is:   if you hate feminism and want these women badly enough, then the foreign woman's contact information becomes a very dangerous commodity for you to have and if you seek it you are a defacto abuser and abusers must be discouraged and if you still insist, then you must be monitored before and after you meet her in her home country.

The TJC-NOW set up IMBRA and its specific language for adaptability to anti-trafficking campaigns whereby states can justify fingerprinting and attestations could be enforced.  Encumber.  Eliminate.   

[Taylor]

This is disgusting.  These women who are promoting laws like this are just revolting.

A man has to be fingerprinted just to communicate with a woman in a foreign country.  He has to be subjected to a background check (under penalty of perjury) just to talk to a woman in a foreign country through an introduction service.  We are not talking about marriage, only communicating with someone.

I still think men should go through the trouble of doing this.  I for one would give my fingerprints and background information to any international dating service. The fact that feminist women are doing this in this country is reason enough to run away from them.  It is more than worth the trouble of going through the personal humiliation of this process to avoid the type of women who promote laws like this.   

[Taylor]

With the rise of GynObama and the Democrats in power, I think we will see more of these types of laws since they give the feminists whatever they want.

The Democrats will also give feminist front organizations more of our tax money to promote “man-hating” legislation.

I for one will never vote for any Democrat.  They are puppets for the feminists.

The Republicans may not oppose many of these feminist laws.  On the other hand, they don’t seem to promote them.  They are also less likely to give out tax money to groups like the Tahirih Justice Center.

[bronxman]

The fact that feminist women are doing this in this country is reason enough to run away from them.  It is more than worth the trouble of going through the personal humiliation of this process to avoid the type of women who promote laws like this.   

In the long term and in the big picture it will become increasingly easier to have multitudes of women of your choice and avoid these type of women.  The developing world where the vast majority of women reside is multiplying rapidly and that means more good quality women.  Feminists in the West are barren by default or abort many future feminists and therefore, based on sheer numbers, we win and feminists lose.  They. Lose.

However, in the near term, we are in a war and neither side is going to stand down. 

[Delphi_Programmer]

Everyone keeps talking about the Democrats who are imposing these things.  Where are the Republicans?  Oh, that's right, they're out of power now.  Why?  Because of 8 years of kissing up to liberal feminists groups, the very people who stabbed them in the back in the last two elections.  Even Frank Wolf in my state of Virginia, though he won, was aggressively opposed in this election by the very TJC whose law he helped to write.  The irony is staggering!

When are these people going to get the message?

Until someone starts standing for the principles of the founding... principles of freedom, individual liberty, personal responsibility and getting government out of our faces... then the U.S.A will no longer be a beacon of liberty and the leader of the free world.  Someone needs to step up to the plate and say enough is enough, we're not going to tolerate this blatant attack on our freedoms any longer.  Until that happens, radical feminists are going to continue to chisel away at our freedom, state by state, law by law, statute by statute, until we have none left.

Rest assured, this is not going to end with international dating and marriage.  These attacks are going to continue until every heterosexual union, no matter how it's initiated, is subject to scrutiny.  It will get to the point where the very feminists who support this madness will be stung by their own culture of nanny laws when they try to have relationships themselves.   Is this the society we want to live in?  Do we want to live in the society that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson created, or a "Nurse Rachet" nanny state?

"These are mature adult women here, I do not see why they should have government regulated babysitters.  I think that shows a lack of respect for the intelligence and independence of women." -- a quote from a feminist supporter of NOW.  If even their own supporters can see the madness of this type of legislation, then how can the rest of society go along and allow this insanity.

[bugman7]

Ladies and gentlemen it's time to take action. The VAWA cartel successfully managed to regulate (prevent) men from communicating with foreign women by passing the Federal IMBRA. Now their conquest is to expand the federal law. They will never be satisfied until they can get a law passed that literally will put a leash around your neck to prevent American men from ever having an opportunity to meet a foreign woman in the first place.

The Maryland IMBRA law is a tactical mistake and it simply goes way to far...we're going to take advantage of this.  For starters I have submitted the following letter to the MD General Assembly:


Dear Delegate XXXXXX:

The purpose of my correspondence is to bring attention to HB 596 since you are a key member of the XXXXXXXX XXXXX Committee.

This intensively controversial law would shockingly require Maryland residents to submit background checks and personal information before communication can begin if they use an International dating site. 

 http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/bills/hb/hb0596f.pdf 

It contains a number of draconian provisions including submission of fingerprints before communication can begin between a Marylander and foreigner. (Joe Stalin would have approved of such lunacy).

 If you boil down the sinister sounding double language you will soon discover the bill is littered with false, misleading and confusing language designed to suggest that international dating and friendship- a perfectly laudable pursuit is somehow connected to servile sex trafficking.  These are actually two dissimilar activities and one is legal and their other activity appears to be illicit.

The author deceptively incorporates the term "Regulation of International Marriage Brokers” in the title to suggest something sinister is occurring which needs regulated and she conflates this illicit activity with international matchmaking - which involves writing romantic love letters to a foreigner. HB 596 dangerously criminalizes both activities.

The fallacy of this law is specifically revealed in the details of the law on page 2...

“… (F) (1) International Marriage Broker means a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or other legal entity that does business in the United states and offers to Maryland residents dating, matrimonial, or social referral services involving recruits by:

(I) exchanging names, telephone numbers addresses, photographs, or statistics or otherwise facilitating communication…”

Obviously nobody is being sold or traded. And thus HB 596 doesn't regulate marriage brokers (a fictitious term in the context of this bill) but it would regulate communication between Maryland men and foreign women which is a violation of free speech and free assembly. 

HB 596 is patterned after a similar Federal law the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act which was sneaked through Congress with no testimony or witnesses. Promoters of the law used biased studies, bogus facts and misleading information to suggest that American men who date foreign women are more likely to abuse them for lack of social protections. But the promoters of the Federal law and the proposed Maryland bill HB 596 have never supplied any reliable evidence that the rate of violence is higher in these International matchmaking relationships versus domestic relationships in the USA.

 American Women advocacy groups have championed “marriage broker laws” on the notion they will prevent domestic violence. But the information disclosure requirements performed at the initial stage of a relationship are inappropriate considering a relationship doesn’t exist. It seems ludicrous that before a Maryland man can ask how's the weather in Paris” they would have to give their criminal and personal history to a stranger (scammer?).

 The language in HB 596 is gender neutral but the hidden agenda of this law is designed to regulate (prevent) American men from communicating with a foreign woman. 

XXXXXXX, In closing I urge all Maryland Legislators to vote against HB 596 a poorly written unconstitutional law that fails to adequately protect foreign women while unfairly labeling Maryland men as criminals who must provide their fingerprints” before they can communicate with a foreigner.

Sincerely

XXXXX  XXXXXXX

[Taylor]

Wrong as the law is, the IMBRA is somewhat manageable for American male customers but these state laws are not.  Dating agencies are just not going to get business from men in these states and soon it will be all states.  The message the lawmaker is sending to men (along with the feminists who push them) is:   if you hate feminism and want these women badly enough, then the foreign woman's contact information becomes a very dangerous commodity for you to have and if you seek it you are a defacto abuser and abusers must be discouraged and if you still insist, then you must be monitored before and after you meet her in her home country.

The TJC-NOW set up IMBRA and its specific language for adaptability to anti-trafficking campaigns whereby states can justify fingerprinting and attestations could be enforced.  Encumber.  Eliminate.   

The whole purpose of these state laws is to use federalism to the advantage of the feminists.  It makes it much more difficult for the international dating agencies (IDA) to operate.  It the state law is more stringent than the federal law, then the IDA must comply with the more stringent of the two laws.  This effectively means that any IDA must base its business model after the state, which has the most restrictive requirements.

The state laws are more problematic than the national law.  I believe that these state laws are designed to create as much difficulty as possible for the IDAs.  There really is no need for these state laws, since a federal law already exists.  These laws are only being promoted to legislate the international dating agencies out of business.

It is absolutely true that these laws are not designed to protect foreign women.  They are designed to “encumber and eliminate” international dating agencies.  Bronxman is absolutely correct in this assertion.

[Delphi_Programmer]

Bugman,

I don't see the term "for profit" in their definition.  Does this mean the Maryland law includes free services in their definition of "marriage brokers"?  If that's true, then you have to be background checked, obtain a signed affidavit, be fingerprinted and have a report sent to ANYONE you meet through ANY service that offers foreign personals ads.

Think about what that means.  It means that if someone befriends you on Facebook and casually lists the names and emails of a few overseas women looking for friends, you must go through all that legal red tape before you can send a "hello" email to them. Ridiculous!

I wonder if Match.com is still exempt?

Thank you, bugman7, for your efforts in combating this.

[bronxman]

The state laws are not as good as IMBRA regarding an exemption for Match.com.  But it does not matter.  The intention is the same and the first "test cases" will not be against Match.com.  The TJC-NOW knew in advance that the State laws would be a defacto elimination of the IDA's while keeping them regulated (rather than banned outright) so they would not go "underground" and unmonitored.  IMBRA is merely a catalyst.  Notice how all these state laws have very similar language that is partly shared from IMBRA and partly not.  Someone is feeding this beast from outside the state legislatures.  Now, who could that be?  The Center for Women Policy Studies perhaps?  Yes, they created the template for the states, but who is coaching them?

This from the TJC 2003 Newsletter:

"The Tahirih Justice Center helped draft the bill and is working with a broad-based coalition of human rights organizations, women’s rights groups, law firms, religious coalitions, and social justice organizations nationwide to ensure its passage. Early activities in this federal legislative campaign included inaugurating a “sign-on” drive to contact other legal and social services providers working with battered immigrant women to garner their support and to learn from their own experiences of this problem. Over 80 like-minded organizations across the country had voiced their support for the legislation by fall 2003, including Amnesty International, Gabriela Network USA, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the Center for Women Policy Studies—and those numbers continue to climb."

The feminist groups could not get there way and have the business declared officially as trafficking so, under the guise of trafficking, the states are handing down these severe restrictions.  Evidence?  Polaris reviews all the state laws and "marriage brokers" are discussed:

http://www.polarisproject.org/images/docs/alerts/policy%20alert%20final%20june%2008.pdf

U.S. POLICY ALERT ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING
SUMMARY OF U.S. POLICY ACTIVITY – June 2008
Welcome to the U.S. Policy Alert System, a regular email notification system that provides a snapshot of current legislative activity and legislative developments related to human trafficking within the United States. Information contained within U.S. Policy Alerts is developed and compiled by Polaris Project through correspondence with legislative offices and online research, as well as in partnership with local advocacy groups, local organizations, and grassroots volunteers. 

More connection of the TJC-NOW to Polaris and their efforts in "shadowing" anti-trafficking laws -

Deepika Allana, Esq., Senior Public Policy Attorney
Prior to joining the Tahirih Justice Center, Deepika Allana served as the Senior Legal Fellow at Polaris Project, an international grassroots anti-human trafficking organization. During the fellowship, Ms. Allana conducted state level advocacy to lobby for anti-human trafficking legislation through coalition building, drafting testimony for congressional hearings and providing technical advice regarding language in draft bills. Prior to her time at Polaris, she practiced intellectual property law at several law firms including DLA Piper and Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll. Ms. Allana has been involved with various human rights and social justice issues for the past 10 years. While in private practice, Ms. Allana maintained a consistent pro bono portfolio of work, including serving as a consultant for Amnesty International on issues related to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and successfully representing a prominent Iraqi human rights activist in her political asylum petition.