Copyright 2000 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
May 14, 2000 Sunday FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 13A
LENGTH: 543 words
HEADLINE:
Green wants life terms for repeat sex offenders
BYLINE:
FRANK A. AUKOFER of the Journal Sentinel staff
BODY:
Washington -- Almost three years ago, Republican Rep. Mark Green of Green
Bay, then a state lawmaker in Madison, persuaded the Wisconsin Legislature to
pass a "two strikes, you're out" law that requires life in prison for repeat sex
offenders.
Helping him out was a chance acquaintance who became a
friend, Marc Klaas, the father of Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old California girl who
was abducted from her home and murdered in 1993. Klaas went to Madison to
testify on behalf of Green's legislation. Now Green wants to pass a national law
to do the same thing, and Klaas came to lend his support once again. The two men
testified last week before the House crime subcommittee on a Green bill to
require life sentences for second-offense sex offenders convicted in federal
court.
"There is not a documented case of a pedophile or a psychopath
ever having been cured," Klaas told the subcommittee. "The sad reality is that
they re-offend over and over and over again until they are removed from society
once and for all. . . . Inevitably, the pedophile and psychopath will strike
again, and the victims will accumulate."
Green said the second offense
should be the end of the line for sexual predators who target children.
"The evidence shows that each repeat molester represents literally
hundreds of victims with shattered lives," he said. "We can break the chain of
violence with simple, straightforward proposals like this bill. . . . Repeat
molesters . . . must be stopped before they claim even more victims, and before
their crimes can escalate."
Privacy activist: Milwaukee Democrat Jerry
Kleczka was anointed last week by New York Times columnist William Safire as one
of "the House's four horsemen of privacy."
The appellation came in a
column Thursday in which Safire discussed the "piracy of our privacy," primarily
in the misuse of individuals' Social Security numbers.
Kleczka has long
been a leading House activist on matters of privacy protection. He is the author
of the Personal Information Privacy Act of 1999, which would
give control of personal information -- like the Social Security number -- back
to individuals.
Among other things, it would require an individual's
consent before his or her Social Security number could be used for commercial
purposes.
Testifying last week before a House Ways and Means
subcommittee, Kleczka said that easy access to Social Security numbers led to
credit fraud.
"There is no one to protect us from identity theft," he
said, "and those who have been victimized by this gross violation of privacy
have to clear their names themselves, a process which can take years. Congress
must act to curb this increasingly common form of fraud."
Barrett
against trade status: Milwaukee Democrat Tom Barrett has made it official,
saying he will vote this week against granting China permanent status as a
normal trading partner of the United States. Earlier, he said he was leaning in
that direction.
In previous years, he voted to grant the trade status to
China, but only when it came up annually for review.
Doing it that way,
he said in a statement, "allows us to keep China on a shorter leash. Giving them
PNTR (permanent normal trade relations) status would leave us with no leash at
all."
LOAD-DATE: May 16, 2000
