Proposed Bill to Restrict Online Sex Offenders
Posted: February 11th, 2008
By: Adam Denenberg
Category: Opinion Corner, The News Beat

Sex offenders are pursuing potential victims online.  This is an ever growing issue that many social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace face on a daily basis.  And now government action is being taken for the first time.  NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced last week that he and legislative leaders have agreed on a bill restricting activities of New York’s registered sex offenders to their use of the internet to attract potential victims.  How will this be accomplished?  By putting it the hands of the sex offenders!

According to the bill, registered offenders would be required to report all email addresses, instant-messaging screen names and social networking monikers to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.  In addition, the statute appears to be silent as to penalties for sex offenders who fail to report their information. 

Now while I agree that something needs to be done on this issue, should we really trust the offenders to be completely honest in giving up their information?  How is this to be monitored?  That is like asking anyone who commits a crime to let us know when and where they plan to commit the next one beforehand.  It would be great if it worked, but who is that stupid?  Listen, registered sex offenders obviously have a problem, and I don’t think asking them to help us stop them is the right answer.

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Comments
Propose a bill to restrict legislators like Foley, and famous kids like Lunsford's from introducing bills against what they do and groping their underage girlfriends at he mall.
Comment By: Propose this bill - February 11, 2008