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Three states -- Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky -- already require
sex offenders to provide law enforcement with their e-mail
addresses, as well as their home addresses. The bills have support
from the popular social networking site MySpace.com, which has been
under increasing pressure to ferret out convicted child molesters
and stop them from creating online profiles.
Connecticut's proposal would require sex offenders to register
any e-mail addresses, instant message addresses or other Internet
identifiers with the state police. Those who don't report the
information would face up to five years in prison.
It also makes it a felony for any person to misrepresent his or
her age on the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual
activity.
The bill passed the state House on a vote of 149-0 on Thursday
and awaits action in the Senate. It would be part of the state's
version of Megan's Law, named after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who
was raped and murdered in 1994 by a sex offender who lived across
the street.
"Megan's Law is based on keeping track of where sex offenders
reside. So it makes sense to track their location in cyberspace,"
said Connecticut House Speaker James Amann. "The Internet represents
a new frontier of sex predators."
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MySpace says 13 other states are considering similar bills and is
lobbying for similar legislation on the national level. "Our laws
need to change with the times," said the company's chief security
officer, Hemanshu Nigam. "We can no longer unwittingly provide an
advantage to predators online."
Typical MySpace profiles include photos, music and personal
information, including hometowns and education. Users can send
messages to one another and browse other profiles.
The company said Thursday that it has removed 7,000 registered
sex offenders' profiles from its site after hiring a software
company to identify them.
"Mandatory sex offender e-mail registration legislation would
significantly expedite this process and help keep sex offenders off
our sites," Nigam said.
Myspace balked last week when the attorneys general of eight
states asked that the company share information on sex offenders,
saying the information was protected under federal privacy laws. It
agreed to release the data Monday after some of the officials filed
subpoenas, which Myspace said was required under the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act.
[Text copied
from file received from AP
Digital; article by Susan Haigh, Associated Press writer] |
