In Virginia, Attorney General Bob McDonnell said Monday that he would seek legislation to require convicted sex offenders there to register their online identities with the state to help MySpace and other online teen hangouts more easily block access.Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz., announced plans for similar federal legislation last week, but theirs would apply only to those on probation or parole. McDonnell's plan for Virginia would apply to all convicted sex offenders.
Parents, school administrators and law-enforcement authorities have grown increasingly worried that teens are at risk on MySpace and other social-networking sites, which provide tools for messaging, sharing photos and creating personal pages known as profiles.Here's the thing: I agree with McDonnell SOMEWHAT, but I have some problems with his decision. First of all, there really is no reason to require ALL sexual offenders to register. Senator Schumer is certainly taking the more conservative road here; I think it makes a lot more sense to go after those only on probation or parole. To demand registration of ALL offenders actually seems very "liberal" of McDonnell, and although he has good intentions I simply think he is going too far. Again, we are teetering on the brink of becoming too much of a nanny state, and it is surprising to me that the Republican party is so enamored with creating BIGGER government. Secondly, this seems like it is bound to be a very difficult and very expensive plan to implement. As many of us know, it is very easy to "hide" yourself on the internet, and I cannot imagine how they plan on making this plan work well and efficiently. I guess that remains to be seen.Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, applauded the Virginia announcement.
"This legislation is an important recognition that the Internet has become a community as real as any other neighborhood and is in need of similar safeguards," Nigam said.
MySpace also announced plans last week to develop technology to help block convicted sex offenders by checking profiles against government registries, but the News Corp.-owned site's ability to do so is limited by the fact that users do not have to use their real names.
Nationwide, there are more than 550,000 registered sex offenders. Virginia counts 13,000 of them.
"We require all sex offenders to register their physical and mailing addresses in Virginia, but in the 21st century it is just as critical that they register any e-mail addresses or IM screen names," McDonnell said.
All in all, while I applaud with the efforts of Attorney General Bob McDonnell, I think he needs to think long and hard about how far he wants to go with this.