Not long ago, we talked about an effort by Kentucky, that in an attempt to curtail online bullying they introduced a bill to outlaw anonymous commenting. As we ultimately concluded there, the bill was a useless, misguided, and unconstitutional effort, and doomed to fail even if it somehow passed constitutional muster. Today, we have a similar story to report - Indiana is pushing forward a bill, according to OhMyGov, through their General Assembly that seeks to prohibit convicted sex offenders from using social networks, IM and chat rooms.
On the face of it, this law sounds slightly more constitutional, reasonable as well as a bit less far reaching than the efforts in Kentucky, but upon further inspection and introspection, we’re arriving at similar conclusions to the Kentucky situation.
Think about it. The law is written in typical generalist legal fashion by folks who have a grasp on technology that’s shaky at best. What is their definition of IM? Can you find a site on the network without social features? Is SMS or Twitter considered a chat room?
In essence, are they banning folks with these conviction records from all electronic communication?
Maybe it’s a good idea, but my point is that it’s nigh-unenforceable. In this day and age, it takes a dedicated effort and a willingness to live in a van down by the river to be a true Luddite. Convicted sex offenders would literally have to wear some sort of EMF detector 24/7 to determine whether or not they came into contact with an offending electronic device to maintain their distance from the places that’d cause them to violate terms of their release.
I hate when I have to defend child molesters, don’t get me wrong (and if anything along those lines were to happen to my kids, my life would probably follow a similar path as Carl Lee from A Time to Kill). But rather than create unenforceable measures to prevent crime from possibly happening (pre-crime anyone?), how about devoting time and resources to capturing (not entrapping) the ones out there engaged in this atrocious behavior, and awarding them longer sentences?
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