Several news stations have run stories about persons required to register as sex offenders being on social media. In light of Packingham v. North Carolina (the Supreme Court of the United States case that found a law making it a felony for a registered sex offender “to access a commercial social networking Web site” was unconstitutional), why are people still debating this?
While a court CAN impose social media or even internet restrictions as part of an individual’s probation, the government cannot restrict a person not on probation from social media or the internet. The highest court in the nation already decided this matter.
Facebook or most similar sites can, through their policies, ban people from using their sites but it is not illegal to use them. Unless someone is doing something illegal online, law enforcement has no say in the matter!
News reports like the one below, should be better informed of the law before they broadcast something to the public. The question they are asking has already been answered.
These social media laws are ridiculous. I am engaged to a registered sex offender and I even worry about putting a picture of the 2 of us on Facebook. His conviction is for for something ridiculous and he said she said. There were other witnesses that said he didn’t do it, but still got convicted in Utah. They need to change this for sure.
FB’s terms of use say a convicted SO should not access FB. But they do not restrict pictures posted by others.
On Twitter, certain convicted SOs (and their spouses) have thousands of followers and have never misused the site for exploitation or anything else.
Doesn’t rreally matter if we SO are allowed on social media. FB is feeding into the sex offender hysteria by allowing former victims, their families and passive aggressive vigilantes to kick us off easily and anytime they find our profile.
Here’s how Louisiana keeps its registered citizens off social media:
Revised Statutes 15:542.1. Notification of sex offenders and child predators
D.(1) Any person who is required to register pursuant to the provisions of this Chapter, who is otherwise not prohibited from using a networking website, and who creates a profile or who uses the functionality of a networking website to contact or attempt to contact other networking website users shall include in his profile for the networking website an indication that he is a sex offender or child predator and shall include notice of the crime for which he was convicted, the jurisdiction of conviction, a description of his physical characteristics as required by this Section, and his residential address. The person shall ensure that this information is displayed in his profile for the networking website and that such information is visible to, or is able to be viewed by, other users and visitors of the networking website.
This is INSANE! Has there been any legal challenge to this?
As far as I know, it’s never been challenged, for the same reasons as always: lack of funding and lack of the willing ideal plaintiff.
What’s next? Requiring “Sex Offender” to be tattooed on your forehead? Prison rehabilitation guidelines talk about the importance of preparing incarcerated individuals for reintegration into society. Registry laws do just the opposite.
This should fall under the same conditions of freedom of speech, and classified as “forced speech” which is of course a violation of the 1st amendment. This same argument has been used in many counties across the US to prevent counties from forcing people to post yard signs in their own yard.
What about business web sites asking for product info. And gov sites.
It is February post Super Bowl sweeps, folks. My local Sinclair station put up TWO back to back fearmongering articles about “sex offenders registering as homeless” and “hundreds of missing sex offenders”.
But social media still needs to be reported immediately in Florida as an internet identifier correct or is that overturned?
Yes, it still needs to be reported.
As a word of hope. Some people are starting to get the idea as to what is going on here. Kansas City radio reported a 67 yr old man in prison for having sex with a 13 and 14 yr old girls is going to be released from prison in Leavenworth pen because the girls were the aggressive ones initiating the incident. So they share some of the blame.
I know personally that when I was about 18 I was set up with a date with a girl who told me she wanted to have sex and I could do anything to her I wanted. She really scared me. Then I found out she was 14. I didn’t touch her . Not for fear of the law though because 50 yrs ago there wasn’t any law against it. Of course I never saw her again after that. She was very upset that I wouldn’t give her what she wanted. I know things like this can and do happen. But society refuses to acknowledge it generally and automatically want to hang the guy . It’s about time someone finally acknowledges it and realize parents need to train there daughters how to be accountable for what they do instead of thinking they can do whatever they want with no accountability because of there age and gender.
This media problem is similar to the recent problems Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams is having over the black face issue. CNN reported on Feb. 3 at 4:53 EST that people do learn from things they’ve done when younger . It said listing people who have used and made many racist comments and used the N word many times are Lyndon Banes Johnson. , Supreme court Justice Hugo Black, and Abraham Lincoln. 3 that learned from there bad behavior and made great strides in making things for blacks better. That those that are closest to the problems are best able do thing that con solve the problems. CNN called the Roderick against the Gov. the Church of the modern day media.
We have the same problem with the SOR. This Church has gotten ahold of it and they can’t stop. The Church’s name is also “ We Are Holyer Than Thou. “. For we have never done done anything wrong.
They fail to realize that things change . We used to call them Mongaloids then Downs Syndrome and now that’s not correct either. It used to not be illegal to drink and drive but now it is. Are we going to go back and destroy every persons life that has ever drank and drove.
Not just me but Kansas City is getting sick of this hate filled non forgiving attitude the world around us is trying to shovel down our throats.
Thank You FAC
Update on the 67 yr old man that is in jail for what was reported originally to have had sex with a 13 and 14 yr old. Now there saying he didn’t but that he inappropriately touched one of them and they initiated the contact. The judge sentenced him to 6yrs but the prosecution wanted 13 yr. Now the prosecution is trying to change the laws making the 13 yr or more mandatory and adding more stringent laws to all sex related cases. The man has very poor health and probably won’t live through the 6yr term it was stated. But here we go again with a young attorney trying to make a name for himself. With mandatory sentences there is no need for Judges, That is what prosecutors really want . They want to be the Judges too.
Maybe we should just dig up all sex offenders that have died and put them in jails so they can serve harsher sentence s .
What is wrong with teaching young people not to put themselves in those situations in the first place . And knowing the right actions to take when they find there in a bad situation.
I wrote an email to the journalist who wrote the piece as well as the station’s General Manager, who surprisingly responded very quickly with a lengthy rebuttal. Unsurprisingly, he claimed that this hit piece was objective and unbiased reporting of information Vermonters needed.
I responded that framing the question the way it was done in the article was inherently biased and that, in any case, such a law has already been declared unconstitutional. I did not receive a reply to that.
Thanks RM! Your action is precisely the response we need to be taking when it comes to these stories!
Good job. Thanks.
The United States like to market itself as a glowing light of freedom in the darkness and that is even used in the marketing slogan “land of the free” when the reality is that American’s are as openminded as an fundamentalist religious country which the USA is – “In God we trust”.
Sex is taboo from the day we are born (we are made via sex) to the day we die. As such sex is used to sell everything from fashion, cars, music, and everything else here – including political careers – just ask professional victim and sex obsessed Florida Senator Lauren Book!
This is very interesting because I know people in Florida and Washington state who have had internet and social media restrictions imposed on them before their trials. This is clearly illegal. Why are these states still doing this?
Can these people file something against the state for violating this law?
As a condition of probation or pretrial release such restrictions can be imposed.
I’m a little curious how you can have restrictions placed upon you without a conviction.
Just sayin’…
Its like how they can make you surrender your passport. Mine was an order not to be around minors. It’s a condition of release when a judge could technically say, no bail.
When you say that while on probation in Florida you can have an internet restriction. Can that restriction be a total internet ban?
Yes
Always disappoints me when news media seeks to stir up controversy at the expense of others, namely we ex offenders. A person would be a fool to go after children on social media because of the trail of proof it leaves. Again, this report gave no example of offenders misusing social media, because it is exceedingly rare. However, I was very disappointed a couple of days ago when my cousin reposted a Facebook post from my home town where a vigilante warned the community not to hire a young man who was seeking customers for his snow shoveling job. Knowing that town like I do, he was undoubtedly struggling to get ANY kind of job, so he was trying to make a few bucks busting his back shoveling snow. In my opinion, THAT is a misuse of social media. His crime was child porn found on his electronic device, with no evidence or allegation that he had ever actually touched a child inappropriately. When I was looking for work, many employers referred you to their social media site to fill out a job application. You can’t do that if you are banned. I guess we have to watch Vermont now to see if they respond to this phony propaganda by passing more unfounded restrictions against ex offenders.
It would be declared unconstitutional
It’s sensationalism for the purpose of selling a story. That’s all it is. We know anything having to do with sex or scandal sells. Period. ‘Fake News’ is abhorrent to our society but continues to persist like a cancer.