Wired’s Threat Level:
Registered sex offenders will have to start providing their e-mail addresses to a national database available to social networking sites, under the misleadingly titled “Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008” — a bill authored by Senator John McCain and signed by President Bush on Monday.
The idea behind the law (.pdf) is that a social networking site can query the database to keep registered sex offenders from signing up, and thus prevent them from preying on underage users. Needless to say, the law does nothing to stop first-time predators. But it’s doubtful that even recidivists will be affected. Pedophiles looking to victimize children — a felony worth years, even decades, in prison — won’t be afraid to violate this new law by using an unregistered Gmail address. And now law enforcement will have to struggle to discern whether an offender is using a disposable webmail account to recidivate, or just to shunt the blacklist and network with their adult friends and family.
The idea for this law originated with Fox a few years back, after a series of child predation cases were linked to the company’s MySpace service, prompting several state attorneys general to start investigating the site. Fox’s feel-good fix was then adopted by McCain, who turned it into legislation.
The law helps lawmakers look tough but gets the social network sites off the hook. They can match email addresses to a registry rather than doing the much more difficult work of actually policing the sites.
OUTRAGE FROM ACROSS THE POND: Feministing points to a rape case where the defense lawyer argues the victim could not have been upset by her ordeal because there were photos of her on Facebook looking happy.