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Louisiana Sex Offenders Must Post Their Crimes on Facebook [POLL]

In Life by Kim Muraro , on Friday, June 22, 2012, 6:14 AM (PDT)
sex offenders must register their criminal status on facebook
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Beginning August 1, Sex Offenders in Louisiana Must Post Their Criminal Status on All Social Networking Sites They Use

Facebook already bans sex offenders from using the social networking site, but lawmakers in Louisiana are going one step further in trying to make sure convicted sex offenders and child predators can't use social media to do harm: the state will begin requiring sex offenders to post their criminal status on Facebook.

Read: 'Star Wars' Ewok Actor Arrested For Exposing Himself

Louisiana State Representative Jeff Thompson proposed the measure, which is scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 1. He says it's an added measure for authorities to go after sex offenders who might try to use Facebook despite the company's ban.

"Child predators aren't necessarily good rule-followers in the first place," Thompson told Reuters. "We don't want to leave it to Facebook police to go out and check on these individuals."

Currently, Louisiana state law requires people convicted of crimes like rape, pornography and incest involving juveniles to register with local police and schools, but the new bill -- which Thompson says is the first of its kind in the country -- expands that into Facebook and other social media, where offenders must post their status.

Read: Sarah Ferguson's Name Linked to Sex Offender in Scandal

If a convicted sex offender sets up a new social media page and does not post his or her criminal status on the page? The punishment includes a felony charge, $1,000 fine and up to 10 years in jail without parole for the first offense, and a jail sentence of up to 20 years for a second conviction.

Thompson reportedly introduced the new law after an incident in which a young boy was murdered after a man, pretending to be a young woman, lured the boy via the Internet.

The new law comes after a Louisiana judge earlier this year nixed another proposed law that would have banned sex offenders from using Facebook and social media altogether, after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit that alleged the law infringed on First Amendment rights.

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Take Our Poll

Do you think convicted sex offenders should be allowed to use social networking sites?

  1. No. They gave up the right the second they committed their crimes.
  2. Yes, as long as they do post their criminal status on the social media site.
  3. Yes, and I think it is a violation of their rights to force them to reveal their crimes on social media, too.
VOTE

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Comments (1)
Posted By Rudy101 (334 days ago)
The law doesn't have to be followed. Why? Because if it is followed then a person will be deleted from Facebook. See, Facebook cannot deny any person access to their forums absent a court order. Facebook cannot take ANY lists from ANY governments and use those lists to deny access to their forums. Why can't they do that? If Facebook is allowed to take lists of those designated legislatively, sex offenders from the government, and that government has no limit on their ability to label a person a sex offender (even consensual sex or homosexual sex), that would be a violation of human rights, and the 1st amendment. Let us assume that middle eastern countries designate child molesters and homosexuals as sex offenders. Can Facebook take those lists and use it to banish them from their site? The answer is, NO. Facebook has a membership of over 900 million and growing. They use their forums for every aspect of free speech that can be represented on Facebook. This also includes public policy. Facebook also has members that are governments, public and private organizations, and advocacy organizations. Facebook also has forums set up specifically to advocate to deny those labled sex offender their rights under the Constitution. A person not under parole or probation does not lose their 1st amendment rights. A State cannot label a person and then use that label to systematically exclude those people from all aspects of the community without hearing and without appeal. If a person is required to put their conviction on a Facebook page and that information will then be used to exclude that person from Facebook, then that person does NOT have to put that information on Facebook. Facebook has signed up a majority of the population. Facebook cannot be at the center of 1st amendment speech in society and then exclude anyone they want. Facebook has become a quasi-governmental organization who then takes on all the responsibilities to PROTECT freedom of speech. At the heart of the 1st amendment is that speech is protected AND that speech cannot be assumed to be illegal simply because a person is speaking. While Facebook is at the center of the 1st amendment in the U.S. and while Facebook is using registry information to illegally deny access to its forums, it then becomes a RIGHT to flee the registry and do whatever what one can do to avoid the registry. Just because you have a registry, and that the courts have ruled specifically that a person does not have to be dangerous to be on the registry, a society cannot use that registry to systematically remove people out of society, without hearing and without appeal.
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