[Infowarrior] - Senate "KIDS" Act - more meaningless cyber-fluff

[Richard Forno]

I'm not sure what's more laughable -- that Congress tacked on a catchy
acronym for this bill (which they seem to pay more attention to than
evaluating the substance of such bills) or the fact it's offers nearly zero
"protection" for children......  -rf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121401
734_pf.html

Registry May Soon Add Sex Offenders' Web IDs

By Catherine Rampell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 15, 2007; D02

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill that would require
sex offenders to submit e-mail addresses and other online identifiers for
inclusion in the Justice Department's National Sex Offender Public Registry.

The registry is made up of data on sex offenders collected by each state.
Only 11 states require sex offenders to submit online aliases to state sex
offender registries, according to the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.), who wrote the bill with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The legislation, dubbed the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators
Act, or KIDS, passed committee Thursday and is supported by several
children's advocacy groups as well as the Facebook and MySpace social
networking sites.

"We commend the Senate Judiciary Committee for passing the KIDS Act that
requires convicted sex offenders to register any e-mail address or online
identifier they use, so social networking sites can block them from
accessing their communities," said Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security
officer. "This legislation is another important tool that will make MySpace
an even safer place for all." Last December, MySpace began purging sex
offenders from its site based on registry information.

Facebook declined to say whether the company would use such e-mail addresses
to deny and restrict sex offenders' access to its site.

Legal experts said yesterday that while it is legal to deny services to
customers based on their criminal history, they were unsure that this bill
would curtail sexual predation on the Web.

"Unlike moving from one house to another, which is visible and which
probation officers can physically check, people can still create and respond
to multiple e-mail addresses," said Daniel Filler, law professor at Drexel
University in Philadelphia. "Physically, you can only be in one place, but
in cyberspace, you can live in a thousand places at once."