December 7, 2006
New Leglislation Creating E-mail Registry for Sex Offenders
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 7, 2006
SENATORS SCHUMER AND MCCAIN ANNOUNCE NEW LEGISLATION CREATING FIRST-EVER EMAIL REGISTRY FOR SEX OFFENDERS
Legislation Would Require Sex Offenders to register email addresses with law enforcement, enabling social-networking web sites to actively track and expel child predators
Washington, DC -- Today, U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ) announced they plan to introduce bi-partisan legislation that would require all registered sex offenders to submit their active email addresses to law enforcement. The legislation would allow online companies, including social networking websites, to cross-check new members against a database of registered sex offenders to ensure that predators are unable to sign up for the service. Under the proposed legislation, any sex offender who submits a fraudulent email could face jail time. "
Just like in our actual neighborhoods, sex offenders must make themselves known in our virtual neighborhoods as well," Schumer said. "Millions of teenagers log on to websites like MySpace and they shouldn't have to worry about running in to these predators online. Sex offenders have no business joining social networking communities - especially those with teenage users - and our legislation will keep them out. This first-of-its-kind law will represent a giant leap for Internet safety."
"The legislation that Senator Schumer and I are developing together reflects our strong desire to protect children online. It also highlights our interest in working with the private sector to find innovative and effective approaches to stopping the exploitation of our nation's children both online and in the offline world," McCain said.
The Senators applauded and encouraged private sector efforts to combat child exploitation, such as MySpace.com's recent partnership with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to build Sentinel Safe, the first national, real-time searchable, sex offender database.
Under the planned legislation, registered sex offenders would be required to log an email address with their probation or parole officers. Any offender caught using an unregistered email address would be in violation of probation or parole terms and face a return to prison. Senators Schumer and McCain are also working together on other provisions in an effort to better protect children online.
The Senators plan to introduce their legislation at the beginning of the 110th Congress in January.
CONTACT:
Joshua Vlasto 202-224-7433
Melissa Shuffield 202-224-7130
-
- #