FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill on sex offender’s use of social media was approved today by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
House Bill 70 is trying to clarify and revise Kentucky’s restrictions on internet access for registered sex offenders. Sponsor Rep. Joseph M. Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, said he introduced the measure after a unanimous decision by U.S. Supreme Court in June of last year struck down a similar North Carolina ban.
He explained that HB 70 is an attempt to narrowly tailor Kentucky’s statutes as to meet the new judicial standard and not restrict the First Amendment right to free speech. A federal judge had expressed concern the old restrictions prevented registered sex offenders from even logging onto the website of their local newspaper.
Here we go again, i guess Kentucky was the first state brave enough to test scotus. i knew someone was gonna try them soon. I havent seen the bill, but Im sure whatever they plan on trying will either be too weak to have any effect on anything (not likely) or will attempt to ban people based on crime commited. It will still be a first amendment rights issue, due process issue, and ex post facto issue. Hopefully an immediate injunction gets filed on it before it can even take off. They keep reminding people registrant=predator so tired of hering this…
The Bill’s sponsor “explained that HB 70 is an attempt to narrowly tailor Kentucky’s statutes as to meet the new judicial standard…”
As we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, if registrants win a legal victory, the lawmakers immediately propose a narrowly tailored replacement.
The only way to defeat the Registries is to add more and more people to them. Only when EVERYONE in this country has a son, brother, father, uncle, good friend or neighbor on a Registry will the public turn against the Registries and demand they be abolished.
My God, if I was a politician who genuinely cared about the well being of children, or was just trying to make a name for myself, I’d be focused on doing something to prevent mass murders of children, not the viewing of publicly available social media profiles.
The FBI just loves using their sophisticated equipment to troll the internet to find someone that downloaded images. About 500,000 have been convicted in the US to date, but they can’t seem to find if a predator is using social media, so they need a permanent ban. This is just astonishing.
Once again, a law that can’t possibly achieve any of its stated goals, just like Packingham.
Restrictions on communications and forcing someone to disclose identifiers will only be followed by those following the law anyway. Those with nefarious intent won’t provide anything and won’t be using the identifiers they already provided when doing something that is already illegal.
You just can’t restrict normally legal activities when there is no intent to commit a crime.
So if an RC reads the online version of a Kentucky newspaper and runs across a story about, say, an elementary school student winning a spelling bee, the RC is in violation. “Gathering information about minors” is an awfully vague phrase.
For that matter, wouldn’t it also apply to simply watching television? Isn’t TV “electronic communication”?
But of course, the fearless DAs in Kentucky would use common sense when prosecuting such things…
Does anyone know what the registration requirements are for those who visit Kentucky?
I have poured through the laws and statutes and really can’t find anything related to this. The NARSOL website even states nothing could be found. ACSOL (this website) quotes the Rolfe Survey which says 14 days before you have to register if you’re visiting, but I’m not sure how accurate that is, plus it seems like a long time. I want to vacation there, but obviously don’t want to run afoul of any registration requirements.
I plan to be there 5 days.
Thanks.