The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that requiring sex offenders to disclose their social media identities and other digital information does not violate their free speech rights.
Five of the seven justices agreed that the requirement, part of the state’s sex offender registry, was put in place a decade ago to protect children and victims from possible abuse but was not a “proxy for content regulations.” Justice Thomas Waterman’s opinion emphasized that sex offenders aren’t required to disclose their passwords and aren’t prevented from participating in social media. Full Article
The whole reasoning of safety here is bad since it relies on just the persons name and not a truly unique identifier like a social security number. An RC named John Smith has tens of thousands of doppelgangers. And if RC John Smith doesn’t choose on include his picture and city location, then what use is it to a potential victim to know that John Smith is an RC? Does the potential victim now avoid 100% of people with the same name? I use Facebook but don’t have a single picture of myself or my family on it and didn’t fill out a lick of information on my location, job, or anything else. There’s no way for the general public to identify me against the registry in order to be “safe” from me. The logic here is extremely poor.
This is absurd to simple neglect the rights of once prosecuted to ever live a normal and uninfrenged life because the gov. Claims an all time stake in internet or any territory the deem necessary to so called protect public…so at what point is it considered to be stupid lines drawn and no way for ex offenders to be free of troubles, barriers, bias, losses in social and all areas of life
Solely on the concept it’s best for the rest of the world
So..it does not matter that it hurts, damages, blocks, rejects, and makes 2nd class citzens maybe 3rd .. because they think that the Constitution can be modified to suit there ideas and fears and promote only there life while making others a living hell !!!
As if gov agents do not have software to overcome password barriers!
Just more opinion from ignorant non tech savvy peoples.
From the Opinion (and lower Court):
*****
With the internet having so affected our daily lives, the Court agrees with Plaintiff’s assertion that providing
information regarding a person’s internet identifier is no different than providing an address or telephone number.
*****
Why on *earth* would the Plaintiff (the RC) make such a horrible claim!?!? “Your Honor, Internet info holds no special status such as speaking in the modern-day public square. Indeed, it’s no different than any other basic personal fact swirling out there on forms and in millions of discarded phone books.” Were I the State, I would have readily agreed with the RC’s claim and assert the addition of Internet info is de minimus.
=====
Reading the case-law references in the Opinion, it sure sounds like IA has built up some serious stare decisis in favor of the State: “If the law is reasonably open to two constructions, one that renders it
unconstitutional and one that does not, the court must adopt the interpretation that upholds the law’s
constitutionality.” Wow. Is this not the textbook definition of vagueness?
That all said, IA’s law may indeed satisfy intermediate scrutiny. There are protections against willy-nilly release of the info to the public and to non-LEO entities; one can appear, write/email, or call with the info; the person has 5 days to do so. These items all distinguish it from Doe v. Harris (CA), Doe v. Marshall (AL), and Does v. Snyder (MI/6th). IMO, the chilling-effect argument is pretty watered down by these different rules. Were it challenged to SCOTUS, I can easily see denial of cert…unless SCOTUS is eager to fix, “frightening and high,” which I don’t think it is. I’ll happily be wrong.
It’s IA, the same state that wanted to pressure a teen girl into treatment for photos she took of herself the DA saw as naughty. Smh…
People don’t really care about this. Only a couple of comments on the article.