People convicted of sexual offenses in New York will not have to disclose their status and will be permitted to use their Facebook accounts provided they don’t use a false name.
The New York State Supreme Court unanimously made the ruling on Thursday, June 27, after a man from Ticonderoga was charged for failing to disclose to state officials that he used the social media website. His case has since been dismissed.
Related links:
Where sex offenders don’t socially register [observertoday.com – 7/7/19]
A great decision, but I wish it was on different grounds such as on grounds of the right to anonymous speech. I hope the NY legislature doesn’t “patch” this law for the future. And I do hope they are able to track everyone down who was convicted of this stupid offense so that the conviction can be vacated.
Affirmative restraint.
How is the people’s use of e-stop not considered some proof of the people’s intent to impose affirmative restraint.
Is this not evidence of collusion between e-commerce firms and gov to impose affirmative , of lawful activity?
Does New York inform registrants of the purposes of the collection? That it maybe used to impose bans?
Of course, it doesn’t affect Facebook’s policy of booting registrants from the platform, but it decriminalizes the ability to join or to disclose it in the first place. However, the ruling infers that if a registrant joins and uses a fictitious name, then he can still be criminally charged. Weird.
This is a big deal. The wording used in New York is taken straight from AWA. It is used in many states. I don’t know if anyone has data on the number of registrants that have a FTR for internet identifiers, but there could be many. This would also mean that as long as you use a registered email address that you could sign up for any service with it without having to go to the sheriff’s office each time. That is a huge relief as most of us use the internet and services and it is a hassle to register each site.
I have always felt that the requirement to divulge identifiers is a form of compelled speech…which is illegal. If you don’t disclose it and they search for it, they must have probable cause or it is illegal. **I realize our rights are violated left and right so just being on the registry is probable cause in some way. I am not sure why it hasn’t been fought in court (or at least I haven’t heard of it).
Here is the link to the decision:
http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2019/Jun19/54opn19-Decision.pdf
AJ, CR, WA,
Saying ” no” is the very heart of the right to remain silent to gov questioning. Without the ability to say ” no” zero liberty exists against authoritarian rule. By justifying registration all citizens lost (unknowingly gave up) their right NOT to have an electronic gov file on them, and their personal biometric data stored to be used by whoever. FB seriously collects known registrants email addresses via some other list gathered via registration law. As I will soon explain to a jury. State create an online identity first then it’s used specifically by firm TOS to impose affirmative restraint ( as any baker is free to do, lol) The key is ” individual determination ” versus broad brush. The preamble painted with a thin brush in the Whetterling act, this withstood scrutiny, but gov USE of a database consumes all by equal protection.