Sex Offenders

Sex Offenders

The House and Senate need to work out their differences on a proposed law that would make it a low-grade felony for registered sex offenders to use social networking Web sites. Sen. Walter Dalton, a Rutherfordton Democrat who is running for lieutenant governor, said the House deleted provisions that should have been included, such as making it a felony to lie to a SBI agent and making in-person solicitation of minors and online solicitation separate offenses. Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's office said the state prosecutor wants those provisions added back to the bill.
State Attorney General Roy Cooper started pushing for the law last year. Back then, the proposal included a requirement to have social networking sites obtain parental consent before they allowed children to join. Since then, MySpace and Facebook came to agreements with state attorneys general to add safeguards to protect minors from sexual predators. Many sections of the original bill, including the provision that would have required parental consent for a child to join a social networking site, have been removed. (Dome, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 6/25/08).