No elected official is going to vote against something called "the KIDS Act," especially when it aims to curb sex offenders' access to children online. It's like voting against anti-kitten-punting legislation. In a perfect policy world, though, lawmakers would not just agree on terms, but would also address limitations.
Parole officers would regularly supervise, of course.
Now, when it comes to child molesters/rapists, I don't have any interest in getting into recidivism rates or debates about the effectiveness of rehabilitation, as in this Technology and Marketing Law Blog writer Eric Goldman points out that the New Jersey law suffers from grammatical ambiguity that will eventually make it overreaching. Ten years into the future, for example, a device with Internet capability could be mean just about anything.
Goldman writes, "A TiVo can access the Internet--is that off-limits to sex offenders? When a refrigerator is Internet-accessible, will that be off-limits? Cars are Internet-connected; are they off-limits too? This law makes about as much sense as banning sex offenders from using our road system (which they also use to commit their crimes)."
Yes, that could be a problem. Like I said, I don't really care what awful things befall the molesters, but blocking access to the Internet because an 18-year-old kid stripped off and ran across a football field seems a little excessive and potentially problematic.





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