Many arguments can be made in favor of keeping sex offenders off of the internet. It wouldn’t be an ideal scenario to give a sex offender the tools to reach out to potential targets on social networks where most people tend to be very open about their lives and their routines. However, the Supreme Court has been mulling over the question that whether a blanket ban can be applied to prevent anything bad that might happen if sex offenders were allowed to access social networks. The highest court in the land doesn’t believe that to be the case.
The United States Supreme Court has, in a ruling pertaining to a case where a college student preyed on an underage girl, struck down a law enacted by North Carolina that imposed a blanket ban on sex offenders.
The law barred them from visiting social networking sites that underage kids might frequent. The law was held to be so broad that it violated free speech rights by restricting offenders from modern social networks.
The court has ruled that in this day and age if someone isn’t on a social network, they will not be able to frequently interact with society even if they have the purest of motives.
For example, if offenders are banned from visiting social networks, they won’t be able to keep in touch with their family over Facebook. This law thus hinders their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights.
The crucial question is that how can the offender be expected to rehabilitate and rejoin the society if they are being prevented from accessing crucial social networks years after they’ve left prison.
The Supreme Court also finds that the law passed by North Carolina can also be misconstrued to include any commercial website, even sites like WebMD or Amazon.
While the justices agree that some form of restriction is required to ensure that predators don’t seek out victims on social networks, they believe that the laws governing those restrictions should be specific in nature and shouldn’t impose a blanket ban on normal internet use.
Filed in .. Source: businessinsider