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A bill that would have required registered sex offenders to provide e-mail addresses and other Internet identifiers was taken offline Tuesday.
After nearly a half-hour of debate, House Bill 34 was dismantled in one exchange by Sen. Scott McCoy when he posed a few questions to Scott Carver, director of Utah's Sentencing Commission. Can you create an e-mail account on Google or Yahoo! under someone else's name? Yes, came the response. Can you go to the library and use that account to e-mail a 14-year-old girl? Yes, again. OK, thanks. Do you see that as a problem? Yes, a final time. McCoy's point, made in the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee, was driven home moments later when chairman Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, asked for someone on the committee to make a motion "disposing" of the bill. Even Sen. Jon Greiner, R-Ogden and that city's police chief, could only shake his head. "I can't in clear conscientious support this bill going out. I just have too many questions," he said. The bill, which was tabled Tuesday, was intended to help parole officers track a sex offenders' actions in the Information Age. But, it couldn't overcome myriad questions of enforcement and loopholes, which even Carter admitted. "The one drawback is in the enforcement in this because it is so easily changeable," he said. For example, sex offenders would only have to register their online identifiers once a year. "I guess if you really wanted to game it, every year you would create a new address to maintain your privacy," McCoy said. Jay, a sex offender who attends UVSC, said he had his own questions about the bill. While acknowledging the need for oversight, he said the bill is too broad in scope. Under the bill, the state would have had access to his Amazon information, phone records via Sprint's Web site and budgeting information. "How is this anything but carte blanche access to my private information?" said Jay, who was given anonymity by the committee. He was also concerned about the fact that as enforcement lifetime registry, how was the state going to check his computer? He's not on parole, and, he said, "not letting them in without a warrant." The bill had made it through the House 67-3 before it's demise on Tuesday. House Bill 34 Sponsor: Jim Bird, R-West Jordan This bill requires that sex offenders required to register also provide online names and email addresses. |
