Facebook ban clears House committee

A Minnesota House committee approved legislation today that would ban sexual predators from social networking Web sites.

The bill would prohibit any registered sex offender in Minnesota from logging on to sites like Facebook or MySpace. Participation in Web-based chat rooms would also be banned. During a House Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee hearing, Assistant Attorney General David Voigt said social networks are trying to remove sex offenders off their sites, but they need help.

"Their problem is that theres nothing to prevent the sex offenders from going there in the first place, other than maybe their own user agreements, which can be disregarded," Voigt said. "And their problem is they can't always identify registered sex offenders. And this is something that goes to that problem."

A similar measure failed to pass last year. The bill's author, Rep. Karla Bigham, DFL-Cottage Grove, says state officials could warn sex offenders about the ban in a regular notification of prohibited activities. Bigham says enforcement would not be a problem.

"When you are a registered sex offender you are subject to searches of your person, house, car," Bigham said. "We are going to extend that to the computer and PDAs and such."

The committee also approved a second bill from Bigham that would prohibit people from using any electronic device to sexually solicit children. She says the measure would close a loophole in a current law covering the use of computers.

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