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Supreme Court Rules Sex Offenders Can't Be Barred From Social Media (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: In a unanimous decision today, the Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that prevents sex offenders from posting on social media where children might be present, saying it "impermissibly restricts lawful speech." In doing so, the Supreme Court asserted what we all know to be true: Posting is essential to the survival of the republic. The court ruled that to "foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights." The court correctly noted that "one of the most important places to exchange views is cyberspace." The North Carolina law was ruled to be overly broad, barring "access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge."
Right now, some politicians are planning how best they can pass a new law that will do exactly the same, but be just different enough that it can be tied up in court for a few years before being struck down.
Sex offenders are perhaps the most reviled people in the US. Any law which causes them difficulty is an easy pass with overwhelming public support.
Plus slow internet and Microsoft laid off their QA department and Seattle stuff.
Look for numerous unanimous decisions like this going forward. This guy is going to make SCOTUS great again with his consensus building activities. I bet he could talk Justice Alito into voting for installing a transgender bathroom in the building.
Dodged a bullet with that decision...
Ken
To be enforced how? How many teens or or-teens gave their real age when they signed up to Facebook, twitter, etc?
Ken
Too... many... unanimous... decisions... head... exploding...
Historically, most SCOTUS decisions have been unanimous, and the proportion has actually been growing in recent years.
Most decisions are either 9-0 or 5-4. The 9-0 decisions are common when it is a matter of the law, as in this case. The 5-4 decisions are common when it is a partisan issue.
Sorry, I flubbed the cut-and-paste for the citation. Here it is: Most decisions are either 9-0 or 5-4. Scroll down for a graph of 9-0 vs 5-4 decisions.
Teens or Pre-teens
Ken
In the US--pursuing child molesters is the last bastion of the bureaucratic tyrant. No right is beyond revoke and no punishment too severe to stand in the way of "protecting the children".
My local police (like many in the US) has a special web page showing convicted sex offenders.
There is no page showing convicted murderers; somehow the normal public record of that was enough...
What's wrong with this picture?...
As a formerly registered "sex offender" (I plead out because they found a nasty loophole in the law that forced me to make a shitty choice) I have turned a very attentive ear to these issues for a very long time. Ever since the 90s the internet has become an extension of the in-person world and "social media" has become a major component of participation in society at large. These laws that ban sex offenders from social media effectively ban them from society and participation in it, greatly increasing the risk of new crimes. Sex offender laws need to be clawed back. Registration needs to be completely discarded; it has no value when objectively examined over the 25+ years that it has existed and causes more harm than good across the board.
The best way to reform convicts that are not heavily mentally unbalanced (most offenders are one-time offenders and don't go on to have a long rap sheet, after all!) is to help them build social safety nets and positive relationships. To do something other than pursue those specific goals is to intentionally harm society at large.
Sex offenders on social media will make them easier to track.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Look for numerous unanimous decisions like this going forward. This guy is going to make SCOTUS great again with his consensus building activities. I bet he could talk Justice Alito into voting for installing a transgender bathroom in the building.
I rather think that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would hold her own in that discussion.
Just asking for a friend, right?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Did you not read all of my comment? I repeat - To know someone's deepest, darkest thoughts, ask them what their enemy thinks.
You have revealed what your own deepest, darkest thoughts are. Thanks for the warning.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's a blanket ban on people who have served their time for their crimes, most often minor offences that got them put onto a list. I have no problems with such provisions being put onto bail or parole for specific persons but not on people who have already served their sentence. These can be places on people who sent a nude selfie or urinated in public just as easily as committed rape.
How about a minors only internet, running on an separate encrypted protocol. Minors gain access via a student card and teachers and authorised authorities gain access via educators cards and all unlicensed adults are forbidden under threat of criminal penalty. Safe and sure, reason it will not happen, psychopathic marketing companies would no longer be allowed to psychologically target, attack and manipulate children to feed the psychopathic greed of corporate executives.
There should be two internet separated by specific protocols, one for adults and one for minors.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
And how do you define grooming and solicitation? Is just a message to one on a social media site enough? A series? Laws like this are how you define what's punishable and what isn't. If you left it at only the laws from the 80s (or whenever last defined it), you could end up with a situation where by the letter of the law only a telephone call counts, but websites and text messages don't (because they didn't exist at the time and the letter of the law isn't wide enough to include them). Its not just "well this seems like grooming to me", that isn't an enforceable statute.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I have a funny story for that.
Inwas camping in france with a group of friends and French guy with a 4 or 5 year old daughter joined us (married to a maroccean lady).
The girl wanted to use my iPad to go on facebook.
She only had grandmas and grand dads as friends and her profile picture was not herself (don't remember what it was), surprisingly she spoke english, too. Anyway when I looked a bit questioing what she does on my iPad on Facebook she said: "you know, we can put our real age into facebook. That would make a lot of trouble!"
All the grandmas and granddadies where actually her 4 - 8 year old kid friends.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I thought the terms of service for many social media sites state people under a certain age are not allowed to use those services.
And this is what the local lawyer consults. The lawyer doesn't guess at it, the legislature defines what it is. This is part of that definition process.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In the US, the legislature writes the law and the courts define what it is. Our legislators apparently can't be bothered to make the laws well-defined enough to get along without case law.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, they don't. That is what makes this hilarious in their remarks.
Don't tell that to the 1 million innocent Iraqis murdered for WMD lies
Nor the American Citizens interrogated for non-existent Terrorism links
Nor the "Free citizens" banned from living in low-cost housing due to a separate person's misuse of illegal drugs
Nor the victims of the Patriot Act nondisclosures
Nor the women who have lost birth control / abortion access
no, it looks like repigs are all about "Safety" and care nothing about freedom.