In an effort to protect minors on social networking sites,
both the State of Virginia, and the U.S. Congress, have proposed requiring that registered sex offenders provide their e-mail addresses, IM names, and other indicia of electronic life, to the government. This concept, like previous attempts to
require labeling of websites, is further indication that the Internet is moving from its relatively unregulated state, to one in which companies will have increasing responsibility for facilitating compliance with various law enforcement and societal priorites.
Virginia's proposal should be seen in light of recent publicity about the capture of Darren Bates at a Philadelphia library while he was updating his MySpace page. Its clear that both law enforcement and politicians see providers of Internet Infrastructure services, particularly web hosts, as an effective source of information and behavior control. Currently, to avoid liability, web hosts should have a written procedure in place for dealing with subpoenas and law enforcement requests. Its clear that in the future, hosts will have other significant responsibilities.
Many Legislators, crave a Nanny State where people are coddled, fleeced of their money, and support an intrusive bureaucracy. Spend, spend, spend; limit, limit, limit; snoop, snoop snoop. There's no end to funding for their insatiable apparatchiks!
Congress is bankrupting our country with layer-upon-layer of bureaucrats who feast like flesh-eating microbes upon the people they are supposed to 'serve'. It’s a veritable banquet for our legislative cannibals. They represnet the Tali-banning of America. Congress is full of Neo-Talibanners surfing the waves of repression.