Washington Times | Parents need to get a grip on social networking - Washington Times Washington Times A chicken in every pot. A television in every home. A cellphone and computer in every child's hands. Parents, dear parents, please get a grip on social ... |
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The Supreme Court weighed a North Carolina law banning sex offenders from using social media. Matt Hoffman reports. Buzz60
The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on a North Carolina law that bans sex offenders from social media websites.(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court argued Monday that social networking websites have become such an important source of information, including President Trump's daily tweets, that evensex offenders should not be barred from social media.
Displaying their familiarity during oral arguments with such platforms as Facebook, Snapchat and LinkedIn, several justices said a North Carolina law that makes it a felony for sex offenders to access them appeared to violate the First Amendment.
It didn't help state officials that their case focused on Lester Packingham, whose sex crime in 2002 resulted only in two years of supervised probation, but who was arrested eight years later for celebrating the dismissal of a parking ticket with a Facebook post that began "Man God is Good!"
That appeared to go too far for at least five of the court's eight justices, who noted that social networking sites have become a major part of "the marketplace of ideas," in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's words.
"Increasingly, this is the way people get ... all information," Justice Elena Kagan said. "This is the way people structure their civic community life."
Although North Carolina's law goes further than most states, a victory for Packingham would represent a ringing defense of free speech rights for some of the nation's most reviledcitizens the estimated 850,000 registered sex offenders.
The state's senior deputy attorney general, Robert Montgomery, likened the law to a 1992 Supreme Court decision that forbids politicking within 100 feetof a polling place. He noted that social networking sites are used to gaininformation in more than 80% of online sex crimes against children.
"These are some of the worst criminals, who have abused children and others," he said.
Thirteen states defended the North Carolina law in legal papers as a weapon against the illicit use of social networking sites, which they said areused in one-third of Internet-related sex crimes resulting in arrest.
"There's a concern here for the safety of children," Ginsburg acknowledged, as some of her colleagues notably Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer searched for a more limited way in which states could protect victims without infringing on basic free speech rights.
But they found it difficult to defend North Carolina's law, passed in 2008 as a way to add "virtual" neighborhoods to the physical locations such as schools and playgrounds from which sex offenders are barred.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites offer a range of services beyond social networking. Kagan said they are an important channel for political information and conversation, including the president's proclivity for tweeting newsworthy musings.
Asthe youngest member of the court and one who spent time as dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan, 56, demonstrated the most intimate knowledge of social media -- at one point noting that the law's exceptions for chat rooms and photo-sharing sites created "a constitutional right to use Snapchat but not to use Twitter."
Only Justice Samuel Alito mounted much of a defense of the law, suggesting that it could be limited to core social networking sites rather than The New York Times or Betty Crocker. "There are still alternative channels," he said.
But David Goldberg of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, who represented Packingham, said Twitter hosts about 500 million tweets a day, and Snapchat hosts 10 billion videos -- statistics that are not replicable elsewhere.
Alito acknowledged the addiction of many users. "There are people who think that life is not possible without Twitter andFacebook," he said.
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Supreme Court justices defend social media, even for sex offenders - USA TODAY
Posters and Social networking sites used to malign Hizb's image' Brighter Kashmir While distancing itself from the threatening posters and strike related information shared on social media networking sites attributed to the organization, militant outfit Hizbul Mujhadeen Monday asked people and Hurriyat leadership to help it ... |
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A 2008 North Carolina law bans sex offenders from using commercial social networking sites like Facebook that children could join. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether the law is so broad it violates the Constitutions free-speech protections. ( JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES )
By Emery P. DalesioAssociated Press
Sun., Feb. 26, 2017
RALEIGH, N.C.Fresh from a trip to traffic court, Lester Packingham Jr. celebrated his turn of good fortune by announcing to friends on Facebook that his pending ticket was dismissed without his having said a word.
No fine. No Court costs. No nothing. Praise be to God. Wow. Thanks, Jesus, Packingham wrote in a 2010 post that led to a lawsuit being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
Packingham, 36, was forbidden by a 2008 North Carolina law from using commercial social networking sites like Facebook that children could join. Thats because hes a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent liberties with a minor when he was 21. He served 10 months in prison.
A Durham police officer investigated Packinghams post and determined he used an alias rather than his real name. Packingham was prosecuted, convicted of a felony and received a suspended prison sentence. His lawyers say no evidence pointed to Packingham using Facebook or his computer to communicate with minors or that he posted anything inappropriate or obscene.
Now the Supreme Courts task is deciding whether the law, meant to prevent communications between sex offenders and minors via social media, is so broad that it violates the Constitutions free-speech protections.
The case reaches the Supreme Court after it was upheld by North Carolinas highest court in a divided ruling. The law addressed websites that might allow sex offenders to gather information about minors, the state court said. But dissenting justices argued the ban extends further and could outlaw reading the New York Times and Food Network website.
Lawyers arguing on Monday are expected to continue that dispute.
Groups including the libertarian Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union argue the North Carolina law could bar sex offenders from online life that includes looking for jobs or reading the daily musings of President Donald Trump and is unconstitutional.
Everyday Americans understand that social media, which includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, are absolutely central to their daily life and how the First Amendment is exercised in America today, said Stanford law professor David Goldberg, who will represent Packingham at the Supreme Court on Monday.
Though the intent of North Carolina lawmakers may have been to block sexual predators from finding and grooming prey online, Goldberg said, the law goes further and makes it a crime for someone on a sex-offender registry to say anything about any subject on social media.
That goes way, way too far, Goldberg said. Its a crime to do anything, including what Mr. Packingham did, which was to say God is good because he was victorious in traffic court. Theres never been any suggestion that he was up to anything but exercising his freedom of speech.
Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana also have laws restricting sex offenders use of use of social media sites. Nine other states require offenders to disclose their online usernames and profiles, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
We have to protect young people wherever they are, whether thats at school or at summer camp or increasingly online, said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, whose office is defending the law. This North Carolina law keeps registered sex offenders off of social networking websites that kids use without denying the offenders access to the Internet. It just keeps them off of certain websites.
The laws supporters contend that it doesnt regulate what sex offenders say, just the time, place and manner of their speech, which most people understand through the legal maxim that you cant yell fire in a crowded movie theatre. The law doesnt ban offenders from using the Internet entirely, just social media sites like Facebook, said Louisiana Deputy Solicitor General Colin Clark, who wrote a brief supporting the law joined by attorneys general in 12 other states.
Theres nothing that a sex offender cant say on the internet. They just cant say it on Facebook, Clark said. His state, Nebraska and Indiana have had laws that federal courts ruled violated the free-speech rights of sex offenders. Louisiana amended its statute to comply with the court decision.
The vast majority of the more than 800,000 sex offenders nationwide are required to register their names, addresses and photographs on registries maintained by states, Clark said.
States are trying to come up with a practical solution to the practical problem of sex offenders being on social media and harvesting information about our children and then soliciting them online, he said.
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US Supreme Court weighs law barring sex offenders from Facebook - Toronto Star
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