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N.J. law limits sex offenders' Internet use
Home News Tribune Online 12/28/07
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By TOM BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
tbaldwi@gannett.com
WEST TRENTON — Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey signed into law Thursday a first-in-the-nation measure giving the state virtually unparalleled power to monitor and restrict Internet access by convicted sex offenders.
These are what Codey called the "creeps" who frighten unknowing parents as they watch their children click away the hours in front of a glowing screen, interacting with just about anyone out there — maybe a classmate, maybe a monster.
"We live in scary times," said Codey. "Parents have to worry about people preying on their kids even while they're in the safety of their own homes."
Even as Codey signed the measure, he acknowledged fast-paced developments in communications — the Internet can be accessed from cafes, cell phones and even some car dashboards — make the the crux of the law dependent on actually catching a wrongdoer.
"There is no perfect law," said Codey, D-Essex, who is president of the state Senate and signed the measure as acting governor since Gov. Jon S. Corzine is out of state on vacation.
"We are now the toughest state in the country in terms of tracking predators," said Codey as he inked the bill that restricts from the Internet anyone who used a computer to commit a sex crime. Only Florida and Nevada similarly restrict their pedophiles.
New Jersey's number of such parolees was estimated by Parole Board Chairman Peter Barnes Jr. to be 4,200. The law says that if a parolee is caught making unauthorized use of the Internet, the penalty could rise to 18 months in jail or a fine of $10,000.
# The parole board under the new law can ban sex offenders from the Internet even if their original crimes never involved a computer.
# The new restrictions require a parolee to submit to unannounced examinations of the parolee's computers and allow state officials to install monitoring systems on parolees' cyber gear.
# Parolees, who are now required to get written permission from the state to use a computer or to explore the Internet, are also required to tell parole officers what computers they may have at their disposal.
# Parolees can use the Internet for work or to seek a job.
"Few could envision a day when a sex offender hiding behind a fake screen name would be a mouse click away from new and unwitting victims," said Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, D-Middlesex, a primary sponsor of the law.
Codey and Barnes agreed there are ways anyone can get online without using one's own equipment, screen name or password. But they said the law allows for the parole board to use a polygraph to question parolees about their Internet forays.
"We have the authority to polygraph," said Barnes, a former assemblyman who spent a career in law enforcement.
The signing took place inside the cavernous, new State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center at State Police headquarters.
In earlier, related moves this year, the state had discovered that hundreds of sex offenders had registered on social-networking web sites, and some 250 paroled sexual offenders are walking around with satellite-tracked ankle bracelets.
Tom Baldwin: tbaldwi@gannett.com |
