Photograph of Governor Paterson and Senator Schumer during an agricultural town hall upstate by David Duprey/AP
With all the horror stories about sexual predators trolling the Internet for young victims, Governor Paterson signed legislation requiring convicted sexual offenders to register their screen names with the state. Paterson said, "New York State will do everything possible to try to protect young people from the actions of convicted sexual offenders."
Called the e-STOP law, the sexual offenders must register any and all Internet and email accounts with the state, and if they don't or change them without updating the state, it will be considered a felony. Facebook and MySpace has already agreed to use the information to remove users who are sexual offenders.
Lawmakers are also trying to stop videos of violent incidents from being distributed on the Internet, such as "bum fighting," animal attacks and the recent videos of cheerleaders beating up another girl. Currently, the AP reports there's no sentence for making a video of an attack "that could continue to embarrass or traumatize a victim for years."
