Published: May 05, 2009 04:33 pm      

Bill forces sex offenders to register online

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Registered sex offenders in Texas would have to list their e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers and any Internet IDs to law enforcement under a bill moving its way through the Legislature.

The bill is designed to let officials monitor what they are doing in cyberspace and remove the anonymity of the Internet.

"The more secret, the more private they can be, the more they can do their dastardly deeds," said Sen. Florence Shapiro, a Plano Republican who sponsored the bill that passed the Senate on Monday and was sent to the House.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott joined Shapiro and Rep. Aaron Pena, D-Edinburg at a Capitol news conference Tuesday to support the bill. A Republican, Abbott has aggressively tracked sexual predators on the Internet.

Since 2003, Abbott's Cyber Crimes Unit has arrested 105 people trying to arrange sex with investigators posing on the Internet as young children. Another 96 have been convicted of child pornography charges.

The registration bill is "another vitaal tool for cracking down on child predators who are using the Internet," Abbott said.

The bill also requires some high-level offenders, for crimes such as rape and assault of a child, to be banned from using social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook as a condition of their parole. While some judges currently ban such activity, it is not required under law.

Registered sex offenders are required to give authorities their home address and cell phone numbers. Under Shapiro's bill, the registration form would be expanded to require any Internet IDs as well as cell phone numbers.

The registry would have to be updated every time an offender gets a new cell phone number, e-mail address or other form of Internet ID, Abbott said.

The cell phone requirement is critical because of rapidly expanding technology that allows cell phone users to access the Internet or send text messages and exchange photographs, Pena said.

The information would be kept with law enforcement and could be shared with Internet providers. It would not be public information.

Jeff Clark, executive director of the Internet industry trade group TechAmerica, said social networking and others will welcome the information to help them keep sex offenders off their sites. In February, MySpace announced it had removed 90,000 sex offenders in a two-year period.

"It's in the industry's interest to keep the sites safe," Clark said.