Intellectual Property Law

Registered sex offenders will have to start providing their e-mail addresses to a national database available to social networking sites, under the misleadingly titled "Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008" ? a bill authored by Senator John McCain and signed by President Bush on Monday.

The idea behind the law (.pdf) is that a social networking site can query the database to keep registered sex offenders from signing up, and thus prevent them from preying on underage users. Needless to say, the law does nothing to stop first-time predators. But it's doubtful that even recidivists will be affected.  Pedophiles looking to victimize children ? a felony worth years, even decades, in prison ? won't be afraid to violate this new law by using an unregistered Gmail address. And now law enforcement will have to struggle to discern whether an offender is using a disposable webmail account to commit new crimes, or just to shunt the blacklist and network with their adult friends and family.

The idea for this law originated with Fox a few years back, after a series of child predation cases were linked to the company's MySpace service, prompting several state attorneys general to start investigating the site. Fox's feel-good fix was then adopted by McCain, who turned it into legislation.

Here, Fox's interests and McCain's converge perfectly. For any social networking site, it's much easier to check an e-mail address than to effectively police message boards and friends lists for signs of predation. And this plan allows McCain to appear tough on child predators, while opposing more serious efforts against pedophiles that offend the far right.

In television ads he ran last month, McCain slammed a 2003 Illinois measure once supported by presidential rival Barack Obama that would have taught children how to recognize, and avoid, sexual predators. McCain called the plan "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners.

In other words, to McCain, teaching children to avoid predators is as bad as teaching sexually active teenagers about contraception. But setting up an e-mail database that relies on pedophiles being honest and respectful of the law ? well, we can all live with that.

(Image: AP / Gunby)