Law enforcement should have every tool available when it comes to protecting our children on the Internet. This is why we introduced SB 448 this year, a bill that requires sex offenders who used the Internet in the commission of their crime to provide their online identities to law enforcement.
California took a bold step in 2012 to update Megan’s law for the 21st Century by requiring registered sex offenders to provide their online identities to law enforcement. Proposition 35, also known as the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) Act, passed with 81% of the vote and to date is the most popular ballot initiative in California’s history. Within a day of its passage the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a preliminary injunction against its enforcement on constitutional grounds.
The lower court granted the injunction, and the 9th Circuit upheld the injunction on appeal. Instead of finalizing the case, the lower court judge did something that had never been done before; he granted the legislature the right to address the courts concerns with the measure. SB 448 was introduced to address those concerns. We actively worked with law enforcement, district attorneys, victim’s rights groups and the ACLU to come up with a solution that both helped ensure that law enforcement would have this vital information while at the same time make sure the state was targeting the individuals most likely to use the Internet against children.
In order to address the courts concerns, SB 448 takes a narrow approach at going after sex offenders who used the internet to either identify the victim of the crime, traffic the victim of the crime, or download and distribute child pornography. Law enforcement in the future will be able to use these identities to investigate sex crimes, human trafficking and kidnappings.
As fathers, we want to work to ensure the safety of not just our children but other children in California when they are using the Internet. We are proud to have worked on this measure, and look forward to the most popular people’s initiative in history finally being able to take effect.
Hueso is a California state senator and Kelly is former chief privacy officer of Facebook, and sponsor of Proposition 35.
