ANDERSON — A local state representative is asking the Indiana Attorney General to appeal a federal judge’s decision that struck down a new state law allowing computer searches of sex offenders.
An appeal would help provide better wording so that the law could again go through the Legislature, said state Rep. Scott Reske, D-Pendleton.
“We need to aggressively go after these people who commit these crimes,” Reske said Wednesday.
“If we lose the appeal, we’ll use what we learn ... and go back and try to restructure the language in the next session so that we’ll be within those boundaries.”
Reske, as chairman of the House Technology, Research and Development Committee, included language in the bill that would have required sex offenders enrolling in the state’s public registry to submit their computer e-mail addresses and user names.
Those names allow computer users access to instant messaging, chat room and social network sites.
The sex offenders would have to sign a consent form allowing searches of their computers or other Internet-enabled devices at any time. They would also have to install software — at their expense — that would monitor their Internet activity.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law, set to go into effect July 1, on privacy grounds for sex offenders who must still register but have finished serving parole or probation.
U.S. District Judge David Hamilton agreed with their claims.
“The unprecedented new law, however well-intentioned, violates the Fourth Amendment rights of the plaintiff class, who have completed their sentences and are no longer on probation, parole or any other kind of court supervision,” Hamilton wrote in a 51-page ruling.
“The state may not force them to waive those rights under threat of criminal prosecution for failing or refusing to do so,” the ruling said.
The wording, Reske said, was based on information received by his committee from technology companies, including Microsoft. Indiana was the first state to pass a law based on the comments from those companies.
State Sen. John Waterman, R-Shelburn, sponsored the bill, which originally did not address sex offenders.
Reske’s committee later inserted provisions including the computer issue.
Sex offenders generally must be actively registered for 10 years after their release from prison, but some face the restriction for life.
Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, told The Associated Press that the law meant that officers could demand at any time to look at the computers of those who had been restored their civil rights.
The class-action lawsuit had two original plaintiffs. One was a Marion County man using the name “John Doe” who had been convicted of child molesting.
The other was a Scott County man who had convictions for child molesting and sexual misconduct with a minor.
Both were required to register for life as sex offenders, the suit said, and had concerns about the privacy of financial and business information on their computers.
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