We are petitioning the United States to reject or revoke S-431-ES [KIDS Act of 2008] based on our finding that this legislation is counter-productive and unconstitutional. This broad-reaching law does not make any provisions for low-risk and non-violent sex offenders and does nothing to protect children from sexual abuse. This law, if passed, will violate a former offender\'s right to maintain his/her business on the Internet even though no illegal activity has taken place. Plus, this law will violate a former offender\'s right to protest and free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment because such law will prohibit a former offender from using blogs and social networking websites to make his/her opinion heard. We see this legislation as censorship as there are no provisions for law-abiding offenders using a social network for political opinion. Again S-431-ES does nothing to protect children since logging a former offender\'s screen name, instant message name, and e-mail address will not prevent a legitimate predator (who measure only a small percentage of all sex offenders) from abusing a victim because his/her personal Internet data can easily be manipulated. Also, there are now young children who are registered sex offenders and this legislation would prevent these children from having a productive life since plenty of education is now conducted via Internet access. We who oppose this unconstitutional legislation ask that you consider the negative consequences of implementing it. The extra burden on law enforcement to monitor Internet activity of thousands of low-risk sex offenders would cost states millions and would likely be ineffective because police in most states are short on staff to monitor so many people. We propose you amend this legislation to exclude low-risk offenders who are law-abiding and only apply such measures to violent predators, who again are a smaller percentage of all sex offenders, using more effective techniques like tracking what sites they visit and their usage of those sites until they are no longer considered a high-risk as opposed to blocking them from having any access at all. Law enforcement would then be able to monitor this class of offenders more efficiently and the states would save much needed funds. Again, we strongly advise you to reject or amend the sweeping S-431-ES and to use a more rational approach to protecting our children and to preserve the constitutional rights of many law-abiding sex offenders, especially those of low-risk and their families.

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