Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
A federal judge says Utah's law requiring sex offenders to reveal their Internet screen names and passwords violates the rights of one offender.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell's decision applies only to the Clearfield man identified in court papers as John Doe. He had a military conviction on sex offenses but was never in Utah's court or prison system. Still, he was required by Utah to register as a lifelong sex offender and turn over his online identifiers. The man sued.
A new Utah law requires sex offenders to reveal their Internet screen names and passwords, but the man said that violated his free speech rights because he already had served his time in the military corrections system.
It's unclear if any of Utah's other 7,000 registered sex offenders will challenge the requirement, too.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the judge said the issue may be interpreted differently for people who are on parole for sex crimes. John Doe is not.
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
(The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
