Sex Offenders Argue They Have First Amendment to Facebook – KNWA

BENTON COUNTY -- - Your children versus the constitution. Facebook versus the First Amendment. It's an argument currently under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court and involves registered sex offenders.

"The U.S. Currently allows each state to decide whether or not a sex offender can have social media accounts, or access to the internet at all. But sex offenders argue it's their Constitutional right to surf the web."

Shannon Jenkins, Sergeant, Benton County Sheriff's Office, "People are going to complain if they can't have something that they want but the law is the law. It could be a condition of their probation or parole that would not allow a sex offender to have any kind of social media or internet access period."

Until the Supreme Court decides on sex offenders' access to the internet, the Benton County Sheriff's Office has an entire cyber division and super computer that monitors the web to stop sex offenders from getting to your kids.

"We do have a group that's actively out there searching for violations or people that are not supposed to be on certain sites. There's ways of finding offenders that are using other names," said Jenkins.

Jenkins says very few police departments have this type of cyber division. Moreover, the techniques they use to find sex offenders online are so secret that they don't share them with the public.

"We have a sex offender division that that keeps up with each offender and they are looking for any social media accounts...Ghost accounts that have been created by sex offenders. They do this everyday. I think it's a pretty unique division. As far as full time -- we have a full department that is fully invested in nothing but cyber crime," said Jenkins.

The Supreme Court has not decided whether it's a right of free speech for sex offenders to be on social media. Its ruling will likely come in May or June. But the Benton County Sheriff's Office will continue to monitor all internet activity.

Read more:
Sex Offenders Argue They Have First Amendment to Facebook - KNWA