New York's Attorney General Violates Sex Offender Registry Law?

12-10-2009 New York:

While this may be hard to believe, it appears so, here are the facts:

AG Cuomo issues a Press Release seeking various social networking websites to begin using the NY Registry eStop listing of "Internet Identifiers" to purge NY registrants from their social networking websites. Relevant part states:

"On December 1, Cuomo issued letters to 17 social networking Web sites urging them to take this important step towards protecting their users from sexual predators. To date, twelve of these Web sites; AOL’s Bebo.com. Google’s Orkut.com, Yahoo!’s Flickr.com, BlackPlanet.com, Classmates.com, Flixster.com, Fotolog.com, hi5.com, MyLife.com, Stickam.com, and Tagged.com, have agreed to use e-STOP data from the state to find and disable accounts linked to registered sex offenders. Imeem.com was recently bought by MySpace and will also purge its network of New York Sex Offenders. Multiply.com, which did not receive a letter, has also requested the e-STOP data."

Now, Classmates.com -and possibly others- is a site that requires its users to be 18 or older. See their Terms of Service:

1. BECOMING A MEMBER AND REGISTERING ON THE WEBSITE.
A. Accessing the Site and Becoming a Member. THE WEBSITE IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR ACCESS AND USE BY INDIVIDUALS 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER. BY ACCESSING AND USING THE WEBSITE, YOU ARE CERTIFYING THAT YOU ARE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD. ....

NYS Registry law states:

§168-a 16. "Authorized internet entity" means any business, organization or other entity providing or offering a service over the internet which permits persons under eighteen years of age to access, meet, congregate or communicate with other users for the purpose of social networking. This definition shall not include general e-mail services.

§168-b "10. The division shall, upon the request of any authorized internet entity, release to such entity internet identifiers that would enable such entity to prescreen or remove sex offenders from its services or, in conformity with state and federal law, advise law enforcement and/or other governmental entities of potential violations of law and/or threats to public safety. Before releasing any information the division shall require an authorized internet entity that requests information from the registry to submit to the division the name, address and telephone number of such entity and the specific legal nature and corporate status of such entity. Except for the purposes specified in this subdivision, an authorized internet entity shall not publish or in any way disclose or redisclose any information provided to it by the division pursuant to this subdivision."

The violation:

§168-b "10. The division shall, upon the request of any authorized internet entity, release to such entity internet identifiers ....

§168-a 16. "Authorized internet entity" means any business, organization or other entity providing or offering a service over the internet which permits persons under eighteen years of age...

Classmates.com is not a "Authorized internet entity" because its members must be 18 or older, yet AG Cuomo prompts them in his Dec 1 letter to remove NYS registrants, which AG Cuomo calls "Sexual Predators" and such is not true of every registrant.

The penalty according to NYS registry law:

§168-u. Unauthorized release of information
The unauthorized release of any information required by this article shall be a class B misdemeanor.

So, in your eyes, is this a violation of NYS registry law?

Thanks to SexOffenderFacts which has a much shorter version of the above.

eAdvocate