Here's how the plan would work: After the state obtained a predator's e-mail addresses, officials would turn them over to MySpace.

At least its not a public registry (scarlet letter?) that all websites are forced to comply with.

"We are certainly going to put public safety ahead of these civil liberties concerns," said McDonnell.

I'm always amazed how popular it is to publicly malign civil liberties in a country that supposedly prides itself on "freedom."

Dare anyone ask why there is suddenly such urgency?

Dare anyone ask why sexual predators won't just maintain multiple email addresses? For a bunch of extremely dangerous people who can't be allowed to maintain a friends list on a web page, the government sure does seem to trust them to be forthcoming about their online identities.

Rattle wrote:

"This is a major step forward to keep these predators off the Internet," McDonnell said. "We want to be a leader with legislation to protect kids."

Here's how the plan would work: After the state obtained a predator's e-mail addresses, officials would turn them over to MySpace. The company, using new software, would then block anyone using that e-mail address from entering the site.

Did somebody say new software? It's Sarb-Ox all over again.

"We are certainly going to put public safety ahead of these civil liberties concerns," said McDonnell.

"Public safety" is code for "business opportunity" and political "self preservation".

Dare anyone ask why there is suddenly such urgency?

Shouldn't we have a registry for terrorist e-mail addresses? I mean, no one wants a child talking to a predator, but EVERYONE is at risk when terrorists go Friending.

Another odd thing... What is the ratio of sex offenses which happen as a result of real world situations versus online meetings? Wouldn't doing something like that be much riskier to the predator as most of their communications could be monitored, their identities revealed, and they still might not be sure that their prey might be what they claim to be. If someone were a sex predator, wouldn't grabbing some random hapless child of the street be safer? It's apparently worked since the days of werewolves. The internet leaves a much easier to follow trail than the methods of the old school kidnappers. The ease at which a predator could seduce prey on the internet makes it so they will be caught that much easier. Forcing these predators back offline is more of a danger than letting them roam around in a fake environment.