The Buckingham

Earlier this week, a federal judge in California rejected a bill that would take away sex offenders rights to use the Internet, social media sights and instant messaging anonymously.

The federal court had passed the bill with 81 percent “for” this past November. Judge Thelton Henderson ruled the bill, Proposition 35, “unconstitutional”.

The American Civil Liberities Union, ACLU, filed suit against Proposition 35, and managed to be a deciding factor in the voting process through the federal court.

“Proposition 35 increases criminal penalties for sex offenses and imposes new restrictions on registered sex offenders,” the ACLU told Webpronews.com. “For example, the measure requires that registrants provide online screen names and information about their Internet service providers to law enforcement – even if their convictions are very old and have nothing to do with the Internet or children.”

The ACLU was not the only one to believe this bill was constitutionally wrong. Mike Masnick of TechDirt said, “many ‘sex offenders’ aren’t what you might think of ‘sex offenders’ – people who are arrested for things like urinating in public, or for consensual sex between minors.”

He also went on to say that Proposition 35 went too far, covering even those who may not have actually done a severe crime.

The bill is currently under review by the California attorney general.