Blumenthal
Eight state attorneys general want the social networking website MySpace.com to release information about its members who are convicted sex offenders.
The eight have co-authored a letter sent Monday asking MySpace to provide the offenders' names and addresses, as well as the total number of sex criminals who have profiles. MySpace hired Sentinel Tech Holdings in December to check the site for registered offenders.
According to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, MySpace should know better.
"What can MySpace executives be thinking? There should be an urgent alert to anyone in contact with these sex offenders," he said. "We're demanding that MySpace tell us the number of convicted sex offenders, their names and where they live. This mounting graphic evidence shows the need for age verification, parental permission and a higher minimum threshold at 16, as we have repeatedly requested."
Blumenthal and other attorneys general have been clamoring for greater restrictions on social networking sites. For earlier Legal Newsline coverage, including a Competitive Enterprise Institute member's take on the economic impact they would have, click here.
Blumenthal was joined in the letter by North Carolina's Roy Cooper, Ohio's Marc Dann, Georgia's Thurbert Baker, Idaho's Lawrence Wasden, Mississippi's Jim Hood, New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte and Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett.
The group, members of a committee that represents all 50 states that are pushing MySpace for more safeguards, requested a response by May 29. It says Sentinel Tech Holdings found thousands of registered sex offenders using the site, greatly surpassing a report by Wired magazine that found 744.