N.J. Subpoenas Facebook Over Sex Offenders’ Use
By CAROLYN SALAZAR, STAFF WRITER
In her latest effort to cut down on New Jersey sex offenders who visit social networking sites, Attorney General Anne Milgram issued a subpoena to the popular Facebook.com.
The subpoena, sent on Monday, asks the company to identify any convicted sex offenders in New Jersey that have a profile on the site, which is used by thousands of children and teenagers. The company must supply the information by Oct. 12, Milgram said.
The move is the latest strategy by Milgram to prevent convicted sexual predators from trolling on social networking sites. Her office has subpoenaed MySpace three times, and has asked a dozen of the sites including Friendster, Hi5 and myYearbook to check whether profiles on their sites have been created by registered sexual offenders.
The MySpace subpoenas have uncovered hundreds of New Jersey sexual offenders using the site. The subpoenas were issued after MySpace discovered 29,000 profiles created by sex offenders nationwide.
"This is a matter of public safety, and more specifically, a matter of children’s safety," Milgram said Tuesday.
Last month, the attorney general’s office sent Facebook a list of convicted sex offenders in New Jersey, and the company was asked to compare the names with user profiles.
And last week, Milgram announced a clickable Internet graphic that allows users of social networking sites to report inappropriate or illegal activities.
Milgram’s spokesman, David Wald, said Facebook officials told the attorney general’s office that the company had identified some sexual offenders on their site – they wouldn’t say how many – but because of privacy issues, they could not disclose the names. If the office wanted the names, the attorney general’s office was told, they would have to issue a subpoena, Wald said.
Officials from Facebook did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The 11 other social network- ing sites asked to do the same have not responded, but the attorney general sent them a follow-up letter on Monday, Wald said.
***
E-mail: salazar@northjersey.com
***
(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.