SACRAMENTO, CA – AB 841, jointly authored by Assemblymembers Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) and Shirley Horton (R-Chula Vista) cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee today with a strong bi-partisan vote. 

“Today’s vote was a victory for children and parents who want to enjoy the use of the Internet free of sexual predators,” said Portantino.  “With millions of our children susceptible to sexual assault every day, this legislation will serve as an important tool for law enforcement and internet social networking sites to keep these places safe.  As a father of 5 and 15 year old daughters, it’s incumbent on me to make sure that we use every available technology to protect our children.  AB 841 uses that technology in a simple but effective way.”

AB 841 would make two important changes to existing law in how the state safeguards against attacks from sex offenders.  AB 841 would require the Department of Justice to collect e-mail addresses and instant message names of those individuals who are currently required to report their physical address.  After this information is collected, it would be passed on to social networking sites.  These sites could then screen out convicted sex offenders and prevent them from creating accounts in the future.  Secondly, the bill would make it a crime for any person 18 years or older who lies about his/her age for the purpose of being a sexual predator.

“We have more than 550,000 convicted sexual predators in this country and they are required to provide law enforcement agencies with their home and work addresses.  AB 841 will simply take the common-sense approach of extending the requirement to online addresses,” said Assemblywoman Horton.  "The focus of our efforts is to make it easier for the operators of online hangouts to block access to sexual predators.  Our children need some online protection now, and AB 841 is the proactive approach desperately needed,” added Horton.

Also at the hearing was Emily Korngold a 16 year old who frequents the social networking site MySpace.  In testifying in support of the bill, she said “I support this bill because it would help me feel safer on MySpace and other social networking websites.  It will protect me, and my friends, as well as my little sister who is about to enter middle school.  I believe this bill would help protect people my age from sexual predators.”

AB 841 will be heard by the Assembly Judiciary Committee next week on April 24th in room 4202, beginning at 9am.