What Is The Case Of Packingham Vs North Carolina

Packingham v. North Carolina

The case of Packingham v. North Carolina revolves around the use of the first amendment. In this case Lester Gerard Packingham is accuse of breaking a North Carolina law that states “§ 14-202.5.- It is unlawful for a sex offender who is registered in accordance with Article 27A of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes to access a commercial social networking Web site where the sex offender knows that the site permits minor children to become members or to create or maintain personal Web pages on the commercial social networking Web site.” (http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/statutes/statutelookup.pl?statute=14-202.5). The reason that Packingham is being charged with this crime is because of a 2010 face book status update

. . . Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS!”. When a local police officer seen the post knowing that Packingham was a sex offender he applied for a warrant to search Packinghams home, regardless of the fact that the post didn’t target any person or minors directly. Packingham was convicted of using Facebook as a registered sex offender by a jury. The North Carolina court of appeals ruled that the conviction was unconstitutional due to the fact that the law hindered the first amendment rights of sexual offenders. The law was ruled to vast, that is to say that it restricted the internet rights regardless of whether or not they were convicted of sexual offence concerning a minor, whether they were interacting with a minor over the website, or if there was ever a history of using

This is because the law is overly vast when it describes what the sex offender can and cannot due over the internet. This is unfair because in today’s world almost every website use reviews and opinion based comments. Many of these websites don’t require a user to have any sort of account or username. This means that any person, including minors, are able to use this website regardless of whether or not it is allowed, and the very possibility of a minor being on a website restricts it from the use of a sex offender. An example of this is Cooks.com, this website allows users to leave comments without requiring any type of account, email, or identification. Due to this minors are able to use the website without the knowledge of the website, this means that it is still restricted for sex offenders solely because of the possibility of a minor being present on the site. This restricts almost every website including college sign-up websites, amazon, and even google search engine. The internet is such a part of human life that it is now considered a basic human right by the united nations. If the law is so broad that sex offenders are advised to just avoid it entirely, then they are being denied the basic human rights that all people have. According to Amnesty International “Human rights are basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to regardless of