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Georgian Targets Games, Online Predators
by Michael Martinez
Georgia Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor this past week unveiled a child-protection plan calling for enhanced penalties against repeat online sex offenders and child rapists, and a ban on the sale of violent and sexually explicit videogames to minors.
Taylor, a Democrat challenging Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue this fall, has floated a plan that calls for the death penalty to be imposed on all repeat child molesters. On his campaign Web site, Taylor said he would like to follow the lead of other states that recently have enacted laws to execute those who are convicted multiple times of sex crimes against children.
"If you repeatedly rape and molest our children, you will pay with your life," Taylor said. "Our children deserve the ultimate protection, and these predators who victimize unsuspecting kids deserve the ultimate punishment."
He also has pledged to make it punishable by as much as $10,000 to knowingly send pornographic material to a minor online, and he wants to use state funds to make parental control software available to residents at reduced costs.
Perdue earlier this year signed into law a bill requiring minimum 25-year sentences for sex crimes against children younger than 14. The law also requires sex offenders to wear global positioning devices so they can be monitored for life.
Taylor's plan also would ban all sales of violent and sexually explicit games to minors. He said he would like the state to apply the same standards to games that it already applies to the film industry. A handful of states have enacted such videogame laws in the past several years, but nearly all of them have been overturned by courts on constitutional grounds.
In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, lawmakers last week held a hearing to examine the need for videogame legislation in the Keystone State, according to The Patriot-News.
At the hearing, state Rep. Ronald Waters expressed concern about the subliminal effects that violent games have on the children who play them. He urged the legislature to commission a study on the subject to guide any potential legislative solutions.
"Whatever the outcome of the study is, I'm willing to accept it," he said. "If we find that there [are] no consequences of this, then I will be someone who will say 'OK, I accept the study.' But if the study says yes, there are things we need to alarm parents about, then we need to make sure that parents know that."
Lawmakers in Utah held a similar hearing last week during a special legislative session. A videogame bill there died in the legislature earlier this year, but its supporters have promised to revive it when lawmakers reconvene next session.
Texas To Build Nanotech Research Center
Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday announced plans to build a nanoelectronics research center in the heart of the Lone Star State.
Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular levels. The construction of the facility, which will be located at the University of Texas at Austin, will be funded by the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Association. It will be only the third of its kind the United States. The other two federally funded projects have been launched in California and New York.
"This third center will bring researchers throughout Texas and neighboring regions to develop the next-generation technology and techniques for semiconductor manufacturing," Perry said in a release.
The state also is preparing to launch a $30 million public-private nanotechnology research initiative, Perry announced. He said the project will receive a $10 million grant from the state's emerging technology fund, as well as another $10 million from the University of Texas system. The rest of the project will be financed by private entities, he said.
"With the global marketplace steadily marching toward a technology-based future, it is more important than ever before that we all attract and grow top-notch researchers and technology employers that will form the backbone of tomorrow's economy," Perry said.
A May survey in Small Times, a magazine focused on nanotechnology issues, listed Houston-based Rice University and Texas A&M in College Station among the top 10 nanotech research institutions in the United States.
Indiana Court Blocks Group's Automated Calls
A circuit court in Indiana on Monday ordered the California-based Economic Freedom Fund to stop making automated political telephone calls to state residents.
Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter announced that a judge upheld a lawsuit he filed earlier this month to block the group from making automated calls attacking Baron Hill, the Democrat attempting to unseat GOP Rep. Mike Sodrel.
Under the state's privacy laws, such calls are illegal unless they are agreed to by the recipients before the recorded messages are received. Carter, who filed a similar suit this week against the group American Family Voices, said the Economic Freedom Fund has agreed to stop making the calls while the case proceeds.
"The case remains, but the agreement to halt phone calls while litigation proceeds is important for people across Indiana who have already received, or would be in jeopardy of receiving, calls that violate their privacy rights," Carter said in a statement. "I'm hopeful that American Family Voices will follow the early lead of the Economic Freedom Fund."
California Governor Speeding To Finish Line
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week signed a round of bills running the gamut from preventing pets from overheating in vehicles to curtailing street racing.
Schwarzenegger, who is up for re-election this fall, has only until the end of the month to act on hundreds of bills passed by the legislature this session.
The measures he signed this week include one that prohibits Web sites from posting the personal information of abortion practitioners. The bill, A.B. 2251, would permit injunctive and declaratory relief to those whose privacy rights are violated by sites that post information about abortion facilities throughout the state.
In a statement, the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, said that its passage is a victory for reproductive rights in California, and that it will protect those who work and volunteer at facilities that perform abortions from being intimidated by abortion opponents.
"Women should never face vigilante justice for exercising their reproductive rights," she said. "The same goes for those who work to enable women to exercise these rights."
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