News-Record.com

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper held a press conference this morning laying out ways in which he thinks the General Assembly should crack down on child predators. (Press releases here; and a more detailed folio here.)

I don’t think anyone will argue with the intent of those bills and if I had to handicap them, I’d say the package in part or full will probably have a relatively easy time getting through the General Assembly.

A couple notes:

• Cooper wants MySpace and other similar services to “get parents’ permission before children can join.” He also calls for parents to have greater control/oversight over what their children posts. As a parent who still has a few years to go before my oldest starts posting anything to the Internet, I appreciate the intent, but I wonder about the enforceability.

• Cooper also called for making lying to an SBI agent a felony. How he pitched it Monday:

  Making lying to an SBI Agent a felony would provide a critical incentive for sex offenders to tell investigators where the child is so that the SBI can rescue the child and prevent further exploitation.

  SBI agents know witnesses withhold information or lie outright. When an FBI agent is present, a dishonest witness can be charged with a crime, since federal law makes it a felony to lie to federal agents.

  This is not the first time that Cooper has called for the General Assembly to grant SBI agents that power. He did it last year under the banner of fighting public corruption. It was part of a package of legislation he sent to the General Assembly during the height of the furor surrounding then-House Speaker Jim Black.