News-Record.com

Suppose your 15-year-old child is required to carry written permission from you to enter a public park or even to ride his or her bicycle on the street. Would you view that as a sensible precaution against predators and other potential dangers, or as intrusive and overly protective meddling by government?

No one is making such a proposal, but the concept seems similar in spirit to a measure put forward yesterday by N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Actually, Cooper listed seven points under the heading, "Protecting Children from Sexual Predators."

The one garnering the most attention states: "Require social networking websites like MySpace to get parents' permission before children can join."

The other six have considerable merit. This one poses difficulties, not least being how to police it.

How would the state define a "social networking Web site like MySpace"? Popular Web sites seem to proliferate at light speed. Who would determine which are enough like MySpace to be bound by some new law? How can those Web sites distinguish between adults and users who say they're adults? Are there other safeguards short of government regulation?

I don't know much about MySpace. One of my nieces, who's 17, has a MySpace site, but you can't access it unless she sends you a password. I hope she's careful about that. Certainly parents always should be involved in monitoring their kids' use of the Internet.

It's appropriate for authorities to strengthen laws that target predators. They're on softer ground when they try to police the people, kids and adults, who use social networking Web sites with perfectly innocent intentions.

But, admittedly, I don't know much about this. What do you think?