COLUMBIA - A Senate panel will take up a bill this week to protect minors from sex offenders who use social networking sites to get to them.
On Wednesday, a Senate panel will discuss a bill to require registered sex offenders to give police all their personal information pertaining to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and countless others. The bill was drafted to function like New York's E-Stop program, the Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act.
The legislation, S. 973, introduced by Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, would include e-mail addresses and screen names that are used for chatting, instant messaging and other social networking activities. If the offender doesn't give up the information, the punishment is a misdemeanor the first two times, and then it becomes a felony.
The Law Enforcement Division would be required to supply the information to Internet providers if a company requests it.
During a recent hearing on the bill, some lawmakers acknowledged they had little familiarity with sites such as Facebook.
A Senate panel will also consider a bill, S. 314, to raise fines for misdemeanor traffic offenses by $5. The new revenue would support the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, which trains law enforcement officers.
The Senate could resume on Tuesday its debate over S. 1054, a bill by Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, to grant The Sembler Co. an estimated $40 million to $132 million tax rebate on a $400 million shopping center to be built in Jasper County.
On the House side, legislators take up the $5.1 billion budget approved by the Ways and Means Committee last month.
Though some lawmakers said it marked the toughest budget year they could remember, they acknowledge drafting next year's plan will be harder without stimulus money.
Meanwhile, the Senate will begin its budget hearings at the subcommittee level.
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