Berks judge objects to new federal law requiring juvenile sex offenders’ names to be posted on Web

Juvenile sex offenders can be rehabilitated and become productive members of society, Berks County Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim said.

That’s why Grim vehemently opposes putting juvenile sex offenders’ names on a public Web site, as is required under the federal Adam Walsh’s Law. The law requires juveniles 14 and older who are found delinquent in sexual-assault crimes to register their addresses with state police.

Full Article via Holly Herman

Even more interesting….“Why we need one law for sex offenders” – a blog post by Holly Herman, a 15-year veteran reporter covering state and federal courts, will be there to share with you the legal wrangling, the human side of the men and women in robes, and the tragedies victims endure as they wait for justice.

Megan’s Law

ReadingEagle Online

Dictionary word of the year: ‘Unfriend’

It’s prone to cause drama in the online world.

And, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, it’s the word of the year.

“Unfriend” beat out a tech-heavy field that included “netbook,” “hashtag” and “sexting” to take the annual honor.

Oxford defines “unfriend,” a verb, thusly: “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.”

A hashtag is the symbol (#) used on Twitter posts to allow them to be found more easily by other users, a netbook is a small portable laptop, and “sexting” is the act of sending sexually explicit texts or photos on a mobile phone.

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Smartphones and Security – Facts & Fiction on Smartphones

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Tips to better security on a smartphone:

• Turn on auto-lock, set a password for access
• Turn off bluetooth if you don’t use it
• Phishing scams most likely to fool smartphone users
• ‘Jailbroken’ iphones are more vulnerable

Google releases Dashboard privacy tool

Ever wonder what information Google knows about you? With a click or two, now you can find out.

Google released a feature Thursday that lets users see and control data that the Web giant has collected about them. Called Google Dashboard, the service provides an online summary of a user’s Google files — Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa photos and so on — by collecting pre-existing privacy controls in one place.

Dashboard users can review and delete recent Google searches, see recently opened and shared documents and survey their interactions with other Google-powered sites such as YouTube.

Read More via CNN
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Are You Getting Scammed by Facebook Games?

Facebook games — Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Restaurant City — have become surprisingly effective at diverting time wasters among the social-networking crowd. More than 63 million people alone play FarmVille. But now accusations have surfaced that the games can lead some more gullible players, including children, into Internet scams, especially if they have a cell phone.

Read More via TIME

Social networks and kids: How young is too young?

Researchers say a growing number of children are flouting age requirements on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, or using social-networking sites designed just for them.

Facebook and MySpace require users to be at least 13. But they have no practical way to verify ages, and many young users pretend to be older when signing up.

In two surveys reported this year by Pew Internet Research — of 700 and 935 teens, respectively — 38 percent of respondents ages 12 to 14 said they had an online profile of some sort.

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