100,000,000 Having Cybersex and 15,000,000 Webcams

Will Mark Foley’s instant messages prompt new online sex crime laws and new ways for law enforcement agencies to snoop on your vitual sex life?

What do you do with snakes like Foley? Some states pursue them into cyberspace and outlaw dirty messages. Georgia, for instance, forbids any “Internet contact” with minors involving “explicit verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexually explicit nudity” or even of “sexual excitement.” Actually, the recipient doesn’t have to be a minor. He can be anyone “believed … to be a child residing in this state.” You can charge Foley under this law even if he never goes to Georgia or writes to anyone there. All you have to do is meet him in a chat room, pose as an Atlanta teenager, and wait for him to say something gross.

The perils of policing cybersex