People are commenting here without reading or understanding the ruling [edit: I should say that headlines like the one techdirt gave their article are also misleading; they are playing up the "banned from the internet" angle]. What happened is that North Carolina passed a law making it a crime for someone previously convicted of a sex crime to access social media sites (unless the site completely prohibits access except by adults, which most sites do not do). The court ruled that this law is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.<p>The court did not rule that "no one may be banned from the internet" an so on. A specific person can still have conditions attached by the courts to his release; for example, it's common for judges to impose conditions like "no use of computers" on convicted malicious hackers as part of their probation. This hasn't been made illegal. Restricting internet access of current prisoners certainly hasn't been held illegal. What's been held unconstitutional is criminalizing a priori certain modes of speech by a broad class of people.<p>EDIT2: Since this is apparently attracting a little bit of controversy, I want to add that I did not express any opinion about whether it's good to ban people from using computers or whatever; I just wanted to describe what the ruling says. I am actually not a fan of the general concept of not restoring people's rights after they serve their punishment, although I think it's justified in specific cases.
After a prisoner has served their said time [for felons]:<p>1) remove their right to vote [in florida 1/4 african americans can't vote] [i]<p>2) force them to divulge they are felons to all new employers<p>3) force them to tell their neighbors they are criminals [sex crime cases which often only involve one witness testimony]<p>4) garnish their wages<p>5) seize their property [drug cases]<p>6) place them on parole to increase mental fear [at any moment they can return to prison without trial]<p>7) force them to provide random urine tests and body searches [creates anxiety for people with addiction]<p>8) force them into community service mixed with other felons<p>This is a system designed to create crime.<p>[i] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-black-citizens-cant-vote-a-new-referendum-could-change-that/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-bl...</a>
This is now interesting. Apparently prisoners in the US and many other countries are not allowed to have Internet access. In the US there is a system in place that allows inmates to communicate text only emails. I don't think you can call that plain text messaging "the Internet" in 2017.<p>With this supreme court ruling, how prisons in the US are going to allow inmates to have access to the real Internet? I mean you can not ban those inmates from accessing the Internet, right?
re: sex offender lists and sentencing<p>The implication is that the people on the list are still a threat. If that's true, shouldn't they still be in prison?
What's gonna end up happening is law enforcement is going to strike deals with the major sites like Facebook and Twitter, which <i>are</i> the internet now, to ban anyone on the sex offender rolls -- and nothing much of value will be lost. These companies are not ready for the shitstorm of outrage that will ensue when it is discovered that they are <i>allowing</i> predators to communicate with children.