Is Illinois's new internet ban for sex offenders constitutional?

As detailed in this Chicago Tribune report from last week, Illinois " Gov. Pat Quinn signed new laws Tuesday designed to limit sex offenders' use of technology as a way to find more victims" by making it "a felony for registered sex offenders to use social networking sites."  This CBS News discussion of the new law raises some interesting questions about its potential reach:

"If the predator is supposed to be a registered sex offender, they should keep their Internet distance as well as their physical distance," said sponsor Bill Brady, a Republican state senator, according to the Chicago Tribune. "The object is to protect innocent individuals on the Internet from sex offenders."   If that were its effect, this would be a laudable piece of legislation. But in reality, the state law is written so broadly it would effectively prohibit registered sex offenders from using the Internet.

It says "social networking websites" are off-limits, and defines those as "an Internet website containing profile web pages of the members of the website that include the names or nicknames of such members," or photographs, or any other personal information. Offenders must "refrain from accessing or using" such Web sites.

Unfortunately, the Illinois state legislature didn't seem to recognize that many popular Web sites -- perhaps even the majority of the large ones -- fall into those categories.  Google.com features user profiles, including name, photos and personal information.  So do Yahoo.com, Amazon.com, geek site Slashdot.org, and aggregator site Digg.com.

Sites like Hulu.com, Netflix, and Pandora do too, as do TV.com, MP3.com, and CNET.com. This overly broad scope makes the law vulnerable to a First Amendment challenge. (Those last three are our sister sites and are owned by CBSNews.com publisher CBS Interactive.)

(It is surely coincidence that Bill Brady is a candidate for governor of Illinois, whose campaign biography says: "He fought for and passed legislation to protect children from sexual predators.")

Now, perhaps Brady's intent truly was to ban sex offenders from the Internet, although if that's true you wouldn't know it from the former developer and realtor's public statements on the topic.  Nor was it probably apparent to his colleagues in the state capitol, where the legislation was unanimously approved by both chambers -- or to Gov. Pat Quinn, who signed it into law this week.
Like it or not, using Google, Yahoo, TV.com, and so on is part of modern life, and it's reasonable to hope that even sex offenders could be reintegrated into society rather than cordoned off from it and therefore more likely to relapse.  One Justice Department release says that 5.3 percent of male sex offenders were rearrested within three years after their release from state prison.

Brady's legislation also does not distinguish between violent criminals who have served prison time for rape -- and adults who are registered sex offenders because of youthful hijinks.

It seem that this new law is ripe for constitutional challenge under any number of theories.  The law apparently goes into effect January 1, 2010, but I suspect there will be litigation over its terms getting started sooner.