More than 2,100 registered N.C. sex offenders were on MySpace.

Attorney General Roy Cooper announced today that the social networking site turned over the names, IP and e-mail addresses of 2,116 convicted sex offenders in response to a subpoena.

"It's no secret that child predators are on these web sites," he said in a statement. "Turning over information about these predators to law enforcement helps, but MySpace, Facebook and other social networks need to do much more to protect kids online."

After a public tussle with Cooper in 2007, MySpace released the names of 245 registered sex offenders it found on its Web site. At the time, some tech observers questioned why Cooper did not just issue a subpoena.

In keeping with a gentler approach of recent months, Cooper struck a more conciliatory tone today, noting that MySpace was the first social networking site to develop technology to find and remove sex offenders. 

Since Dec. 1, it has been against state law for sex offenders to belong to sites where children are also members. Cooper is forwarding the information to local sheriffs, the State Bureau of Investigation's Computer Crimes Unit and probation officers.

Roy Cooper says cooperation will work better than lawsuits or new laws.

The state attorney general said this afternoon that he wants to work with social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to protect children from sexual predators, rather than join a multi-state lawsuit or pass new state or federal laws.

"Technology is racing ahead so quickly that if we would have to win a court case over a period of years or if we happen to win a new law, it may be obsolete by the time it comes around to enforcing it," he told Dome.

Still, he said he would not rule out the other approaches in part because the threat helps make sure the companies are willing to work with him.

"We're emphasizing to them right now how critical it is for them to do it themselves," he said.

Cooper will not push any new social networking laws this session, though he previously supported a bill that made it a crime for a registered sex offender to use the sites.

He said he will share the information he's received from subpoenas with local law enforcement officials, who may begin prosecutions. He's also going to work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to collect data from other law enforcement agencies.

Roy Cooper says a task force on social networking did not do its job.

Speaking at the spring conference of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington this afternoon, the attorney general disagreed with a task force that said sex predators are not a major problem on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force was created by 49 attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online.

Its 278-page report, released in January, said that children were unlikely to be propositioned online and teens were willing participants.

In brief remarks at the conference, Cooper said he shares the concerns of other attorneys general about the report.

He said the task force interpreted its mission in an "overly broad" way and "did not concentrate on what we asked them to do." 

After promoting state legislation and considering multistate litigation, Cooper said he now has hopes that technological advances on identity verification can address the problem, along with education and law enforcement efforts.

Roy Cooper is in Washington today.

The state attorney general will speak at the spring session of the National Association of Attorneys General at the Fairmont Hotel.

He'll be joined in a discussion on legal issues surrounding social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. 

He'll be joined by attorneys general Bill McCollum of Florida and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Spokeswoman Noelle Talley said that Cooper was scheduled to arrive in Washington Sunday night, before several inches of snow hit the capital.

Cooper has long sparred with social networking sites over parental consent and the presence of sex offenders online.

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx is all a-Twitter.

The Banner Elk Republican is posting short status updates in a feed on the popular online site Twitter, a sort of micro-blog where each entry is limited to 140 characters.

Recent "tweets" — as they're called, somewhat annoyingly — have linked to a new count of the national debt, noted that she attended the National Prayer Breakfast and sat for an interview, and said she will be handling a bill on digital television.

"Positive day but fell flu coming on," reads a typical entry. "Heading home early. Big day tomorrow. Two big bills on floor"

A spokesman said Foxx started twittering at the end of 2008 and ramped up her use of the site when Congress went into session. She posts most entries from her Blackberry or her computer.

"Twitter is another medium for communicating with constituents," spokesman Aaron Groen wrote in an e-mail. "As far as social media goes, this hasn't penetrated as deeply into her constituency as something like Facebook has. But it's an easy, quick tool to get information out the door."

So far, Foxx has not had any problems with Twitter, though Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra recently got in trouble for posting on Twitter that he was on a secret trip to Iraq.

Ron Ottavio says he has never worked for the Governor's Office, a profile of him on the Internet notwithstanding.

How the apparent mix-up happened is not clear.

Ottavio, a former Wachovia lobbyist, is the interim executive director of N.C. FREE. Earlier this week, a profile of him on the networking Web site LinkedIn said he had been working for the Office of the Governor for about a year. (See the document link below.)

Dome called Gov. Mike Easley's office to ask about it. Two spokeswomen said they hadn't heard of Ottavio and could find no record of him working there, either on staff or on contract.

Ottavio wrote in an e-mail to Dome Thursday that he had gotten a call from Easley's chief counsel Reuben Young.

"I am not sure how that got on LinkedIn," Ottavio wrote. "I have never worked for the Governor's Office — past or present. That has been corrected and did not realize I was even on LinkedIn."

Ottavio did not respond to further questions about the confusion.

The state House and Senate need to work out their differences on a proposed law that would make it a low-grade felony for registered sex offenders to use social networking web sites.

Sen. Walter Dalton, a Rutherfordton Democrat who is running for lieutenant governor, said the House deleted provisions that should have been included, such as making it a felony to lie to an SBI agent and making  in-person solicitation of minors and online solicitation separate offenses.

Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's office said they want those provisions added back to the bill, Lynn Bonner reports.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper started pushing for the law last year. Back then, the proposal included a requirement to have social networking sites obtain parental consent before they allowed children to join.

Since then, MySpace and Facebook came to agreements with state attorneys general to add safeguards to protect minors from sexual predators.

Many sections of the original bill, including the provision that would have required parental consent for a child to join a social networking site,  have been removed.

A Meetup group has started for Hillary Clinton supporters.

The group will hold an organizational meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in a private room at the Golden Corral restaurant in Cary.

"This is a fun group with a lot of energy," organizers write on the Web site. "Besides, Golden Corral has one of the best buffets in the Triangle!"

As of today, three people have said they will attend. 

Meetup.com is a social networking site that facilitates off-line meetings of people with similar interests. It became a popular tool for political organizing during the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean.

Clinton is far behind Barack Obama in the Triangle on Meetup. His group held its organizational meeting at Damon's Grill in Raleigh on March 5, 2007.

It has held regular group meetings, a debate-watching party at the Player's Retreat, after-work social hours at the Zydeco, and campaign training sessions, among other things.

Organizers claim to have more than 350 active members. 

State Rep. Tricia Cotham has a lot of friends on Facebook.

The Mecklenburg Democrat signed up for the social networking site in the spring at the urging of a 19-year-old intern in her office.

At first, she said she was leery of the site because of her experiences monitoring cyberbullying as an assistant principal, but she now finds it "a little addicting."

Cotham has 227 friends and more than a hundred photos on Facebook. She regularly updates her status to say what she's up to — "getting ready for a tv interview," "heading to Raleigh for a legislator's retreat" or "going to watch East Meck play Davie County."

She says the site has helped her keep in touch with the hard-to-reach college demographic. Though she's not convinced it's going to win her many votes, she says it has other benefits.

"It's great for finding volunteers for a phone bank," she told Dome. "I also get a lot of requests to be my intern or to shadow me."