PORTLAND (AP) – Maine’s highest court has taken under advisement a right-to-privacy challenge to the state’s online sex offender registry.

A lawyer for a Kennebec County man who was convicted 22 years ago of having sexual contact with a 12-year-old boy told the Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday that his client lost his job after being forced to put his name and picture on the Web site.

The man, now 41 and identified in court papers as “John Doe,” also fears that he could be the target of a vigilante, a prospect underscored by last year’s fatal shooting of two Maine men by a Canadian who used the Internet to find them at their homes, attorney James Mitchell said.

A lawyer for the state says any changes to the registration program should be made by the Legislature, not the courts.

“The plaintiff wants to sink into anonymity and wants other sex offenders to sink into anonymity as well,” Assistant Attorney General Paul Stern told the court. “How anonymous a sex offender should be is a legislative issue.”

Registration programs have already been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as well as courts in Maine and many other states.

In keeping with a federal law, sex offenders in Maine have had to register since 1999.

The information became widely accessible when the registry was put online in 2003.

Doe was not required to register at the time of his 1985 conviction but was required to participate when the law was updated.

His lawyer said the state should be sure people really are dangerous before subjecting them to the scrutiny mandated by the law.

“If you cut your beard, you have to tell the state. If you go somewhere for two weeks, you have to tell the state. You have to give the state your address, things that are all typically private,” Mitchell said.

He said Maine’s sex offender law is the nation’s strictest because it offers no opportunity for someone to prove that they do not pose a danger to society and get off the list.

Stern said the registry simply assembles true information that is already part of the public record.

Registry supporters say the information helps families who want to protect children and others from people who might pose a threat.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-05-24-07 0912EDT