Federal suit takes on Ga. sex offender law

ATLANTA - A civil liberties group filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new Georgia law that restricts where convicted child molesters can live and work, arguing it essentially bans offenders from most of the state's urban and suburban areas.

The law, believed to be among the nation's toughest, sets 1,000-foot buffers for convicted child sex offenders around all school bus stops, churches, schools, child-care centers and other places where children congregate.

"Thousands of people on Georgia's sex offender registry will be forced, by legislative fiat, to evacuate their homes, leave their jobs, cease attending their churches and abandon court-mandated treatment programs," the lawsuit says.

It was filed in U.S. District Court in Rome, Ga., by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights on behalf of nine convicted sex offenders.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_re_us/sex_offenders_lawsuit