New York - News Corp.'s MySpace online social network has asked a Pennsylvania state court for help in determining how it should comply with law enforcement requests for private e-mails sent by registered sex offenders using the service, Reuters reported.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett served MySpace with a court order demanding the e-mails, which the company said it is constrained from providing under a federal law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986.

"We want Attorney General Corbett to get this information to provide them with whatever they need to use in their investigation," MySpace general counsel Mike Angus told Reuters.

"The 9th Circuit has determined that ECPA requires a search warrant to produce private messages and unfortunately, in some cases, this is proving difficult. Absent an existing investigation, having the name of a registered sex offender isn't enough to produce a search warrant."

MySpace has provided the e-mail correspondence in question to the Pennsylvania court, which it asked to further distribute to law enforcement at the court's discretion.

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