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Utah Governor Signs Net-Porn Bill
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:13 PM
from the now-there's-a-winner dept.
from the now-there's-a-winner dept.
All Names Have Been writes "House bill 260 has been signed into law by Utah's governor. It creates a list of websites that are not 'safe for children' and forces ISPs to block these sites for those who request it.
In addition, content providers who host or create content in Utah for profit must now rate their websites or face 3rd degree felony charges.
A similar law in Pennsylvania was struck down last year." (See this earlier story, too.)
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Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
But now, I can't wait for that list to leak.
*Rubs hands together*
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Hot Mormon action. (Score:4, Funny)
Second hand reviews of the movie Orgazmo, hear in detail why you should keep your wife/wives and children from seeing it.
Jittery in Seattle, also called 'They drink by night', lurid tales of coffee junkies in Seattle, staying up till way after 11pm, Not for the weak of stomach.
Christ-sploitation websites and how to thump your bible for Her Maximum pleasure.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but he's still an asshole.
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Thanks Utah! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Thanks Utah! (Score:5, Informative)
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Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you, Utah, for boldy diving head first into the shallow end of the pool to prove how stupid it is for the rest of us.
Re:Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:5, Informative)
I am personally against this form of censorship (but for some reason I was attacked ceaselessly in the last story on this bill), but it's a logical leap to say that they're outlawing anything.
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Re:Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:5, Insightful)
For this law to be effective, the ISP's will also have to block any mirror sites (goggle cache, archive.org). There is also the problem with people running home servers, and saving cached images on a publicly accessible server.
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WRONG! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it's not just dildos, but novelty items.
Cities with Bans on Pornography Being Shipped to them
Jacksonville, Florida
Tallahassee, Florida
Indianapolis, Indiana
Cincinnati, Ohio
Memphis, Tennessee
Austin, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Houston, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Waco, Texas
States with Some kind of law
Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia (Novelty Restriction Only)
Kansas (Novelty Restriction Only)
Mississippi
Utah
Texas (Statewide Novelty Restriction)
Zip Codes:
Texas:
76035 thru 76199
Louisiana (Lincoln Parish):
71001
71227
71234
71235
71241
71245
71270
71272
71273
71275
If there are corrections to this list, or whatnot, please respond below.
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Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Funny)
...
Dallas, Texas
Oh, the irony...
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Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Funny)
So how about a gun where the barrel is shaped like a dildo- that would be protected under the second Amendment. Man, THAT would confuse the hell out of a lot of Texans...
"You can have my dildo when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
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Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:5, Interesting)
<dons bullet proof vest>
<dons helmet>
Actually - I dont think this is a bad law.
ducks
I agree with the intent of the sadly not-very-well-known RSACi [netscape.com] system whereby sites have ratings and people configure their browser to show sites with ratings they want to see. This permits individuals to make choices for themselves as to the type of content they (and their family) see. It looks like this law simply forces people to rate their sites.
Further, the law permits you to ask your ISP to block content you deem inappropriate.
No-one is getting censored here, no content is being blocked if you dont want it.
Note that as far as I can tell, firefox doesn't support RSACi.
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Re:Utah makes TX and FL look good some times (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't anybody take personal responsibility for anything anymore?
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False Analogies (Score:5, Insightful)
But the point is there's no way, short of monitoring every moment of a child's internet usage (which isn't truly practical) to ensure they don't end up going there.
It's not about whether an adult wants to go there or not - it's about whether an adult has the means to ensure their children don't go there.
The law's treatment of ISPs is nothing like a taxi firm, it's like a news seller:
Hardcore porn, right now, can be sitting anywhere on a newseller's shelves - right amongst the comics. Worse, it's virtually impossible to identify which links will and won't take a kid to porn or what endless cycles of pop-ups will. That's the equivalent of hardcore porn makers wrapping their content in Yu-Gi-Oh covers to ensure it gets more impressions.
What the law is saying is: Utah magazine publishers aren't allowed to wrap an innocent looking cover around their porn mags anymore and, as Utah can't legislate against out of state magazines, they're requiring news sellers to put magazines from a given list on the top shelf.
It's not even as if it prohibits free speach. You still have the right to speak. It's just that parents are being given the right to decide they and their families don't want to listen (and still have the right to decide to listen if they want to).
I agree it's not an ideal system. I agree it's not perfect. I agree some non-porn sites will mistakenly end up on the list. I agree there are better alternatives out there (though, as many parents evidently don't know of them, "better" is obviously a relative term).
But, just because something's not ideal, it doesn't mean it should automatically be ignored if, as non-ideal, it's still better than not doing it.
What are the costs? The real, genuine costs? Minimal if anything - a piece of cheap software that blocks a supplied list really doesn't cost much at all. Give a decent programmer a few hours, they can knock it up for you. Other than that and the Utah state government's money - the other costs are arguably negligible.
What are the benefits? Maybe not as great as promised but they do exist. Block a few thousand typo domains like hotmale.com, the obvious ones kids try like playboy.com and the most prolific ad/spyware based ones and you can make a reasonable sized dent - even if you can't catch everything.
Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Yes. Does it trample any civil liberties or anything else with a hard to immediately prove but ultimately huge cost? No.
So stop whining. You see flaws in it? Write to the Utah congresscritters and senators. Suggest better solutions. They evidently see it as a problem worth addressing, they obviously see the benefits as outweighing the costs - so suggest your better solution and see if they'll act on it. Just don't bitch for the sake of bitching that people chose a non-perfect solution that they still regard as better than the costs of implementing it.
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On Request. (Score:5, Informative)
on request.
ON REQUEST.
This is not going to block every user from playboy.com. It will give people access to a list of websited to filter ON REQUEST.
Re:On Request. (Score:4, Insightful)
for instance, lets say we have two borderline objectionable sites, both with some potentially redeeming social content on them. one's content has liberal leanings. the other has conservative leanings. do you want the government even making a recomendation as to which one is ok for your children to see? do you want it giving a commercial advantage to one over the other? do you want one to enjoy the validation of the government's implicit endorsement, while the other suffers because of the persecution of the government's placement on the list?
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Re:On Request. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Last ISP to leave Utah... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, how long until they move three feet over the state border to circumvent this?
Cool Job Opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
How many here would like to work for the UT AG's office as the official porn site screener? Can you imagine, getting decent pay, good benefits and spending your days surfing porn? I wonder if telecomuting is an option (I need saltwater proximity).
Re:Cool Job Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately what it did was desensitize me to porn
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HAve you actually read the bill? (Score:5, Informative)
Violation of the 1st and 14th? (Score:5, Insightful)
You would think that they would learn not to mess with the free speech rights of adults and children here. The main objection to these kinds of bills is that the block access to sites giving medical or social information about topics like teen sexuality, pregnancy, and homosexuality. This is due to the fact that the blacklist is drawn up by a bunch of conservative idiots rather than people that know the difference between Debbie Does Dallas and Gray's Anatomy. The laws prevent teens who have a right to know this kind of information without the consent of their parents (the ACLU has defended teen medical rights before) which is stupid since most of the problems with teen sex are due to ignorance on the part of teens about sexuality. Since they are taught nothing but abstinence, those who do have sex don't use protection. And because of the lack of communication between parents and teens in this case, the teens won't tell their parents nor will they get medical help which just makes the situation worse. One of these days they'll figure out that teaching children proper morals and letting them deal with the dangers of the world regarding sex is better than just blindfolding them and threaten them with eternal damnation if they have sex before marriage.
--
Want a free iPod? [freeipods.com]
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. [freegamingsystems.com] (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof [wired.com]
The problem with this... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with this is that Utah is redefining what an ISP is. Traditionally, it is exactly what it stands for: a provider of Internet service. Nothing more, nothing less. You want access? We'll give it to you.
Now some ISPs provide services on top of mere access. For example, my ISP provides some Web hosting space, some e-mail accounts, and so on. However, there is no law forcing them to do so, they do it to get my business.
Content filtering, which is what this law deals with, is exactly like those other services: something above and beyond what an ISP has to do. Utah has now changed that. No longer is an ISP merely an Internet Service Provider, now they have to muck around with the content they are providing. That's just wrong in my mind.
I love analogies, so I'll present one here. What they have done is essentially the same thing as if they passed a law saying that upon consumer request, courier and mail delivery services have to inspect all packages for sexually explicit material, and if they don't and something offensive gets delivered to someone, it's a felony. A company can't just deliver the mail any more, they are now held responsible for what gets sent and received.
ISPs in Utah have the option of blocking sites or providing customers with third-party filtering products unless they want to risk felony charges under the new law.
My suggestion? If I were an ISP in Utah, I would simply post a link to the Proxomitron [proxomitron.info] on my home page and be done with it. After all, I don't see anything in the article (didn't read the bill) to say that the third-party filtering product that the ISP provides has to cost anything or be easy to use.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, Dupe Nazi, how else am I supposed to know he actually signed it, unless there's a follow up article? Guess? Assume?
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Dude... (Score:5, Funny)
No guessing or assuming required.
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Update from Utah (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is when any group is a vast majority of the population, They start to do funny things. Especially when the defining charactoristic is something that you cannot apply scientific rigor to. This is the problem with 'Utah Mormons" - yes, they do tend to act differently than Mormons outside of Utah/Idaho.
This is why Democracy is a lousy form of government. It's only real asset, is that it takes longer to corrupt than most other forms of government.
And yes, IAA Mormon. Utah is not 'backward' (or advanced..) It just suffers from too much group-think. That it is Mormon group-think is less important.
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Re:Update from Utah (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it is. We call it "irrationality." A belief in something that has no falsifiable basis in reality.
This is what the other posters are alluding to when they handwave about it is no surprise that Utah would pass a censorship bill such as this one -- it's a "mommy law", where the state (or the nation) attempts to be everybody's mommy. By its very nature, it is defective, repressive and -- here we have it -- irrational.
Utah, and the US in general, are not examples of democracy. They are both degenerate examples of a republic. Your representatives decide what is going to happen, not you. Their votes count; you don't even get one. What you can do, perhaps, is throw the perpetrators out next time there is a round of elections. But then again, party politics can prevent that, too. You're not in control. That's what a republic is about -- the citizens don't have any direct control at all. At least unless they are willing to pick up weapons and change the system.
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My Rights Online? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an opt-out policy. Fine with me.
I do have a problem with the rating of a website. A subjective measure at best.
Customers should have the option to block websites if they request it. It is no different than blocking a channel on cable.
I guess I don't see how this applies to My rights online other than the rating system. (It looks like another "feel good" policy. There is almost no way to enforce it.)
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Re:What am I missing (Score:4, Insightful)
Or move to China maybe.
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Re:What am I missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Then block it. Who exactly is stopping you?
That is this thing known as "Freedom".
There are these people known variously as "cowards", "fools", "scumbags", and "fascist fuckheads", among many other terms who do not understand that to have "Freedom" takes something known as "Courage".
Which is a dwindling resource in this modern world.
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Re:What am I missing (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:American's love their State's Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, unfettered democracy is a stupid, dumb idea and this is a perfect case study - the tyranny of the Mormons.
Hard to take that seriously, perhaps, but it is chilling...
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Re:For once, the first amendment sabre rattling... (Score:4, Insightful)
ISPs are forced to provide a filtered internet connection at the request of the customer. Freedom of speech doesn't mean I have to hear what you say. If I (as the person paying for the internet access in the house I own), choose to filter my internet, then I am allowed to do so.
Whether or not forcing ISPs to offer a filtered internet for those who want it is right is not a First Ammendmant issue.
Parent
How is this a free speech issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's take a look at the bill:
So this bill is creating an OPT-IN list, preventing access to sites only to those customers who ask the ISP to do this. How is this violating free speech? If I don't want spam and decide to use a spam filter, am I violating the free speech rights of the spammers?Parent
Re:Utah as a religious dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
So to those who have more familiarity with the region I have two questions.
I'm a "Mormon [mormon.org]", or more accurately, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1) Did this legislation come about as a result of the elders in the church?
Absolutely not. The Church stays strictly out of politics, except where a serious moral issue is involved, and then only the moral at issue is taught, but the vote and the law is up to the members individually.
And 2) Is this basically an accurate summation of Mormon politics?
No. Even among the members of the Church, it is a matter that often brings up discussion (sometimes heated) as to whether or not laws to restrict rights to behave immorally should be made. But this is not Church mandate or policy. It's up to the members.
If so, that seems scary to me. I wouldn't want a society where there is so much homogenity, even if everyone were basically like me.
On the contrary, the Church is only homogenous in that we share certain core beliefs [mormon.org]. I'm often amazed at how much variety fits within the Church. I disagree with political and ethical views with many good, active members of the Church that I know. The Church encourages us to seek out answers for ourselves.
In conclusion, be sure to research "the Mormons" using legitimate sources. That means: if you want to know what we "Mormons" believe in, ask a good, practicing Mormon.
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Re:Utah as a religious dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
For example, when the gay marriage proposition was up for vote in California, the Mormon church organized a massive door-to-door campaign to try to deny the gays their right to marry.
Your parent poster said "except where a serious moral issue is involved", which this is.
Being a Democrat in the Mormon church all but seals your prospects of holding influential positions in the organization.
James E. Faust is the 2nd Councelor in the First Presidency, which translates roughly into "3rd in command". He is Democratic [state.ut.us].
Apparently you've never sat in an Elder's Quorum meeting when they pass around a petition to stop a race track from being constructed in your town
I have never once been in an Elder's Quorum meeting where they passed around anything like that.
As they say, you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends.
Unfortunately, enemies often are convinced of the truth of half truths, so they are not good sources of information.
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Re:Utah as a religious dictatorship (Score:4, Insightful)
'As they say, you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends.'
Unfortunately, enemies often are convinced of the truth of half truths, so they are not good sources of information.
I agree. But I think what he means is that you'll get more of the truth when talking to a former member of the LDS church than an active one. I think there are two reasons for that. Reason number one is that there are no worries. It's like a retired politician saying everything he ever wanted to, but didn't before in fear of not being re-elected. The second reason is that many opposers (certainly not all, however) typically spend a great deal of time forming opinions and even more time doing the research to back it up.
But it's always good to get as many sides as you can. I'm glad to see Mormons who are supportive of their religion throwing in their two cents.
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Re:Utah as a religious dictatorship (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish that I could say that this was total nonsense. It is not true, but there is a reason that a person might think that. The Republican Party Leadership in Utah is mostly Mormon. (no surprise, ~70% of Utah is Mormon) It is in the interests of the Republican Leadership in Utah to give this impression. And they do a good, subtle job of it. (It has to be subtle, if it wasn't, church headquarters would do something about it. - as another reply stated.) The truth is that The Republican Party leadership runs politics in Utah, and one of the tools they use to hold power is to cater to a few of the more visible Mormon beliefs. This assures them of most of the mormon vote. It is sad that in one of, if not the most, Republican states, that the republicans still monkey with voting districts etc. to marginalize the Democrats.
It is my opinion that if Church leaders came out and said that being a Republican was evil, most of the Republican leadership would leave the church before leaving the Rebuplican Party. They are Mormon in name, and Republican at heart. Unfortunately, most Utahn's don't see this. Nor did you.
As for the BoM, Most mormons have a simpilistic interpretation of the history in it. (All native Americans decended from BoM people, The Jaredites killed off all Jaredite decendants, Final battle in New York - etc. ) This view is unsupportable from either a logical view or an archaeological one. On the other hand, the BoM does fit several things in history fairly well. It pegs the Olmec civ. timeline within a couple hundred years.[1] In short it is a better guide to Central American history than anything written prior to the early 1900's, and was published 80+ years earlier. It is as good a history book as the Bible is.[2]
"you learn more about a man from his enemies than his friends." And you can learn a lot about someone from the enemies he makes. Most anti-mormons are liars and frauds. The rest are filled with a mild hate that you showed. As for the analogy: Toyota can make a Toyota, The consumer magazine couldn't make a go-cart. I would only trust the magazine for information that was a comparison to other cars, or information that Toyota would want to hide.
People you should not trust for information about a religion are A) Active members of another one (especially ministers etc.) or B) Former members, like yourself.
[1]Both the BoM and archeological evidence have about that margin of error on the subject.
[2] Yes, this means fairly lousy on most points, with a few exceptions.
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Re:Utah as a religious dictatorship (Score:4, Informative)
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Britannica? (Score:5, Interesting)
I received a flyer in the mail last week from Rogers (a big cable/internet service hereabouts in Ontario). The headline on the front was "You'll do anything to keep your kids from seeing inappropriate material... so will we." I nearly tossed it (I'm a student in student housing), but I looked again... the REST of the front was an image of an encyclopedia page, one of those standard full-color bits that show a peel-away view of the human body. This one was a muscle diagram, showing the major muscle groups. The sketch was female, and sure enough, the groin and chest areas had been physically cut out of the flyer, apparently to make Rogers' point that parents would reasonably do things like this. The image didn't even have any skin, it was a freakin' muscle diagram just like most of us see in 7th grade science!
So the obvious message was, "We will keep your kids from seeing legitimate, educational material. We will go overboard just like you."
Will the lists in Utah be "reasonable," with ideas like that being supposedly "mainstream"? I'm not holding my breath.
Parent
Re:Lots of FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
It can't be inforced, not even remotely plausible.
The law just says they have to allow customers to block a list of sites. If the ISP doesn't block something that is not on the list, no problem.
It's fundamentally anti-freedom and wrong.
Since when is it anti-freedom to give someone more choices than they had before?
Utah is a screwed up place.
Yeah, Utah is different. But after spending a week in Las Vegas where I did nothing but inhale other's cigarette smoke, I'm happy to be back here.
Expect lawsuits against the state of Utah by porn sites and ISPs.
How is this different than say, the no call list? People chose to ban sales people from calling them. Lawsuits against it failed. People can now choose to ban certain sites from coming into their house.
It just doesn't matter.
Time will tell. But sometimes you have to take a stand. Utah also is a leader in passing anti-spyware bills. That probably won't matter, either, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.
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Re:This is good (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want some measure of protection from nasty things, there are already perfectly good content filters out there. Many are even free. If you want to filter content, go find or buy a content filter, just like you find or buy antivirus software to protect your computer from viruses.
But don't force your ISP under threat of fine and/or imprisonment to do it for you. It's not their job because they provide access to the Internet, it's yours because you want it.
Parent
Re:This is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the children, please. Maybe some of you guys don't have to worry because you spend 4 hours-a-day actually SEARCHING for porn on the web, but please, a 5 or 6 year old girl, or even a boy?
With all due respect, why is it the state of Utah's job to parent your children? There are a plethora of ways you could filter out things you don't want your children to see and while they're not foolproof, they're likely to keep the 5 or 6 year old child innocently playing on the Internet from stumbling on something.
Now, instead of you implementing your own solution to your own specifications--and out of your own pocket--the tax payers get to do it for you. Because... why?
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Re:Is this REALLY the end of the world? (Score:4, Insightful)
The most asinine part of this is that there is a market niche in private industry that is already offering this service, from the power necessary to filter a single PC up to a whole enterprise gateway. The major players have been doing it for a decade, and they're doing a better job than the A.G.'s office could ever hope to do. Why don't these people just avail themselves of this software?
There's absolutely no reason why the Utah state government needs to be involved here. If someone can afford yearly Internet access, he can afford NetNanny. Excuse me, but I think there's another agenda at work here.
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Re:gee its ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it a religious issue to not want your children to see something like that old slashdot favorite image with "goat" in the name?
I'm sure there are plenty of athiests with children who would like to protect them from seeing a wide variety of images on the internet. Boobies? Come on. If the internet had nothing more extreme than Playboy Magazine, I seriously doubt you'd have legislation like this.
Also this does not infringe anyone's first amendment rights, because it is voluntary. If you want to continue to see everything, you do nothing. If you want to block the sites on the list, you have to request that they be blocked.
To summarize why I reject your logic:
Now, unfortunately, comes my reason why this bill won't do much good... It is amazingly easy to set up a new domain name. It is impossible for ANY group to keep an adequate list of sites to block. As soon as owners of a site find it blocked, they can spend about 15 minutes at most to get a new name that ISN'T blocked.
The best solution I ever heard was from one of the columnists in eWeek (back when it was PCWeek) circa 1996-7. Can't remember which one. His suggestion was a separate domain designator for porn. Something like .xxx
This way anyone could publish anything, but people who choose to avoid such things could simply block the .xxx domains.
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Re:gee its ok (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'd rather have my kids see Bob Goatse in all his glory than have them stumble across this poisonous filth [chick.com] accidentially. Somehow I doubt the things I think are offensive will find their way on to the list.
One flaw with our system of government is that politicians are not punished for intentionally passing legislation they know to be unconstitutional. Politicians who sponsor, vote for, or enact unconstitutional laws should be held criminally liable for their malfeasance.
Virtually every elected official in the country has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. By willfully violating this oath they should by rights forfeit their office.
It's my opinon that promoting and lobbying for blatantly unconstituional laws constitutes seditious conspiricy [cornell.edu] under US law. IMHO The governer of Utah should be arrested, stripped of power, and sent to Federal PMITA prison for 20 years.
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