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Domain: state.ut.us
Stories and comments across the archive that link to state.ut.us.
Stories · 6
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SCO Chairman Fights to Ban Open Wireless Networks
cachedout writes "SCO's Ralph Yarro had the floor yesterday at the Utah Technology Commission meeting in front of Utah lawmakers. Yarro proposed that free wireless sites and subscribers should be held responsible should any porn be delivered to minors because hotspots are apparently where kids go to watch porn all day long. Yarro told lawmakers that open wireless access points should be made a crime because we have an Internet out of control." -
ACLU to Challenge Utah Porn-Blocking Law
delirium of disorder writes "Opponents of a Utah law that requires Internet service providers to offer to block Web sites deemed pornographic filed a lawsuit last Thursday to overturn the measure. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is seeking an injunction in federal court in Salt Lake City as part of its lawsuit claiming that the Utah law violates state residents' rights to free expression and unlawfully interferes with interstate commerce. The legislation requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful to minors. Under the law, Internet providers in Utah must provide their customers with a way to disable access to sites on the list or face felony charges." -
Utah Governor Signs Net-Porn Bill
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.) -
Top Web Businesses Oppose Utah Spyware Law
theodp writes "According to MediaPost.com: 'Some of the Web's leading content and technology providers have taken action to lobby against Utah's controversial Spyware Control Act, which is awaiting the governor's signature. Web publishers and businesses including AOL, Amazon, Cnet, eBay, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! signed a letter to the bill's sponsors arguing that the bill could create serious repercussions for the entire online community. The parties to the letter warned that the bill could interfere with computer security and would also impair the delivery of local, targeted ads'." -
Utah's Anti-Spam Law In Action
phondew writes: "Everyone's favorite telco is getting a much deserved lawsuit for their evil ways. The twist is that Sprint had hired a third party to do their dirty work, which is in turn claiming that it only sent to people who opted-in. Of course. AdLaw has the story here, and more information on Utah's Unsolicited Commercial and Sexually Explicit Email Act can be found here ." -
Utah About to Sign Library Filtering Law
Greyfox writes "This USA Today story tells us that the Utah Senate just passed a law to withhold funding from libraries that don't implement net filtering. The law now goes to the governor for signing or not signing." The bill text talks about keeping minors off sites with "obscene" material. Most Utah libraries will probably just sign on to the existing statewide Smartfilter network, which (as the Censorware Project has shown) already blocks a legitimate access every 99 seconds. As the law pressures more libraries to sign up, that rate will climb. More thoughts below...I am not a lawyer, but here's something interesting. The bill requires that any public library receiving state funds:
"...adopts and enforces a policy to restrict access by minors to Internet or online sites that contain obscene material."
"Obscene" is a term with strict legal meaning. The definition is, roughly, that the material must depict sexual conduct in an offensive way, must appeal to prurient interest as defined by community standards, and must lack serious scientific, literary, artistic, or political ("SLAP") value.
But no internet blocking software in existence blocks material according to these or any other legal criteria. For example, "sexualconduct" is defined by the state. Is mere nudity sexual conduct? Not according to most states. In Utah? I don't know. Does Smartfilter offer a Utah- or Utah-community-specific version? Of course not.
Most censorware programs just lump nudity in with hardcore obscenity. Their simple categories are aimed at the home or business market, after all, and there's no need to be very picky. Sometimes they just block any webpage with "sex" in the URL - no, I'm not making this up, that's the software they were pushing in Holland.
In other words, the only way to satisfy the requirements of the bill is to install software which violates the First Amendment by indiscriminately blocking protected material. The bill uses legal terms that no software can live up to.
Also, the bill offers no definition of "site." Is a site an entire domain? If so, then no minor may access Yahoo, because, at any given time, somewhere on geocities.yahoo.com, there is probably a (soon-to-be-decommissioned) free page with sexual content.
This is not an abstract problem. The Smartfilter software used in Utah at the time of our tests blocked the Wiretap archive, which blocked library patrons from reading the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, "Wuthering Heights," and many other legitimate and valuable texts. Not theoretically - in reality - we know because we read the proxy logs.
But after our report came out, they unblocked it - so now patrons could read about how to have sex with a horse, make drugs, and build an atomic bomb. Same archive. Two very different types of material.
So, should the entire Wiretap archive be blocked, or not? Or should the decision be made at the directory level? The file level? Granularity is important, and by using the sloppy word "site," the lawmakers have dodged the issue.
And they are not alone. Lawmakers in every state and at the federal level are looking at similar legislation. It'll be worded slightly differently every time, but none of it can get around the fundamental problem: computer algorithms aren't up to the task of categorizing human expression.
If and when the governor signs this into law, it will be an important marker in the struggle over filters. It will probably encourage other states to do the same. But, this isn't the final word; wait for the lawsuits to begin.