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Texas Bill to Filter Highway Rest Stop Internet
girlchik writes "HB 3314, up for hearing in the Texas House State Affairs committee on Monday, would require the state to filter wireless internet access at highway rest stops. This bill mandates filtering at any state-provided wireless network on public property.
Since last May, the Texas Department of Transportation has offered wifi access at state rest stops. There is also wifi access at some Texas state parks provided in partnership with Tengo Internet.
This bill protects truckers at highway rest stops and campers in their RVs at campsites from adult content.
Sounds both wasteful and unconstitutional."
Maybe to prevent walking by a car and seeing some pervert jacking off? I know I don't want to walk by a car and notice some girl being screwed by a horse while some weird looking guy smiles politely and acts like he's not doing anything...
I like muppets.
My legalese is not that great, but it looks like they will only prohibit access to porn, etc, at correctional facilities. They MAY prohibit access at others sites, and will have (it looks like one person) someone to help these other sites implement filters if they want them.
The article as posted certainly seems like flamebait to me. There is no requirement that the state of texas provide net access to anyone. If certain locallities want to implement porn filters, I don't see how that's a bad thing at all. If you want your net porn, go buy it.
Last I checked, my local library doesn't stock hustler - though they do have people mag. Is that also an attack on my 1st amendment rights?
... Caesar controls.
Of course, this seems to open the possibility that obscene materials could also be banned in email. Or am I misreading things?
I like this section;
(e) This section does not apply to a university system or
institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003,
Education Code.
So at least college kids can still look at porn and med students won't have the breasts filtered out of their diagrams.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
This bill protects truckers...adult content.
Don't make me laugh.
On a more serious note, how much protection does any adult need? Further, howbout making it so this protection is opt out? Yeah, I didn't think the Texas state legislature would have satisfactory answers to either question.
The bill was not well thought out, and eventutally dropped.
This bill is just as well thought out. They don't define obscene, and it is impossible to filter out obscene materials. Though the issue OS compatibility does not apply the issue of what is obscene and how do keep up with the changes on the web still exist.
Fight Spammers!
Hell, you got to pass a 'Sec 4 RELIGIOUS TEST' to be a Texan?
n 000100-000400.html
I almost believed it , but decided to have a look at the constitution myself. Well, I guess Texas not as bad as you thought.
But before you get too pleased , read the last part of the line !!! So no atheists for public office in TX (I must admit that I wasnt expecting this)
Section 4 - RELIGIOUS TESTS
No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.
Original link http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/c
::sigh::
1) Not all the sites filtered are going to be pron. Filtering isnt perfect and this means that legitimate stuff will get blocked (like anything involving coral cache prolly, or medical sites, or abortion sites, or.... you get the idea)
2) Porn isnt illegal, illegal porn is illegal. That sounds silly but its important. This is a public service, if its legal than you should be allowed access to it. Sure, make temporary logs if you want to stop illegal use, but don't blanket ban everything on a subject. Sure argue that logs are ineffective, guess what? so is filtering!
I want the State of Texas to leave the internet open for any kid with a laptop to override their usual ISP proxies and filters (AOL etc.) at every highway service, and browse horse porn and look up bomb-making instructions sitting next to the forecourt of a gas station."
thats the parents problem now isnt it, or are we now a nanny state?
You know you can get some types of porn from local libraries? Perhaps we should stop funding them, evil institutions.... Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, it is not freedom of speech when I like it.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
what changed? maybe I'm not remembering correctly, but that looks like the same regulation that's been on the CB band for quite a while now... and is virtually ignored by a great many CB users I've come across.
Link is fake news. The title at that page is "Glob and Mail", whereas the real news site is "Globe and Mail". No trace of the article could be found at Globe and Mail's archives.
Yes. I've dealt with filtering at the server level before. What perplexed me is how, while at a school I tried to visit one of my own webpages which had no photos and zero profanity or discussions of sex or violence, the server preempted the page with it's own page which read "This website was blocked for content". Though for fun, I found that it was very happy to allow "fatchicksinpartyhats.com".
I swear, I think the filtering software that district had just blocked random pages with no reason, and somewhere there's a vendor out there laughing hysterically, wearing a top-hat and a monicle, holding large sacks with dollar signs printed on the side.
The Internet is generally stupid
I've had problems downloading tools like putty or pstools. I think the proxy i'm behind right now even filters files with the extension .tar
Sample this!
I would think that filtering would just be providing less of a service (eg not full internet access).
You would be wrong, from a constitutional point of view. The state can certainly provide less of a service, if they like -- they can throttle bandwidth, allow only 2 connections to any hotspot, provide only 2 hotspots in the entire state, heack, they can cancel the whole project and buy bigger monitors. All of those would be perfectly OK.
The ONLY thing they can't do is build a system with taxpayer dollars and then limit access to speech (for adults) based on the content of the speech.
They can limit it in any way they like, so long as the limits are content-neutral. WiFi access is no different than parade permits -- you don't have to provide either, but if you do, everyone has to be treated equally.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
One website that gets filtered a lot is xxx.lanl.gov, which is a physics preprint server that a lot of scientists use to post/read papers prior to publication (which can take months). The "xxx" is the problem, of course, but when the site was established very early in the history of the internet, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. And now that's where people expect to find it.
The filtering thing just seems like a bad, unAmerican idea to me. Protect people from dangerous things, not from things they seek out.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Thinking about government this way (as if it were some sort of contractual resource-sharing arrangement among citizens) is just absurd. Whoever is in power takes everybody's money and does what they want with it. On any issue, x% of the people are trying to spend the money of the other (100-x)%, and vice-versa, but this is very rarely a useful way to look at the situation.
This is not an allocational issue.
In other words, it's not just about money.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They don't want truckers to use state provided bandwidth to download porn. What's wrong with that? Some people might consider the use of state funds to provide pornographic content somewhat . . . wasteful.
Along that same argument, I want all religious sites blocked as well. Why should anyone pay to assist the indoctrination of children. Plus if the state is running the link, it should be blocked as a violation of church and state.
ofcourse to counter that argument , i could easilly say truckers have to pay taxes aswell. ,not censured by some small moralist core to be restrictive to the viewing habits they deem acceptable .
.
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if the people are providing the service then the service should be free to all people
I find many Christian belifes offensive and web sites that puport them as fact , should we then ban these sites as me and many others find their disinformation offensive. The awnser simply is no so why should we ban pornography
For and by the people means all the people , not just some small sector
thus we cant really censor anything logicaly , well except those things that clearly violate the law
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Unfortunetly, if you had the authority and motivation to add the DNC's website to the blocklist, it might be quite easy to justify doing so. If the DNC's website contains, or links to, information on abortion, access to birth control, or non-abstinance based sex. ed, it might meet blocking criteria.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
At my old high school we had content filtering but it extended beyond porn. Violence, bad language (- this was shotty filtering at best, as slashdot feedbacks that are full of fucktards and the like still got through)
I was doing a report for my history class on racism in America, so doing the natural thing, I went to various websites, including the Ku Klux Klan's website. Well that was blocked because they promote violence. I thought, well, fair enough. So I went home, looked at the site from my unfiltered connection, and saw nothing that promoted violence. So I went back to school and pointed out that I was doing a report the website did not promote violence, pornography or profanity, but was still blocked.
The librarian said, "Of course the KKK promotes violence" I said, "They may, but not on their site, I am not arguing whether they did or not, I am merely saying they did not now."
"Well, they are a racist organization"
"I agree, which is why I am trying to go to their site for my report on racism in america"
So racism was now the excuse. So just for kicks and a few giggles I went to the black panthers website. No problems. The NAACP...no problems. Let me try the NAAWP (you can guess what that stands for) yup, you guessed it, problems. I pointed this out to the librarian and said, "The Black Panthers are a racist, homophobic, and antisemtic organization (much like the KKK, in fact I believe they worked together on antijewish causes) and they are permitted. This is a clear double standard"
Point being, this nonsense is applied by both Conservatives and Liberals. Oh that said, it is a state government, and they have the authority to offer web access that can only visit slashdot.org, if they want.
--Joey
I actually find your post quite offensive. I sure hope that the "trucker filter" filters stuff like this out. It is much more offensive than seeing a boob!
I suppose the truckers can just turn to other alternatives, like checkers, scrabble, hookers, etc..........
There is a difference between censoring privately controlled communications and media (unconsitutional) and public communications and media (constitutional).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
adult content. They are paying for it.
Furthermore, there is a solid argument that the public square should have community standards applied to it. The 1st amendment is primarily concerned with content of speech, esp. political speech.
Adult content doesn't really fit into that.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.