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."

Comments

hmm

[Turn-X Alphonse]

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...

What Ceasar funds...

[PsiPsiStar]

... 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.

Re:I dunno about both.

[Anubis350]

::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.

Re:Filtering software

[interstellar_donkey]

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.

Re:Filesharing?

[FidelCatsro]

ofcourse to counter that argument , i could easilly say truckers have to pay taxes aswell.
if the people are providing the service then the service should be free to all people ,not censured by some small moralist core to be restrictive to the viewing habits they deem acceptable .

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