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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."
So, part of the problem with this is that it turns many small Internet providers into de facto censorship organizations responsible for the policing and determination of ALL content hosted through them or make them software companies due to this little inclusion in the law:
260 (3) (a) A service provider may comply with Subsection (1) by:
261 (i) providing network-level in-network filtering to prevent receipt of material harmful to minors;
262 or
263 (ii) providing at the time of a consumer's request under Subsection (1), software for{ }
264 contemporaneous installation on the consumer's computer that blocks, in an easy-to-enable and
265 commercially reasonable manner, receipt of material harmful to minors.
The other major problem of course is that if the first course is taken, then Internet providers are legally *obligated* to be searching your computers or files for content in violation of federal law.
Of course this also begs the question of who determines "adult content" which should make one suspicious of motives as this law comes from a state that had a state appointed "porn czar" who was a self avowed virgin. Also, at one of the major Universities in the state, BYU felt that censorship of sculptures by Auguste Rodin was appropriate for the national tour a couple of years ago. Did they consider that "adult content"? What would they think of Internet sites covering sculptures of Michelangelo's David?
The other seriously maddening thing about this is that the little independent book shop just around the corner from me, The Kings English book shop would not be able to put any books on their website other than childrens books.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
This gives more ammunition to the rabid right in their attempt to make the ACLU the bogeyman for everything "evil" in this world. Of course the rightwing nutjobs forget that the ACLU has also defended Ollie North and Rush Limbaugh. I guess ingrates have short memories.
The target of this legislation also dooms it to failure. Business interests are not going to stand by and allow the Utah legislature make common carrier status a criminal offense. If that were allowed to stand then the phone company would be criminally negligent for obscene phone calls made on their lines.
Never let it be said that the Utah legistlature had real brain power. After all, the state produced Orrin Hatch!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
And who gets to decide? The Utah legislature?
Not in my country, motherfuckers.
Who needs porn when you're allocated 10 wives?
This is yet another example of a 'feelgood' law, that conservative lawmakers pass to appeal to their base, and to be able to see "See, I am fighting immorality!"
Yet the law is 100 percent ineffective. First of all, there is no way they can ever block every single source of smut on the internet. Seconmd of all, its an opt in system. You choose to have these sites blocked, the ISP isnt blocking them for you. parents can do this already with a number of 'childware' packages already out there.
So really, what is the law good for? Nothing, except appealing to the base.
What good is the ACLU challenge? None either, except making them selves look more like 'champions of pron' to the conservative members of this country.
Its all a bunch of chest thumping.
I bet there is a lot of girl on girl on girl on girl on guy action
Easy for US ISP's to implement: just ask your friends in Saudi Arabia how they did it!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I don't see how hardcore pornography is defended by the 1st amendment. Softcore or erotic photography certainly can be art, but not the hardcore dime-a-dozen variety found online.
First China now Utah.. Yea I guess that sounds about right.
So how does this substantially differ from Microsoft filtering certain words and phrases in China?
If I want to block Internet content from my children, this is my right (until they reach the age of majority of course). The same way I can block TV shows. This is MY responsibility and right, not some government appointed watch dog.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Sometimes I think kids are going to grow up completely messed us with the crazy stuff they can see on the web just by typing "sex" in google.
Is forcing ISPs to block that kind of content going to solve the problem? Probably not, but I feel for them.
Personally, I'd like to see a law that makes it illegal for adult context to appear on a URL unless is has a special extension, something like ".xxx". Then it'd be easy for concerned parents (and wives!) to configure the browser to block anything from that extension.
Sam
George Bush stoogie Bill O'Reilly will surely have a ball with this one. Especially since he has already branded it "the most dangerous organization in the country".
Can you imagine the staff of the Utah Attorney General's office compliling that list? I work for a company that does content filtering and I already steer clear of the blocking department (the folks who look at porn all day, every day for a living). I can only imagine a bunch of straight laced AG office fraus browsing zoosite.com or dumpstersluts.com and how traumatic that would be. While it might seem like a tempting job, its really not. There are sites out there much worse than tubgirl or goatse.
I'm sorry, but I just don't want to live in a world where I can't download hot girl on girl action from the internet. Bastards, you will never take that away from me, never! ahhm
if the idea is to keep minnors away from adult material ..
i am wondering why the government or companies are doing the job of parents..
if you let your child out of the net and don't follow what they are doing it is your own damn fault and you are the one to be held liable.. same thing as if your 10 year old is ...
never mind this argument always falls on def ears..
parents need to know what their damn job is and not blame the world..
take some responsiblity
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
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."
I suggest that all Utah ISP's implement this with feature with a link from their home page "Click here to disable access to pornographic web sites" that leads directly to the ISP's account termination page.
I would set up an internal page that allowed you to click a button on a PHP enabled page that would read:
Do you want to block listed sites?:
[BLOCK] [UNBLOCK]
Then, if you clicked "block" it would block port 80 to all outside access except the internal page.
That would provide a way of blocking the listed sites.......... (BOFH does ISP)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
How can it be a violation if it is an optional service offered to those who want it?
MadOgre.com
They need to create a list of sites that are NON pornographic and then block access to everything else. That list will fit on a DVD and the other way it would likely require a small country to fit the firewall in. A whitelist would be so much easier.
Oh look, Google can have its safe search turned off and look for porn. Better block it.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I grew up in Salt Lake City, and am (as you may have guessed) not a big fan of pornography. But at the same time, there's a right way to solve this, and a wrong way to solve this.
Legislating that ISPs have the responsibility to provide ways to block a list of offensive websites is a good idea and a bad implementation. That kind of censorship belongs on the consumer, not on the ISP. We might as well expect handgun realtors to provide a list of movies that children shouldn't watch to keep them from becoming violent. Sure, it's something to do about the problem, but it is the wrong thing.
I think the availability to minors of pornography is a huge problem, but there is (or at least there was) a real industry building up out of censorship tools for the internet, which provide the kind of services that this law was supposed to enforce anyway.
So I fail to see the need for such odd legislation. The right of censorship in the home has always been protected as a right of the individual, excepting those 'expressions' which have been defined by society has harmful enough to legislate against (i.e. kiddie porn). But within the bounds of what society has legislated to be acceptable, the right to refuse or accept media still belongs to the end user.
And please, if the problem is that you're trying to protect your children, please notice that it is *your* responsibility to look after and protect your children. Don't leave something so important to anybody else.
In Soviet Russia, us are belong to all your base.
What is the big deal? Just compile the official list into a hosts file with all addresses set to 127.0.0.1 and make it available on your web site for download. That is about 30 minutes of work and then you comply with the damn law and can get on with your business. It isn't worth arguing about this crap.
Oh well, what the hell...
Even if they do get this one overturned the crazy politicians will come out with another stupid law that will have to be overturned.
It is an endless cycle of incompetence.
Once upon a time, if you killed people, stole a signifigant amount of money, or trafficed drugs you were a felon.. Seems now everything is a felon... I wonder what % of the US is felons????
This is the responsibility of the parent, not the state. There's miriads of [even free] software you could set up to block access to sites you deem pornographic -- and the best solution is to simply have the computer in the living room where *you* can see and make decisions about what sites your children visit.
The state can't make those decisions for you. You can more than bet that they will deem accessing art that includes nudes (photographic or not) to be pornography, but not accessing quasi-pornographic sexual innuendo laced garbage from the MTV web site as such.
Sure there are many spots where the line is clear, but there is a big gray area too.
First case nudity? How much nudity does it consist to be pornography. Some culture would say a woman showing her face would be pronographic, while other cultures say it is not the nudity but their positions, that consitutes pornography. If you come up with any rule on what pornography is I am sure you can find an example that uses that rule and is not pornograph or you will find that this rule will not cover all of pornography. So if we as humans cannot make the difference all the time then how the heck are we sopose to get computers to do it for us?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Porn sites can be classified in the following:
.xxx domains.
* Link sites. Youknow, those with lots of links to pics / movie samples
* The ones with pics / movie samples (usually they're hidden pages inside paysites - but sometimes they're hosted by the same company)
* paysites or AVS
* And in the future: websites with
A little analysis could be made to detect these easily. Anyway, it's not fair to dismiss a law because it can't be implemented yet (remember the "who needs 4-cores, anyway" discussion?). One thing is sure: if it's not allowed to be implemented, it CAN'T be implemented.
Frankly, I don't see the problem saying "hello, this is Ms. Smith and I'd like to block porn sites from your ISP. Thank you".
Just because (AFAIK) most ppl in here like porn, doesn't make porn censorship "the boogeyman". Sure, the parents have lots of responsibility regarding their children, but give them a break. How're parents supposed to watch over their child if they're denied the tools needed for it?
I'm really passoinate about these issues.
AND contrary to the what you hear on AM radio, us conservatives are also concerned about these issues ... even if some us can't spell .... :)
The ACLU's argument against this law fails to mention that filtering can only be done on request of the customer.
Now why would the ACLU leave out that most important detail?
The ACLU is not for or against States Rights. They are for Civil Liberties. That's why they're the ACLU and not the ASRU.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
You've got to ask the question, why are these kids accessing pr0n in the first place? How about tackling the cause rather than the effect?
The ACLU does not believe in States' rights. The ACLU believes in civil liberties. You must be thinking of the ASRU (American States' Rights Union.) I don't think that organization exists, though. You should feel free to create it.
;)
Then, when a state wants to implement slavery, your organization could say, "Hey, the people of this fine state want slavery, so our organization supports it." Or, when a state wants to ban guns, your organization could say, "Well, the state should do what it wants." You would need to be consistent, of course.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
From the summary: "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."
Not only will a lot of slashdotters probably not RTFA, they won't even RTFS (Read the F-ing Summary). All this law did was say, "if your customers ask you for a porn-block tool, you have to make it available to them."
It doesn't say you have to monitor content. It doesn't say you have to censor stuff yourself. All it says is that if your customers choose to exercise THEIR right to control what comes into THEIR home (and ONLY their home), part of being an ISP in Utah means you have to have that tool available to them.
The analagous law would be forcing ISPs to provide popup blocker software to those who want it. Would slashdotters be up in arms over something like this? Or is it somehow "different" because "pop-ups are evil and porn is good?"
If I was an ISP in Utah, I would have already entered into a contract with some third-party "netnanny" service or something. If it's not against the law, I would simply refer customers to the netnanny service (they would have to pay for the extra service). If that's illegal, I just raise my rates to cover the bulk purchase of netnanny software and include it on my install CD.
Not in my country, motherfuckers
Um, what does this have to do with your country? Definitions re what is and is not obscene have ever been defined at the state and local level.
This makes sense to me. Folks in Salt Lake City don't have the same mores as the folks in Greenwich Village, and these regions should all have the ability to legislate (or not) as the residents deem fit.
Don't confuse Porn with Free Speech.
Oh, thank gawd.
I was so afraid we wouldn't be able to find an expert on porn on slashdot.
Is the ISP forced to block illicit content by default, or must the user request that the content be blocked?
If its forced then ACLU has a case. If its volentary then goodbye ACLU.
I'm inn a hurrry so I didn't speel chek this documment.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
So yeah I have already seen about 6 posts looking something like, "those crazy right wing nut jobs want to stop the righteous and omniscient ACLU from protecting my civil liberties!" Seems to be the trend on /. recently, which makes it less interesting for me to read.
However, despite whether you may think this is a left vs right issue or whatever, I find it highly disturbing that the more liberal groups continue their attempts to strip the rights of states to have their own laws, especially in a representative government.
The problem I really have here is that while all you pro-ACLU people continue to scream about the ACLU protecting my right to free speech, it seems that the ACLU is restricting the right of the people of Utah (in this case) to elect a government which is representative of their ideals and beliefs.
Remember, our representatives are put into their positions in order to act on our behalf. Who is to say the people of Utah do not want this law? Maybe they do. If they do not, they could elect individuals who would overturn said law.
Now I don't necessarily agree with this law and I don't necessarily dislike the ACLU, but this rabid attack on how the "right" is bad and the "left" is good is really starting to get simply immature and sickening.
Create a new internet.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Silly Mormons, don't they know that TCP/IP is implemented on a required pr0n layer?!!!
Why does the ACLU care?
If the ISP MUST make a service available, there is nothing that states that I must use that service.
This is just another attempt of the side of the ACLU to stretch their stupidity...
If they really wanted to do something, they should tackle the illegal gun laws that strip citizens of the Right to Keep and Bear arms...you know, the second amendment...
But the freaks at the ACLU are only after whatever gets them the bucks...dirty b@$t@rd$...
--E--
+1 Funny
From what I've gathered, the ACLU's objection is, of course, motivated by the fact that they reject censorship in any form. But the argument is legitimate.
Their argument is that the state is requiring ISP's to provide a particular service whether they like it or not. They are dictating how ISP's are "permitted" to do business, asserting that they need the state's blessing to run that particular type of business. I guess what really gets me is the government's attitude that ISP's are allowed to do business by the grace and goodwill of the government, not because it's one of the founding principles of this nation.
It's like if you ran a restaurant, and the government came along and said, "I see you serve cheeseburgers. Some people don't like to eat meat, and most people agree that eating cheeseburgers all the time is downright harmful. You'd better start serving some healthy vegetarian entrees or we'll close you down."
If the state of Utah still insists on making porn-blocking more widely available, the better approach would have been to make money available to the ISP's in the form of tax breaks or low-interest loans to encourage them to offer porn-blocking services to their customers. I'd still object on the grounds that the government is promoting censorship, but at least they wouldn't be forcing ISP's to do it at gunpoint like they are now.
The most daming question, though, is this: who gets to determine what constitutes a naughty web site? For some, a place like /. would be considered pretty taboo because people use bad language here. Any form of censorship necessarily imposes some person's view of morality on others.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
I don't see what the uproar is in this? As far as I can see, the law just says that the ISPs need to provide a way to block porn. Nevermind the details for the moment, the point is that it is ADDING options, not taking them away. Nowhere is it taking away anyones rights. It is guaranteeing that the "block porn" option will be available. It doesn't say you have to use that option. How does this hurt you?
The details? Who decides what porn is? How do the ISPs block it? Just details.
Also, since the hosts file on the home computer is locally editable, the ISP wouldn't actually be stopping access to anything, even if the customer requested it, because on a very significant majority of the desktops out there, the subscribers kids have administrative access.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
suing your Govt to prevent it from using your tax money to building road that make strip bars and race tracks/casinos (or future ones) accessible to the General Public??
Oh wait.. we dont!
Rapid Nirvana
The government should stop trying to force ISPs to do their job for them.
Compile configurable lists of offensive materials (with clear and simple explanations of what is considered offensive), and offer on a government website simple tools (for every OSs) and clear instructions on how to block the sites on that list on your computer. In fact, make all o that open source, so it can be configured to suit individuals, instead of having a faceless authority inporing it's own morality on the rest of the population.
No one would file suits to stop that.
They could provide the tools to the ISPs so that no hacker mormon kid can bypass it on the home cmputer, but it shouldn't be the ISP's resposibility to implement this. This is the part that is wrong: passing the buck to the businesses, and imposing a minority's obfuscated views on the rest of society.
You can't take the sky from me...
So, the ISPs have to provide a simple optional service and are given all the resources by the government. What exactly is the problem here?
That's not the case according to the People v. Larry Flynt.
~S
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.
How about holding the parents responsible for what their children do? Sounds like any ISP can easily put this process in place. Hmmm, parenting your own children anyone?
I really can't see what the problem is. All the law says is that if the customer requests the ISP to block harmfull content, then the ISP has to comply, either by filtering it themselves or by giving the customer a copy of net nanny. If you don't want you right to look at virtual women impuned, just don't ask the ISP to block it. The ACLU would be better just asking their ISP to *not* filter pr0n, than suing the state.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
You dont seem to understand that the law only requires the ISP to provide parents with the option of enabling the filtering...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
P.S. More MOD points to the electronic oblivion!
In Inherit the Wind, Henry Drummond tells the court, "I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches -- its upholders as well as its defiers."
By that same token, how in the name of whatever god the people of Utah worship could they ever in a thousand years expect to be able to administer this law they passed with anything remotely resembling fairness or impartiality?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
> The legislation requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful
:-) If this list becomes very popular does that mean the Utah Attorney General is in the porn business? Where would one find the job openings to become one of the Utah Attorney General's "porn reviewers"?
Yeah, this will work about as well as making an list of spammers would work.
By the way, ahem... where would one go about getting a copy of this list?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Living in Utah, I'm rather out raged that we're wasting time and money on a non issue such as this while our teachers are leaving in droves. I'd rather have well educated children with parents who teach them critical thinking skills and trust that their morals and ethics are beneifical enough that the children will follow them, then this pork project to gain the support of people who don't understand the technology or the limitations they are inflicting on us all. Run on run on sentence...*shrug* I need more coffee.
" Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that man would go away."
'Nuff said
You would be guilty under this bill if you [...]promote the distribution or exhibition of material you represent to be pornographic[...]. So, it doesn't have to be pornographic (you could just say it was) and you would be guilty...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
The church takes an official position on a vanishingly small number of positions- gay marriage, alcohol sales, and ... can't think of any others- that's about it.
BYU doesn't offer a theology degree. *Every* student is required to take religion courses, since the church doesn't have professional clergy it would be redundant. They believe all students should be knowledgeable about their religion, period.
It *requires the ISP*. It is the parents' responsibility, however, to either choose an ISP which gives them this option (they are not entitled to it, and shouldn't be) or install these filters themselves.
MORMONS!
However - How does one define 'porn' or adult content? Who decides what goes on a .xxx domain and what is fine on a .com?
:)
You must be new here
Joke aside, the legislation should be 100% explicit, as:
---
WARNING: The following definitions are not to be read by minors due to their explicit nature.
--
A pornographic website is defined to have pictures,video or animations of one or more or the following:"
* People engaging in copulation
* People engaging in oral sex
* People being penetrated or excited (either by natural or artificial means) in their erogenous zones
* Explicit fondling of breasts
* People getting in physical contact with sperm
Additionally, sites dedicated to provide audio usually associated with sexual acts (i.e. moaning) [note: if you don't ban it, they'll do it] , and sites which provide lists of links to aforementioned sites (even in third-party advertisements) should also be included as "pornographic sites".
As an exception, sites dealing with various kinds of content (which might include pornographic content) MUST provide an adult verification page (with no images) before granting access to the pornographic section, or be classified as pornographic sites themselves.
Sites with portray nudity MUST NOT show the following, or be classified pornographic:
* Close up of genitalia or anus
* poses inviting to copulation, including but not limited to:
(insert list of poses commonly seen in porn sites)
---
* Fetishes subsection. The following describes explicit acts which are to be classified as pornographic:
(Insert list of dirty, explicit fetishes often seen in porn pages here)
---
There.
The problem with legislation is that they're not explicit enough to say what's pornographic and what's not.
Well, that's what I've seen in my experience. Now the tricky question is how to add exceptions to this (as "how-to" sites, etc). But these could be whitelisted, as they're the exception rather than the rule.
Thank you!
Of all the posts that have responded to me, your's is the only one deserving a "+5 Insightful" or " +5 Infromative".
I will read more and make my own decision.
This is what I think /. should be about - is posts such as yours responding to posts like mine --- Thank you again!
We are talking about Mormons. God chooses for them to have kids, and God is their moral guide. Stop pretending that these people have a choice.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
However, they are up against a very steep wall of not being able to find a majority voice to contend with Utah's propensity to legislate their moral values
It doesn't matter if the ACLU does not find a majority voice, they're using the court system to contest the law. They only need a handful of justices to defeat Utah's propensity to legislate their moral values.
-py
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
How're parents supposed to watch over their child if they're denied the tools needed for it?
Here's an idea: use the computer together??? What a revelation!
Alas, it's lazy-assed parents who lack the time to spend with their kids who are the problem... The Internet isn't there as an entertainer.
IMO, I'm going to whitelist shit my kid needs to do his/her homework: Wikipedia, Dictionary, Google maps, etc... Perhaps some kids game sites. If they need more for a project, I sit down to help them. They need the independance, but they can't be unleased online without supervision.
Truth is, kids will find porn anyway - they'll have a friend with lazy, irresponsible parents.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If the Utah gov needs help in compiling that list, they can have my history file.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It takes approximately 2.3 minutes to call your phone company and ask them to disable 1-900 numbers from your phone.
/. said I was censoring my kids' "free expression." No one even told me I should do a better job of "watching my own kids," rather than relying on the phone company do it for me.
The ACLU didn't sue me for it. Nobody on
If I go to insert your favorite fast-food chain here and order a burger, I'll tell them no mayo. People don't get mad because I chose to not eat mayo. I choose to not consume certain websites, and if I accidentally stumble upon them, I'd like a filter. It would be nice to have a burger filter so I never accidentally ate mayo again. Mayo. Ugh.
So really, come on guys. Choosing what content you like isn't censorship, and it doesn't hurt you.
Blocking "bad" sites from my children's computer is the ONLY reason that their computer uses Internet Explorer. Site blocking is built in as well as a password "pop-up" box that allows me to approve a site once or permanently. Mixed with Googles Toolbar (pop-up blocking) it works pretty good.
I've been trying to find an extension for FireFox that does this for quite some time.
www.thejulingtoncreekplantaion.com
How're parents supposed to watch over their child if they're denied the tools needed for it?
I must have missed the bit requiring parents' eyes to be gouged out. Let me guess - you refer to plonking children in front of the TV as "passive parenting" too, right?
What did the butchers do? They created new cuts of meat with new names that weren't on the price-controlled list. In short, they worked around the problem faster than the government could respond.
Gun manufacturers did similar things when so-called (so-called, because they're not really) "Assault Rifles" were banned by manufacture and model. Make a cosmetic change and slap on a new model number.
How can this be applicable here? The Utah AG is going ban sites by name. How fast can he update the list? How fast can he distribute it? Answer: not fast enough!
Consider this example of a workaround. A page with absolutely no infringing content that can't be legally banned. On it a link stating "Utah residents click here to access our site". Link changes daily -- even hourly. How do you put the target site on a ban list and distribute it fast enough? Won't happen.
This law is a feel good farce that won't stop anyone with an ounce of inventiveness on the web. End of comment.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Don't confuse Porn with Free Speech.
The funny thing is, porn has been treated as a free speech issue by the courts. Remember the Communications Decency Act?
This law has serious problems at the least, and is unconstitutional at the most.
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Thanks!
As Deep Throat is said to have remarked, "Follow the money." That applies with double force when you're talking about lawyers.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
While I agree with you on the difference between civil liberty and states rights, your example is very flawed. States rights are defined by the tenth amendment which states:
Since gun ownership is guaranteed by the second amendment and slavery is banned by the thirteenth, neither can fall under the banner of states rights.Insert Generic Sig Here:
The knee-jerkers are gonna cry 1st amendment(brutally wrong in this case)..etc..etc..
So.. according to the summary...
"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."
==
How does this effect 'free expression' for residents? As usual, the ACLU(your friendly oppressors of rights and liberty) are already out of the gate WRONG. It doest effect 'my rights' if somebody by virtue of some 'other law' that somebody cannot publish or otherwise make something available.
By the azzhat ACLU 'reasoning'.. My 1st amendment rights are violated because somebody wont provide me with plans to build a nuclear bomb.
If they want the porn, they can easily have it enabled. I dont see slashdotters screaming '1st amendment' when any other proposed 'blocking' is offered..like on port 25 so long as it can be requested to be allowed.
Additionally, here we demostrate more liberal hypocricy. 'Its for the children' has been their montra.. But.. 'block the porn'...and its a 1st amendment right and we need to sue!!
ISP's are PRIVATE COMPANIES. You can take em, or leave em. Deal with it. But..just as the ACLU loves to defend NAMBLA, they are at the forefront of disallowing a genuine effort to minimize children's exposure to porn and the parent's RIGHT to make such a decision. They would much rather see any effort for a parent to block such things eliminated from thier repsonsibilities.
Typical..
"The legislation requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful to minors."
==
Hmmm.. g'ment deciding what is smut and what isnt? Dubious at best. I cringe at the thought of the g'ment making such decisions. Why not let the ISP's independently make these lists and make them available for the public to review? Why let some nebulous g'ment 'agency' control this list. A system that has no inherent interests in this list. An agency that would be brutally slow to make any changes or additions/removals and that would NEVER effeciently respond to a customer's concerns. If the ISP is 'mandated' in anyway to deal with this list (which inherently increases the cost in operations), why not let the ISP handle/create any feedback system. Private enterprise can move a heckuva lot faster to address the customer's concerns than some g'ment wonk.
"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."
And this is a GOOD thing. So the 'short answer' is.. It can be blocked, and you can lift that block if you choose.
So why the heck does the freakin' ACLU have anything to say about this?
Oops.. I dissed the ACLU..
Mod me down at will...
There are many more examples that I can sight but sufice to say, I do not want anyone telling me (or my ISP) what I can and cannot access.
I dont remember off hand who said it but I love this quote, it is something to the effect of "those who would give up liberty in the persuit of 'safety' deserve neither"
Unwanted children as a disease? Cute. Anyway, ever heard of condoms?
seeing women as sex objects
Rather enjoy being a sex object meself, as a matter of fact;)
lack of morality
Ever read "Stranger in a strange land"? Give it a try.
If you want a cheap and easy solution, just do the following:
- stop reading this post
- cancel your high speed connection
- unplug your computer away from the router/modem
- go to the library and read a book
You will realize that this solution is not just cheap and easy, but also puts some money back into your pocket each month.
Sue that ACLU.
You mean like my right as an indivdual to own a gun? That right?
Your Constitutional right to self-defense is worthless the moment you become unable to exercise it.
ACLU has everthing but Ammendment #2
That would be fine, if they would just stay out of Amentment #2 and say we protect most of your rights. But they don't.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is typical neo-con krap; or should I say kompassionate konservative koalition? I remember when those on the rotwing were all for smaller government, etc; They were also for fiscal responsibility...; remember that one? They would scream bloody murder when new laws affecting them or their guns were enacted. Sure, there may be loop holes as far as ISP's are concerned in this regard, but who gets to create the list of questionable content and sites. Stunningly ridiculous! And since all the legislators in Utah are lds why don't they just get little jimmy from the ward to come over and configure their firewalls and security software to block that content.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
man this just makes me more and more glad i dont live in America. No offence but, I like being in england, with our no advert ridden channels, well 2 of them. This is freedom and choice and i dont think any ISP should be forced to par-take in this. Maybe child porn would be a starting point, but not just poen all together. How man men look at porn, how man goverment officials look at porn i wonder...exactly
Visit My Blog at http://spaces.msn.com/members/chrisharries
Somehow we seem to regulated broadcast content everyday in the US without worrying about who defines "adult content". As one justice said I believe, "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."
Why not take the broadcast networks as an example and say anything that goes there, also goes w/children on the internet.
If NBC/ABC/CBS, etc. can do it, so can other content providers.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
The ACLU isn't fighting Utah over allowing ISP to filter content, they are fighting over forcing ISP's to become content filters on request. This obivously drives up prices as now they are force into this role. Now that they are force into this role, the become accountable for censoring or not censoring certain sites.
Basically, this opens the door for parents to set their children in front of any computer in Utah with the Porn Filter on and not worry about them seeing porn. Much like the V-chip that was forced by clinton into TV's.
Now that computers have worked their way into the $300 range, I suspect that the demand for internet will increase a great deal for those that once did not have it. Perhaps into the homes of people who really don't understand about the internet and see how much porn their really is out there.
I think it is a noble cause that the ACLU is fighting Utah on this. I think this is the forefront of the censorship of the internet, basically fighting the PChip. I don't mind if you want to censor stuff, but don't force censorship down our throats the same way you did on network TV and Radio just so you can say "It's for the children!" If it's an option people really want, then I'm sure some budding entrepreneur will do it, charging slightly more.
Closing I would like to say F U to you bad parents who will drive up the price of my internet because you are a bad parent.
So where can I get hold of that list?
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Is Maxim Magazine porn? I personally think it is. (defined: "Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.") Should Maxim have a plastic cover just because I think it's porn? Should we force Maxim Online to .xxx? Most of TV fits that definition too -- www.fox.xxx has a nice ring to it. (It really does. They should buy it just because.)
I'm serious here. I'm not just playing the devil's advocate. I honestly believe Maxim is porn. I know there are lots of people who disagree with me, notably the people who subscribe to or work for Maxim. I just don't see why my point of view, or anyone else's, has any business being enshrined in the law or forced upon others.
How do http://www.darkmindweb.net/ (my site) or ASSTR catagorize, just out of curiosity?
That said, I don't actually see that much problem with this law: It only requires ISPs to provide the service or software to do the service when asked. If your an ISP you get a license for some blocker software, and when someone calls you up you ship them a copy. No problem.
I recall something about forbidding porn with "excessive ejaculation". When the government has to decide what constitutes excessive ejaculation, there's a problem. I mean, seriously. Twice? Three times? 100? Yes, I know they were probably trying to ban "bukake" or whatever it's called, but when no objective standard can be derived, there can be no meaningful law, only moralistic oppression.
In the US, we used to have the "prurient interest" standard. That's when porn became "nudist documentary art" or some such.
Stop criminalizing victimless actions. Full stop.
How're parents supposed to watch over their child if they're denied the tools needed for it?
how are they denied the tools? aren't there already web filtering tools available for parents? i've never used them, since i don't have children, but as i understand it there are already tools that can control what websites can be accessed at what times, by which users correct?
essentially, what this law does is deny those web filtering companies business, by forcing the ISP to take over that bussiness. if parents want this, they can go buy the product.
also, creating a blacklist is near useless cause there will always be new site constantly poping up. this is the most prolific industry on the internet.. a better way woudl be to have a whitelist of known safe sites and let each parrent add to the list as they deem appropriate. this might actually force parents to spend time with their chilren and learn what their children are doing on the internet, but we can't have that now can we?
overal, i see this type of law and a conflict in the party. we have social conservative fundimentalists whihc have been flocking greatly toward the republican party vs. the traditional free market repblican ideas... this is one case, where i hope the later wins.
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Now you know why they got ran out of Europe. And Illinois. And Tennessee. And (I think) Mississippi.
It's just one state, y'all. That's the idea with the United States. Utah can do whatever kind of fucked up Brighman Young shit they want to, as long as they aren't calling out the National Guard to enforce it.
Don't like it?
Fucking move!
Well it hardly violates freedom of expression but it is a very stupid law - it seems the right wingers are all for capitalism while it suits them but as soon as sex is involved its not a service providers choice to provide a blocking service, its somehow their legal responsibility. Of course if its anything to do with violence, guns or Bill Clinton's affair it won't be put on the black list.
Personally im all for ISPs offering blocking services, they can even default it to turned on for all i care - if it will shut-up the fundies, and whatever they want to put on or leave off the filter list is their business, but making it a law to have that service is simply going straight in the face of capitalism and free market and if its not some prudeness its probably covering up a ploy by the big ISPs to make it hard for anyone to make a small startup ISP or maybe even a wireless access point!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well, at least porn I consider worth looking at - it's quite an artificial fantasy, nothing natural about it. How many gang bangs with double/triple penetration have you attended, personally?
Not to say it should be banned, but your argument reminds me of the "right to personal backups" argument as regards copyright. Yes, I have backups of all of my friends' collections (and of some people I never met) - I just hate facetious arguments (is this the adjective I'm looking for? Grammar nazis, please help!);)
This list then has the force of law and is presumed "obscene". It can be used in all sorts of other ways -- like public schools and libraries. Ther no mention of appeal process, or how community standards get involved.
in a nutshell...I'd leave our #2 rights to the NRA - they have more money for this!!!!!!
My Family has contributed to this!!!!!!!!!
Ah... well let's see. For telephones, the "intelligence" for blocking resides in the switches which are under telco control.
But for the Internet, your PC has the capability to block stuff itself if you bothered to configure it or get some blocking software.
As for burgers, that's just stupid.
A slashdot tradition: create moronic strawman analogies to prove you're right! Hurrah!
I agree with you that my example is fatally flawed with respect to the Constitution. If States' rights are defined according to the tenth amendment, my examples fail. However, I was considering States' rights in the general sense, that is, that the State derives its authority from the will of the people it represents, and that it should therefore represent the will of the people that it immediately governs.
However, I should have made this explicit, because the default interpretation is naturally the tenth amendment. Thanks. =)
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
Go ahead and whitelist wikipedia, then your kid will simply go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porn.
That beeing said the best way to check what you kid see on the internet is to only allow it on a computer in the living room. No kid surf porn in the living room.
Freedom or George Bush
It requires them to OFFER to block it. SO if you want your porn, say, "No Don't block it" If you don't want porn, say "Block it." That simple.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
It would be helpful if it's broken down by categories.
Who knows, Utah's civil servants may be good at finding obscure/niche porn sites.
what will those crazy Mormonfolk think of next!?
I worked for a company here in Utah who I will not mention by name, they started up back in 98 or so with the primary purose of developing a database of websites with a more refined policy management interface, for example, you could filter out only all the hate related sites if you wanted, unlike Rulespace(tm) of California which used a more general policy. It was a combination of AI and human interaction to develop the database. They market products which can run at the ISP level or on the individuals computer.
To make a long story short, the company screws over everybody they do business with, including their employees. Ethics apparently meant nothing to these guys. I wouldn't be surprised if this is an effort to increase the company's revenue by lobbying for laws like this, a practice I disapprove of.
HOWEVER...
As other's have suggested, it's like the V-chip. It's opt-in. All the ISP has to do is bundle content-filtering software with their installation CD, or post a link to it on their website, hidden in the FAQ section. It is painfully obvious what the ACLU is really going after here. They are protecting the rights of businessmen to show pornography to minors and clobbering a parent's right to guard their kids from pornography.
How're parents supposed to watch over their child if they're denied the tools needed for it?
The old fashioned way: you don't leave a child who is too young to think for themselves unsupervised. Period. When I grew up, it both illegal and unheard of to leave a child under the age of 14 unsupervised.
By the time they're old enough to think for themselves, if you're a decent parent, you've taught them what they need to know to evaluate information in a rational context. Sex is a requisite part of civilized human society; but war is not. Given that kids seem to handle all the depictions of war and soldiers without flinching, how much material harm can depictions of sex do? Not much, by any rational standard.
If you're a lousy parent, you may have steeped your kids in some warped form of sexually repressed religous dogma, and are paranoid that exposure to the outside world will help them shake off your cult programming.
Either way, I don't see a problem. Good parents will teach their kids a healthy sexuality; and repressed parents attempts to brainwash innocent kids will fail. Better kids result in both cases.
--
AC
States rights cases are not taken by the ACLU.
The federal government does not have unlimited authority to impose any edict upon the states (i.e., citizens of that state).
The ACLU never goes against that.
I produce a porn site...actually I'm not sure it's porn. Who knows, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I do know that *I* don't think it's ok content for under 18 year olds, but that is my opinion. The site has no revenue, and I don't want to implement or block people with BS age-verification schemes. If this Utah law was implemented across the board, this would be great for me. No effort on my part, and it's automagicalegally blocked at the ISP for those that request such blocking. To be fair, there should be a review and appeals process, but personally in my case, I wouldn't care how my site was defined. If it was considered porn well then, kids get blocked, but either way there is a verbal warning, and my @ss is covered. As a porn consumer, this means no having to deal with bs age-verifications schemes...this would lead to cheaper porn, and how can that be a bad thing? Here are a couple of practical issues I have with this... 1) Education and awareness sites may be improperly blocked without appeal. 2) What happens to sites that start off being nice and clean and then decide one day to get nasty? I'm guessing this is actually the good thing about doing it as a black list instead of a white list. If it were a white list, web sites would be obligated to remain 100% porn free. As a black list, you just put it out there and let the review process take place.
My problem with this statement is that the constution specifically specifies freedom from state imposed religious hegemony. It's possible to have religion, but whenever the "right" protests, it's not about their right to express their fervor, it's about their right to do so and repress anyone from expressing theirs if it happens to disagree. The media loves to make this into a "yes/no" when it's really not.
The entire "displaying of the 10 commandments" has become a huge yes/no issue. The state attourney general (I believe) stated that he was in favor of their removal. Thus, he's put in the "anti" column. What's not as widely reported is his reason why which was that he believed they could be displayed constitutionally as they are in the US Supreme Court building.
Of course, in this simple world of black and white, we wouldn't want to ask why, but I'll explain anyway. We can express our heritage, but in expressing religious heritage, we must acknowledge the beliefs of others; in the SCOTUS building, we can also find Hamarabi's code and other influences of early law accross different cultures. In school prayer, it's similar. You can pray, but you cannot have a public official in a public capacity leading that prayer. Of course, translated through the appropriate channels of right-wing Orwell-speak "teachers leading prayer" becomes "school prayer". However, I'm sure these same peopel would object to having a Muslim lead it (since the religion's following in the US is growing very fast, this is a possibility if this were allowed).
The state has no business telling people what to believe and courts have every business ensuring this is the case.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Can tell you that the answer is less government and more faith in the free market to address the concerns of "the majority of Americans".
An ISP that offers pr0n blocking services will better serve that segment of the market that desires such services. I'd imagine any ISP in Utah (a conservative state, by all measurements)would have a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE over those who didn't. No need to force compliance with something that is profitable to start with. Let the Dollar set policy and the will of the people will be done because its more profitable to give people what they want...unless people want Porn.
The ACLU is defending the marijuna medical use program in Hawaii. My point is they see fit to defend this program initiated by the government of Hawaii but do not support the right of Utah to pass anti-porn laws. The state of Utah should be allowed to pass these anti-porn laws just as Hawaii has a right to start a marijuna medical program. Or does the ACLU only side with Pornographers and followers of Wavy Gravy?
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
You might also want to note that polygamy in Utah has been \ignored\ and \accepted\ since the late 19th century. The polygamist communities in Utah and other western states and Canada own large tracts of land and several powerful business interests... They number in the tens if not hundreds of thousands.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I wonder if they will make one of those laws regarding stupid people. The ISP is responsible for blocking you from witnessing stupid people on the internet. That would be infinitely easier to implement then this one.
Yes, but don't forget to move the computer to the bedroom when he/she's 16. Teens want privacy, you know - not for watching porn, but to speak freely with their friends without mommy eavesdropping in private conversations.
Unless, of course, that's a Christian message, in which case it's an illegal violation of the separation of Church and state, and the person must be silenced.
The Christians ran a brutal feudalistic theocracy from 600 AD until the mid 1700s. And for some wierd reason, no one trusts them anymore.
Go figure.
No kid surf porn in the living room.
At least not while Mom & Dad are home.
Or maybe I'm a bad parent for leaving teens home alone on occasion!
No, the ACLU does not only side with pornographers and followers of Wavy Gravy. They also side with the Ku Klux Klan and Rush Limbaugh. In general, the ACLU sides with people who are exercising their civil liberties, and acts against people who are seeking to limit civil liberties.
;)
The founders of the ACLU felt civil liberties were so important that they created an organization to defend them and included the term 'civil liberties' in the organization's name. If the founders of the ACLU had wanted an organization that would parrot the agenda of the State, they would have started a newspaper.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
That ignorant, nonsensical strawman argument gets modded up as insightfull instead of down as troll?
Wow, your kind freaks me out.
I replied to "adult context", he claims I replied to "hardcore sex". The dishonesty level there is quite astounding.
You can't take the sky from me...
Synergy is your friend
They can give the M$ uses a hosts file with the AG's list in it. Bam! those sites do not come up. This is only at the CUSTOMER'S request. It does not remove Pr0n from those who want it. The ACLU is showing how far into hell they are going looking for clients.
They are requiring a business to provide a specific serivce to their customers, which any given customer can refuse. Other than on libertarian grounds that government shouldn't make such requirements on businesses, what's the problem ?
This is a link of the final text of the bill as signed into law (I assume that is wghat "enrolled copy" means):
0 260.pdf
http://www.le.state.ut.us/~2005/bills/hbillenr/hb
The link provided by slashdot is an intermediate version that was still being amended.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
> Business interests are not going to stand by and allow the Utah legislature make common carrier status a criminal offense
Offhand this legislation looks like it's compatible with common carrier status.
Customers can refuse delivery from common carriers and can do so on a wholesale basis. You can fill out a form at the Post Office to block delivery of sexually oriented advertising. The Post Office is still a common carrier. They can't discriminate, they still deliver everything that's properly addressed, paid for, and not refused by the recipient.
How is this law different from, say, requiring every mail delivery company to provide a blocking request form like the Post Office does?
Your analogy to the phone company is absurd. It would be more accurate to say that the phone company is forced to offer caller ID, or an anti-solicitation service. I'll point out that the ACLU never stood opposed to the national do-not-call database, despite the business interests. As it is, the content-filtering companies based here in Utah stand to gain from this.
Orrin Hatch has done a great job. You must be a druggy. Only a druggy could have as much hatred for Orrin Hatch, and use as much senseless rhetoric as you do. Why don't you go "medicate" yourself.
Yes, but should the government be forcing this "option." If it's an option that consumers want, then it can be offered as a service. That's how the free market works, you choose your service provider based on quality, price, and offerings.
What do you mean by "just as"? Your continuation sentence doesn't really fit into my message in any sort of way. Maybe you should take a cold shower ;)
The legislation requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful to minors.
This is a good thing, provided that they actually put web sites that are in fact harmful to minors on that list - such as www.mcdonalds.com and www.pepsi.com
I've read many comments on this post that tend towards the argument of "Freedom from Religion".
How is a law that gives clients the option to prohibit possibly objectionable material, an enforcement of religion?
If I'm missing something, please inform me.
fucking mormons, at it again.
To make a long story short, the company screws over everybody they do business with, including their employees. Ethics apparently meant nothing to these guys.
I've worked for four companies in Utah. One was slightly rotten, and the rest were quite honest. My anecdotal evidence can beat up your anecdotal evidence.
And yes, you were generalizing about Utah (your "real explanation as an insider"), so don't try to weasel your way out of it.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
The Utah Legislature has a history of passing laws that are meant primarily to be a Conservative statement.
Most Utah ISPs were offering filtering services before the law. There's also quite a few businesses which have been working to develop filtering services...many of the filters are independent of the ISP.
The law is not needed because Utahns already have a large number of choices of self-censoring services. I suspect the main goal of the law was simply to make a political statement and to hawk the state's leadership role in internet censoring techology.
"Me been watchin' pornos since the age of eleven, and ya don't see me Julie complainin'"
I didn't make any generalizations. I work for a great company in Utah right now. I'm saying this major player for the content filtering industry screwed me over, and it is their practice to do "whatever it takes" to make money.
The law isn't allowing you to implement it. It's *requiring* you to implement it when it's impossible to implement. It's like a law saying you must drive faster than the speed of light.
I am trolling
The current bill makes the ISP's responsible for it, and undoubtedly the costs will be born by the ISPs' customers. If, as you suggested the state paid for it, then the cost would be born by all taxpayers. Therefore, shifting the burden from the ISP's to the state would remove some of the cost from internet users to non-internet users. That doesn't make sense to me.
The gist: a video store owner in Provo, Utah (widely considered to be among the country's most religious/conservative/"moral" cities), was being sued because he carried adult titles. The basis for the suit was that he was violating community values and community standards by making these explicit titles available to the public. An excerpt from the article explains what was really going on in Provo:
As I understand it, 20,000 movies is well over the national average. Needless to say, the video store owner was acquitted and Provo was embarrassed.It seems to me that this crap is all for show.
~Anonymous Coward
ACLU would not get anywhere in Europe, it it were to start by defending Nazi marches and protests.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
You can read commentary by the author of the Utah porn bill here: http://jdougall.typepad.com/dynamic_range/
v icesSecurity_Manager17985. In Utah, many ISPs advertise specifically this type of service.
He feels that the bill is no different than requiring that adult subject books/magazines/video be in special sections (age restricted) in physical stores.
I have spoken with John about his bill. His goal is to create a law that brings consistency to online and physical rules for restricted speech and passes "constitutional muster." It remains to be seen whether he met these goals.
As far a filtering goes Comcast already provides this service http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.jsp?faq=Ser
I have an even better idea: convince them that watching such sites is a waste of time. Why do people confuse bringing up with control?
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Thus far, I see a lot of commentary on how the opt-in nature of this service should serve to fend off the ACLU suit. But other posts suggest that some 80% or more of the population will act as directed by one particular church. If Everyone BUT YOU opts in, do we have something different going on? Is this like the scenario where a volunteer is requested and everyone BUT YOU takes a step backwards?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Opponents of a Utah law that requires Internet service providers to offer to block Web sites deemed pornographic....
This is not censorship. Customers will have to specifically request the filtering. And the law even says that ISPs can just sell them third-party content filtering software. What this law garauntees is that everyone with internet access will have easy (though not necessarily free) access to content filtering. This is something most ISPs were doing anyway. People can already buy content filtering software off the shelf, so this law will not really change anything.
the leap from "adult content" to the Bible.
What a leap that was:
Parents threatning to sacrifice their own children, mass murders and genocide, daughters getting their father drunk to have sex with him and get pregnant, mods demanding to have sex with strangers offered to rape a virgin daughter instead, etc.
Web filtering HAS unintentionally blocked bible sites in the past. I didn't make a leap so much as state facts.
Whereas you leapt from a reply to "adult content" to claiming I replied to "a woman tied up and having hardcore sex with 10 guys". Utterly dishonest: You sicken me.
You can't take the sky from me...
You idiot. They are protecting MY right to view all the nasty porn I want.
Yeah, right.
That's too bad. The ACLU does not defend Nazi marches and protests; the ACLU defends their rights to march and protest. I personally suspect that most ACLU members find those people reprehensible - but they recognize that they have a right to an opinion, and the right to express that opinion - no matter how jacked up that opinion is.
Though most Americans often forget, the US was found on the principle that all speech has value, and that society as a whole is diminished by censorship. If you want to know where most of these beliefs came from try Jonathan Swift's On Liberty.
Sounds like they are trying to uphold a part of the US Constitution that says only Congress can legistate interstate commerce.
But think about it for a second, what's the easiest way for parents to make sure their kids aren't surfing nudey sites? The parent actually goes into the room where the kid is surfing and checks or requiring ISPs all over the country (I would imagine Earthlink and AOL have some customers in Utah) to create the software you mention and educate all their Utah suscribers?
And the argument that "But I can be sure it will be blocked at the neighbor kids house too!" doesn't work here unless you know that kids parents installed the software as well. Useful tip, your kids are gonna see some boobies if they REALLY want to. Either online or by stuffing a Playboy under their mattress.
No sig for you!!
mmmm..... brings back fond memories of Alex's fantasy about frolicking in the snow with Katya Wyeth at the end of "A Clockwork Orange". She was wearing more than just the fur hat, but looking quite fetching. (Sorry, couldn't track down a screencap online ;-( ).
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I belive that this is a great thing. I will be modded down for this, but I hate pornography in all its forms. I am LDS, proud of it, but also a Citizen of the USA. I think that we need a way to block such sites, and such information if we wish to. I am under 18 myself, but not a 12 yr old script kiddie. I think this is a great legislation from all that I have read about it so far. I truley hope it passes. And now, for the flames and the -1 troll/flamebait.
That's one mod point, Insightful, times the square root of negative one.
Off to meta-moderate...
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I think a lot of people have become disenthralled with the ACLU ever since they seem to have adopted "freedom from religion" as a civil right.
It wasn't the ACLU which adopted the "freedom from religion" concept. It was the Founding Fathers.
First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Notice that this says two things about religion. First, government cannot "respect an establishment of religion". This doesn't mean they have to "disrespect" religion. It is the other meaning of the word "respect". It means "having to do with". Congress cannot pass a law "having to do with" religion. The 14th Amendment makes this apply to the states.
Noone is saying that people cannot practice their religion. Your "freedom from religion" only applies to government action. Notice the second part of what I quoted. Congress (and the states) may not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. You have freedom to practice your religion, and the ACLU is not trying to take that away.
As a matter of fact, the ACLU frequently takes cases where they fight for peoples' right to "freely exercise" their religion.
This whole business about "freedom from religion" being something the ACLU made up is classic propaganda from Fundamentalist Theocrats. I find it surprising that as an avowed agnostic you would buy into their reasoning.
If this law just sets minimum standards for optional filtering that every ISP has to offer, then it is no worse than the government setting minimum standards for restaurant food safety. (There are restaurants in our area that pass county standards that I won't eat at.)
Suppose the filtering service has a "parent" mode as well as a "child" mode, where the parent mode allows more access as set by the parent. Is this service still compliant?
FWIW, I use a squid whitelist for my daughters. I have a simple command to add more sites as they are encountered in google, etc. I wouldn't trust a blacklist to effectively protect my kids because of throwaway domains. So, as with restaurants, the government minimum standards are pretty low.
Why isn't the ACLU challenging the government sponsership of religion in the Guantanamo prisions. Our tax dollars are going to pay for copies of the Koran, prayer rugs, prayer beads, special food for holy days, and other things for the Muslim prisoners. Isn't that a violation of the "Establishment of Religion" clause of the first ammendment?
My other first post is car post.
First the set up:
As has been hashed and re-hashed, the state is mostly LDS. Many LDS church leaders (bishops, etc.) have publicly told church members that if they have Internet access at home, they need filtering software to block questionable content (or at the very least strongly consider it). This is also the same state that has video rental stores that rent edited rated-R movies to remove offensive content. The LDS church has a strict moral code, and a very devout base of members. The bottom line is that many in Utah want filtering.
Now, the money flows:
With so many people needing/wanting filtering services this has lead to quite a market for it. It's big business in Utah. There is a large section of the economy in Utah that caters specifically to members of the LDS church. Some ISPs have been set up to specifically target LDS members concerned about following this moral code. A lot of ISPs offer filtering as a premium service. It's about the money. Now the state has passed a law that says they must provide these services for free (from what I understand). I'm sure there might be some altruistic constitutional protective motivations by some - but this is mostly about money. We shouldn't forget that.
- Pass unconstitutional law forbidding something your party dislikes.
- Risk-averse companies (i.e. all of them) immediately stop doing the prohibited thing.
- Wait until your opponents challenge it in court.
- Wait between 6 months and 2 years while litigation grinds forward.
- Lose litigation. Blame 'activist' judges. Blame your opponents.
- Pass another unconstitutional law forbidding the same thing.
- Repeat.
You don't have to win the court cases so long as people are scared to do the thing while a case is pending -- which is forever."We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
What about websites like:
6 15221&tid=153&tid=10 and ,
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/27/19 32201&tid=153&tid=10 links in the article are not office safe ).
...
boingboing.net
and
slashdot.org
that links to suicidegirls.com? And also some other interesting websites that link to pr0n or look for s3x in your area?
I went once into the suicidegirls site (because of the nintendo thing posted in slashdot http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/0
and then I got my girlfriend all "why do you like pr0n? why are those pictures in the cache? do you like blondes? what is that suicidegirls website? blah blah..." Man that was a pain. I setup firefox to delete the history every day just in case because the "what is the reason why you never have history links???" is better than the other interrogation
Should slashdot be in the banned list???? LOOOL
Here in Utah we have taken extra measures to be sure that our kids can't buy playboys from the shady liquor store owner down the street. You must buy pornography from an authorized peddler. Same with liquor. I know you think our laws are stupid and pointless because kids are naturally going to gravitate toward these things, but you don't live here so you can't see how well we do with the laws we have. I never heard the ACLU stand up for the liquor brewery's and pornographer's rights to sell liquor through unauthorized outlets. I see no difference here. In this case the ACLU has sterred around the fundamental rights to free speech and personal liberty and into the realm of "judicial activism" by calling up the interstate commerce clause to undermind a law who's sole purpose is to protect the moral values of some individuals and their families.
Well said....his entire arguement that perhaps you are grossly misstating the goals and aims of the ACLU goes right out the window because he attached it onto the end of your sentence. Perhaps he should have stated it in precise English, so you would understand it.
You are grossly misstating the goals of the ACLU, using the fallacy of assigning guilt by association. Since sleazy businessmen would profit, the ACLU must obviously be supporting sending pornography to children. By the same logic, since the ACLU fights for the right of neo-Nazis to associate and protest non-violently, they must be anti-Semitic hatemongerers themselves.
Now I think I'll go take that cold shower....just typing that made me feel dirty.
Look bone-head, the topic is PORNOGRAPHY! Photos and movies of adults in graphic sexual acts! That's the ADULT (XXX) CONTENT we're talking about.
You're equating imagery in literature to XXX content.
Main Entry: pornography
Pronunciation: -fE
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornE prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey -- more at FARE, CARVE
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
You can't take the sky from me...
You miss the point in my original message that the only sleazy businessmen here are the one's I used to work for who are pushing their content filtering device into widespread use through legislation. I made no reference to the sleaziness of the porn peddling business (AS SLEAZY AS IT IS!) I'd like to see the ACLU go back to defending personal liberties and away from the judicial activism. They shouldn't need the interstate commerce clause (the all-purpose backdoor by which every federal intervention effort is initiated) if all they are trying to do is protect civil liberties, the basic, fundamental human rights clauses in the constitution (like freedom of speech in this instance) aught to be sufficient.
When a legislature decides that muni wireless is a good idea, and telcoms say that's not a good idea, your average /.er says the people have spoken through their elected representatives. When the Utah legislature passes laws mandating ISPs help participate in voluntary censorship for the benefit of the kids, the average /.er says, wait a minute, the people can't speak through their elected representatives. I wish the constitution protected my money a fraction of the degree to which it protects my free speech.
Vote for Pedro
Right.. because there's certainly nothing disturbing or possibly inappropriate on Wikipedia.
/. addiction in later life.
(Those links may be considered unsafe for work, and as such I haven't verified that they work at the time of posting).
Anyway, I grew up with unfettered access to, well, BBSes back then, and the 'net in my late teens.. which proves unquestionably that giving kids free reign in what they read and view online leads to
As you say, kids will find access to it anyway.. back in the day it was kids bringing their parents/older sibling's magazines to school, today it's the internet. Not to say parents should provide material that they find inappropriate, or not show their disapproval (if it exists), but nobody should be under the illusion that there's a technical solution to shielding their children from anything they might not want them to see.. even on otherwise benign sites.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
That wasn't flamebait, the guy was falsy accusing me of saying things I did not say. sheesh, you pseudo-christians sure like giving each other the ol' reach-around.
You can't take the sky from me...
The ACLU is just having their usual knee-jerk reaction to anything that might limit child access to porn. If the ACLU had their way, parents would not be allowed to censor what their children see, since children have rights too.
I don't see how this law is much different from the V-Chip they put in televisions (by law). Personally, I love the V-Chip. I can't monitor my kids 24/7 and anything that helps me do the very difficult job of raising my children is welcome.
We aren't talking about taking away anybodies rights here, merely giving parents more tools to give them a fighting chance at controlling the onslaught of inappropriate material. While I agree with many others that have posted that it won't be 100% effective, it probably will help somewhat. I can certainly think of more effective schemes.
I suspect the ACLU is going to lose this one.
The claim that this violates the right of free expression is dubious. Filtering has to be offered, but that's a different thing that having it activated for every customer. If you want to view prurient materials, just don't accept the offer of filtering!
On the other hand, this is a clear hindrance to interstate commerce. Hell, it's a massive hindrance to intrastate commerce? The social conservatives have finally divorced themselves from the economic conservatives, as this is a massive government intervention into an ISPs business. The society without economic freedoms does not have room for the free expression of socially conservative ideas.
Both liberals and conservatives need to realize that government isn't there to "get your way". It's not a wish fulfillment agency. If you can't get your way through peaceful and voluntary means, you don't have the right to impose it via the brute force of government.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
In Utah, the majority want their Internet connection censored. Most of them don't know how to set up a censor, or don't know what software they can trust. So they effectively *don't have the choice* to censor.
The government wishes to ensure that everyone has the choice to censor. The government is not advocating censorship; it is only ensuring that censorship is one of the choices available to ISP customers.
I believe in the right to choose such things, don't you?
Note, Rowan v Post Office has almost nothing to do with the proposed law since ISPs aren't forcing porn on anybody.
a) People choose what they do on the internet
b) People choose whether or not to patronize a particular ISP.
A fitting analogy is not whether the federal government can stop people from shoving porn in your mailbox, but whether the state government could mandate that all video rental stores must offer family friendly censored versions of all videos.
I am not a lawyer and I won't conjecture as to whether such a regulation at the state-level would be constitutional. I do know, however, that such a law would be, in my opinion, a bad law.
Then censor your internet proactively as a parent, don't leave it up to a corporation and the rest of society. If you're any kind of geek you'll know that any software can be circumvented.
And as a grown adult it's up to you to censor your own life.
Requiring licensing for booze is pretty universal. The difference between how that works and how mandating ISPs creating filtering software is that usually a liqour store is a single entity inside that one state. I don't know of many national chain liqour stores, do you?
This is more akin to telling a company based on the east coast that a west coast state is requiring them to abide by certain rules based upon the customs of that western state.
Secondly, verifying a persons age in order for them to buy liqour at a physical location is far more economical than requiring a national ISP to spend alot of time and manpower on software for one state out of 50.
Be personally responsible for *yourself* and *your* kids... grife is that too much to fuckin' ask anymore?
No sig for you!!
This is the noise of my one handed applause.
You know, the feminist and civil rights movements were ushered in by the Christian activists.
I think you would have a great deal of difficulty proving that 'Christian activists' were the force behind the feminist and civil rights movements. Many people of faith participated, but that is unsurprising in a population where the majority espouse some form of Christianity.
The bottom line was individual people united behind the goals of ending discrimination nonviolently. The principles of many religions helped guide the civil rights movement, and generalizing things to the degree of saying that it was the work of 'Christian activists' is patently absurd.
Don't even get me started on feminism and Christianity...
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
By my count, the page you cite only indicates that the Thomas Jefferson quote is bogus: "The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Mind you, it's annoying that the grandparent didn't provide references. I'm too lazy to track them down.
I can understand how they plan to block porn sites or adult online stores and stuff. But I do have few questions. ... public speach ;) anyway and yet...
1) Who to stop sites that have only SOME adult content (hell, ebay for instance or yahoo stores) from being blocked? Or even "accidents", when some sites that somebody does not like end up on the list?
2) What about proxies or other technologies that will bloom next second after the law is accepted? Will this be another one of those "best faith efforts"? What's the point then?
3) I don't know maybe I am too paranoid. Maybe. But ALL ISPs will be forced to install hardware to support internet filtering. I get shivers from the very fact that somebody will have a mean to filter what I am and what I am not allowed to see on the internet. It all has to start somewhere. First you have an option to block porn. Then, internet sites that show you how to make a bomb are blocked for everyone as dangerous and as supporting terrorism (it's all about these little key words). Then internet sites that express radical views are blocked. Then... I don't believe this law is really that dangerous and I will get my share of
Dude - how can I state this politely - get your head out of your ass, or your Bible, or wherever it is.
your first responder empolyed SARCASM to illustrate the fallacious absurdity of your statements. The second responder, seeing that you are sarcasm-challenged, attempted to put it in precise English so that you could understand. It didn't work. I'm afraid you are beyond rationality and into the "right-wing security mom" area. We pray for you.
What would China do?
"requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful to minors."
/. nerdboys you are.)
First of all, there is no such thing as "material which is harmful to minors" (material DEEMED harmful is of course another matter - just find your local Christian and ask.)(And, no, morons, when I say "material" I'm not referring to gamma rays, explosives, rock slides, or any other stupid shit you might desire to bring up just to prove what pedantic
Second, if this guy needs to create an official list of Web sites, he's got a LOT of work cut out for his office. There are only - what? - several tens of millions such sites? Wouldn't it be nice if he succeeded, tho? We wouldn't need Persian Kitty anymore!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Once again, lawmakers fail to understand the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web. Web sites and DNS records come and go in a fluid sort of way, and expecting any master list of "bad" Web sites to have any relevance whatsoever to, well, anything is wishful thinking.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
you are a ... [talking slowing] LOOOOOSER.
mods: do your job
You can't take the sky from me...
...these beliefs came from try Jonathan Swift's On Liberty.
[Pedantic Bastard] I think you mean John Stuart Mill, not Jonathan Swift.[/pedantic Bastard]
Nice Marmot
Lost to the Only Life They Knew
Very disturbing.
Synergy is your friend
Art is a tasteful image of a beautiful woman's face. Porn is a badly shot image of some skanky toothless old ho's face all covered in spooge.
Art is a tasteful image of a woman's crotch - the source of the world, according to Gericault, IIRC. Porn is tubgirl pooping on her own face, with her crotch so tastefully pixelled out. We wouldn't want to offend anyone with having to look at some pussy lips covered in spooge, now would we?
@|\|0|\|`/|\/|0|_|$ (0\X/@|2[)
How about having the parents install various pieces of software to prevent the kids from going to inappropriate sites. Off the top of my head, what about net-nanny.
Why keep shoving this onto the governement to decide on what is most heinous. Each family is different and the parents should be making the choice.
1) Its not the govenment to decided
2) Parents should make the decision
3) Parents should take the responsibility for their kids and their actions. Its like saying, hey, my kid beat up your kid, well, where were the cops. Now make a mandate to have cops follow the childrren around for their own protection.
I guess its time that parents learn to take charge and fix their problems in their own house. Yes, this means having the parents become somewhat computer literate. But I guess their kids might not be worth it. Lets have someone else raise them. O' How about the government.
As long as surfing over anonymous proxy is possible , this law is totally unenforceable . Or do the ISPs ban proxies , too ?
.....
.
.
It would be trivial for any determined child/teenager ( and let's face it , that is the segment this law is aimed towards ) could easily disable any porn-blocking software , or could surf via proxy , or boot from a Linux LiveCD and rename the blocker executable , or
I guess you get the point
One of the chief rules of lawmaking is never to make a law than cannot be enforced ( like the military rule of never giving an order that will not be followed )
WTF were these lawmakers thinking ?
I'd hope it would be, but seeing as how you could construe that it counts as 'obscenity' for the entire state of Utah then perhaps they're just trying to cover their bases. I don't want the federal government coming in and dictating the rules in every situation, especially as this is a state thing...but if the free speech angle doesn't work, then bringing in the feds should. They like their fingers in all the pies, remember?
This seems like an 'ends justifies the means' scenario, but perhaps the effort to start two separate battles when you know the second one is most likely to work isnt worth it. They're bringing out the arguement that is most likely to work.
(And seriously, can someone tell me why, in a day and age where we're talking about "gay marriage" and where it's perfectly legal to live with and reproduce with 20 women at a time if one were so inclined, polygamy is even a big deal? Seriously. Who gives a shit any more? It was a big deal back in the day where living with someone of the opposite sex out of wedlock was a scandal.)
Tell that to the 13 year old girls who are forced into becoming some 40 year old guy's fifth wife.
Not to mention that the mormon church was founded by a "HOLY PROPHET" who not only practiced polygamy, but who married 9 of his first 12 wives while they were still married to other men, and they CONTINUED to be married to other men. He kept this polygamy a secret until later, when it became a SACRED RITE.
So yes, polygamy is still revelant to a church which claims authority from some polygamist. Whatever, its a multimillion dollar business now, no need for Prophets when you've got Profit!
Theoretically, this is bad. In practice, NSDAP would win the first democratic elections in West Germany after 1945.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
The problem with editing the hosts file is that it is easily corrected by any resourceful person, even a child. I found ways to hack my parents restrictions on my home pc when I was 7. This was without the resources provided by the internet. If a 10 year old child can find things like the anarchist's cookbook online, is it really hard for him to find out how his parents blocked his porn access?!!!
There is another issue involved here. What about those that would voluntarily choose to invoke this service to protect themselves? There are many people who are addicted to pornography, and despite what many may think the damage that this addiction can cause is not soley relegated to social expulsion. Pornography is as addictive as many hard narcotics, and can lead to falling grades, inconsitent performance at work, among just a few of the common side-effects of addiction. I know of people who would gladly pay to provide this protection for themselves. However, this type of broadband service isn't available in this area, excepting for software which, as I have stated, is a paper protection only. The cry for an ISP with this option has not been heeded, for what I am given to understand is the threat of lawsuit from special interest groups. Those that haven't been deterred by those threats do not have the resources to provide broadband access.
So people can spout their liberal BS, I for one would prefer that someone would allow me the option of the protections I request. If all ISPs are forced to offer that service....fine. If the threat of lawsuits stops and allows broadband services to exist that provide that support on their own....even better.
You have a right to determine what is and is not allowed in your home, and no one (sane) challenges that. If you decide pornography shouldn't be allowed, you have a right to do what you wish to block it. However you do not have a right to force others to police your house for you. You cannot go and tell your neighbour that he must ensure that no door-to-door salesmen come to your house.
That's just what is being done here, the state is forcing ISPs to filter things. Now if the state chooses to make a list of things deemed bad and allows ISPs to voluntairly choose to retrive and block this list that would be one thing. But to mandidate it? That's just wrong, you are forcing a private business to spend money to do a job that shouldn't be theirs.
However the ACLU's lawsuit is actually for the content providers. The real issue is that the state decides who goes on this list, and those placed on it have no recourse. Now, of course, they claim it will be only porn, but I have yet to see a blocking software that was consistent. What happens if the NEA makes it one there because they have pictures of some exhibit that shows people disroed? Though that's not pornography, many would incorrectly classify it as such. Or how about if political opposition has their website blocked? It would, of course, be explained away as a mistake, but the damage is done.
This isn't the government's business. IF people want an optional service like this they are free to secure products that will do it for them, or demand their ISP do it. Should demand be large enough, ISPs will as that will keep customers happy.
Theoretically, this is bad. In practice, NSDAP would win the first democratic elections in West Germany after 1945.
In 1945 Germany was an occupied territory under reconstruction, pretty well under martial law.
Germany today is populated with generally good people with a generally good democracy and generally respecting rights and freedoms. It's time for Germany to start acting like it!
Sure there are stupid people, people who believe stupid things and say stupid things. However they are not criminals if they never actally *do* anything. Having "bad ideas" and "saying those bad ideas" does not make one a criminal. If it did then the list of criminals would go **WAY** beyond Nazi-ideas. If it did then I'd damn well want to be at the head of the committee making up that list of "criminally-bad ideas". I'd put censorship at the top of the list and make sure the censorship advocates are the first ones put in prison.
Germany, like pretty much every country on earth, has a black stain in it's past. Well it's time to get over it. One side of my family was wiped out in the holocaust. Well, the people who did it are DEAD and BURIED. The past should not be forgotten, but the past should not become some crippling scar currupting the present.
If someone says the holocaust never happened, well they are an idiot and it should loudly be pointed out that they are an idiot, and you might even want to keep an eye on them, however it does not make them a criminal.
If that sort of idiot wants to have a parade I'll be at the front of the line on the court house steps defending their right to do so, and then I'll be at the front of the line at the parade making sure everyone knows what idiots they are.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
..they are protected under TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > 512
If you would like an attorney to say so, you can find that here.
However, you are correct that ISPs would cease to be protected under this law:
(a)(5) the material is transmitted through the system or network without modification of its content.
Read: Editiorial responsibility = no legal protection from failing to exercise it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Tell that to the 13 year old girls who are forced into becoming some 40 year old guy's fifth wife.
Whether it's one wife or 30 wives, 13 is wrong (in this day and age anyway). This isn't a polygamy issue. It's a pedophillia issue. The "forced to become wife" thing also has nothing to do with polygamy. It has to do with child abuse. If two chicks and I (let's say they're both 24) decide to shack up, no harm, no foul. Just because crackerjacks in southern Utah suffer from the brain damage that comes from imbreeding think having a 13-year-old wife is cool doesn't mean that polygamy is the problem, it means that their culture and values are a problem.
Not to mention that the mormon church was founded by a "HOLY PROPHET" who not only practiced polygamy, but who married 9 of his first 12 wives while they were still married to other men, and they CONTINUED to be married to other men. He kept this polygamy a secret until later, when it became a SACRED RITE.
Well, given the literature you take seriously, taking you seriously is a wasted endeavor. You don't happen to be a Fawn Brody fan, do you?
So yes, polygamy is still revelant to a church which claims authority from some polygamist.
Funny that. I suppose it's still relevant in all Christian sects as well as all Jewish sects considering they claim authority from a number of polygamists. Abraham and Jacob/Israel. Let us not forget that the holy line of Israelite royalty through Judah that Christ came through consisted of at least two other polygamists, David and Solomon.
Whatever, its a multimillion dollar business now, no need for Prophets when you've got Profit!
Yeah, last I heard the prophet was kicked out of the church and replaced with a board of directors.
And what the fuck? The joke is SERIOUSLY on me. I wrote this response only to just now realize it was an anonymous coward. Fucking-a.
Dear misguided Christians,
Take your fucking religion and shove it up your fucking ass. Quit telling us what the fuck we can and can't do. If you want to live by your misguided beliefs fine, don't fucking tell the rest of us that your misguided crap is the law.
You can turn your fucking box off.
Turn off your TV.
Or maybe we should start putting YOUR lights out!
The Next Great Indecency Threat ---
The Religious Right Already Have Broadcasters On The Run.
Coming Up:
Cable, Satellite, AND THE INTERNET.
Sorry about that. I knew which quote I was looking for, but I wanted to get the words just right. I googled for Founding Fathers quotes and finally found a page listing a great many, including the one I wanted.
Interestingly, on the page that had the one I was interested in, other than the Second, and Freedom in general, the largest number of quotes was a series of warnings about Banking....
Note that the site was not obviously affiliated with the NRA or any other pro-gun group, but that I did not really pay attention to details of ownership beyond that.
Note also that it included quotes by Lincoln, since the page of quotes was not specific to the Founding Fathers.
That should be enough to help you find it, if you care to bother. Certainly I'm not going to look for it again, unless I need another quote that I can't find elsewhere.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
But the market did make a solution in a way, you created your own market.
Different scenario though. In that case why couldn't the local populace get together and create a hosting-center for an anti-porn proxy through which all could connect?
Having the government legislate that the ISP's must provide filters is like legislating that Al's Burger Joint must provide vegan cousines because some people find meat extremely distasteful.
My question though would be whether ISP's can charge customers for this service... is there anything that says that even after making it ready they can't charge for making it available (as a service).
Wow. Politics, Religion, Technology. This lit up everything I care deeply about, so I couldn't resist a comment.
As a wannabe Libertarian trying to wean myself off the Republican party, I'm not in favor of making government bigger. However, as a Latter-day Saint believer of 2 Nephi 2:11, I am however in favor of using filtering as my own personal choice. I think filters have tremendous value for our families similar to an alarm system. I just think the market should do it, not the government. I pay for the Linksys broadband Parental Controls to protect myself and family and have immensely pleased with the experience. I consider it a cost of internet service -- and peanuts compared to the 10% of my income I pay in tithing. If every parent would demand a filter, the market could easily accomodate our diverse needs. In fact, it already is, for me.
I do NOT claim to speak for the church here, and anyone who does if you don't read it on LDS.ORG you should be highly suspicious. There are a lot of wolves in sheeps clothing out there. But I can openly share my personal feelings and experiences, so if you want to see inside my personal frame of reference as a Latter-day Saint, here goes:
I have experienced a lot of intensely private and personal spiritual pain associated with pornography. I am everlastingly thankful to the Savior Jesus Christ and the repentance process that I do feel clean today and that has given me joy and improved self-esteem and quality of life. My parents did a great job of teaching me to avoid alchohol, tobacco, and drugs, I've never even touched the stuff, said "no" many times, and went on with life. On the internet however I didn't have such great success there. But thanks to Jesus Christ and patient LDS Bishops who have earned my deepest tear-stained feelings of brotherly love, my desires have changed and pornography seems like pollution to me now, and I have the hope that I will never return like a dog to his own vomit. At times I wondered if I'd ever be able to say that, but I am now at least, and I am very grateful, and I have a white-knuckle grip on whatever worthiness I have left. And frankly the book of life is probably going to be seen by a bigger audience than Slashdot and there's no "Anonymous Coward" provision that I'm aware of up there, so in a way maybe I'm just bracing myself for what's to come. :) Those are my personal feelings. I don't expect everyone to be like me, but I can't
deny my own human experience.
One of the Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that: "We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth." (The Articles of Faith)
I bring this up because I want to point out that even if you disagree with the LDS stance on pornography, there are very many things in common with proven true and good principles of the open source community and the way the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operates (including that part that we aren't perfect and make mistakes from time to time). So be careful not to throw out what could at the very least be a great case study in open source emergent behavior even if you maintain we are all delusionary. :)
I see the LDS church as very much "open source" in the sense there is no paid clergy, ask any member of the church in good standing for a free copy of the Book of Mormon and they will typically give it to you just as gladly as any Linux evangelist would give you a copy of their favorite distro and help you get started in your own home and help you get adjusted into the church group like anyone else would help you install linux for the first time. One thing that I love is that software engineers like me can be found taking their turn pushing a du
> Be personally responsible for *yourself* and *your* kids... grife is that too much to fuckin' ask anymore?
Come on, man, this guy can't put two thoughts together logically, you think he gives half-a-shit about personal responsibility??
What exactly are you argueing for here? The rule states that it is the responsibility of the ISP to inform the customers of filtering solutions, not to write their own. Like I said before, all they have to do is bundle software with their installation CD, or offer a link to it on their website. ISP owners would have no problem doing this, if they're not already doing it.
Many people don't realize that you CAN block the pornography.
Now what exactly is your point? It seems to be that businesses can go and do whatever they want. You seem to be protecting the rights of businesses to do anything they want, which is a pretty moronic position to take, and probably doesn't protect your interests at all unless you are a porn-only ISP.
I swear, some people are so blind by their partisan politics.
And speaking of national liquor stores, it wouldn't be a national liquor store, it would be the liquor company who would complain, a whiskey distillery might want their whiskey to be sold in all 7-eleven chains, and that is prohibited in Utah, so what does the national govt. have to say about that?
Don't bother replying, I'm not paying attention to your blather anymore.
And why don't you lay off the Daily show. Most people won't appreciate a sarcastic know-it-all.
OK, should I be forced to have a .xxx domain and have my entire website filtered out by Utah because there is this one picture out of 1,000?
.xxx domain.
Yeah, actually, you should.
That pic, while funny, is still adult content. Even if you're ok with your kids looking at that stuff, I'd wager most parents are not. What would be so difficult about putting that somewhere where kids would be less likely to see it?
To put it another way, how comfortable would you be with a huge billboard of that pic mounted to the roof of your house so the whole neighborhood and passers-by could easily see it? You have it in just as public, and just as easily accessible location, only in digital format.
Plus, with tools like Google, a pic like that will most likely rise to the top of the popularity list on images.google.com, where it will get disproportionately more attention than the rest of the pics on your site (assuming they're all more tame).
How about this for a standard of "adult" content. For starters, any site that requires a paid subscription or any other form of payment, should go on the
This won't get all, or even most of the pr0n restricted from minors, but it would be a good start, and maybe a more agreeable method of regulating that content to a majority of citizens.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
... ACLU is ... clobbering a parent's right to guard their kids from pornography.
Right. By not requiring that filtering be provided with all Internet connections, it is the same as the ISP breaking into every house and uninstalling any filtering software.
Have you considered the fact that the parents can still quite easily buy and install software on their own? The ACLU isn't against filtering. They are against the government bossing around small businesses by telling them how to provide service. The ACLU is taking the pro-business stance here. It is the "conservatives" that are bossing around the businesses and getting in their way. "Conservatives" are consistently anti-capitalism, and this is another example.
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If the ACLU was against the government bossing around small businesses, they wouldn't be called the American Civil Liberties Union.
I don't see any evidence to support your rant that conservatives are anti-capitalism. You must not know much at all to say something so stupid.
This is like saying cigarette companies shouldn't have to put labels on their cigarettes because people should already know better.
No, it would be more like having different warnings on filtered and unfiltered cigarettes. Are there different warnings? No? Then why different treatment for Internet connections?
This isn't about whether there are or should be warnings. This is about whether the government should step in and force business to conform to their moral standards. I guess you like forcing your morality on others, so that is why you are conservative.
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The government isn't forcing the business to conform to moral standards, they are forcing the business to inform the customers, at the very least, that there are content filtering solutions out there. I guess you're a damn fool, and you blend in with the mass of foolish opposition quite well.
You're a damn fool. You make no sense whatsoever. Your argument is completely unintelligible. Do you even know what the bill states? What does your nonsense about the filtered and unfiltered cigarettes have to do with ANYTHING?
You brought up cigarettes as an example of where the gvt messes in the affairs of businesses. I presumed that unfiltered cigarettes are more harmful than filtered, just as an unfiltered Internet connection would be more harmful to children than a filtered one (and you'd be a fool to presume either to be "safe"). ut we'll just move along.
The government isn't forcing the business to conform to moral standards, they are forcing the business to inform the customers, at the very least, that there are content filtering solutions out there.
They require the ISP to make them available. Not just say "Net Nanny exists, go buy it from Best Buy if you want protection." They have to actually provide the software and manage the blocking. Are you sure you read the bill? I'd like to see where they can just "inform" (but not direct them there or provide the software or service) about such services.
And yes, they do conform to a moral standard. The filtering provided by the ISP and managed by the ISP must block the sites that one person deems objectionable. That makes it seem that they are enforcing morality, even if not their own.
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So they see a list of sites they can't get to because they aren't white listed. As far as the reference to Marquis de Sade, I don't see anything so bad that a kid shouldn't see it. It's history - reality... Nothing so terrible there. Honestly, I'm more concerned about my kid watching violence than porn anyway.
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At 16, my kids welcome to as much porn as he or she likes. It's natural... Nothing I can do to stop them at that point anyway... All I can do is tell them how to protect themselves and hope for the best.
You can't protect them forever, even though you'd like to.
Gotta teach them morals early on, and hope they hold onto them when they are in those years. If not, you've already failed.
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I see nothing wrong with porn anyway. Kids are curious. It's natural. Better that than rotten.com lol.
Truth is there are ways to force them to use what you tell them to... Whitelists for example are perfect. You want me to add a site? Sure, let me see it first. It's fair and reasonable. I don't think any kid should see rotten.com
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It goes like this...
FAQ:
How do I block pornography?
For content filtering, go HERE.You see? That is informing AND directing, ALL IN ONE LINE!!!
And yes, they do conform to a moral standard. The filtering provided by the ISP and managed by the ISP must block the sites that one person deems objectionable. That makes it seem that they are enforcing morality, even if not their own.
Yeah, the one person managing it is THE END USER. The ACLU tries to make it seem like they are enforcing morality, truth is they aren't enforcing anything, however morality has always been enforced in our society. You are not allowed to run down the street naked. You're not allowed to view child pornography. So even if it WAS enforced, I don't see how it's unconstitutional, especially when you consider the level of filth the internet has reached.
That is informing AND directing, ALL IN ONE LINE!!!
Excellent, except it seems that doing that would not be in compliance with the law. Since it seems that you are unfamiliar with the requirements, yet go out of your way to talk about it, you are obviously too stupid to have a reasonable conversation with. But thanks for playing.
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Yes it would. If you think otherwise, read the damn article, quote the article in a reply to me, and prove me wrong.
Like this:
I live in Utah, you idiot. I hear about this every day on the radio.
I live in Utah, you idiot. I hear about this every day on the radio.
I don't take "providing... software" to mean making some link that may take them to some place that tells them their options. I take it to mean that they provide the software itself (either physically or a direct download, not a "click here for the homepage of some company that makes something similar to what the law requires"). You stated that a link to some 3rd party from which they may purchase will fill the need. I disagree.
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