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."

Comments

Obvious question...

[Infinityis]

Who needs porn when you're allocated 10 wives?

Re:Obvious question...

[RealAlaskan]

Who needs porn when you're allocated 10 wives?

Have you seen their wives?

Re:Obvious question...

[winse]

That reminded me of something I read once:

Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter. I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here - until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No - the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure - and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence." Mark Twain

Mormon Pr0n?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet there is a lot of girl on girl on girl on girl on guy action

Let me get this straight.

[geek_xyu]

First China now Utah.. Yea I guess that sounds about right.

Easy Solution

[Jherek Carnelian]

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.

Re:I'm sympathetic

[memfrob]

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.

What about IP-based URLs?

(http://127.0.0.1/ is FULL of pornography!)

Re:OK, now.....

[Skye16]

More importantly than any of this crap: how do I get to become a porn czar?

Re:Hmm

[v01d]

How about tackling the cause rather than the effect?

Puberty?

Re:I will give you the real explanation as an insi

[wcbarksdale]

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.

Yes, just as the ACLU must love Nazis, since they argue for their right to protest. HIDE YOUR BABIES BEFORE THE ACLU GETS THEM!

Re:OK, now.....

[shotfeel]

They just need to have the ability to filter those sites listed by the AG

Just out of idle curiosity, I wonder where one applies for the job of surfing the net looking for porn sites to add the *ahem* "Black List" in the AG's office.