House Bill Won't Criminalize Free Wi-Fi Operators

Velcroman98 sends word of a bill that passed the US House of Representatives by a lopsided vote of 409 to 2. It would require everyone who runs an open Wi-Fi connection to report illegal images, including "obscene" cartoons and drawings, or be fined up to $300,000. The Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online (SAFE) Act was rushed through the House without any hearings or committee votes, and the version that passed on a voice vote reportedly differs substantially from the last publicly available version. CNET reports that sentiment in favor of such a bill is strong in the Senate as well. Update: 12/07 06:22 GMT by Z : As clarified in an Ars writeup, this summary is a bit off-base. The bill doesn't require WiFi owners to police anything, merely 'stiffening the penalties' for those who make no effort to report obvious child pornography.

Comments

Sad, but predictable

[elrous0]

Before the House vote, which was a lopsided 409 to 2, Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) held a press conference on Capitol Hill with John Walsh, the host of America's Most Wanted

Wow, the all-too-common convergence of a political media whore and a television media whore. Between the election year and the Writer's Guild strike, these two must be as happy as pigs in shit right now. I can almost hear them screaming "Won't someone please think of the children?!?!" from here.

Yet another fine example of the kind of far-reaching, ridiculously broad pieces of legislation that we get thanks to election year pandering. Normally, I wouldn't worry too much about this sort of legislation, as the courts usually strip it down pretty quickly. But with the courts so packed with hardcore conservatives right now, we can no longer count on that.

Re:Sad, but predictable

[neimon]

Hillary is a right-wing "Democrat."

Nevertheless, this isn't about party. It's about ignorance. You can't enforce this. You can't even define what's illegal content. It can only be used to harass people some district attorney doesn't like. Period.

Re:Sad, but predictable

[MyLongNickName]

From the actual Bill:

" (a) Duty To Report-

                        `(1) IN GENERAL- Whoever, while engaged in providing an electronic communication service or a remote computing service to the public through a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, obtains actual knowledge of any facts or circumstances described in paragraph (2) shall, as soon as reasonably possible--

                                    `(A) complete and maintain with current information a registration with the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or any successor to the CyberTipline operated by such center, by providing the mailing address, telephone number, facsimile number, electronic mail address of, and individual point of contact for, such electronic communication service provider or remote computing service provider; and

                                    `(B) make a report of such facts or circumstances to the CyberTipline, or any successor to the CyberTipline operated by such center.

                        `(2) FACTS OR CIRCUMSTANCES- The facts or circumstances described in this paragraph are any facts or circumstances that appear to indicate a violation of--

                                    `(A) section 2251, 2251A, 2252, 2252A, 2252B, or 2260 that involves child pornography; or

                                    `(B) section 1466A."

Basically, if you are operating a Wi-Fi service, and find out that one of your users is downloading or uploading child porn, you are responsible for reporting it. What part of that is controversial?

Re:Sad, but predictable

[jvkjvk]

And she'll scrape you off her shoes when she has no further use for you. Remember, this is a person who had no connection to the city or state of NY before she decided to run for senate; if NY's residency laws for candidates were even remotely sane, she would have gone to another state, and someone else would be talking about "done more for XYX in the few years she's had than most XYZ senators do in a lifetime". And here's why partisanship is such a bad idea. You admit that Hillary has done more for NY in a few years than most NY senators do in a lifetime. You go on to say that she would have done this well in any random state.

Oh my God, how horrible! She really must hate the American people to do that, to show up all those other politicians, I mean. You're like the Union workers who put the thumb on the new guy who's doing "too much", except it's only too much for you when the other party is doing it.

If she does for the country what she did for NY then... she would know the top issues of every state and the country as a whole, be able to list what she did about each issue - and the list would be substantive, not fluff.

Now, you might have a point if the "stuff" she did were an anathema to your values or political views, but... did you even note that the parent said even their Republican relatives voted for her because she gets stuff done?

Note: I am not endorsing Hillary here it's just that it does not make any sense to bash her based on a trait that most everyone else in the world would view as a good thing, oh except that the carrier is not in my "in group".

Bombs won't do it

[Gordonjcp]

America will *legislate* itself into the Stone Age.

Stupid, moronic, fearmongering, etc.

[cbiltcliffe]

Regardless of the sheer idiocy of this bill, is it even remotely enforceable? Around here, probably 35% of wireless networks are open. (This is in Canada, but I can't imagine the US would be much different.) I'd guess from my wardriving excursions that more than half of households in my city have wireless access points. So if you're making a law that automatically criminalizes 20% of your population, isn't there something wrong?
I realize the answer to that question is "Yes," and that's how the US government works. Make laws to make most people criminals, then when we throw them in the slammer, we can show the sheep^W people how tough we are on crime in election years.
But really...are you going to have cops driving around residential areas stopping at every other house handing out tickets for $300,000 fines?

Seriously, your country is fscked up.

Re:Stupid, moronic, fearmongering, etc.

[Ddalex]

Maybe you oversee the legislative scope of any wanna-be-dictatorship government: to make everyone a criminal so they always be vulnerable some sort of seemingly-legal over-punishment. But not make any law extremely broad because people would notice it and rebel - like it is the case now; no, you have to work in small steps, so when a ludicrously low gets passed, the majority don't bother checking - after all, if the majority isn't concerned, who's gonna fight you ? (not vote you in office next elections). And proceed as needed to get all the population under the expanding umbrella of this para-legal system.

As anyone with experience living in ex-communist country, I can tell you this system works well. You, as government, don't have to actually prosecute (! or even accuse !) everybody, just make sure that your people know anybody can get stepped over at government's will, without much harm to others (so not to be forced to organize themselves against you), because it's impossible to live a normal live and not cross an absurd law with extensive consequences.

Re:Wouldn't be easier...

[morgan_greywolf]

If you RTFA, it's not just WiFi providers the bill applies to, but to ISPs, social-networking sites, e-mail providers and more:

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection. I just hope this gets stripped down by the courts. I mean, hello?! Isn't policing the job of, oh, I dunno...law enforcement officials, and not ISPs? This is like passing a law requiring the electric company to turn you in should they discover marijuana growing in your backyard when they check the meter!

I think we should do what we did with the CDA. Everyone with a website should turn their pages to black the day this law gets passed.

This comes as no surprise

[Jehosephat2k]

The purpose of this law is to provide more legal means for government and corporations to monitor everyone's internet traffic.

Remember, whenever these people say "it's for the children", there is a more insidious motive behind it.

If they just said that they were going to require monitoring everyone's Internet traffic, there would be an uproar. But, if it is to find kiddie porn, well, then hell yeah, 409-2! Same effect. One really has to wonder what percentage of traffic will actually have these offending files. This will require serious scrutiny to find anything. Game, set, match.

They didn't think this one through...

[StickyWidget]

the SAFE Act's additional requirement of retaining all the suspect's personal files if the illegal images are "commingled or interspersed" with other data.

So, let me get this straight. If a pedophile starts up an open Wi-Fi access point, then he connects to it with a laptop that can't be traced to him, he can monitor the traffic, and save all the images that go across the wire. Then he tosses the laptop, reports it, and then he has a perfectly legal excuse as to why he's holding kiddie porn on his computer.

I. Call. Bull. Shit.

~Sticky
/First, all the politicians.
//Then, the lawyers.
///Then, the pedophiles.

LOL! "Illegal Images"????

[presarioD]

WTF??? There is such a thing as an "illegal image"???? I must have missed the memo... next thing you know, there will be "illegal sounds" and "illegal ideas"! LOL! This planet is getting more and more fucked up by the day and nobody seems to notice...in fact watch the answers to this post, people will be quick to point out how this is perfectly normal...for example (drum rolling, music peaks) a child being molested is an "illegal image"!!! You see now, bozo?

Go ahead and explain now the difference between an "act" and the "image of an act"... oh dear time for a coffee break...

Re:Wouldn't be easier...

[ajs]

However, $300,000 fine for an unknowing user having wireless and someone doing something criminal on it is just way too much. No... you don't get it. The unknowing user whose home wifi got hijacked (or who mistakenly downloaded the wrong thing) goes to jail for a very long time and is systematically raped and tortured by the inmates for being a "child molester" only to have to register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives when/if they get out, because of existing laws. It's the companies that can afford to mount a more coherent legal defense that this law will attack, and that's why the Slashdot blurb speaks about the economic impact on small, free WiFi operators. Oh, and it also makes community WiFi impractical, which just happens to benefit the phone companies who can afford to mount massive wiretapping operations to find and remove users with questionable content.

This law is a fundamentally awful idea in every way, but it stands atop many, existing fundamentally awful laws.

Re:Oblig. Ron Paul

[richarddshank]

It has become quite obvious that he is the only presidential candidate that is interested in our individual rights. It was disgusting to watch the CNN/YouTube debate which just turned into a pissing contest between the "top" 4 candidates, while the other candidates just stood by and watched. If you don't know about Paul, watch this interview at Google. Its a little long, but you'll get an idea of who the man really is. http://youtube.com/watch?v=yCM_wQy4YVg

Age

[Emperor Tiberius]

Did you know that the average age of the representatives is 55? I often wonder if age's impact on someone's familiarity with technology plays a role in some of these voting sessions.

Re:It's unconstitional

[ktappe]

If you are insane enough to open your wifi then for gods sake setup a decent firewall and a proxy so you can log who's been viewing what, otherwise you could find yourself at the wrong end of the law. There is no change there, either.. this law changes nothing.

I'm not sure I can disagree more. First of all, the moment you install a logging proxy, you suddenly become legally responsible for constantly monitoring those logs. Authorities are sure as shootin' gonna ask why you didn't if this law is brought to bear. "Your honor, the logs were right there. He invoked them himself. All he had to do was LOOK to save teh children!" and you're totally screwed.

Next, there are some very valid reasons for there to be open WiFi access points. All coffee joints and hip restaurants in any given town have them, and they should. It is "a good thing"(tm). Unfounded fear of pron should not take away one of the best sociological innovations of our era, and you should not be advocating that it does.