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

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.

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.