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House Bill Requires Pornography Filter on All Phones, Computers Purchased in Kansas (cjonline.com)

Two bills introduced in the Kansas House on Wednesday generate funding for human trafficking programs by requiring all new internet-capable telephones or computers sold in the state to feature anti-pornography software and by mandating adult entertainment businesses charge a special admissions tax. From a report: Sabetha Rep. Randy Garber sponsored legislation requiring the software installations and dictating purchasers would have to pay a $20 fee to the state, and whatever cost was assessed by retail stores, to remove filters for "obscene" material. No one under 18 would be allowed to have filter software deleted. "It's to protect children," Garber, a Republican, said in an interview. "What it would do is any X-rated pornography stuff would be filtered. It would be on all purchases going forward. Why wouldn't anybody like this?" He said it wouldn't be surprising if the bill, if adopted as law, generated legal challenges.

11 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Guarantee you this dude has a kiddie porn stash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're all hypocrites. Everyone in Kansas will just buy their phones someplace else dumbass.

  2. Easier by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To just stop selling phones in Kansas.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Easier by dryeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are both involved in fucking people, though I do agree that the porn industry is more upfront about it.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  3. "Why wouldn't anybody like this?" by Yosho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, for one, I think that anybody who has ever spent more than ten minutes looking at free speech laws or the history of government censorship in the USA would be strongly opposed to this.

    While it's disgusting that these bills even got proposed, it's likely that the legislators know that they'll get destroyed if they're ever challenged in the courts. These sorts of things usually get proposed just to pander to the more ignorant parts of their constituency.

    --
    Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
    1. Re:"Why wouldn't anybody like this?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't want this for several reasons:

      1) I don't trust the software. That kind of software must phone home, and basically everything that phones home snoops on me. I don't want to be snooped on! Especially not by some third-party crap that I didn't get to vet. Furthermore, this kind of software often makes mistakes and filters out stuff that doesn't qualify, thus blocking me incorrectly. That sucks. It's just another heap of spyware, security holes that put me at risk, and a big fat waste of my hard disk space, memory, and CPU, and it gives me zero value.

      2) I don't want to pay for the software. It does not add any value to me personally, and the cost of it will be paid by me one way or another. Get that bloatware off my hardware!

      3) If the software is buggy and gives me trouble, I want to be able to uninstall it and be done with it. I don't want some damn government regulation standing in the way of me doing that!

      4) I want to do whatever I feel like, without the government forcing me to go out of my way to label myself as a filthy porn consumer, and pay a filthy porn consumer tax. That is a bullshit way to treat people.

      I sure am glad I don't live in Kansas. And never will.

  4. rainbows and unicorns by markdavis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >"Sabetha Rep. Randy Garber sponsored legislation requiring the software installations and dictating purchasers would have to pay a $20 fee to the state, and whatever cost was assessed by retail stores, to remove filters for "obscene" material. No one under 18 would be allowed to have filter software deleted. "It's to protect children,"

    Wow- rainbows and unicorns! Save the children! It is so easy, why didn't anyone thing of that before? Perhaps that software can magically also stop all spam Email and spam telephone calls and fraud and poverty and hatred too?

    >"Why wouldn't anybody like this?"

    Oh.... because it won't work. It is costly. It restricts freedom. It interferes with proper use. It requires locked-down devices. It will be abused. When it fails and filters something it shouldn't, it is an effective government ban on the first amendment. It will grease the palms of only certain vendors. I could go on...

  5. Why I wouldn't like this? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because I like porn. It's less slimy, gross and outright nasty than any politician I know, so why don't you demand filters for political spam?

    Next question?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. I guess not. by AlanObject · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You would think Kansas might have learned something after Brownback and his Laffer-curve nonsense destroyed the state's finances.

    Anything conservatives want to do -- if you do the exact opposite you are almost always close to a decision that is consistent with good government if not outright necessary for it.

  7. Welcome to the Censored State. by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Blasphemy sites? Things that cults and faith groups dont want published?
    Sites that allow people to find another faith, see the history of their faith?
    Sites about history? Art? Culture? The history of monuments and statues all around Kansas?
    Anything local politics?
    Funny memes and political cartoons?
    Can China put in a request about not showing 1989 and the Tiananmen Square protests, that Taiwan is real China? No bear cartoons.
    Anti war sites?
    Sites that respect the US freedoms and rights?
    Can Spain add a request not to see anything on Catalonia?
    Can the UK make a request to not allow Irish political sites and forums?
    Could a Germany add sites and history it does not want Germans to find?
    City and state health officials have some sites they want banned?
    City and state officials who dont want a 1st amendment audit video to be seen in Kansas?
    The right to repair and what is the import and sale of counterfeit parts?
    Talk about DRM?
    Crypto and removing DRM?
    P2P index sites?
    No finding sites about undercover filming/photography of farms.
    No accessing sites about pollution levels and the results of mining.
    Sites that have 3D printing files.
    Funny cartoons and memes about local, city and state politics?
    Once a gov steps in to ban art and culture, everyone will have a topic to ban and money to support such a real time filter.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Welcome to the Censored State. by Z80a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And then the current left comes and just adds more items to the list instead of doing what they should do and remove it.

  8. Re:Supreme Court? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This bill is unlikely to ever pass. It looks like a bill to pander to the Republican base.

    No, it's a common legislative tactic. You introduce a bill, call it something like "Protect the Innocent Children," fill it full of idiotic bullshit which guarantees it will never pass. Then when the Election Cycle starts, you can "truthfully" claim that not only did you attempt to "Protect the Innocent Children," but that your opponent Actively Voted AGAINST Protecting the Innocent Children.

    This type of shit gets eaten up like candy by voters on both ends of the political spectrum, trying to throw shade at Republicans only shows your own uninformed, partisan bias.