Slashdot Mirror
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.
They're all hypocrites. Everyone in Kansas will just buy their phones someplace else dumbass.
To just stop selling phones in Kansas.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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)
Most good porn sites already have filters. My favorite is 'babes'.
Conservative or Liberal - we need more tech-savvy congressmen and congresswomen who don’t waste everyone’s time dreaming up new rules which will be trivial to circumvent by most eight year olds.
#DeleteChrome
When will they learn Blockers don't work most will find a way around them in 3,2,...
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
>"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...
No one under 18 would be allowed to have filter software deleted.
Once again, demonstrating that politicians have no grasp on the workings of technology.
Or reality. Quite frankly, anybody who shows any interest in running for public office should be automatically disqualified to do so.
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.
And this is how we get the year of Desktop Linux, via porn, like with many other advances in technology. ;-)
When this passes, there will be many in that state who feel: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Seriously, how can this be enforced? You would have to leave the state to buy a phone? And how much more expensive would the modified devices become, running a government mandated filter. How much safer would these devices become? Would anybody really selling phones in Kanas any more? Some politicians live in a dream world. "Somewhere over the rainbow. Bluebirds fly. And the dreams that you dare to. Oh why, oh why can't I?"
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.
These are the folks running your life... ROFL... May I suggest an Exit Bag... helium works the best. :)
[($)]
Uhm, perhaps because it is blindingly stupid? Possibly unconstitutional?
In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which the Supreme Court struck down in 1997 as unconstitutional, saying the CDA "place(d) an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech."
Congress followed that defeat with the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which required commercial Web site operators to use credit cards or other adult access systems to prevent minors from viewing the material. The Supreme Court found that law was too broad in scope for practical enforcement.
Shouldn't it be MY choice to determine whether my children watch porn?
no, I don't have a sig
Funny thing is he's also co-sponsored legislation banning censorship lol, this guy is a retard.
http://kslegislature.org/li/b2...
...the Kansas House is redefining pi as 3.0, and wants warning signs at the edge of the earth lest anyone falls off.
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"
It's a series of tubes. YouTube, XTube, PornTube, etc.
"Driving with Colorado license plates" is already probable cause in Kansas and Nebraska thanks to their anti-weed stance, now this. Selling your old phone on eBay? Better exclude sales in KS.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
You'll only be able to get a phone out of state, or through the internet. No one selling phones will deal with this.
There is 3rd party software, already available. It's not free. And, a one time $20 will not cover it. Plus, Apple is causing problems for everyone who does content filtering.
I know. I work for a company that sells content filtering software, and I work on the iPhone product.
These bills were written by tech ignorant legislators. As they refuse to try to understand the issue, they are blind and stupid.
the party of small government.
Also, Kansas, like most of the flyover states, is facing an economic crisis because they've slashed taxes so much companies don't want to set up shop there and college grads leave first chance they get. I suppose crap like this though is better than actually trying to solve those problems. Beats the hell out of trying to convince the folks who bankrolled your campaign that their taxes need to go up.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So for "Internet-capable" computers, is that just another lame piece of bloatware on the pre-installed Windows OS (how naive of me to think people still purchase desktop or laptop computers)? What if a person wants to install a free and open source operating system? Are they legally obligated to find whatever replaced Dan's Guardian when it went defunct?
At the very least this could prevent the internet of things and all the security issues arising from it. Good luck convincing manufacturers to update all their software to filter pornography if it's being sold in Kansas. Perhaps they will even ban internet enabled lightbulbs because they can be used to flash badly written erotica in morse code
Are they just lazy and haven't taken them down in 40 years, or they put up new ones?
... where there's a "Kansas, China?"
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Should all calls be automatically monitored and whenever the software determines that the conversation is getting X-rated replace the voice with a masking sound?
... for Trump to tap for his wall.
... funding for human trafficking programs ...
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Well, for one, I'm an adult and the odds are no kid will be using my phone. I use it when I'm out and about for work and I'm quite capable of behaving professionally without a nanny.
I would be concerned that it might block such dreadfully raunchy XXX rated porn as a news item about a corrupt politician or about how the porn filter blocks a lot more than just porn. This has actually been discovered in internet porn filters in the past, I don't see any provisions for stopping it from happening again.
As briefly amusing as it might be to see it block ExpertSexChange.com, in general net nannies are well known for blocking based on silly innuendo rather than actually objectionable content.
This is just a cynical play to collect money from people who think if they complain their minister will think they are viewing porn.
"big government", and the "too much regulation".
Oh that's right, it's just code for freedom for business to do whatever it wants - not individuals.
Just look at what people do in their bedrooms. We need to control them.
Those who don't are mentally challenged and become lawmakers in Kansas.
They couldn't take them down, the job sheet told them to take a 18 foot ladder on the job, but they only had 5.4 metre ladders.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
The way one of the bills is worded, their own congress meetings, briefings, and sessions would require a $3 cover charge since politics is an adult only establishment.
I believe that human traffickers need to be castrated, however a fee of $20 per device won't fund or be effective against human trafficking. Legalizing sex work between consenting adults will go farther to reduce it.
I needed zero more reasons NOT to go to Kansas, and here, they've come up with another one! Thanks, Kansas House of Morons!
In the spirit of Bill Maher, here's a new rule:
Until they've solved the problem of the corrupting influence of money in politics, ensured voting rights for ALL, and solved institutional/systemic racism, no legislature is allowed to do anything else, other than solving THAT. Unless it's raining FROGS. Then they can get the frog patrol to clean that up, and then IMMEDIATELY resume working on fixing corruption and the related issues I mentioned. No new bullshit bans on things, no new bullshit taxes legislating your personal hangups onto other people... just FIX YOUR GODDAMNED, BROKEN-ASS POLITICS, KANSAS, then worry about all the supposed "human trafficking".
I promise you that governmental corruption, political "leaders" blowing corporations for money, corporations writing laws that gutless, dickless, heartless, brainless, spineless politicians just impose without so much as reading them, is a much bigger and more serious problem for all, than who's stroking what, or what they're looking at while stroking what. Pretty sure shit like that is going on in Kansas, since it's happening in most states, and also this is the only way a "bill" like this gets any kind of chance.
Also, these bullshit filters can be gotten around, unless you just remove the computer part of the phone, and make it just a phone. In effect, the only way to make this happen, and have it work reliably, would be to outlaw smartphones, and computers. That's a great idea for Kansas. While they're at it, they should also abolish color, and just go back to black and white, like at the beginning of the Wizard of OZ. Then when people flee the state so they don't have to live in some benighted shithole that won't let them buy a computing device with nannystate mandated bullshitware on it, it'll be like when Dorothy steps out of her house and into the magical land of Oz, where they can actually have freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and stroke it to porn without the state reaching into their pockets to pay for the Morality Police.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Clearly and objectively government censorship. That's the first thing that'll kill this.
If that doesn't kill it for some reason, there's the clear, objective truth that 'net nanny' software never works for one reason or another. It either censors the wrong content, allows the wrong content, or usually both. Then there's the little matter of someone else's sensibilities (such as they are in some people's case) dictating what 'is' and 'is not' pornographic. Someone could theoretically censor all access to Amazon.com because they sell books that they deem 'pornographic' (like Catcher In The Rye, or Stranger In A Strange Land, for instance), or, more relevant to the recent years, censor political content that they don't agree with. Don't even bother disagreeing with me because everyone damned well knows it'll happen.
Then, even if all that never happens: anyone with access to Google will be able to bypass it in less than 5 minutes anyway.
Why is it our politicians are so gods-be-damned dumb that they peridically, like clockwork, trot out nonsense like this, again and again? They're wasting our tax dollars on crap like this.
If you don't want your kids to see some things on the Internet then PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THEY'RE DOING WITH THE INTERNET, don't force your damned choice on everyone else!
yes... real americans like you eh? your comment is both ignorant, uninformed and only helps to promote the idea that all "real" americans are idiots in the international community.... thing is, you're a troll and making me look bad for taking your crappy bait... my bad
I RTFA even though I know that's not what we do here.
One bill doesn't put a limit on what retailers can charge to have it deleted and has a $20 fee going to the state. They also have to maintain a way to report content and keep it current.
The other bills require admission fees for anything remotely adult entertainment oriented to go to the state. Venues and stores have to keep a customer count and then pay up monthly.
SCOTUS has already declared this sort of thing unconstitutional. So they're fighting a losing battle from the onset.
They pull out the 'Think of the Children!" rag, they try to tie it to human trafficking, they try to say that they would be surprised if it wasn't hailed by the public as necessary. They're wrong on all counts. It's a money grab by the state and another way to show that Kansas legislators really have no idea how the world works.
I wonder what a search of their browser history would turn up.... Not that I'm advocating any Anonymous group to do such a thing...
No one under 18 would be allowed to have filter software deleted.
Once again, demonstrating that politicians have no grasp on the workings of technology.
Or their own state laws?
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Dear Universe,
Please let this happen. Please.
I have seen more of this country then most. Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado is one of the most god forsaken places I have ever been to. Flat, ugly, brown, and no trees. In all directions as far as the eye can see, It gets, maybe in a good year, 15 inches of rain.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Literally nobody has voted for this yet. Or against it. Nobody.
This bill is unlikely to ever pass. It looks like a bill to pander to the Republican base.
It seems like companies would be rushing to set up shop in a state with super low taxes. Is the problem high corporate taxes, or a lack of skilled workforce, or poor government services (infrastructure and the like), or what?
How would this not be a 1st amendment violation?
Legalizing sex work between consenting adults will go farther to reduce it.
Yes, and if you say to most conservatives you can actually watch their blood pressure go up. Laws against prostitution are universally about controlling women's sexuality. 100%.
Tap your emerald slippers together and recite "There's no place like home."
What About computer parts what = an computer and wore case each part will need it's own $20 fee? Or will places like newegg not sell in Kansas so they don't have to deal with paper work?
In connection to how some porn aficionados might react. Nor, I suppose, has he consulted with Rick Santorum before proposing this. On the other hand, if his supporters are as upright as him, none of that will matter, as neither he nor they are at any risk of ever seeing how those in the porn universe react, within the porn universe.
payed for by M$ no more Linux must buy windows + $20 fee and must be 18 or older to have Linux installed (at added cost and must still buy windows) Only other choice is apple and they change $30 on top of the $20 to cover there costs.
Time and time again, it is conservatives who show they want real control over people's lives.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Yes, of course. Why not pass a law so that guns don't work when being used by thieves and murderers, while we're wishing for fantasy magical stuff with no basis in reality.
https://xkcd.com/1425/
#DeleteFacebook
Their are many special interest that have organized around this buzz word and virtually non-existent crime to allow them get money, power and influence for all sorts of unrelated projects.
Adult entertainment has nothing to do with "Human Trafficking". Zero. This is an attempt by certain people with an agenda to monetize the system. Human Trafficking is fiction.
I'll manage my own censorship, thanks, Kansas. This isn't about protecting anybody. This is about control by religious nuts.
I consider Kansas to be obscene and want to censor it from my internet experience.
Why is Snark Required?
Last I heard, there was no filter that could tell if a random file on some upload site was porn. So ,,, ban access to all upload sites? Ban the Tor browser (if that still exists) since you couldn't tell what it was accessing? Ban reddit since it has included some porn? (though last I heard they were trying to crack down on it)
Even with some sort of AI, I don't see how it could work.
No because then you end up 'Not in Kansas anymore'
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Oh damn fuggedaboutit i haven't watched that movie for too long.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
But that's HOLY porn and violence, so it's OK.
If they were actually trying to stop porn they wouldn't be doing this.
> mandating adult entertainment businesses charge a special admissions tax.
Have the network provider filter the sites. The devices can be modified or imported from out of state, taking what little bit of fangs this legislation had in the first place. Get blasted on national news as people compare your state to China. Watch people easily circumvent your restrictions through VPN and other alternate modes of content delivery. Make sure it costs the citizens of Kansas lots of tax dollars so they can feel like they got a bang for their buck.
Have you been to Yuma?
$20 to the government to access speech. No thanks.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
WTF?
A 16 year old girl wants to look at a picture of a woman with penises in her butt, pussy, and mouth? No, that is very bad, you are too young.
A 16 year old girl wants to go find 3 dudes to put their penises in her butt, pussy, and mouth? Yes, that is OK.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
i've driven through kansas and slept through the drive as a passenger. and honestly, there's no difference.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
There is no filtering software on the market that is anywhere near perfect at detecting pornographic material. This is just a lame cash grab after GOP Governor Sam Brownback bankrupted the state with his gigantic tax cuts.
Set up a consumers electronics store just outside the Kansas state line on all major highways!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Great! I'm sure there are already pot shops on the border... now they can sell computers and phones too!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Why do you wankers like porn so much?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Every state DOES charge a "sin tax" on liquor, duh!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Remember to leave space for Jesus between you when you're f*cking!!!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What if you live in Kansas, but buy a laptop, or phone, from Dell, or through Amazon?
Seems to me that this bill might kill electronic retailers, while doing nothing to stop porn.
I suspect these filters will be easily defeated.
Southeast Oregon. Looks a lot like Arizona desert.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Depends on the factory and the job. "Use this to attach this thing to that thing" doesn't require a lot of book learnin', just some on-the-job training from someone.
Still High School/GED tends to be required because they'd like to see you are stable enough to stick to something for a while.
I'm more worried about the "losing half my stuff" part... as in my ex literally walked into the escrow office and refused to sign the sales contract unless they immediately but her a check for half of the sales amount... and this was 2 days before the property went into foreclosure.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.