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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.
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)
>"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...
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.
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.
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.
...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"
Low taxes work for factory jobs where you only need to finish high school (or even elementary school) to do the work.
Low taxes do not work when you require a much more educated workforce. Because that workforce demands things like schools, colleges and universities that do not suck, roads that are not riddled with holes, tap water you can drink safely, and so on. Those government services cost money, and when you race-to-the-bottom on taxes you can't afford to do them. This leads to a large recruiting and retention problem for employers, so they don't want to move. Plus the business frequently benefits from the better services that higher taxes can pay for.
Which is why there's a whole lot of dying industrial towns that keep slashing their taxes, sure that someone will move their high-tech company from a high-tax state any day now. Any day. Maybe if we cut taxes a little more. Here they come. Any time now.
But that's HOLY porn and violence, so it's OK.