Internet Censoring - Utah vs ACLU

[cKGunslinger]

ACLU (Utah) - Press Release

SALT LAKE CITY--Citing free speech and interstate commerce violations, a broadly-based group of Utah bookstores, artistic and informative websites, Internet service providers and national trade associations filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the constitutionality of a Utah law meant to restrict children?s access to material on the Internet.

?This law has nothing to do with the laudable goal of protecting children,? said Wesley Felix, a shareholder at the Salt Lake City law firm of Bendinger, Crockett, Peterson, Greenwood & Casey and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. ?Not only does it not accomplish its stated objective, but it casts such a wide net that a lot of valuable and perfectly legal speech will be censored.?

...

The new law, passed by the 2005 session of the Utah legislature, has three primary components:

• 1) Utah Internet content providers must evaluate and rate their speech, at the risk of criminal punishment.
  
  2) The Utah Attorney General must create a public registry of Internet sites worldwide containing ?material harmful to minors? ? speech that is unlawful to intentionally distribute to minors but that is constitutionally protected for adults.
  
  3) It extends existing criminal restrictions on distribution of ?harmful? materials to distribution on the Internet. Similar provisions have been uniformly held unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause and the First Amendment by federal courts across the nation.

The lawsuit also challenges a provision that may lead to the blocking of a significant number of innocent websites simply because they have the same Internet protocol addresses as targeted sites.

...

?Unfortunately, legislators chose to pass a convoluted bill, despite warnings that courts have consistently struck down laws like this because they violate the First Amendment and the Commerce Clause,? said ACLU of Utah staff attorney Margaret Plane.

More interesting news on the topic of internet 'censorship.' Since this is in reply to a state-law, I think it is a bit more legitimate use of that word than some other stories.

I think perhaps the problem is that many of our lawmakers are so far out of touch with current technology, they mistakenly rely on lobbyists and other with a vested interest in the topic to guide thier decisions. Naturally, they can't keep abreast of all current trends, but the basic principles of the constitution should guide them in a general scope until they learn more, no?

Is attepting to keep dangerous and harmful material out of the hands of minors a worthwhile goal? Sure it is. Do broad and far-reaching laws like this that purport to do that actually work? Of course not.

And is it just me, is does provision 2 simply sound like somebody wanted a job browsing and cataloging pr0n all day?

 

[Genx87]

I think perhaps the problem is that many of our lawmakers are so far out of touch with current technology, they mistakenly rely on lobbyists and other with a vested interest in the topic to guide thier decisions.

Heh, it isnt just technology.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Genx87

I think perhaps the problem is that many of our lawmakers are so far out of touch with current technology, they mistakenly rely on lobbyists and other with a vested interest in the topic to guide thier decisions.

Heh, it isnt just technology.

That's very true. The problem is that no one can know everything about everything, so you listen to experts. Except lawmakers don't listen to impartial experts, they listen to (in the above case) experts from companies that make filtering software. They would know, right? Except it's like asking the barber if you need a haircut.

 

[her209]

Wouldn't this get into an issue of "privacy" as well?