The informal meeting held Thursday on HB139 was the most level-headed meeting I’ve had the pleasure to attend at the Capitol. Thank you to all who attended. Representative Daw acknowledged a number of problems with the bill, but I do not know how that changes the status. I doubt proponents will let this drop so easily, regardless of the number of reasoned and thoughtful statements that were made in the meeting.
I agree that the many of the technical issues of this bill were addressed. Unfortunately I do not see a way to accomplish the desired goals of this bill without encumbering both the end users and the providers to the point where it becomes too much of a hassle to use and maintain.
Economically it would be a detriment to our state to place these kinds of restrictions on wireless access. Business events will just be moved to states that allow more open access to wireless services and the 300,000 plus business travelers (and the revenue they generate) that go through the event center will just go elsewhere.
I was disappointed that the some moral questions about the bill were not addressed such as the fact that a provider would get punished for the acts of another just because they used the free service provided. I don’t think cities ever get fined by the state when drug deals happen in a city park. The city provided the park and the drug dealers use it to commit crimes so similar to this law the city should be fined by the state.
I think that protecting our children from pornography and having a better way to track predators are both noble goals, but I believe that this bill will not be able to accomplish either. The best way to do that, as I said in the meeting, would be through education.
Please suggest what we can do next. Surely Utah has some conservative or other groups that could persuade Daws? (By “conservative” I mean “conservative” and not “hysterical statism” with or without pornophobia.)
Keep up the good work.
Thanks,
J
Very glad to hear the meeting was respectful. Are there notes online of what was discussed?
Even as a concerned parent, I so deeply hope this bill is pulled or defeated. I don’t want to speculate on how many or what kinds of people this bill would affect, but I know it would affect me. I love the wifi access downtown and I use it all the time. Thank you Pete!
To me, using public wifi is inherently a public, social activity, whereas browsing in private behind closed doors seems ( and in my case, is 😛 ) far more likely to end with lascivious imagery on-screen.
I just wonder how much of a problem there actually is with minors accessing porn over public wifi networks? There’s a big problem with suggesting that it’s even an issue, since by definition the public network access is in public. I don’t doubt it happens occasionally, but how often really does wifi help a curious teenager versus actually keep them from browsing porn precisely because they’re in public?
Why is legislation being proposed to fix a problem that possibly doesn’t exist, legislation that has real costs and would do real monetary damage to hundreds of businesses in Salt Lake and across the state? And where’s the rationale for singling out wireless? If minors access porn more often on private wired networks than on public wifi networks, like I do (therefore it seems probable to me that this is the case), then perhaps what Mr. Daw should be proposing if he really wants to protect our children, is to make private wired network access illegal and mandate public wifi!