Pete Ashdown

Another sweet gem of ignorance has been dispensed from the Utah Legislature. HB407 asks for creation of a “Community Conscious Internet Provider” seal, which can then be used by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for marketing their virtue. Where it gets fun is how it asks the ISP to voluntarily give up the 4th Amendment protection of its customers. Line 85 reads, “cooperate with any law enforcement agency by providing records sufficient to identify a customer if the law enforcement agency requests the information and supplies reasonable proof that a crime has been committed using the Internet service provider’s service”. It says nothing of reasonable proof being determined by a judge and thusly issuing a court order.

XMission has always taken the stand that if you want customer information you’re going to need a court order. This act asks us to discard that stance in order to use a “seal” in our marketing. If we at some point decide the seal isn’t worth our customers’ privacy or we somehow fail to uphold the requirements of this law, then XMission is subject to a fine of $10,000.

To its credit, the bill makes handing over my customers’ privacy to the state completely voluntary. No thanks.

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.