Government passing bill to blacklist websites

[Nabeel Ansari]

http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/?source=fb

Probably should be in PPR but whatevs.

Sign your name if you don't want internet censorship by the government.

[The Damned]

Senators say they haven't heard much in the way of objections!

Maybe that's because they passed it through with record time? Or you didn't mention it to anyone until you started passing it?

Hey, if you Yanks get fucked over down there, her in Canada, we don't censor our media content. You're welcome to move on up. But only if you bring more gadgets at your prices. Electronics are a bit more expensive up here.

[Souliarc]

I saw this on Demonoid yesterday.

Shared and signed.

[Kenogu Labz]

Probably a kick-back at the wiki-leaks problem. Though they'll probably have wanted to do something like this for quite some time, using wiki-leaks as an excuse (see blown oil rig; cap and trade).

[PROTO·DOME]

Hey, if you Yanks get fucked over down there, her in Canada, we don't censor our media content. You're welcome to move on up.

Come to the UK instead, there's no internet censorship and The Damned doesn't live here. Only good things.

[djpretzel]

Signed it. I do have a general reluctance towards signing petitions, of any kind, but Internet censorship is some scary stuff.

[Gollgagh]

Signed it. I do have a general reluctance towards signing petitions, of any kind, but Internet censorship is some scary stuff.

ditto to a T

[Schwaltzvald]

[Coyote-Trickster]

so... they're trying to be like China?

[Coyote-Trickster]

Maybe that's because they passed it through with record time? Or you didn't mention it to anyone until you started passing it?

Hey, if you Yanks get fucked over down there, her in Canada, we don't censor our media content. You're welcome to move on up. But only if you bring more gadgets at your prices. Electronics are a bit more expensive up here.

off topic..

hey dood, does your corner of the country have them big contraband cigarettes rings? cause here in the Maritimes it's like the biggest crime, even over drugs.

[JackKieser]

I'm surprised this got to OCRemix JUST NOW. This petition has been around for a few weeks now, at least.

...everyone here should definitely sign this.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I'm surprised this got to OCRemix JUST NOW. This petition has been around for a few weeks now, at least.

...everyone here should definitely sign this.

I apologize for not posting it sooner. I noticed it this morning and posted it here right away, if that's worth anything.

[Mirby]

I signed it like last week.

Didn't occur to me to post it, sorry.

[EC2151]

And here I thought internet petitions didn't work.

[Drayzon]

I saw something like this a little while ago, but I hadn't realized how far along it was. Signed.

[CC Ricers]

Proxy servers, anyone? Or is this a matter of trying to nip the problem in the bud?

[The Damned]

off topic..

hey dood, does your corner of the country have them big contraband cigarettes rings? cause here in the Maritimes it's like the biggest crime, even over drugs.

Nah, here it's mostly the biker gangs trafficking through the various towns. Turns out that here in oil country, there's a big demand for illegal drugs. You get a bunch of people from all kinds of places making lots of money, they tend to spend it on booze, cigarettes and drugs.

[XZero]

Um... the petition probably won't get anyone anywhere, but that won't matter. See, this bill is what we legal types call unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, the government cannot pass a law that abridges freedom of speech. As applied to internet speech, this includes, as a relevant example, requiring websites to deny access to adult materials (read: porn) to minors.

See, by requiring ISPs to blacklist (and thus block) certain websites, but not others, the goverment is imposing what is known as a content-based regulation. When the US Supreme Court reviews a content-based regulation, it applies a standard known as "strict scrutiny," which requires the government to show that it has a compelling interest and that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.

Here, let's assume its compelling interest is protecting minors from access to harmful material. Even if that is compelling, it'll probably never be achieved by a law that is sufficiently narrowly tailored to protect that interest because there are always things called "less restrictive alternatives." The idea behind this is obvious: if there's an option that silences significantly less speech than the law that Congress enacted, the law is unconstitutional. And here, there is a less restrictive alternative that the Court already accepted: filtering software employed by parents.

Thus the bill that this petition addresses probably won't ever be enacted, but if it is, I give it 3 weeks after the date it becomes effective for a test case to come up challenging its constitutionality. When that happens, I would bet even money that the Supreme Court would strike it down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

[The Damned]

I would hope so. Land of The Free, indeed.

[Nabeel Ansari]

See, this bill is what we legal types call unconstitutional.

I was gonna say this but I was afraid to get flamed by PPR for not doing proper research.

[Sixto]

Signed. First time I've heard about any of this.

[Souliarc]

Um... the petition probably won't get anyone anywhere, but that won't matter. See, this bill is what we legal types call unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, the government cannot pass a law that abridges freedom of speech. As applied to internet speech, this includes, as a relevant example, requiring websites to deny access to adult materials (read: porn) to minors.

See, by requiring ISPs to blacklist (and thus block) certain websites, but not others, the goverment is imposing what is known as a content-based regulation. When the US Supreme Court reviews a content-based regulation, it applies a standard known as "strict scrutiny," which requires the government to show that it has a compelling interest and that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.

Here, let's assume its compelling interest is protecting minors from access to harmful material. Even if that is compelling, it'll probably never be achieved by a law that is sufficiently narrowly tailored to protect that interest because there are always things called "less restrictive alternatives." The idea behind this is obvious: if there's an option that silences significantly less speech than the law that Congress enacted, the law is unconstitutional. And here, there is a less restrictive alternative that the Court already accepted: filtering software employed by parents.

Thus the bill that this petition addresses probably won't ever be enacted, but if it is, I give it 3 weeks after the date it becomes effective for a test case to come up challenging its constitutionality. When that happens, I would bet even money that the Supreme Court would strike it down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

These are good points, and while it would seem common sense to block something like this (just like stopping big telecom corporations from killing Net Neutrality), petitions like these brings the attention to the people and prevents big media from trying to pull a fast one on us and that definitely doesn't hurt the cause.

[Abadoss]

I better not get any spam because of this... Signed.

[XZero]

These are good points, and while it would seem common sense to block something like this (just like stopping big telecom corporations from killing Net Neutrality), petitions like these brings the attention to the people and prevents big media from trying to pull a fast one on us and that definitely doesn't hurt the cause.

Valid point, and I completely agree. Exposure of stuff like this is what leads to awareness and ultimately is what will lead to the bill's defeat or the law being declared unconstitutional. In hindsight, I was a bit quick to dismiss the usefulness of the petition. After all, if it wasn't posted here, I never would have heard about it.

[Drayzon]

Um... the petition probably won't get anyone anywhere, but that won't matter. See, this bill is what we legal types call unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, the government cannot pass a law that abridges freedom of speech. As applied to internet speech, this includes, as a relevant example, requiring websites to deny access to adult materials (read: porn) to minors.

See, by requiring ISPs to blacklist (and thus block) certain websites, but not others, the goverment is imposing what is known as a content-based regulation. When the US Supreme Court reviews a content-based regulation, it applies a standard known as "strict scrutiny," which requires the government to show that it has a compelling interest and that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.

Here, let's assume its compelling interest is protecting minors from access to harmful material. Even if that is compelling, it'll probably never be achieved by a law that is sufficiently narrowly tailored to protect that interest because there are always things called "less restrictive alternatives." The idea behind this is obvious: if there's an option that silences significantly less speech than the law that Congress enacted, the law is unconstitutional. And here, there is a less restrictive alternative that the Court already accepted: filtering software employed by parents.

Thus the bill that this petition addresses probably won't ever be enacted, but if it is, I give it 3 weeks after the date it becomes effective for a test case to come up challenging its constitutionality. When that happens, I would bet even money that the Supreme Court would strike it down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Good points, but I should add that it is totally legal for ISPs to block websites if they want to. It's just that the government can't require them to do so.