Dumb Kikeing Assholes In Utah Legislature Wraps Up Session By Passing Two Unconstitutional Internet Bills

[Go deface and purge CityxGuide.com, Backpage.com, and 1backpage.com. Because they waste of electricity]

Last week we wrote about the many, many, many constitutional problems with a
bill proposed in Utah to try to tell internet companies how they can
moderate content. As we noted, the bill clearly violates the 1st Amendment,
the Commerce Clause, and is also pre-empted by Section 230.

So, of course, it passed.

The Salt Lake Tribune report has a stunning set of paragraphs that
demonstrate that supporters of the bill not only ignored many, many experts
telling them the constitutional problems with the bill, but they then
pretended no one notified them of those concerns (this is blatantly false):

“What we are talking about here are large, private forums that are free to
moderate themselves and to put up what they want to put up and censor and
kick off those people they choose to,” added House Minority Leader Brian
King, D-Salt Lake City. “If we pass this bill, the Utah taxpayers are going
to pay large amounts of money to defend the constitutionality of this bill
against a lot of large entities that have many resources.”

Brammer shot back that he was not made aware of any constitutional issues
with the legislation. However, a legal analysis from the Office of
Legislative Research and General Counsel shared with The Salt Lake Tribune
raises several potential constitutional and legal problems.

Legislative attorneys advised that HB228 may violate the First Amendment by
compelling speech through requiring these companies to provide information
about their moderation practices, although that may not be an impermissible
burden given their vast resources.

The memo also warns the bill could violate the Constitution by placing an
“undue burden on interstate commerce.”

Finally, the legislation might be unenforceable because of provisions in the
federal Communications Decency Act.

It's one thing to ignore me -- I'm just a loud mouth blogger. But to flat
out ignore the points raised by legislative attorneys, making it clear that
you're going to waste a ton of taxpayer money? That's just obnoxious. Rep.
Brady Brammer should be ashamed.

And that wasn't the only unconstitutional tech-related bill the Utah
legislature passed as it wrapped up its session. It also passed a porn
filter bill that would mandate a porn filter on any phone, computer, tablet
or other electronic device.

Just like the many, many, many other attempts at such bills, this one is
also blatantly unconstitutional. In the key case that made all of the
Communications Decency Act (minus Section 230) unconstitutional, Reno v.
ACLU, the Supreme Court (with a 9-0 vote) made it quite clear that
governments cannot mandate the blocking of pornographic material online. In
that case, the Supreme Court went through many reasons why governments don't
get to mandate filters for indecent content.

Utah's legislators haven't even attempted to address any of those concerns.
Incredibly, the Salt Lake Tribune quotes even those who voted for the bill
as saying that the bill has serious problems and will require follow up
legislation to fix.

“As much as the intentions of this bill are good, logistically it just won’t
work,” Anderegg, R-Lehi, said. “And I think if we pass this bill, it sends a
good message. ... But we absolutely will be back here at some point in the
future, maybe even in a special session to fix this.”

Anderegg ultimately voted in support of the bill, saying that while he has
“a lot of trepidation” about the bill, he doesn’t “want to be the guy” who
opposes an attempt to shield children from graphic content.

Incredible. Admitting you voted for a bill that you know won't work.. and
saying you have to to protect the children, is quite an admission. The bill
not only won't work, it's unconstitutional. And that's not the kind of thing
you fix in a "special session." You just don't pass unconstitutional bills.

And if the goal is not to have children looking at porn, why not... let
parents do their jobs and if they want to install a filter, let them do so.
Remember "personal responsibility"?