I’m not sure that House Democrats really thought this through:
House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites
Posted by Declan McCullagh
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection.
[My emphasis]
I’ve seen some stupid legislation but if that doesn’t beat all…and guess what for once its wasn’t the wingnuts, it was the Democrats wot done it:
Wednesday’s vote caught Internet companies by surprise: the Democratic leadership rushed the SAFE Act to the floor under a procedure that’s supposed to be reserved for noncontroversial legislation. It was introduced October 10, but has never received even one hearing or committee vote. In addition, the legislation approved this week has changed substantially since the earlier version and was not available for public review. .
They did what? If it gets to a full vote and becomes law it’ll cause chaos. How stupid is this? And why did the Democrats rush this silly bill through with such unseemly haste?
Could it be they’re trying to pose as tough on kiddy-porn and general undefined obscenity, so as to appeal to the security mom and evangelist vote?
