As the government shutdown drags into its sixth week, one Arizona lawmaker has proposed a workaround. Rather than compromising on a budget that includes $5 billion for the building of the notorious US-Mexico border wall, Arizona’s Republican state representative Gail Griffin has introduced House Bill 2444—a law that seeks to pay for Arizona’s portion of the border wall with profits from taxing porn in The Grand Canyon State.
The bill would require manufacturers and retailers of tech devices to install porn-blocking software on all internet-enabled devices. That software could be unlocked only when consumers provide proof that they’re at least 18 years old and then pay a fee of at least $20 (tech companies could charge more and keep the change). Proceeds would go directly to the John McCain Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Fund, which HB 2444 would create.
While the fund would live up to its name by dispensing money to anti-sex-trafficking efforts, domestic violence prevention, and mental health services, its number one priority would be to “build a border wall between Mexico and this state or fund border security.”
Sneaky — and ambitious.
The bill appears to be have been cooked up by legal prankster Chris Sevier, whose past hijinks include suing Apple in 2013, claiming that his MacBook was responsible for his porn addiction; trying to marry his laptop in 2017 in Utah to protest gay marriage; and receiving a cease and desist letter from kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart when he sponsored a law very similar to the current Arizona bill in Rhode Island in 2018.
“It’s pretty clearly unconstitutional,” Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, told the Arizona Mirror. And, while similar bills have been proposed—and shot down—in nineteen other states across the nation, Stabile noted that “the border wall twist is new.”
Still, the bill is “pretty clearly unconstitutional,” as Stabile pointed out to the Mirror. The day Arizona residents start essentially lining up to register as porn viewers with their state government, or that technology manufacturers and retailers bow to such a Draconian measure, is the day we here at YNOT will eat our hats. HB2444’s chances of passing the Arizona state legislature are pretty obviously slim. What’s not obvious is why Representative Griffin backed it.
