SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Late last week the Utah House approved legislation that requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to supply their customers with filtering software that can weed out Utah-based adult content. An earlier version of the bill had required ISPs to themselves block the adult content for their customers; the amended version requires ISPs to provide blocking software to their customers who want it. The bill was approved by a unanimous 71-0 vote.”I believe it is truly a war we must win, the war on pornography,” said Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove.
Under the new legislation, ISPs are required to notify their customers “in a conspicuous manner” that the software is available for their use, free of charge. The responsibility for maintaining a database of all known porn sites will fall on the Utah government at an estimated cost of around $70,000 per year.
State attorneys have warned the legislature that the bill carries a high risk of being overturned on constitutional grounds.
“The adult content registry is likely to block access to significant amounts of constitutionally protected material hosted on proxy servers that also contain material harmful to minors,” attorneys warned.
But proponents of the bill say the new amended version is constitutional because it allows customers to choose whether they want to block content in the registry.
“Fundamental to what we have is consumer choice,” said Rep. John Dougall, R-American Fork, a sponsor of the bill. “We are giving them the tools, if they want them, to prevent harmful materials from coming into our homes.”
Critics have argued that the bill is an expensive waste of taxpayer dollars.
“But for lawmakers to make Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, or some unfortunate underling, start cruising the Internet in search of Utah-based pornographic Web sites seems an act of cruel and unusual punishment,” read an editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Tribune editorial argued that the bill would be useless at best since the state does not have the authority to regulate content outside of Utah.
The bill also allots $100,000 for an advertising campaign designed to inform parents of the internet’s dangers and how to weed out unwanted content, and another $50,000 to research the effectiveness of internet filtering software.
