SALT LAKE CITY, UT — In a ceremonial signing today, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. signed House Concurrent Resolution 3 (HCR 3), a resolution that “urges the United States Congress to take action to help stop children and employees from accessing Internet pornography.”The solution advocated by the Utah legislature, although not directly referenced in the language of the resolution itself, is the so-called “clean port” concept, an idea championed by the CP80 Foundation.
“We hope this resolution is the ‘shot heard around the world’,” said Ralph Yarro, Chairman of the CP80 Foundation, in a press release issued by the group today. He characterized the resolution as a “declaration to everyone that people are fed-up with the unregulated nature of Internet pornography and want something done.”
On its website, CP80 summarizes its approach as technical solution that “leverages the current structure and technologies of the Internet to categorize all of the content on the Web into Internet channels, similar to cable television channels.”
CP80 refers to its technical and legislative approach as the “The Internet Channel Initiative.”
Under the initiative, CP80 “proposes that an Internet governing body, accountable to the general world public, designate content-specific ports that categorize the Internet into Community Ports (or Community Channels) and Open Ports (Or Open Channels). Community Ports would be designated for content that is appropriate for a general audience; and Open Ports would be designated for all legal content.”
“With content organized into ports (channels) and communities, the consumer could choose to opt-out of the Open Ports ranges and only receive the Community Ports directly from their ISP,” CP80 states on its website.
HCR 3, which was authored by CP80 and sponsored by Rep. Brad Daw (R-Orem) and Sen. Curtis Bramble (R-Provo), passed both UT House and Senate with unanimous approval.
Daw indicated that while the legislation was written by CP80 and endorses the “Internet Channel” approach, he is open to other solutions, as well.
“We’re interested in whatever works,” said Daw, according to the Provo Daily Herald.
The resolution provides no detail concerning the precise technical solution advocated by CP80, and consists mostly of a series of legislative “findings” that provide the basis for approval of the resolution to call on Congress to act.
Examples of the findings contained in HCR 3 include “the availability of Internet pornography on the job costs Utah employers significant numbers of work hours, strains employers’ computer equipment, reduces productivity, and leads to potentially hostile work environments for men and women;” the assertion that “Internet pornographers use evolving techniques to lure Utah children and others into viewing and purchasing pornographic material, defying existing technology designed to block adult content;” and “although the State of Utah has taken rigorous action in an attempt to shield Utah’s children from obscenity and other inappropriate adult content, it cannot effectively curb the problems with Internet pornography within its borders without the support of the United States government.”
With no legal impact of its own, Daw said the resolution is designed to put pressure on the U.S. Congress to take action with respect to online porn. According to the Daily Herald, Daw said he has spoken with some of Utah’s congressional representatives, but he can do more now that the resolution has been passed.
In the text of HCR 3, there is a statement stipulating that “a copy of this resolution be sent to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President of the United States, and the members of Utah’s congressional delegation.”
Matt Yarro, the Vice President of Marketing for CP80, said that a key aspect of the resolution was to demonstrate that it is more than just a few anti-porn groups calling for some way to address the issue of online porn.
Matt Yarro said the goal is to let Congress know “that people are crying out… that this is the community,” according to the Daily Herald.
Rebecca Jeschke, a spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Daily Herald that the proposal for separate internet channels has been raised several times over the years, but hasn’t been implemented because “it’s a bad idea.”
Jeschke noted that the clean port solution suffers from the same problem that has dogged laws like the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), stemming from the question of what content is considered “adult,” what content is not to be considered “adult,” and whose definition of the term prevails in making such a decision.
“There’s always situations where an art site or a history site gets blocked,” said Jeschke, who regards the clean port solution as a type of censorship.
Other critics have noted that getting the international community to agree on standards for various different ports and the difficulty of enforcing the laws that define the content ports present insurmountable practical barriers to the clean port approach.
Matt Yarro of CP80 said he rejects the notion that the internet cannot be regulated effectively, and indicated that the real problem is a simple lack of will.
“There is this assumption that you can’t control it,” said Matt Yarro, according to the Daily Herald. “It’s a toaster; we made it, we can fix it… we can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to.”
