[sllug-members]: House Bill 139

[Erik Falor]

Representative Daw,

I am writing to express my reservations about HB 139.  I, like you, have
served
in and am serving in youth programs.  I understand the unique challenges
facing
youth today, and am concerned with what appears to be a lack of protections
on
the internet.

However, I do not believe that the means to achieve the best level of
protection
begins in the legislature.  Any such measures are doomed to be ineffective,
unenforceable, and will provide only an image of safety while leaving the
intended beneficiaries as vulnerable as before.  The impact of the
unintended
consequences of ill-conceived legislation always dominates the intended
effects,
and this bill will inevitably leave lasting scars on the economic and
educational development of our state.

Given your assertions of being a conservative and a technology expert, I
must
wonder at both your sincerity and your aptitude.  Surely as a conservative
you
must see how the implementation and enforcement of this bill will require
additional manpower, equipment, and training.  Is the Division of Consumer
Protection already equipped and knowledgeable in the requisite technologies
to
provide effective enforcement?

As a youth leader, I'm sure you have come across young people who possess
their
own credit card, or at least know where to find their guardian's credit card
number.  In this day and age, we can no longer hold on to antiquarian
notions of
personal identity being equatable to repeating a sequence of digits.

You claim that one of your aims is to promote an information grid.  This
bill
will kill one of the most free and open information grids in this country.
How
many other communities are you aware of that have free wireless internet
provided by a private company?  Not only does your bill preclude the
build-out
of a municipal wireless network, such as exist in San Fransisco or New York
City, but would shut down the fledgling project by XMission, a respected
local
company which has been on the cutting edge of technology now for over a
decade.
Don't do lip service to the 21st century.  Propose and support legislation
that
will have real and beneficial impacts to technology saturation in our state.

The protection of children against illicit images must stay in the home.
Children who are able to acquire pornography don't do so because of a
failing of
the state; they do so because of failures in parenting and training.  And
when
such children mend their ways and abstain from repeating such actions, they
won't do so because of any government interventions, but rather through the
supportive efforts of family members and other loved ones.

Children who are bent on acquiring pornography are going to be able to get
it.
Trying to keep pornography out of their hands while living in a nation that
at the same time espouses free speech is impossible.  It will always be
there,
tantalizingly out of their reach.  And young people these days are clever.
They
will find ways around any rules put in place by schools, governments, even
their
parents.  The only people who will abide by this piece of legislation are
honest
businesspeople who will lose out on providing an important service to their
customers.  But the very individuals you are trying to "protect" will get to
their porn despite your most stringent efforts.  They were able to do so
when
we were children, and the will continue to do so in the future.  Therefore,
I shall say again that the most effective means of preventing or at least
curtailing this cycle of behavior is to involve the parents, not by being
surrogates for the parents.

The unintended consequences of the bill you propose include throttling
internet
access to all members of our community, increasing government spending on an
activity that cannot achieve it's promised benefit, and increasing the
frequency
of intrusion by the government into our lives.  The unintended consequences,
over time, will grow to have so great a negative impact on the lives of your
constituents that it will, on the whole, be a detriment to the state.  Even
if
it were not to have these damaging effects, even if it were free to
implement,
even if it would not require increasing government spending to enforce, it
will
still fail to achieve its aims.

I am forwarding a copy of this letter to local technology groups, where
spirited
debate of this topic is ongoing.  I would urge you to visit the mailing list
archive
http://www.sllug.org/pipermail/sllug-members/
and carefully consider the input of the Utahns who make our state one of the
most technologically advanced communities/economies in the nation.

I sincerely hope that you will remove this bill from further consideration
by
the legislature.

Erik Falor

-- 
Registered Linux User #445632 http://counter.li.org
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