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posted by on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the a-marriage-is-formed-between-one-man-and-one-electronic-computing-device dept.

More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the "Human Trafficking Prevention Act," which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man's crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.

At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install "obscenity" filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.

Perhaps more shocking is the bill's provenance. The driving force behind the legislation is a man named Mark Sevier, who has been using the alias "Chris Severe" to contact legislators. According to the Daily Beast, Sevier is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop. Reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny uncovered a lengthy legal history for Sevier, including an open arrest warrant and stalking convictions, as well as evidence that Sevier misrepresented his own experience working with anti-trafficking non-profits.

The bill has been introduced in some form [in] Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming (list here). We recommend that any legislator who has to consider this bill read the Daily Beast's investigation.

[...] It’s unfortunate that the Human Trafficking Prevention Act has gained traction in so many states, but we're pleased to see that some, such as Wyoming and North Dakota, have already rejected it. Legislators should do the right thing: uphold the Constitution, protect consumers, and not use the problem of human trafficking as an excuse to promote this individual’s agenda against pornography.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/states-introduce-dubious-legislation-ransom-internet


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:06PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:06PM (#500276) Journal

    Idea: what if you could pay $20 to the state to be exempt from the war on drugs.

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    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @09:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @09:44PM (#500377)

    Further idea: what if we recognized that, unlike First Prohibition, no attempt was made to give Congress even the pretense of authority via the amendment process to the US Constitution. The War on Drugs is flat out illegal, and everyone participating in it from the legislators who passed it, the judges and prosecutors who inflict punishment, and the cops who are the frontline enforcement thugs - all of them are literal criminals.