SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Chris Sevier, a man who once tried to marry his laptop to make a point against same-sex marriage, has been promoting legislation that would require ISPs to block "sexual content and/or patently offensive material." The block could only be lifted if a user makes a request in writing to the ISP and pays a one-time fee of $20. An "Internet digital blocking" bill will be heard by the Rhode Island Senate on the 27th. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, two dozen similar bills have been introduced in 18 state legislatures this year.
Sevier refers to the legislation on his website and elsewhere with names such as the "Understanding the Human Trafficking And Child Exploitation Prevention Act", "Human Trafficking Prevention Act" (HTPA), "Children's Online Filtering Act", or "Elizabeth Smart Law". Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in 2002 and raped repeatedly during a span of nine months. While she has since become an activist on behalf of legislation related to human trafficking and child sexual abuse, Smart has sent Sevier a cease-and-desist letter related to the use of her name to promote the porn blocking legislation.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-pornography group, opposes incarnations of the legislation due to their vague language, First Amendment concerns, and Sevier's false claims that the organization supports or has authored the legislation:
The bill (sans resolution language) was developed by Chris Sevier, also known as Chris Severe. We have had a difficult relationship with Mr. Sevier over the last several years, to say the least. We have not found him trustworthy in our past dealings and therefore cannot rely on his assertions that those groups and those legislators that he claims are supporters of HTPA are actually in support. That is because, in the past, Sevier has falsely represented that our organization and NCOSE President Patrick Trueman and NCOSE Executive Director Dawn Hawkins are in support of his work. We have demanded that Sevier stop using our names.
In 2015, the office of a United States Senator alerted us to the fact that Sevier was promoting a version of the HTPA at the U. S. Capitol and was representing to U. S. Senate offices that Patrick Trueman was an author of the bill. This was false. A key legal assistant with that senator's office also said that Sevier was visiting other senate offices claiming that his boss, the senator, was supporting the legislation, which was also false.
Several organizations have contacted us over the past couple years to complain that Sevier was also using their names without authorization and some of those organizations have complained that he was threatening them with legal sanctions when they refused to support him and his work.
And for a little more about Chris Sevier's legal shenanigans, you can check out this TMZ article.
Previously: States Introduce Dubious Anti-Pornography Legislation to Ransom the Internet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:26PM (8 children)
How about all the War on Christmas folks? We just don't label it PC but it totally is.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:43PM (7 children)
The war on Christmas is most definitely PC - but I don't see righties, or Republicans, or even conservatives jumping on that bandwagon. The most "conservative" people on that bandwagon seem to be atheists, and pagans. The left allies itself with atheists pretty often. The left seems willing to use pagans for their own ends, but they don't really seem like allies. Oh - Muslims might be offended by a "Merry Christmas". And, Muslims are very conservative - making most of America's right appear far-left. But, the left loves Islam because Islam hates America. Crazy shit, ain't it? Then, there are the Jews, most of whom are between conservative, and bat-shit-crazy right conservative. But, there aren't a whole lot of American Jews who care about the silly Christian traditions. The Jews are going to observe their own customs, just as they have always done, paying no mind to the world around them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:19PM (1 child)
Maybe you should spend some time watching FOX News between Halloween and New Years. They just can't shut up about it.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:51PM
Bah. Didn't see your post before I said basically the same thing. Sorry. Modded you up. :)
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
Pagans wouldn't generally war on Christmas. After all, they invented it. The Christians just sort of dragged their crosses in and set up shop a day late and an orgy short. Which truly isn't all bad, because now I get neat presents under my solstice bush.
And atheists don't generally war on pagans. Some of us (me, for instance) even totally approve of those those orgies and the dancing and the naked women (I could do entirely without the naked men, but life is often challenging. One must take the wood with the glorious.)
So there you go.
OTOH, go watch right-wing, conservative FOX news around that time. There's where you'll find your "War on Christmas" being invented out of whole cloth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @01:06AM
Bet yet a present of a solstice bush. Much less likely without the orgies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)
There was a war on Christmas once. You know who was waging it? PURITANS. The people who today would be either too hardcore for the John Birch society or actually in jail for beating their kids to death. You don't know shit about history and boy does it show.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 29 2018, @01:39AM (1 child)
Nothing new there. None of the holidays that are celebrated by Christians today are biblical. The Jews are far more faithful to their history and tradition than Christians. Maybe you don't know shit about what I know?
Fact is, we are where we are today, and much of the non-Christian world resents whenever a Christian says "Merry Christmas". And, properly speaking, no shits should be given whenever a non-Christian takes offense.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 29 2018, @02:09AM
You do realize (of course you don't, I'm being rhetorical...) that the umbrage they take at that is a proxy for the more serious and more real problem of Christians trying to turn the US government into a theocracy? Yes, getting pissed when someone says "Merry Christmas" is a dumb-assed hill to die on, but it's a microcosm of the real problem here. I wish people would educate themselves, though.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...