Dec

5

Technology Legislation Gone Wild (again)

December 5, 2007 |

Thanks to CNET for bringing up this important issue that has flown completely under the radar:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it requires that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection.

Besides the technological difficulties, the SAFE Act, as it is called, also uses the usual, vague definition of what constitutes obscene material.

Is my local coffee shop now supposed to hire somebody who monitors my Wi-Fi connection on a play-by-play basis?

Here is what the Wi-Fi provider is supposed to do:

Anyone providing an “electronic communication service” or “remote computing service” to the public who learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain illegal activities or an illegal image must (a) register their name, mailing address, phone number, and fax number with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s “CyberTipline” and (b) “make a report” to the CyberTipline that (c) must include any information about the person or Internet address behind the suspect activity and (d) the illegal images themselves.

Now I am not condoning child pornography here, but I also can’t see how any of this legislation is going to help anybody. I am sure our elected officials had the best intentions here, but given that most of them hardly have an idea how the internet works, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they pass this overly brought and cumbersome kind of legislation.

Oh, and you Ron Paul fans out there, be happy, he voted NO on this one.

Update: See Read/Write Web for a similar take on this.

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