State governments appear to have declared open season on porn this month, as Kansas on Wednesday became the fourth state in February alone to introduce legislation that would directly tax porn fans for accessing adult sites online. According to a report by the Wichita Eagle newspaper, a Republican lawmaker in Kansas has introduced a bill that would require electronics makers to include blocking software in all devices that would filter out porn sites, with users able to pay a one-time $20 fee to disable the blockages.
“It’s to protect children,” State Representative Randy Garber told The Hutchinson News. “What it would do is any X-rated pornography stuff would be filtered. It would be on all purchases going forward. Why wouldn’t anybody like this?”
One reason that some might not like the bill is that government censorship of legal content would likely violate First Amendment guarantees of free expression, as well as privacy rights, and ultimately be struck down by courts as unconstitutional.
“As well intentioned as the bill might be, I would not trade my right to privacy for a mandatory restriction of allegedly pornographic communications that can be dealt with on an individual basis by parents,” Democratic Rep. Jim Carmichael said, according to the Hutchinson News report.
Garber’s bill comes after Hawaii and Arizona also proposed bills requiring the blocking of online pornography on internet-connected devices in those states, with a $20 surcharge, or tax, required to unblock the porn sites. In the Hawaii and Kansas bills, revenue from the surcharge would be earmarked for special funds to combat “sex trafficking.”
But in the proposed Arizona legislation, as AVN.com reported, the $20 unblocking fees would go toward building a wall on the Arizona border with Mexico.
A New York legislator also proposed a similar law this month, though in the New York version, rather than a one-time $20 surcharge to view online porn, each individual porn download would cost the user a $2 fee, supposedly for a state fund that would benefit “victims of domestic violence, hate crimes, human trafficking and child prostitution.”
Other legislators oppose Garber’s porn surcharge bill, however.
“Part of being an adult is not legislating morality,” said Rep. Tim Hodge, quoted by the Hutchinson News. “If Randy Garber wants to crawl into everybody’s bedroom, that is more creepy than the activity he is trying to prevent. I thought we still lived in America. We all took a oath to uphold the constitution.”
Even a top Republican in Kansas appeared skeptical of Garber’s proposal.
“At first blush, it’s probably too intrusive,” said Jim Denning, the state’s Senate majority leader.
Photo By America's Power / Wikimedia Commons
