From Trussville Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY — A bill currently in the Commerce and Small Business committee of the Alabama House of Representatives could result in the taxation of streaming video devices.
District 47 Representative Jack Williams, who gained notoriety during the UAB Football resurgence, has proposed a bill in the committee that would prevent the selling of any device that can access the internet unless the device came with a filter to block access to certain obscene materials.
“This bill would require a person selling a device that provides internet access to respond to reports of obscene material that has breached the filter,” the bill reads.
That means anyone who attempted to view materials deemed “obscene” by the filter would be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
According to the bill, consumers may opt out of the filter by paying a fee and submitting — in writing — a request for the filter to be removed.
While this bill is geared towards restricting access to the solicitation of prostitution and child pornography, it could just as easily require the fee to be paid in order to watch any streaming video over the internet, depending on the filter’s view of obscene material. The bill defines obscene material as the following:
The term includes material 20 to which all of the following apply: 1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. 2. Depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions. 3. Taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. 4. Facilitates or promotes prostitution, assignation, human trafficking, or sexual cyberharassment. b. The term does not include material that depicts a mother who is breastfeeding her baby.
Similar bills have been introduced in South Carolina and North Dakota.
9 Comments
Chuck Biddinger
I posted on my site 3 hours ago.
“What the “HELL” Rep. Jack Williams, this is NOT what your job is. Government does NOT need to control everything. I am so tired of you idiots in monkey town.”
Nate Arkitek Nite
Your gonna see riots over stupid shit again lol
Drake Riley
Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. I don’t feel comfortable with the Gov’t installing filters on all devices. Get this in the wrong hands and they can abuse the power.
Arlene Thompson
How do we contact them to express disgust!?
Nick Pearson
Email Jack at jack@jackwilliams.org
Nick Pearson
I emailed Jack Williams on this last night. I explained the $20 dollar fee is essentially a way for Alabama to make up for the budget shortage. Surprisingly I got a response from Jack saying he agreed and plans to remove the $20 dollar fee.
However I also explained that this is against net neutrality and setups Alabama to filter out sites like YouTube and Streaming Services (HBO, Netflix, Hulu, etc). That’s the root of the problem with this bill. If the government can filter one item they can choose to filter other content.
This type of filtering should be left up to the parent and also every internet router you buy from the store comes with some sort of Parental controls.
Brett Hammon
Already posted my opinion on this, it is an absolutely terrible money grab. Don’t feel like retyping It all so here you go https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=700251075999&id=192800631
Kay Hicks
If the politicians would get a lotto to vote on then maybe they would not tax us for everything. Next thing you know we will have pay restrooms!
Janice Richardson
Idiocy