Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

Judge Robert Pitman said that it violates the First Amendment and is "more likely than not - unconstitutional."

    The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify
    the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental
    consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to
    purchase a book.

We enjoy 1A protections of speech and assembly. When we consider our rights, the productive, default position is that government is told no (when it wants to restrict us).

The only reason the earlier age verification laws were upheld were because they narrowly targeted porn. This is an entirely unsurprising outcome.

wait, so its not affect apple users ????

Google just sent me a email today that Google would push forward

If the judge finds that apps and books are so equivalent, then letting the apps require age verification should do no harm -- everyone underage or privacy-concerned will simply go to the bookstore or a library. Right?

Apparently, these are not quite equivalent. Like books and weapons, like books and alcohol, etc.

> We need to amend the constitution to guarantee our privacy. It should be a fundamental right.

As far as government intrusion into our privacy, it's addressed by the 4th Amendment's guarantee - that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects and that our rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

The challenge is that courts repeatedly and routinely support and protect the government in it's continual, blatant violation of our 4A protections.

This has allowed governments at every level to build out the most pervasive surveillance system in human history - which has just been waiting for a cruelty-centric autocrat to take control of it.

And for the most part, we have both parties + news orgs to thank for this. They've largely been united in supporting all the steps toward this outcome.