Live data from Hacker News

It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

tech.yahoo.com

81–90 of 192 posts

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#81
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mostly works when you're single and without any hard ties. Uprooting a well grown tree isn't easy.

There's also some double standards. If you walk from Ecuador to Texas, passing through the Darien Gap and one of your kids gets ripped into some river never to be seen again, finally showing up in El Paso to sleep under a bridge until the heat exhaustion goes away, then you are a glorious immigrant who put it all on the line to give your family a better life. If you hitch-hike from California to Vermont while feeding…

> you are a glorious immigrant who put it all on the line to give your family a better life

According to whom?

The immense hardship endured by migrants isn't a badge of glory, but the direct result of a global economic system designed to extract wealth from the global south to enrich the global north.

The current economic disparity between the United States and the countries to its south is not an accident. The wealth of the United States, like much of the Western Hemisphere, was built on a foundation of 500 years of ongoing theft—specifically through the colonization and theft of indigenous lands, and the mass kidnapping and wage theft of the Atlantic slave trade. The governments and agencies that now police the borders are institutions built on this stolen land.

The US imposition of NAFTA allowed heavily subsidized American agribusiness giants to flood the Mexican market with cheap corn, which decimated Mexican agricultural communities, drove small farmers off their land, and triggered massive waves of migration.

In Central America, the CIA sponsored the 1954 coup in Guatemala to overthrow a government that was attempting land reforms that threatened the profits of the American-owned United Fruit Company. The US government also heavily funded brutal military regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala that committed massacres and genocide against their own citizens. The US government effectively bankrolled the destruction of these countries, and then militarized its border to punish the survivors fleeing the devastation.

The migrant walking from Ecuador is not a "glorious immigrant" immune to state violence; they are treated as walking meat by human trafficking cartels and hunted by authorities.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#83
post #9

IMO, this is one of the main strengths of the US: you have 50 different options to live according to your values and beliefs, and relatively little friction if you decide to move to a state that better reflects them.

Not really. Show me a state that can tax corporate landlords or charge a fee for private equity owned 'anything'.

Show me a state that will invalidate the "mandatory arbitration" clauses and let me sue Google (in small claims court) if they lock me out of my account or falsely take down my video on copyright grounds. You won't find that because it's impossible.

There are minor differences between states, like gun or drug ownership. Or various tax levels. But that's about it.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#84
post #74
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to forget that those states tend to have rural (red) populations that get affected by the laws the larger population in the cities pass at the state level.

This is true. I just mean that moving becomes less hard if you earn more due to the general higher level of wages in your area near a big and prosperous city.

Sure, but that doesn't work if you're in the scenario we are talking about - red person in a rural part of a blue state. They will still have restricted income.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#85

This is the next part of the national Orwellian surveillance system that is "age verification". The first part installs spyware in every operating system. The second part makes it illegal to work around it or find any alternative means of privacy. The final step is a government-mandated ID for logging into these devices with the OS controls, so the government can track everything you do on every device. This is the m…

From the outside, it's particularly ridiculous given your 1st Amendment and all. I hope the tide turns for you and everyone else.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#87
post #2

> It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs > The law, which takes effect May 6, doesn't make VPNs illegal — but it's a blow to your rights, even if you don't live in Utah. > websites subject to the state's age verification law will be legally barred from explaining how to use a VPN to get around age restrictions. They'll also be liable for enforcing age verification for any user within Utah's phy…

I usually hate weird laws like that, and I hate giving the government more control in general, but... I'm having a hard time really freaking out about just being barred from websites being told not to tell their users... how to bypass the law. This would be bad in many scenarios.

The law has a lot more stuff. I wonder what this part is all about:

> if a person suffers damages from a minor committing the same offense repeatedly on school grounds … the person may bring a cause of action against a parent or guardian with legal custody of the minor to recover costs and damages caused by the repeated offense … the court may waive part or all of the parent's or guardian's liability for costs or damages if the court finds … that the parent or guardian reported the minor's wrongful conduct to law enforcement after the parent or guardian knew of the minor's wrongful conduct.

And of course

> A person may not bring a cause of action against the state, an agency of the state, or a contracted provider of an agency of the state, under this section

Is this standard stuff?

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#88
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for laying this out. “The hill to die on“

Which in Utah might be a problem (or is it another state, I don't remember)

Are you thinking of Kansas or Nebraska? Utah is famous for having big ass mountains that people ski on.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true in principle, but there's a lot of people trapped in red states who in a practical sense don't have the means to leave. I'm privileged to not have to worry about that friction, but I never forget that others do.

There are lots of people “trapped” in blue states too, if that is how you want to put it.

Yeah, but the trapping is far different.

The "red" people in blue states are opposed to the freedoms people in blue states have, while the "blue" people in red states are denied freedoms people in blue states have.

So, while people are "trapped" in blue states, they generally aren't suffering by being denied rights.

Re: It's official: Utah is the U.S. state closest to banning VPNs

#90

This is the next part of the national Orwellian surveillance system that is "age verification". The first part installs spyware in every operating system. The second part makes it illegal to work around it or find any alternative means of privacy. The final step is a government-mandated ID for logging into these devices with the OS controls, so the government can track everything you do on every device. This is the m…

Doesn't even have to be OS, the infrastructure exists to lock it at a silicon to server level.
Post reply on HN