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Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

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Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#41

Post by senshan »

ls612 wrote: post #30
senshan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parents can restrict what speech their kids say or hear but the government generally cannot in the US. Good in theory, but practically impossible. Peer pressure is too high for parents to be a significant barrier. If you were successful, please share how you did that.

The question isn't whether your or my proposed regime is practical. The first amendment precedent is clear that the government is not allowed to restrict children's speech any more than it is adults' speech aside from some narrow and tailored exceptions.

Right. So SB2420 and the federal court judgment are the steps in the process to narrowly tailor another exception. Likely driven by the practical reasons mentioned earlier.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#42

Post by shostack »

selinkocalar wrote: post #38
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

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 technical implementation is messy too. Most age verification systems either don't work well or create massive privacy risks by requiring government ID uploads.

That feels like a feature and not a bug given the way some of this stuff is heading.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#43

Post by irishcoffee »

shkkmo wrote: post #40
irishcoffee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other challenge is that in the modern era the houses, papers, and effects of most people have been partially signed off to corporate entities who are more than happy to consent away their access into our effects. Do you mean those who rent their homes? I rented for a long time. I bought a house. None of my house, papers, or effects are owned by anyone but myself. I guess a credit union owns the mortgage, but th…

> None of my house, papers, or effects are owned by anyone but myself. Do you self host your own email? No? Those are "papers" that your email hosting provider can consent to providing law enforcement access to without a warrant. Do you use search engines? Your search history is in the same boat with the search engine company. Don't use a VPN? All of your internet traffic is in the same boat with your ISP You use a V…

You forgot “houses” there, boss.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#44

Post by shkkmo »

senshan wrote: post #16
ls612 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The equivalence is that children have first amendment rights (see Tinker v Des Moines) and speech delivered by the internet is still speech.

Good point, but judge's reduction it to a book equivalence is misleading and weakens the judgement. Porn may provide a suitable model: not all movies need age verification, so those can be viewed at any age. Some movies, however, do require age verification. Similar age ratings could be applied to apps. For example, Facebook only after 18 regardless of parent's approval.

> judge's reduction it to a book equivalence is misleading and weakens the judgement

Good thing that isn't what happened. It is called an "analogy" and is not a factual statement of equivalence.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#45

Post by gruez »

GeekyBear wrote: post #15
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 routin…

> 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 Pennsylvania High Court recently ruled that the Pennsylvania local police don't need a warrant to access your search history. https://news.yco…

>The Pennsylvania High Court recently ruled that the Pennsylvania local police don't need a warrant to access your search history.

How does this work? Does that mean if Pennsylvania police ask google nicely for it, then google isn't breaking the law in complying? Or that Google has to hand over the information even without a warrant?

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#46

Post by Zak »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #9
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

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,…

It is difficult to square the notional unconstitutionality of this with the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age. This just looks like another example. What is the consistent principle of law? I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling.

Laws limiting fundamental constitutional rights are subject to "strict scrutiny", which means they must be justified by a compelling government interest, narrowly tailored, and be the least restrictive means to achieve the interest in question. One might reasonably argue even that standard gives the government too much leeway when it comes to fundamental rights.

Age restrictions narrowly tailored to specific content thought to be harmful to minors have often been tolerated by the courts, but something broad like all book stores, all movie theaters, or all app stores violates all three strict scrutiny tests.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#47

Post by shkkmo »

irishcoffee wrote: post #43
shkkmo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of my house, papers, or effects are owned by anyone but myself. Do you self host your own email? No? Those are "papers" that your email hosting provider can consent to providing law enforcement access to without a warrant. Do you use search engines? Your search history is in the same boat with the search engine company. Don't use a VPN? All of your internet traffic is in the same boat with your ISP You use a V…

You forgot “houses” there, boss.

Amazon's echo and other such IoT devices do extend this to "houses" but isn't quite as ubiquitous.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#48

Post by DebugDruid »

irishcoffee wrote: post #22
j-bos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other challenge is that in the modern era the houses, papers, and effects of most people have been partially signed off to corporate entities who are more than happy to consent away their access into our effects.

> The other challenge is that in the modern era the houses, papers, and effects of most people have been partially signed off to corporate entities who are more than happy to consent away their access into our effects. Do you mean those who rent their homes? I rented for a long time. I bought a house. None of my house, papers, or effects are owned by anyone but myself. I guess a credit union owns the mortgage, but th…

I think he meant things like his personal notes and files stored in an app like Evernote, which law enforcement can request copies of. I don't like the idea of someone reading my private notes...

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#49

Post by wyldfire »

kagrenac wrote: post #37
jibal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age Which of those are in regard to the 1st Amendment? > This just looks like another example. No, it doesn't. > What is the consistent principle of law? The 1st Amendment. > I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling. The judge stated it clearly. And if there's an inconsistency then it's other rulings tha…

Correct. If a right "shall not be infringed", then it shall not be infringed. Period. End of discussion. That right is inviolate. Any obstruction to its exercise is plainly anti-American.

If someone set a bomb using a speech recognition algorithm looking for specific elements of political speech, and I knowingly detonated it with that kind of political speech, would the act of my political speech be protected speech?

Is the act of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater protected speech?

Surely there should be some limits on what constitutes protected speech.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#50

Post by dmurray »

robkop wrote: post #35
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

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,…

For those curious about the "consistent principle of law" here - SCOTUS wrestled with nearly exactly this question in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton earlier this year, and effectively emboldened more of these laws. Previously the Fifth Circuit had relied heavily on Ginsberg v. New York (1968) to justify rational basis review. But Ginsberg was a narrow scope - it held that minors don't have the same First Amendment r…

I would read your summaries of legal precedents again, ahead of lots of people who AAL.
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