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Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

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Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#421

Post by soulofmischief »

otterley wrote: post #419
soulofmischief wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea who I am, what hardships I have dealt with, and clearly don't have a complete understanding of civil liberties if you cannot make the connection between the violation of two different Constitutional rights. Your current negativity is not welcome, if you are an attorney then please conduct yourself with more professionalism. If you want to seek to understand, great, but now you are being aggressive an…

I'm happy to let the court of public opinion settle this one.

Is that your legal advice? Has this strategy worked for your clients before?

Edit: Poor taste to edit out your original comment with no acknowledgement. That was inappropriate and you know it, which is why you've now changed your comment.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#423

Post by otterley »

soulofmischief wrote: post #420
otterley wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which was it?

I am amazed that an attorney would ask me to divulge this kind of highly personal information in a public forum when I am clearly trying to be discreet.

I'm not your attorney; I don't owe you a duty of confidentiality. You're not being discreet at all; you brought up your prior incarceration, presumably in the hopes that it would help you prevail in this discussion. By so doing, you opened that door and made the issue relevant.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#424

Post by chneu »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #206
xp84 wrote: post #136

Serious question: This is a out-of-box "ask for age" requirement. No one is "verifying" anything. Why are we using this misleading headline? Face scans, ID cards, all that stuff that makes everyone nervous, are specifically not a part of this. To imply that it is verification is propaganda. As a parent, I'd be very happy with this "age declaration" method, as I also don't think the 'verification' others push for is a…

Two reasons people are arguing against it: It moves the Overton window, making worse things easier to pass in the future. And it enforces requirements on projects the state should have zero jurisdiction over.

Yeah this is just step one and the evidence to support this is simple: history.

Governments very, very rarely give up power. Once they have it they only work to expand that power.

Next will be stronger and more restrictive shit.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#425

Post by DennisP »

otterley wrote: post #388
DennisP wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I mentioned that Bernstein made his own software. But that was in the context of a huge public controversy over encryption regulations, mostly focused on PGP, and after the Bernstein decision, the Clinton administration eased up on export restrictions and moved them to the Commerce department. Junger vs Daley strengthened the Bernstein decision, ruling that all source code is protected speech. https://en.wikiped…

Yes, Junger v. Daley held that source code is speech for the purpose of First Amendment analysis in the Sixth Circuit. (The question has not yet been presented to the Supreme Court.) But the inquiry doesn't stop there. First Amendment jurisprudence doesn't stop at asking the question "is this speech?". That's just a threshold question. If the answer is "no," then the case is analyzed one way. If the answer is "yes,"…

I didn't claim it's a magic unassailable defense. I claimed, contrary to the previous comment, that it's a valid defense. Maybe the courts will carve out a new exception for some particular type of code, maybe they won't, but what they certainly won't do is laugh at you for defending your code on free speech grounds. Just because a legislature passes a law doesn't mean the courts will agree that the law is valid under the Constitution.

And the bar for compelling any particular speech is generally quite high. Apple could not be compelled to put a backdoor in an iPhone, even though the suspect was the San Bernardino shooter, and this did not result in Apple losing their ability to sell iPhones. The courts may well hold that you can't compel a Linux distro to implement a particular feature either.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#426

Post by otterley »

soulofmischief wrote: post #418
otterley wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "personal fantasy"? Give me a break. You've gone off the rails. You're not the hero saving the world that you make yourself out to be. Get over yourself. I'm done with this thread.

You quite frankly have the conversational intelligence of a petulant child and I would not seek your legal advice in any matter if this is how you conduct yourself when discussing law with others online.

I am ok with this. Sometimes a lawyer doesn't want certain clients, either.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#427

Post by bluGill »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #316
Buttons840 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone who knows the law explain to me how someone who lives in California, and hooks his computer in California, to a wire in California, from a company in California... At what point do they become subject to Illinois law? And can Illinois prosecute someone for doing something that is legal in California while they are in California?

>At what point do they become subject to Illinois law? When they sell to someone in Illinois, although there is probably some bullshit case law out there that says the website owner has to take basic steps to block Illinois users to avoid all IL jurisdiction. >And can Illinois prosecute someone for doing something that is legal in California while they are in California? No.

But CA cannot stop IL from demanding someone be sent to IL courts if they think an IL law was broken.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#428

Post by DennisP »

kube-system wrote: post #302
tessierashpool wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same. Meta lobbied heavily for this. The fact that they have not decided to use free speech to fight the move that they are lobbying for is not an argument that free speech is irrelevant here. This is not legal advice but a personal request: please do not get your legal advice from Hacker News. Get it from a lawyer.

Alright, then let me rephrase: > If "free speech" was a valid defense to any legal compliance laws that affect software, then any software company would raise this defense this rather than comply.

And in fact, Apple in 2016 went to court rather than comply with the government's order to put a backdoor in the iPhone, and they argued their case in part on free speech grounds.

Whether other companies do the same depends on what they consider the most profitable path, including legal fees and risk.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#429

Post by iamnothere »

otterley wrote: post #389
lrvick wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. They are never going to actually come for niche Linux distros. All the more reason I am pushing back on all the fear. The correct response from the Linux community is to say "fuck off", and get back to making their distros more secure, more private, and easier to use.

[flagged]

I see you’ve moved on to personal attacks, failing the “friendly advice” angle.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#430

Post by otterley »

DennisP wrote: post #425
otterley wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Junger v. Daley held that source code is speech for the purpose of First Amendment analysis in the Sixth Circuit. (The question has not yet been presented to the Supreme Court.) But the inquiry doesn't stop there. First Amendment jurisprudence doesn't stop at asking the question "is this speech?". That's just a threshold question. If the answer is "no," then the case is analyzed one way. If the answer is "yes,"…

I didn't claim it's a magic unassailable defense. I claimed, contrary to the previous comment, that it's a valid defense. Maybe the courts will carve out a new exception for some particular type of code, maybe they won't, but what they certainly won't do is laugh at you for defending your code on free speech grounds. Just because a legislature passes a law doesn't mean the courts will agree that the law is valid unde…

This may be a matter of semantics. To me, a “valid defense” is a defense that always prevails—for example, that truth is a defense to a defamation claim in U.S. law. The rest, I call “possible defenses.”

Another possible definition, one you may have meant, is that there's a set of "invalid defenses" that could not possibly work, and the remainder are "valid" even if they might not prevail.

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