Utah Lawmakers Literally Think Porn Is A "Public Health Hazard"
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,
Utah isn’t exactly known as a hotbed of socially lenient legislation, but Governor Gary R. Herbert plans to chisel in stone the state’s erstwhile Puritanical reputation by signing two pieces of legislation to combat the “sexually toxic environment” ostensibly induced by pornography.
Sexually explicit material — its long and storied history notwithstanding — would be deemed in Utah “a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms,” should Herbert follow through on a promise to sign S.C.R. 9 into law.
This brief but surprisingly comprehensive list of the ills of pornography includes generally accepted theories about the objectification of women, alongside more hotly-contested links between porn and violence. But S.C.R. 9 delves into the arguably unfounded, as well.
According to the Concurrent Resolution on the Public Health Crisis — which proudly declares itself the first legislation of its kind in the U.S. — porn can detrimentally “impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining intimate relationships, as well as problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.”
Though this resolution places no legal strictures on pornography — it isn’t a ban on porn — listing unfounded theoretical generalizations will, of course, present numerous challenges to what many consider a personal freedom frankly deserving privacy. In fact, listed with multiple potentially toxic effects on women and children are a few lines equating porn’s users to hapless, helpless addicts who must need the assistance of a nanny-state government’s intervention to break their habit — which, as anyone familiar with Prohibition will recognize, is a thoroughly useless endeavor.
But this is Utah, and there is an additional proposed legislation in the form of a bill with teeth.
House Bill 155, titled Reporting of Child Pornography, appears to have the commendable aim of ending child pornography — but its method of doing so should seriously concern privacy advocates and small business owners.
If H.B. 155 should become law, computer technicians will essentially become de facto arms of the surveillance state, as they would be required to “immediately” report to law enforcement “any” images of child pornography found on a client’s computer. As the bill’s text states:
“A computer technician who willfully does not report an image” to their employer, an appropriate law enforcement agency or the “Cyber Tip Line at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children … is guilty of a class B misdemeanor.”
In Utah, that failure to report would be considered on par with “assault, resisting arrest, DUI, reckless driving,” and carrying a concealed weapon, among other offenses. It could land the technician up to a $1,000 fine and/or a six-month jail sentence.
Utah, in other words, essentially stands poised to make not telling on one’s neighbor a crime punishable by time behind bars. Despite the obvious noble intent behind this legislation, setting such a precedent could create an inexhaustible ripple where reporting …read more
Source: Utah Lawmakers Literally Think Porn Is A "Public Health Hazard"
