I wanted to double check that the bill "demands that websites block VPN users from Wisconsin", as opposed to "demand that adult sites hosted in Wisconsin block VPN users in general" or "demand that Wisconsin VPN providers or Wisconsin/US compliant providers block websites according to the registered user's location rather than their proxy location".
The details are important, and I don't trust that either "the lawmakers are idiots", or that treating the opposition as idiots is productive in general. Laymen, and legally trained laymen have just as much say in technical matters as technical folk. Lest we setup the feared technocracy...
> The bill also requires a business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material to prevent persons from accessing the website from an internet protocol address or internet protocol address range that is linked to or known to be a virtual private network system or provider.
Later:
> A business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall prevent persons from accessing the website from an internet protocol address or internet protocol address range that is linked to or known to be a virtual private network system or virtual private network provider.
No mention is given to where the business is located.
It looks like the interpretation of the article is quite incorrect, there is no part of the law that demands that porn websites "block VPN users from wisconsin".
Rather that:
1- Porn websites must block underage users from wisconsin. 2- VPN websites must block underage users from wisconsin from accessing . 3- Porn websites must block vpn users in general.
And this is not strictly laid out in the law, the law specifies the functional requirements, and we are estimating how the technical implementation will play out, the author strawmanned a stupid hypothetical technical implementation to paint lawmakers as technical troglodytes.
(c) A business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or
distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains
a substantial portion of such material shall prevent persons from accessing the
website from an internet protocol address or internet protocol address range that is
linked to or known to be a virtual private network system or virtual private network
provider.
Where the bill gets its teeth on the VPN side of things is in section (4) of the assembly bill, which is probably intended for parents of children to sue publishers:
(4) Civil liability. (a) A person alleging a violation of sub. (2) or (3) may
bring an action seeking actual and punitive damages, court costs, and reasonable
attorney fees notwithstanding s. 814.04 (1). A person bringing an action under this
paragraph is not required to first exhaust any relevant administrative remedies.
The bill demands that porn distributors OR VPN providers that deliver content to Wisconsin residents, must block traffic from virtual private networks.
"In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age verification rules or some other safeguard to access the obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit for punitive damages."
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I believe that any company that operates outside of the State but serves residents of the Wisconsin state would still be in violation and the State of Wisconsin and its laws would still have jurisdiction. If your website serves users from Wisconsin, it must abide by Wisconsin laws and both Wisconsin jurisdiction and venue is proper, absent any other agreement (which would be null anyways if the Wisconsin resident is a minor).
I think it's more that the author of this article is being obtuse AND "has no idea" about law.
It's 100% legal for me to read off the zeroes and ones of a file I own that exists on my computer over the phone talking to anyone I want. Even if it's horribly offensive. Even if it's hateful, or makes people feel bad. I can even mock the deceased mothers of congress people, and there's nothing they can (or should) do about it.
Internet regulation should begin and end there. If you're wiretapping, getting a warrant, etc, then there has to be justification and law in support of your actions, otherwise, the communication should not even exist as a concept in your mind, at the governmental level. They should consider any and all network traffic to be completely meaningless, illusory babble from which no conclusions can be drawn, absent underlying due process.
Somehow we've gotten to a state where it's now being debated as to not only who you are allowed to connect to, but under what conditions, and what may be communicated once the network is connected. That sort of default surveillance and censorship is 100% never used for the good of a society, historically 100% of the time used to the detriment of society, and it's only in those cases where substantial protections of due process exist and are robustly followed where any sort of surveillance and censorship actually does any good.
These actions are power grabs. Any attempts to extend and expand state surveillance and control over communications should be vehemently condemned, up to and including running the authors out of any community they're in if they don't drop it.
ChrisArchitect•1h ago