[HN Gopher] Texas app store age verification law blocked by fede...
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Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge
Author : danso
Score : 308 points
Date : 2025-12-23 22:03 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| 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 productive, default position is that government
| is told no (when it wants to restrict us).
| echelon wrote:
| I _hope_ we can use the First Amendment and freedom of assembly
| to tackle these ID age verification (read: 1984 surveillance)
| laws. I don 't have faith that this will work.
|
| We need to amend the constitution to guarantee our privacy. It
| should be a fundamental right.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > 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 routinely support
| and protect the government in it's continual, blatant
| violation of our 4A protections.
|
| This has allowed governments at every level to build out the
| most pervasive surveillance system in human history - which
| has just been waiting for a cruelty-centric autocrat to take
| control of it.
|
| And for the most part, we have both parties + news orgs to
| thank for this. They've largely been united in supporting all
| the steps toward this outcome.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > 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.ycombinator.com/item?id=46329186
|
| Clearly, those protections have already been violated.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > The Pennsylvania High Court recently ruled that the
| Pennsylvania local police don't need a warrant to access
| your search history. Clearly, those protections have
| already been violated.
|
| Absolutely. And to keep court-sanctioned violations from
| getting challenged, a state can utilize a number of
| tactics to shroud the methods in secrecy. This makes it
| very difficult for the violated to show standing in a
| challenge.
|
| The state has nearly every possible advantage in
| leveraging gov power against the public.
| gruez wrote:
| >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?
| codersfocus wrote:
| You don't understand that news item. The police didn't
| search a specific person's account, they asked Google
| (who gave it to them voluntarily) anyone who searched the
| victim's address in the past week. Nothing
| unconstitutional about that.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| But in the absence of a warrant it _ought_ to be.
| j-bos wrote:
| 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.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| > 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 they
| haven't and won't sell it.
|
| To those who will jump to disagree with me about the
| credit union selling my mortgage: they won't. They don't
| engage in that market, never have.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > 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 VPN? All your internet traffic is in the same
| boat with the VPN.
|
| The list goes on and on. It is almost certainly true that
| some company has private information about you that they
| can turn over without a warrant.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| You forgot "houses" there, boss.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Amazon's echo and other such IoT devices do extend this
| to "houses" but isn't quite as ubiquitous.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| My house, papers, and effects aren't not tied to whatever
| you're calling out about the internet, not in the sense
| you're insinuating.
|
| You're conflating ideas to make a point. I admire the
| effort, you're just not correct.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > You're conflating ideas to make a point
|
| I am talking specifically about the ideas you are
| disputing:
|
| >> partially signed off to corporate entities who are
| more than happy to consent away their access into our
| effects.
|
| I haven't conflated anything. You may be confused and
| think we're talking about ownership or physical access
| though.
| squigz wrote:
| You forgot to respond to anything except the "houses"
| part of this.
|
| It's obvious what GP and others are saying - that the
| concept of things like "papers" and "effects" are no
| longer as concrete as they used to be. What used to be
| physical letters stored in one's home are now emails
| stored on any number of servers.
|
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible
| interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one
| that's easier to criticize.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Oh, sorry. None of my papers or effects are in jeopardy
| either.
| DebugDruid wrote:
| 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...
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Me either.
|
| You can write them down on paper.
|
| If we all acknowledge that the internet is a beautiful
| disaster that shan't be trusted, which it always has been
| and always will be, we can all collectively get over
| ourselves about privacy on the internet. "Hey world I
| went overseas for vacation/holiday! I cooked this amazing
| dinner! I'm cheating on my SO using an online chat app!"
|
| Maybe stop doing all 3 of those things. I can't tell you
| how liberating it's been since I got off all social media
| in ~2008. It's super easy to be very private if you so
| choose. Having any kind of internet presence is a
| voluntary sacrifice of privacy.
| j-bos wrote:
| Renters are one (large) category. No wasn't referring to
| mortgaged houses, iiuc those belong to the owner, the
| lender merely maintains certain rights to reposses in the
| case of a default.
|
| I was more referring to the average US resident or
| American who agrees to broad terms and conditions with,
| their ISP, Microsoft 1 drive, Roomba of the year,
| microphoned smart TV, email provider, cell service
| provider, etc. Many of which are essential for navigating
| modern society.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > 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
|
| There are two issues here, each harms us on it's own and
| both are intertwined toward our detriment.
|
| The first is the deeply problematic 3rd Party Doctrine
| with established that we lose our rights when a 3rd party
| has control over our private content/information. What
| few stipulations there are in the precedent are routinely
| ignored or twisted by the courts (ex:voluntarily given).
| This allows governments to wholly ignore the 4th
| amendment altogether.
|
| The second is the utter lack of meaningful, well written
| privacy laws that should exist to protect individuals
| from corporate misuse and exploitation of our personal
| and private data.
|
| And even worse than Governments willfully violating our
| privacy rights (thanks to countless courts) and worse
| than corporations ceaseless leveraging our personal data
| against us - is that both (of every size) now openly
| collaborate to violate our privacy in every possible way
| they can.
| nunez wrote:
| Between AI improvements, laws like this and Telly, we are a
| few steps away from the telescreen.
|
| (I saw a Telly recently. This device should be terrifying,
| but "free" makes people make weird choices.)
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| 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.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm interested: the only one that I can think of that has
| some limitations is the second amendment? Are there others?
|
| As to the first amendment: Although not equal to that of
| adults, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that "minors are
| entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment
| protection." Only in relatively narrow and limited
| circumstances can the government restrict kids' rights when
| it comes to protected speech. (Erznoznik v. City of
| Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975).)
| jfengel wrote:
| Why is the second amendment excepted? Nothing in the text
| says anything different from the others with regards to
| age.
|
| And don't say "because it's insane for kids to buy deadly
| weapons" because that doesn't seem to figure into any other
| part of second amendment interpretation.
| mothballed wrote:
| That didn't happen until 1968 and by that time the
| constitution was basically toilet paper. The answer is
| ever since the progressive (and on some occasions, before
| that) era the constitution was more of a guideline,
| occasionally quoted by judges much like you can quote the
| bible to support pretty much anything if you twist it
| enough.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > since the progressive (and on some occasions, before
| that)
|
| Wasn't it the other way around? E.g. the fir amendment
| was pretty much ignored (barely a guideline) by everyone
| almost until the 1900s.
|
| Even the founders themselves discarded it almost entirely
| just a few years after the constitution was ratified..
| etchalon wrote:
| Because that's the way our courts have ruled on it.
|
| Nothing more complicated than that. The courts are
| empowered by the Constitution to interpret the
| Constitution, and their interpretation says kids can have
| their rights limited.
| mothballed wrote:
| True, but the executive and legislator are bound to
| ignore the courts if their interpretation violates the
| constitution. The judicial branch for instance can't
| simply declare that "No Soldier shall, in time of peace
| be quartered in any house, without the consent of the
| Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be
| prescribed by law" means that "Clarence Thomas is god
| emperor of the US and commands all the armed forces."
|
| If they could interpret the constitution and that was
| that, then the judicial branch would basically have
| ultimate power and be exempted from the checks the other
| branches have on them.
| monocularvision wrote:
| They could still be impeached by the legislative branch.
| mothballed wrote:
| The thing authorizing that -- the constitution. So unless
| the legislative can ignore the "interpretation" for the
| purposes of impeachment, the court can simply "interpret"
| the part that you think authorizes impeachment to just
| mean something like "the meaning of life is 54."
| etchalon wrote:
| The justices would be jailed by the executive, swiftly,
| if they refused to acknowledge impeachment.
| mothballed wrote:
| Yes, exactly, the executive can ignore the court's
| interpretation, including an incorrect interpretation of
| impeachment (perhaps interpreted in such a way that
| impeachment as you know it would be impossible), if it
| violates the constitution.
| etchalon wrote:
| The executive cannot ignore the court's interpretation on
| their own.
|
| Christ, are you in high school? This shit is covered in
| like sophomore year social studies.
| lovich wrote:
| That's called a constitutional crisis and then gets into
| bringing guns out to see who's really in charge.
| etchalon wrote:
| They very much are not bound to ignore the courts. That's
| not a thing. That's very explicitly not a thing. Why
| would you think that's a thing?
| immibis wrote:
| IIRC didn't the courts empower themselves to interpret
| the constitution? Nothing in the constitution says they
| can. Of course, since they interpret the constitution,
| they can just insert an interpretation that says they
| interpret the constitution...
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison
| dnautics wrote:
| yes. IMO one can argue that it was a very reasonable
| pragmatic decision that set a questionable precedent for
| branches of the government creating powers for themselves
| out of whole cloth. There is a LOT of commentary in
| intellectual circles that hail Marbury v. Madison as some
| sort of genius decision, and it's quite frankly
| horrifying.
| lovich wrote:
| The Bong hits 4 Jesus case[1] clarified that minors don't
| have full first amendment rights since they are compelled
| to attend school, and government employees can punish them
| for their speech.
|
| My memory is failing me for the relevant case name but I'm
| also fairly sure students don't have full 4th amendment
| rights, again because they are compelled to attend school
| and the government employees are allowed to search them at
| any time
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick
| startupsfail wrote:
| It used to be worse, back in the days. See that case of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy
| irishcoffee wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The Constitution of the US mentions age in a few very
| specific places, namely the minimum age to run for The House,
| The Senate, The Presidential seat, and I believe voting age.
|
| I don't understand your point.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that age
| limits on the free exercise of rights is Constitutional in
| many circumstances regardless of if such limits are not
| explicitly in the Constitution. This is a simple
| observation of the current state of reality.
|
| Those age limits are arbitrary and the justification can
| sometimes be nebulous but they clearly exist in the US.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| > The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that
| age limits on the free exercise of rights is
| Constitutional in many circumstances regardless of if
| such limits are not explicitly in the Constitution. This
| is a simple observation of the current state of reality.
|
| > Those age limits are arbitrary and the justification
| can sometimes be nebulous but they clearly exist in the
| US.
|
| I mean, kind of, I guess?
|
| States make their own age-related rules. The states are
| part of the US. So technically sure, you're right. In
| practice, you're very wrong.
| dmurray wrote:
| > States make their own age-related rules. The states are
| part of the US. So technically sure, you're right. In
| practice, you're very wrong
|
| This is wrong. It's particularly wrong in the way that
| you draw a distinction between theory and practice. It's
| so wrong that it's backwards.
|
| In theory, the states set age related rules. In practice,
| they must set them to what the federal government tells
| them to. This was established in the specific case in
| 1984 [0] when Congress realised that it could withhold
| funding to states based on how quickly they agreed with
| it, and in the general case in 1861 [1] when the United
| States initiated a war that would go on to kill 1.6
| million people after some states asked it only to
| exercise the powers derogated to it in its constitution.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinki
| ng_Age_...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Have you looked at age-of-consent rules across the
| various states? Boating license age requirements? How
| have those two completely unrelated things have-or-not
| changed over the past 100 years across all 50 states? Age
| for kids to sit in the front seat of a car? Learn to
| drive a car? Get a work permit?
|
| States have age-related laws at an insane level. I don't
| know what you're on about.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Even the age at which you can buy various types of guns
| varies from state-to-state and that is ostensibly a
| constitutional right assured to all citizens. In Montana,
| a child is allowed to buy a gun from anybody other than
| an FFL. If they're 18 they can also buy rifles from FFLs.
| They can even buy machine guns if they have the money for
| it. Meanwhile in California, an 18 year old cannot buy
| even a single shot .22 rifle, they aren't allowed to
| purchase _any_ gun until they are 21 years old. Imagine
| if Texas passed a law saying that you don 't get your
| first ammendment rights until you're 21 years old. This
| is the America we live in.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Perhaps if you had examples or decisions to explain what
| you're talkinh about, you would make your point better?
|
| As is, you are being politely called out as incorrect
| because you are asserting someone people don't believe
| and not providing any argument, evidence or
| justification.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that
| age limits on the free exercise of rights is
| Constitutional in many circumstances regardless of if
| such limits are not explicitly in the Constitution.
|
| This is explicitly the case with voting rights, but other
| than that? While there a contextual limits where age may
| be a factor as to whether the context applies (e.g., some
| of the linitations that are permitted in public schools),
| I can't think of any explicit Constitutional right where
| the courts have allowed application of a direct age limit
| to the right itself. Can you explain specifically what
| you are referring to here?
| mothballed wrote:
| > I can't think of any explicit Constitutional right
| where the courts have allowed application of a direct age
| limit to the right itself.
|
| Right to keep and bear arms -- federally 21 to buy a
| handgun and 18 to buy a rifle/shotgun from an FFL.
| Although sometimes you can touch federal law (NFA) and
| not have such limit -- a 12 year old could buy a machine
| gun or grenade for instance privately and still be able
| to buy a federal tax stamp.
|
| Speech - a little looser but the 1A rights of minors in
| schools are a little bit less than that of staff. It's
| been awhile since I looked over the cases but IIRC staff
| had slightly stronger free speech regarding political
| speech than students (I'll try to dig up the case later
| if someone asks for it).
| irishcoffee wrote:
| There is a difference between what is said in the
| constitution and what has been declared as a federal law.
|
| For example: meth is very illegal under federal law, and
| not mentioned in the constitution.
|
| You should stop citing the constitution.
| mothballed wrote:
| The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely
| unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they
| needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely
| unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they
| needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor.
|
| The Wartime Prohibition Act says you are wrong. The 18th
| Amendment was certainly necessary to both make the policy
| irrevocable without another amendment, and to give states
| independent power notwithstanding usual Constitutional
| limits on state power to enforce prohibition on top of
| federal power, it is much more dubious that it was
| necessary for federal prohibition.
| mothballed wrote:
| I just want to make clear, you completely ignored that I
| answered your questions and instead argued against
| someone else's tangent about meth (which although the
| government is unconstitutionally regulating _as applied_
| , isn't an explicit constitutional right which was what
| we were discussing) because they desperately needed to
| side rail the fact I was right by going on a red herring
| hunt (indeed, one where I was taken to task for
| apparently mentioning the constitution on a question that
| involves the constitution).
|
| The wartime prohibition act, to the extent it regulated
| intrastate trade -- was also beyond the powers restrained
| by the 10th amendment. The fact a wartime era court
| lol'ed their way into regulating intrastate commerce is
| just another example of the federal government happily
| steamrolling rights (something they are especially good
| at around wartimes), but they needed the amendment to
| keep it up in non-wartime.
|
| ----- Re: irishman due to throttling ------
|
| >Ignore meth. Do it again with wire fraud.
|
| The question was about age limits on things that there is
| an _explicit_ constitutional right of. You don 't have a
| right to meth nor wire fraud. Your argument here doesn't
| make sense, nor is there an age where meth or wire fraud
| are legal which again was the question.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Ignore meth. Do it again with wire fraud.
|
| You're missing the forest for the trees. It's ok to be
| wrong.
|
| Daww, edit:
|
| The seed for this thread was:
|
| > 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.
|
| I pointed out that "unconstitutionality" wasn't accurate,
| because it isn't. You went on about jurisprudence
| whathaveyou. You moved the goalposts. I suppose I moved
| with them to try and make my point.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| You're confusing different accounts for one another.
| Jurisprudence is relevant because that's ultimately what
| determines what is and isn't constitutional in practice.
| The reality is that at least some of the rights which
| don't have age exceptions explicitly attached to them are
| nonetheless restricted by law, said restrictions having
| been deemed constitutional by SCOTUS. The 2nd amendment
| for example.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The Wartime Prohibition Act was passed during the
| drawdown from World War I and the basis for upholding it
| was the wartime powers of Congress because of a scarcity
| of grain from the war.
|
| The last Congressionally declared war was World War II,
| so if that was supposed to be the constitutional basis
| for the Controlled Substances Act, there would seem to be
| the obvious problems that the war was generations ago and
| nobody is diverting scanty wheat from the food markets to
| make MDMA.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| Pedantic, gotcha. Replace meth with wire fraud.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Some of this depends on whether the state has an interest in
| preventing known, broad harms - say in the case limiting
| minors ability to consume alcohol.
|
| Conversely, there are no clearly proven, known targeted harms
| with respect of youth access to app stores (or even social
| media). What there are, are poorly represented / interpreted
| studies and a lot of media that is amplifying confused voices
| concerning these things.
| jibal wrote:
| > 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 that violate the 1st Amendment that
| aren't supported, not this one.
| kagrenac wrote:
| 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.
| wyldfire wrote:
| 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.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| "Is the act of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater
| protected speech?"
|
| Strawman. That is not speech in the same way that yelling
| or crying is not free speech.
|
| The first one is the same strawman. Making the word milk
| a trigger mustn't milk illegal.
| jibal wrote:
| It's certainly not a strawman when it's an oft repeated
| argument going back to Oliver Wendell Holmes' dictum in
| Schenck v. United States (and even further, as Holmes
| didn't invent this argument). The argument doesn't change
| if it's "There's a fire! Run, everyone!" -- and saying
| "that isn't speech, it's an emotional trigger" would be
| an intellectually dishonest evasion--lots of actual true
| blue speech triggers emotions.
|
| P.S. I won't engage further with people clearly not
| arguing in good faith.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| There it is. Actual true blue speech triggers emotions.
|
| Speech communicates ideas. It is mostly opinions. If you
| state something as fact, when it isn't, it is libel. As
| such, saying "there is a fire" in the theater is not
| speech, it is an exclamation.
|
| If you aren't for free speech, then yes, yawning is
| speech.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Shouting fire in a crowded theater was never literal, it
| was an analogy for speech that runs counter to the
| government's desires, namely protesting the draft to
| fight in some pointless inhuman European meat grinder,
| thousands of miles from home.
|
| Anti-war protests were what was meant by "shouting fire
| in a theater". That's what our government was trying to
| ban.
| jibal wrote:
| Note that I didn't say anything about the 1st Amendment
| having no limits, nor does the Constitution say that--
| someone else said that I was "Correct" but put words in
| my mouth.
|
| As for that "shall not be infringed" wording that is in
| the Constitution, there's a whole lot of sophistic,
| intellectually dishonest ideological rhetoric around it.
| The historical record shows clearly the Founders did not
| mean by their language what many people today insist that
| it means--for instance, they passed a number of gun laws
| restricting their use, and the original draft of the 2A
| contained a conscientious objector clause because, as the
| opening phrase indicates, "keep and bear arms" at that
| time referred to military use (and "arms" included armor
| and other tools of war; it was not a synonym for
| "firearms"). And some of the modern claims are absurd
| lies, such as that the 2A was intended to give citizens
| the means to overthrow the government, or that "well-
| regulated" doesn't mean what it does and did mean. George
| Washington was dismayed by the Articles of Confederation
| not giving him the power to put down Shay's Rebellion
| ("Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties,
| and properties will be secured"), and one of his first
| acts after the Constitution was ratified was to use the
| militia to put down the Whiskeytown rebellion.
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/26/conserv
| ati...
| Nasrudith wrote:
| You're seriously using the cliche used to justify jailing
| objectors to World War One unironically?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The government doesn't have a compelling state interest in
| preventing you from downloading any app (a weather app, for
| instance) unless you provide your government ID first.
|
| > In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a
| fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the
| strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the
| challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government
| can demonstrate that the law or regulation is necessary to
| achieve a "compelling state interest". The government must
| also demonstrate that the law is "narrowly tailored" to
| achieve that compelling purpose, and that it uses the "least
| restrictive means" to achieve that purpose. Failure to meet
| this standard will result in striking the law as
| unconstitutional.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
| Zak wrote:
| 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.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| All of us in the EU could learn something from this judge's
| ruling and from the Constitution. The EU is on the fast-track
| to turning into a vast surveillance state the way things have
| been going (the increasing rise of arresting people who post
| mean things on the internet, Chat Control, age restrictions now
| rolling out in Denmark).
|
| We love to regulate here in the EU and now that love of
| regulation is being weaponized against its own people.
| robkop wrote:
| 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 rights as adults to access "obscene as to
| minors" material. It wasn't about burdens on adults at all.
| Later precedent (Ashcroft, Sable, Reno, Playboy) consistently
| applied strict scrutiny when laws burdened adults' access to
| protected speech, even when aimed at protecting minors.
|
| In Paxton the majority split the difference and applied
| intermediate scrutiny - a lower bar than strict - claiming the
| burden on adults is merely "incidental." Kagan had a dissent
| worth reading, arguing this departs from precedent even if the
| majority won't frame it that way. You could call it
| "overturning" or "distinguishing" depending on how charitable
| you're feeling.
|
| The oral arguments are worth watching if you want to understand
| how to grapple with these questions:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckoCJthJEqQ
|
| On 1A: The core concern isn't that age-gating exists - it's
| that mandatory identification to access legal speech creates
| chilling effects and surveillance risks that don't exist when
| you flash an ID at a liquor store.
|
| Note: IANAL but do enjoy reading many SC transcripts
| dmurray wrote:
| I would read your summaries of legal precedents again, ahead
| of lots of people who AAL.
| monocularvision wrote:
| Highly recommend the podcast "Advisory Opinions" if you are
| interested in Supreme Court analysis.
| cmptrnerd6 wrote:
| I also recommend that podcast but I would suggest
| balancing it with '5-4' podcast or 'strict scrutiny'.
| Sara and David do a very good job explaining both sides
| and the law but there are times I think advisory opinions
| could spend more time on the arguments made by the other
| side or the weaker portions of their supported view.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| Strict scrutiny is fantastic
| cvoss wrote:
| Oof, I couldn't stand to make it through one episode of
| Strict Scrutiny. It was a political podcast dressed up as
| if it were a legal podcast. Not interested.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| You can't talk about the Supreme Court/US legal system
| and just omit politics. They also don't make any sort of
| promise to be neutral or objective top to bottom.
|
| They aren't judges making decisions, they're talking
| about the law on a podcast.
| devsda wrote:
| Law is a strange and possibly the only aspect in human
| societies where people are by default assumed to know,
| understand and follow it to the letter when everybody
| acknowledges that law is open to interpretation. You cannot
| in most cases claim ignorance as it can be abused by
| criminals.
|
| But there is whole industry of education, profession,
| journals, blogs, podcasts and videos trying to teach,
| interpret and explain the same laws. In the end it is decided
| by experts who have been practicing law for decades and even
| almost half of those experts may disagree on the right
| interpretation but a citizen is expected to always get it
| right from the start.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Strange and destructive. I believe comprehensible law is a
| human right that is critically underacknowledged. Like, up
| there with the right to speech and a fair trial.
|
| If you cannot understand the law as it applies to you, you
| cannot possibly be free under that law, because your
| actions will always be constrained by your uncertainty.
| coderatlarge wrote:
| maybe we're inching towards rule by law vs rule of law by
| making things so abstruse that you need a multiyear
| education to understand what is allowed, when and where.
| pixl97 wrote:
| As the complexity of the world increases this may
| naturally happen
| coderatlarge wrote:
| perhaps it then becomes a matter of policy to
| periodically reformulate the law so it is compact and
| understandable and illustrated with examples for the
| general public. i wonder if llms will be able to do this
| reliably ever.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Seems to be less of an issue in practice, as the level of
| detail is pretty clear unless you're operating at the
| "bleeding edge" of legal understanding, in which case I
| imagine you can afford to hire someone to figure out the
| details to you.
|
| _Perfect_ understanding of every law and its consequence
| is not possible anyway, because laws are meant to be
| contextual and interpreted by humans, to allow for
| exceptions in unusual cases (contrast that with the
| monumentally stupid idea of "law as code", which, if
| implemented, would grind us all under the gears).
|
| In vast majority of cases, people don't need more
| certainty than they have or can trivially get, because
| _variance of outcome is low_. E.g. you don 't need to
| know the exact amount of dollars where shoplifting turns
| from misdemeanor into a felony - it's usually enough to
| know that _you shouldn 't do it_, and that stealing some
| bread once to feed your kids will probably not land you
| in jail for long, but stealing a TV just might. And by
| "low variance" in outcomes I mean, there's obvious
| proportionality and continuity; it's not the case that if
| you steal bread brand A, you get a fine, but if you steal
| bread brand B, you go straight to supermax, right away.
|
| This is not to deny the ideal, but rather to point out
| that practical reality is much more mundane than picking
| apart unique court cases makes one think.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| It's not about "unique court cases". Surely you must have
| noticed that whenever someone asks online whether it's
| legal to do some apparently reasonable but tricky thing,
| the answer is almost always "ask a lawyer"? How many of
| those people can actually afford a lawyer?
|
| Do you actually think it's ok for freedom to only exist
| for people who can afford lawyers?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The answer is "ask a lawyer", because giving legal advice
| on the Internet is opening yourself to significant legal
| risk. That's true even if you are a lawyer - hence the
| "I'm a lawyer but not _your_ lawyer " disclaimer.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Fine. You're still missing the point in favor of a
| technicality. Why does it have to be this way?
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| One of the awesome things about the American Constitution
| is that it's not really written in complicated language.
| Of course this hasn't made things straightforward or
| easy.
| gosub100 wrote:
| A corollary to your second paragraph is that you can
| concentrate power if you keep the masses from
| understanding it fully or able to practice it
| competently. This is why passing the bar exam is so
| difficult. What if most criminals were as adept at
| fighting their charges as they are at physically
| fighting? (Meaning: won a healthy percentage of the
| time). The system is designed to crush people and
| concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.
| sfdlkj3jk342a wrote:
| In the end, we are at the mercy of those with power. Laws
| are just a way to make their decisions appear fair and
| appease the masses. If you piss off enough the wrong person
| with power, it doesn't matter what the laws say, you'll get
| screwed.
| earthnail wrote:
| Not quite that simple. Laws legitimise and stabilise
| those in power. If enough people stop believing in the
| law, it really threatens those in power.
|
| There are other means to gaining power, of course.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > If enough people stop believing in the law, it really
| threatens those in power.
|
| I think this is why the thing judges hate _the most_ is
| people admitting when the law gives them an unfair
| advantage.
|
| A rule that unjustly benefits someone is _fine_ as long
| as they don 't break kayfabe. Big Brother loves you,
| that's why you can't install apps on your phone, it's to
| protect you from harm. The incidental monopolization,
| censorship and surveillance are all totally unintentional
| and not really even happening. Oceania has always been at
| war with Eurasia.
|
| Whereas, declare that you're shamelessly exploiting a
| loophole? Orange jumpsuit.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I agree, but that's the uncharitable interpretation. The
| charitable one is that intent matters. Those in power
| being threatened tends to strongly correlate with
| societal instability and a distinct lack of public
| safety. I may not always agree with the status quo but I
| don't want to live in Somalia either.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| "Intent matters" _is_ the dodge.
|
| There is an action you can take that does two things.
| One, it makes it marginally more expensive to commit
| fraud. Two, it makes it significantly more expensive for
| your existing customers to patronize a competitor. If you
| do it, which of these things was it your intent to do?
|
| The answer doesn't change based on whether you announce
| it. You can fully intend to thwart competition without
| admitting it. And, of course, if the only way you get
| punished is if you admit it, what you really have is not
| a law against intending to do it but a law against saying
| it out loud. Which is poison, because then people
| knowingly do it without admitting it and you develop a
| culture where cheating is widespread and rewarded as long
| as the cheaters combine it with lying.
|
| Whereas if the law is concerned with knowledge but not
| "intent" then you'd have a law against thwarting
| competition and it only matters what anyone would expect
| to be the result rather than your self-proclaimed
| unverifiable purpose.
|
| But then it's harder to let powerful people get away with
| things by pretending they didn't intend the thing that
| everybody knew would be the result. Which is kind of the
| point.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| FWIW, laws aren't merely abstract tools of oppression,
| they're what binds groups larger than ~100 people into
| societies. And the true fabric laws are made of, is one
| of mutually-recursive belief, everyone's expectation that
| everyone else expects they're subject to them. Threaten
| that belief, the system stops working. The system stops
| working, _everyone starves, or worse_.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Laws legitimise and stabilise those in power. If
| enough people stop believing in the law, it really
| threatens those in power._
|
| Not quite that simple.
|
| If enough people stop believing in the law, _the society
| breaks apart_ , and you have people shooting each other
| in the streets trying to loot supermarkets and extend
| their lives for a week or two, before inevitably dying of
| starvation.
|
| This is serious stuff. Society and civilization are
| purely abstract, intersubjective constructs. They exist
| only as long as enough people believe in them -- but
| then, it's still not that simple. Actually, they exist if
| enough people believe that _enough other people_ believe
| in them.
|
| Money, laws, employment, contracts, corporations, even
| marriages - are mutually recursive beliefs achieving
| stability as independent abstractions. But they're not
| independent - they're vulnerable to breaking if large
| group of people suddenly start to doubt in them.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| It's not the ideal of the system. We shouldn't have two
| tiered justice, the top should be being held accountable.
|
| Adams and Jefferson wrestled with another question. J
| said generations shouldn't be tied to the decisions of
| their ancestors. Adams said but surely laws are necessary
| to maintain stability and order and preserve their
| fragile democracy for future generations.
| immibis wrote:
| Ideal and reality are rarely in alignment, and reality is
| what we need to be concerned with.
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| Reality is short term thinking.
|
| Idealism is long term thinking.
|
| If you disregard reality, you will never understand the
| world around you to make change.
|
| If you disregard idealism, you will only ever be able to
| react. You will end up dragged around by the nose, and
| pulled towards someone elses ideal that might not be so
| good for you.
|
| Thinking that power is inviolable is an idealism that
| benefits existing power. They don't want you to think of
| the countless times power has been overthrown, and a more
| just society has been built on the ruins of one with
| benefits for only those with power.
| robkop wrote:
| Occam's Razor - this complexity arises from the human
| nature to try and build consistent abstractions over
| complex situations. It's exactly what we do in software
| too. To an outsider it's going to look nonsensical.
|
| I want to share a thought experiment with you - atop an
| ancient Roman legal case I recall from Gregory Aldrete -
| The Barbershop Murder.
|
| Suppose a man sends his slave to a barbershop to get a
| shave. The barbershop is adjacent to an athletic field
| where two men are throwing a ball back and forth. One
| throws the ball badly, the other fails to catch it, and the
| ball flies into the barbershop, hits the barber's hand mid-
| shave, and cuts the slave's throat-killing him.
|
| The legal question is posed: Who is liable under Roman law?
|
| - Athlete 1 who threw the ball badly
|
| - Athlete 2 who failed to catch it
|
| - The barber who actually cut the throat
|
| - The slave's owner for sending his slave to a barbershop
| next to a playing field
|
| - The Roman state for zoning a barbershop adjacent to an
| athletic field
|
| Q: What legal abstractions are required to apply consistent
| remedies to this case amongst others?
|
| Opinion: You'd need a theory of negligence. A definition of
| proximate cause. Standards for foreseeability. Rules about
| contributory fault. A framework for when the state bears
| regulatory responsibility. Each of those needs edge cases
| handled, and those edge cases need to be consistent with
| rulings in other domains.
|
| Now watch these edge cases compound, before long you've got
| something that looks absurdly complex. But it's actually
| just a hacky minimum viable solution to the problem space.
| That doesn't make it fair that citizens bear the burden of
| navigating it - but the alternative is inequal application
| of the law
| ralferoo wrote:
| > The legal question is posed: Who is liable under Roman
| law?
|
| My question is why does anybody have to be liable at all?
| Most normal people would consider this just to be a freak
| accident.
|
| Sure, there's learning points that can be taken from it
| to prevent similar incidents - e.g. erecting a fetch
| around the field (why didn't you suggest that the field
| owner be liable) as it can be reasonably foreseen the
| situation of a ball escaping and being a nuisance to
| someone else (maybe it just startles someone on the road,
| maybe it causes a car crash, whatever), or legislating
| bars or plastic film on the barber's window, etc.
|
| But here nobody seemed to act in any way negligently, nor
| was there any law or guidance that they failed to follow.
| It was just the result of lots of normal things happening
| that normally have no negative consequences and it's so
| unlikely to happen again that there's nothing useful to
| be gained by trying to put the blame on someone. It was
| just an accident.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > nobody seemed to act in any way negligently
|
| The whole point is that there's a legal system that
| allows a plaintiff to make an argument that there was
| negligence at play, and OP outlined a logical list of
| examples of how it could be argued up to the government
| itself being negligent for zoning. It's the job of the
| legal system to remove the ambiguity of "seemed",
| particularly in the context of tort and compensation.
|
| This example just happens to be less obvious than a
| construction company building a house or bridge that
| collapses and kills people, and most cases in front of a
| court are equally ambiguous.
| tennysont wrote:
| That's such a strange interpretation that disagrees with
| my intuition.
|
| If the Yankees hit a practice ball out of their stadium
| and into my house, causing bodily harm to a loved one, I
| wouldn't be satisfied with any of the reasoning in your
| comment.
|
| More generally, people are allowed to take on risk as per
| their own appetite, but legal liability allows risk-
| hungry individuals to be incentive-aligned with everyone
| else.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I don't actually find it a particularly strange
| interpretation.
|
| Here's another lens:
|
| I install cabinets in your kitchen. Your loved one trips,
| hits the cabinets, breaks their neck and dies.
|
| Should I be liable in this case as well? I did a thing
| that was involved in harming your loved one... if the
| cabinet hadn't been there, they might not have died.
|
| ---
|
| In both cases, it's pretty clear that there's no intent
| to harm your loved one. At best you're arguing that it
| was "foreseeable" that hitting a baseball might harm
| someone, and that it wasn't "foreseeable" that installing
| cabinets would harm someone.
|
| But clearly that's _ALSO_ wrong, because we know people
| have been hurt hitting cabinets before.
|
| So clarify how you'd assign blame in this case, and why
| it's different from the baseball case?
|
| Basically - your stance is that risk is always a decision
| someone has made, but I find disagrees with my intuition.
| Risk is an inherent part of life.
| anon373839 wrote:
| > My question is why does anybody have to be liable at
| all?
|
| This question mistakes what civil law is doing. A more
| accurate framing would be, "why does anybody have to bear
| the loss?". But of course, somebody must. So the task of
| civil law here is to determine who. Certain policy
| choices will align better or worse with a sense of
| fairness, better or worse with incentives that could
| reduce future losses, etc.
| mindslight wrote:
| "The loss" is already performing an abstraction to create
| something generic that can/must be assigned. The person
| who died is dead regardless of the creation of that
| assignable loss.
|
| If there are too many instances of people dying in such
| situations, then the fundamental way to solve that is to
| _prevent_ such situations from existing. A specter of
| civil financial liability is _but one way_ of trying to
| do this, and having judges create common law theories is
| _but one way_ of assigning that liability. Relying on
| those methods to the exclusion of others is not a neutral
| policy choice.
| rayiner wrote:
| > 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 rights as adults to access "obscene
| as to minors" material. It wasn't about burdens on adults at
| all.
|
| _Ginsberg_ was about burdens on adults. In that case, New
| York law prohibited the sale of content containing nude
| images to minors. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of
| a store owner under that law, who had sold magazines
| containing nude pictures to underage buyers:
| https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/47.
|
| _Ginsberg_ acknowledged that the magazines did not qualify
| as obscenity as to adults--selling the magazines in question
| to adults was protected First Amendment conduct. So the age
| checking necessarily required by the law was a burden on
| those First Amendment protected sales. _Ginsberg_ necessarily
| found that burden to be a permissible one.
| selinkocalar wrote:
| 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.
| shostack wrote:
| That feels like a feature and not a bug given the way some of
| this stuff is heading.
| DANmode wrote:
| Don't let it.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| LinkedIn's verification is maddening
| lostlogin wrote:
| LinkedIn is maddening. If you make the mistake of signing
| up, it takes years to escape their spam and bs.
| toast0 wrote:
| I got years of their spam without signing up. Only after
| several years did they add a way to opt out an email
| address without making an account.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| If they don't provide an easy opt-out link then why not
| just block the sender and move on? Unlike the less legal
| operations I wouldn't expect a legitimate business to
| rotate domains or otherwise attempt to evade blocks.
| immibis wrote:
| Why block when you can report to Spamhaus?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I prefer to only report genuinely malicious behavior. As
| long as there's no active attempt at block evasion I
| figure reporting it is just increasing noise and
| generally making things worse for everyone. It's the
| active block evasion crowd that make any and every
| network communication protocol a pain in the ass to use
| at scale. It wasn't simpletons using a single static IP
| address that triggered such widespread adoption of Anubis
| overnight.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| How is that not genuinely malicious behavior?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Look I'm just trying to distinguish "active circumvention
| of blocks" from pretty much everything else. Because the
| former is what destroys the usefulness of protocols while
| the vast majority of other things can be trivially
| resolved by blocking the offending party. Including {
| corporate service } that I don't use sending me {
| unwanted thing }.
|
| If a bot that sends a fixed set of headers and is behind
| a single static IP is behaving poorly and slowing down
| your server you can block it and move on. Whereas when an
| abhorrently selfish operator with a client that actively
| hinders fingerprinting rapidly rotates through hundreds
| of thousands of IPs you end up with mass adoption of
| solutions like Anubis.
| triceratops wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223051 This one works
| well. Or at least, as well as age verification for tobacco
| and alcohol. And equally privacy-preserving.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Agreed! Great idea. I'll save others the click:
|
| _" The insistence on perfect age verification requires
| ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying
| cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a
| liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year,
| and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is
| maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way
| that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite
| safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code.
| Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a
| minor."_
| CrossVR wrote:
| This does nothing to protect anonymity as you are still
| assigned a unique code that has been tied to your ID at
| the liquor store.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Historically liquor store checks were purely visual.
| These days they are often digital, meaning claims about
| privacy might (or might not) be outdated. The general
| principle still applies though. The physical
| infrastructure already exists, the ID checks do not
| necessarily need to be digitized or recorded, and even if
| they are the issued tokens don't need to be tied to the
| check.
|
| Grocery stores already sell age restricted items as well
| as gift cards that require activation. The state could
| issue "age check cards" that you could purchase for some
| nominal fee. That would require approximately zero
| additional infrastructure in most of the industrialized
| world. The efficacy would presumably be equivalent to
| that for alcohol and tobacco.
| CrossVR wrote:
| I don't trust that the information about my identity
| would not be recorded while selling me my "free speech
| token". So the chilling effect on free speech would be
| exactly the same.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| That would largely depend on the implementation details I
| think. Both those of the ID check itself as well as the
| precise nature of the tokens.
|
| Consider a somewhat extreme example. A preprinted paper
| ticket with nothing more than a serial number on it. The
| clerk only visually inspects the ID document then enters
| the serial number into a web portal and hands it to you.
| When you go to "redeem" it the service relays the number
| back to the government server rather than your local
| device doing so directly. That would be far more privacy
| preserving than the vast majority of present day clearnet
| activity.
| CrossVR wrote:
| How would I know the Clerk wasn't instructed to record
| the name from my ID? Also this runs into the same
| problems as voter ID laws, not everyone has an ID that
| they can show at a liquor store.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Because you're standing there watching him. Have you ever
| witnessed him record your name or anything else when you
| purchase alcohol? Given the (admittedly rather
| restrictive and unlikely) implementation I described this
| quickly approaches the level of paranoid conspiracy.
|
| Yeah, it runs into the same socioeconomic problems. Not
| just voter ID but also tobacco, alcohol, most weapons,
| and in many places other than the US medical care just to
| name a few. So it's already a well established problem
| that people keep and eye out for and at least try to
| address.
|
| Consider that the alternatives are the continued
| normalized unfettered access of brainrot by young
| children or else requiring an ID check in a manner that
| blatantly compromises privacy. On the whole the liquor
| store approach seems like a good solution to me.
|
| To be fair there is another alternative that for some
| reason seems widely unpopular. Make headers indicating
| age restricted content a requirement and legally require
| the OEM configuration of devices to support parental
| controls based on such headers. That would be a slightly
| less efficacious solution but would involve noticeably
| less ID checking.
| triceratops wrote:
| Is photographic memory a common job requirement for
| clerks?
|
| Also usually once you turn a certain age they stop asking
| you for ID. Again, I'm not aware of how things work in
| place where they customarily scan and store your ID for
| alcohol purchases. I would lobby my legislators and fight
| this odious practice tooth and nail. The store is almost
| certainly selling that information.
| triceratops wrote:
| > The clerk only visually inspects the ID document then
| enters the serial number into a web portal and hands it
| to you.
|
| No absolutely not. There's no need for it. We don't
| require Internet connected beer cans to phone home to a
| government server and recheck your driver's license when
| you're cracking them open.
|
| > When you go to "redeem" it the service relays the
| number back to the government server rather than your
| local device doing so directly
|
| Your possession of the token when you enter it into your
| social media account is proof enough that you're of age.
| The social media website only needs to call the token
| issuer's API to verify its validity. And all the token
| issuer should know is it's a valid token sold to a buyer
| of legal age. Anything more is needlessly complicated and
| risks anonymity. No recording of IDs in any way, shape or
| form whatsoever.
|
| And there's no need to involve the government or
| government servers in any of the implementation or
| technology. It can be an open, published standard. Any
| company that can get their cards in stores, and sold with
| age verification, should be able to participate. All
| participants can be periodically inspected by the
| government to ensure compliance with standards.
| balaji1 wrote:
| What if the digital infra that issues the token is state
| or Federal software? That should significantly reduce
| privacy concerns?
| triceratops wrote:
| In my proposal private companies would issue the "age
| check cards" for sale, not the state.
|
| And I don't know how things work in other places, but
| I've never had my ID scanned when buying alcohol. These
| days clerks don't even ask me for ID because I obviously
| appear to be legal age.
|
| In my proposal the token would be a scratch off card with
| a unique code. It can't be associated with the
| transaction.
| smt88 wrote:
| I live in the US and haven't had my ID digitally scanned
| at a bar or liquor store in 10 years, and it only ever
| happened a couple of times.
| triceratops wrote:
| I've never had my ID recorded at any liquor store in my
| life. I've bought alcohol in multiple countries. If that
| happens where you live I'd fight to have that practice
| banned legally for alcohol and tobacco purchases. Stores
| are definitely selling it to insurance companies.
|
| Also after I had a certain number of birthdays, clerks
| have stopped demanding my ID. So my purchases are pretty
| much anonymous.
|
| The card should be issued by a private company, or
| ideally, multiple companies. And it should be a scratch-
| off card with a unique code, so that codes can't be tied
| to transactions.
| Y_Y wrote:
| And there should be the possibility too win cash prizes!
| You know what, forget the age thing.
| triceratops wrote:
| This, but seriously. Maybe some age token company might
| also run a raffle or other promotion.
|
| EDIT: Because age verification tokens will likely be a
| commodity, low-margin business with little
| differentiation. So I assume companies will do stuff to
| make their token more attractive than the competition.
| The_President wrote:
| False analogy given by this federal judge. App stores are
| gateways to social environments and unknown or future content.
| Every book in a bookstore can be verified because the content
| can be known and audited. Regardless of opinion on the root
| issue, this judges statement aligns books with the Internet and
| they are absolutely not the same.
| mjd wrote:
| Have you read the opinion?
| The_President wrote:
| Yes and I am addressing the quoted remark above which
| stands out.
| lmz wrote:
| With that argument you could argue for age gating wifi access
| and mobile data.
| The_President wrote:
| Bookstore and libraries are environments where content is
| known. I am not making any sort of argument that identifies
| internet access as something to age gate.
|
| Correct analogies should be used to present the most fool
| proof argument.
| Refreeze5224 wrote:
| Who cares if you don't like his analogy? His point is
| that this is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Which, by
| the way, does not mention anything about content being
| known or not.
| The_President wrote:
| I should have contacted you, Refreeze98, prior to posting
| my comment that contained far less of an abstraction than
| you've condescendingly supplemented.
| nunez wrote:
| Yes, but you can't stop eight year olds from grabbing a James
| Patterson or Stephen King novel from the shelf. Their parents
| should, and some librarians might throw a moral exception to
| their choice, but if they wanna read It, they're gonna read
| It.
|
| Enforcing anything other than that is a huge 1A violation
| IMO.
| The_President wrote:
| "you can't stop eight year old from ..."
|
| Phrasing this as "you" versus "a second party to the child"
| involves me, where I originally did not present a statement
| that would give the impression that I'd be involved. Keep
| me - "you" - out of it. I'm simply making fun of this
| analogy.
| folkrav wrote:
| Let's not go down the semantic argument route and pretend
| like the impersonal you is not a thing in the English
| language.
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> Every book in a bookstore can be verified because the
| content can be known and audited_
|
| A bookstore with a single employee can no more verify the
| content of every new book or periodical put up for sale than
| Apple can verify all new content on the internet.
|
| Books and periodicals come out far, far too quickly for an
| independently owned bookstore to read first. Never mind new
| books which have set release dates where bookstores might not
| get advanced copies for books sold on consignment.
| owisd wrote:
| That's an argument that sounds convincing in principle, but
| in reality I can walk into any independent bookstore and
| find it's not filled with porn and AI slop, so clearly
| there is a successful vetting process going on. Namely, the
| publishers vet the books then the bookstore owner only has
| to vet the publishers. A proof of concept internet
| equivalent is if I scrape a bunch of trusted YouTube
| channels onto a NAS and give my kids access to that NAS but
| block YouTube access otherwise.
| Permik wrote:
| Hello, it's me, your billionaire friend, Broizoz, take a
| look at my book store.
|
| [Image with a bookstore filled with AI slop]
| baby_souffle wrote:
| This hypothetical independent shop you walk into is not
| filled with slop because it's curated; the store is
| intentionally keeping its inventory to a manageable level
| so that it can be screened first.
|
| If the owner stopped caring and just decided to let any
| book that passed through the automated "does this book
| immediately and actively harm the customer?" screening
| machine then you'd have something that approximates the
| app stores.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > "would require every bookstore to verify the age of every
| customer at the door and, for minors..."
|
| It's a dumb law, but, devil's advocate - isn't that how porn
| shops work? And porn shops also sell some non-porn items, too.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Yes, first amendment is not absolute.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce.
| ..
| CrossVR wrote:
| Only the second one is absolute for some reason.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Far from it, but I'd rather not drag things so severely
| off topic. I'll just point out that you used to be able
| to mail order some surprising (at least by modern
| sensibilities) stuff.
| tt24 wrote:
| Interesting, you think the second amendment is absolute?
| Can you elaborate on that?
| akerl_ wrote:
| This is the difference between standing on a street corner
| shouting "shit" and taking a shit on a street corner.
|
| The court is generally pretty adept at navigating the
| difference between "a bookstore that has some spicy books"
| and "a sex shop that has some non-spicy books".
| jaco6 wrote:
| Bookstores that carry porn are porn shops. Apps that carry
| porn are porn shops, and since the app store has apps that
| carry porn, the app store is a porn shop.
| lukan wrote:
| Now apply that logic to the whole of the internet..
|
| You might arrive at an old saying, about what the
| internet is for.
| akerl_ wrote:
| Can you back that up? Basically nowhere else I'm aware of
| do we draw that kind of expansive categorization. A gas
| station isn't a book store if they have one rack of books
| next to all the snacks. A book store isn't an electronics
| shop if they have a rack of e-readers.
| gs17 wrote:
| Airport newsstands used to sell adult magazines, do I buy
| a bottle of water from a porn shop every trip?
| knodi123 wrote:
| I guess that makes sense. Thanks.
| hiddencost wrote:
| ICYMI Kavanaugh endorsed arresting people because they look
| brown so I'm not sure why we're putting any faith in the
| court system.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Laws which are open to abuse are bad laws. Full stop.
| akerl_ wrote:
| The world is very complex. It's effectively impossible to
| write laws on most topics that perfectly capture all
| nuance. Which is why we have a judicial system that can
| look at a law and a situation and say "nope, this law (or
| this usage of a law) is incorrect". Which is what's
| happened here, where the court issued an injunction on
| enforcement of the Texas law.
| immibis wrote:
| Most modern social media is the latter, but for trash and
| propaganda, rather than sex. So why doesn't the court apply
| the same rule that it's okay to check IDs on entry?
| akerl_ wrote:
| Probably because there are reasonable principles to draw
| on about withholding access to explicit sexual content
| from children, but there are no similar principles about
| trash or propaganda. Trash and propaganda are both pretty
| clearly within the remit of permitted free speech.
| paulddraper wrote:
| That is exactly the case for movies, yes?
|
| Movie theatres require a chaperon for minors for R rated films?
| (And theatres often block some ages entirely.)
| zkmon wrote:
| Judges are struggling to find the analogies known to them from
| the world of 70's. Apps are not like books only. They are like
| movies, sports, tools, postal mailbox, pet, friend, bank,
| money, shop, cab and anything you can imagine. When movies
| require age-restriction, apps can do so too.
| tremon wrote:
| And which movies, when broadcast on TV (i.e. viewed inside
| people's homes), verify the age of everyone watching before
| continuing? Your analogy is just as flawed.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| When movies are broadcast on TV, they must first be
| censored according to the FCC's rules. Of course this only
| applies to broadcast, not cable, but cable doesn't get
| broadcast into people's houses without them signing up for
| it.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> cable doesn 't get broadcast into people's houses
| without them signing up for it_
|
| Neither do apps, so it seems apps over an ISP are more
| equivalent to adult content on cable tv, which do not
| require age verification to watch.
| pipes wrote:
| As a UK subject, with a government that has begun implementing
| the online safety act, prosecuting people for tweets that
| clearly weren't inciting violence and getting rid of jury
| trials for cases with fewer than five years sentences, I look
| on with envy at your constitutional protections of the
| individual.
| kalterdev wrote:
| American constitution is underappreciated. It ensures peace
| but faces profoundly undeserved hatred in return.
| owisd wrote:
| The problem interpreting the intent of that tweet is that
| Lucy Connolly herself admitted to authorities she was
| inciting violence so becomes hard to build a defence at that
| point. Incitement isn't first amendment protected in the US
| either https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-18-crimes-and-
| criminal-pr...
| pipes wrote:
| I should be clearer and provide references etc, I was
| refering to this: https://freespeechunion.org/labour-
| reported-me-for-racial-ha...
|
| The major part of this case is that without a jury trial
| he'd probably have had zero chance of being cleared.
| Countless others were persuaded to plead guilty to avoid a
| long time in prison and then were given long sentences. h
| he was strong enough not to give in.
|
| You are right, freedom of expression in the US doesn't
| cover inciting violence, but it has an high bar, imminent
| lawless action:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
|
| Yes in Lucy Connolly's case she admitted to inciting
| violence, though I'm not certain what she did justifies a
| 31 month sentence.
| TimByte wrote:
| Age gates at the App Store level aren't a narrow restriction,
| they're a universal checkpoint
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This protection is not provided by judges or the Bill of
| Rights. It's provided by the attitude and behaviours of all
| Americans. If enough Americans start treating 1A as
| conditional, the court decisions will slowly start reflecting
| that. The system won't protect the people from themselves.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| Yeah, but slowly is an understatement. Scotus judges serve
| until death, and they're appointed rather than elected. Even
| then, they're allowed to make very unpopular decisions.
| dnautics wrote:
| Not defending the law but questioning your interpretation.
|
| Does requiring by law an age of 21 to enter a bar violate
| freedom of assembly? Lots of important political events and
| discussion historically in the US have occurred at taverns.
| akmarinov wrote:
| And i just got a ton of apps updated and ready for it...
|
| Thanks, Obama
| ls612 wrote:
| The only reason the earlier age verification laws were upheld
| were because they narrowly targeted porn. This is an entirely
| unsurprising outcome.
| senshan wrote:
| I do not see how this is an argument. If porn can be narrowly
| targeted, why apps can not be targeted narrowly as well?
|
| It seems to be more about harmonizing Texas law (SB2420) under
| the constraints of federal law (1A), so we will likely to see
| this question all the way to the USSC.
| etchalon wrote:
| "If porn can be narrowly targeted, why not books?"
|
| You cannot narrowly target a medium.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Apps aren't a narrow target
| lelandfe wrote:
| > _" The Act is akin to a law that would require every
| bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door"_
|
| Presumably for the same reason why libraries can not be
| targeted narrowly
| nunez wrote:
| Porn is a category; apps are a concept
|
| Like age laws for vape pens vs age laws for shopping.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| wait, so its not affect apple users ????
|
| Google just sent me a email today that Google would push forward
| keerthiko wrote:
| I just received an email from Google Play Developer today
| morning that they will not be activating the age verification
| APIs (they will throw an exception) because of the injunction,
| so there's nothing Apple specific about this.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > they will throw an exception
|
| Reminds me of HTTP error code 451, Unavailable For Legal
| Reasons.
|
| I can imagine some future programming language with a
| LegalRestrictionException.
| senshan wrote:
| If the judge finds that apps and books are so equivalent, then
| letting the apps require age verification should do no harm --
| everyone underage or privacy-concerned will simply go to the
| bookstore or a library. Right?
|
| Apparently, these are not quite equivalent. Like books and
| weapons, like books and alcohol, etc.
| ls612 wrote:
| The equivalence is that children have first amendment rights
| (see Tinker v Des Moines) and speech delivered by the internet
| is still speech.
| senshan wrote:
| 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.
| ls612 wrote:
| Porn has always been treated differently than other speech
| that is why most age verification laws want for it first.
| As for your other examples those are all technically
| voluntary, as it's unlikely a government mandate that
| nobody under 17 can watch an R rated movie would pass
| constitutional muster. Parents can restrict what speech
| their kids say or hear but the government generally cannot
| in the US.
| senshan wrote:
| > 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.
| ls612 wrote:
| 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.
| senshan wrote:
| 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.
| The_President wrote:
| "Cannot" in the US means no route to enforcement in that
| context. Distribution of NC-17 content to minors was
| never directly illegal, but doing so anyway would open
| the door for potential legal issues under the more broad
| umbrella of laws that cover "distribution of lewd or
| obscene content to a minor" which is more of a "do so and
| find out" concept of enforcement versus specifically
| identifying NC-17/X content by law.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > 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.
| jibal wrote:
| > If the judge finds that apps and books are so equivalent,
| then letting the apps require age verification should do no
| harm -- everyone underage or privacy-concerned will simply go
| to the bookstore or a library. Right?
|
| That is obvious harm.
| senshan wrote:
| This is only an obvious lack of equivalence
| mpalmer wrote:
| I have no idea what you're on about but the point is this
| chills speech, and infringes on the rights of everyone
| involved, not just underage people.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > we are concerned that SB2420 impacts the privacy of users by
| requiring the collection of sensitive, personally identifiable
| information to download any app, even if a user simply wants to
| check the weather or sports scores.
|
| Avoiding the collection of user data in the first place (if it's
| possible) is exactly the correct approach to user privacy.
| TimByte wrote:
| Soo the strongest form of privacy protection isn't better
| storage or better policies, it's simply not creating the data
| in the first place
| xgulfie wrote:
| Yes. It's more secure to have your website simply not require
| the user's SSN than to implement the best security in the
| world to handle their SSN.
| nine_k wrote:
| Instead of fixing consequences, eliminate the cause? It
| sounds almost like common sense.
|
| I think most laws should look reasonable from the common-
| sense viewpoint. And when they don't, there should be a
| serious explanation.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Privacy legislation and infrastructure are both designed to
| eschew common-sense. It's how the fed gets away installing
| backdoors in iOS and Android: https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
| nine_k wrote:
| Beautiful :-\ But it's not a backdoor on devices, it's
| eavesdropping push notifications when they pass Google's
| or Apple's servers.
|
| Corollary: a secure notification should consist of a link
| with a random number token which opens the real message
| via an authenticated API on an encrypted channel. Would
| look a bit weird though. iOS at least has silent
| notifications for that.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| No company in the US has any choice when Federal, State,
| or local officials get a court warrant and want data on
| your server.
|
| That's why the surveillance capitalism business model is
| so dangerous. If you horde user data to make ad sales
| more profitable, you put your users at risk.
|
| If app developers want to pass customer data in
| notifications, the data they are passing should be
| encrypted so that Apple (or Google) doesn't have access.
|
| You can't hand over what you can't access.
|
| As they say in Apples developer docs:
|
| > Important
|
| Don't include customer information or any sensitive data,
| like a credit card number, in a notification's payload.
| If you must include customer information or sensitive
| data, encrypt it before adding it to the payload.
|
| You can use a notification service app extension to
| decrypt the data on the user's device.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotificatio
| ns/...
| bigyabai wrote:
| "We kill people based on metadata"
|
| - Former NSA General Michael Hayden
| whatsupdog wrote:
| Judicial Authoritarianism.
| larusso wrote:
| I spend well over a month now on the topic to implement the
| different half cooked APIs into our apps. The chance that this
| gets overturned or blocked was high but we had to race anyways.
| I'm curious what this means for similar legislations in others
| states line Utah and Louisiana that where planned to get into
| effect later this year.
|
| I very much saw the irony that Texas of all regions tried to
| restrict the Wild West that is the digital App Store landscape. I
| think something needs to be done but the implementation proposed
| is not just problematic but also downright technically
| impossible. Our first implementation simply failed open for all
| kinds of errors. Reading the AppStore Age Verification APIs
| (except Apple) they tried to make this an app problem ala:
| Playstore is not up to date. Show a message to the user
| yadayadayada... There so many reasons why this call can go wrong.
| And the apps won't start blocking all users just because this
| call failed. Not to speak about the issue that just for Texas we
| had to implement said call globally. Because the law states that
| a an account created after 1.1.26 of a Texas "resident" needs
| these additional checks. Well let's see what happens next.
| TimByte wrote:
| My guess is that Utah\Louisiana will either pause, copy-paste
| the same approach and hit the same wall
| Palmik wrote:
| I wonder why Texas did not start by targeting NSFW / porn apps
| specifically, like other states.
|
| I also wonder why smut literature (the best selling category of
| books on Amazon) seems to get a free pass.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Because people were so sick of their shit, and they already got
| their asses beaten so hard that they turned a fundamentalist
| city into an atheistic one. Banned in Boston used to be a
| thing. Boston itself got sick of that puritan bullshit.
|
| They know that re-litigating that is a road to ruin because
| 'artistic merit' is so well tread a ground in literature.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The app stores already block porn on their own initiative.
|
| > I also wonder why smut literature (the best selling category
| of books on Amazon) seems to get a free pass.
|
| It's popular with women and basically invisible to men.
| pmdr wrote:
| And being long-form written text, likely invisible to minors
| as well.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's extremely visible to teenagers. They're one of the
| main audiences for booktok.
| Palmik wrote:
| There are plenty of NSFW oriented apps, especially in the AI
| category.
|
| > It's popular with women and basically invisible to men.
|
| Mostly true, and this might be a reflection of reality, but
| certainly not a justification.
| TimByte wrote:
| Text has always been treated differently than images or video,
| partly for historical reasons and partly because regulating it
| runs straight into classic First Amendment landmines
| lacoolj wrote:
| Probably because some apps aren't NSFW apps but have it
| (Reddit)
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Text just fundamentally isn't nearly as graphic as
| images/video.
|
| Write the most sexually disturbing sentence you can come up
| with and it's going to be rather meh and possibly quite
| comical. And any of the gravity that it does have comes from
| the reader's ability to generate the visuals themself which is
| mostly out of reach for children who don't have the experience
| to necessarily know what's even being described.
| zkmon wrote:
| So, the law seems broken as judges question and interpret a law
| as unconstitutional. If every judge across the country does this,
| we can dismantle entire law. Awesome. The power of capitalism and
| platform monoply is at full display.
| TimByte wrote:
| What also gets glossed over is the privacy tradeoff: to "protect
| minors," you end up collecting more sensitive data about
| everyone, including adults downloading trivial apps
| jwnin wrote:
| in some people's eyes, that's a feature, not a bug.
| FpUser wrote:
| I completely agree with the federal judge's rationale and the
| decision
| tronicjester wrote:
| Not so fast partner, the Supreme Court has upheld as
| Constitutional, routine and regular administrative requests
| including documentation to prove age and income. Otherwise, we
| would have a paper tiger Income Tax.
| jdprgm wrote:
| I don't understand why it feels like out of the blue there is
| suddenly a rampant and somehow worldwide effort left and right to
| increase censorship, age verification, etc on the internet. Also
| I don't get why it seems like so few people care in comparison to
| years ago during the whole SOPA/PIPA thing where there seemed to
| be widespread and significant vocal opposition.
|
| On the age verification thing the only reasonable proposition
| i've heard would be a feature that allows parents to set some
| setting that gives a device users age or age range for mobiles
| and tablets. I think this covers a reasonable percentage of use
| cases if your goal is actually protecting kids and not just using
| that as deceptive cover to sneak in widespread surveillance laws.
| A simple setting that says for example this ipad user is 10-13yrs
| is privacy preserving enough and would not negatively impact
| adults and because it would be coming from the device itself
| would actually be harder to get around vs VPN's or spoofing IDs,
| etc.
|
| The idea of trying to address all devices in all scenarios is
| absolutely preposterous in my opinion.
| 93po wrote:
| it's a mixture of
|
| 1. easy wins for politicians in conservative areas of "won't
| somebody think of the children?!?!" so they can look like
| they're doing stuff to stick it to big tech while appealing to
| their voters' sensibilities
|
| 2. wanting to de-anonymize the internet as much as possible in
| the name of CSAM and anti-terrorism but is actually about
| wanting unchecked surveillance. the same reason we have to bang
| the drum against anti-encryption laws that they try to pass
| every several years
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