Hawaii Wants to Put Online Porn Behind a “Digital Blinder Rack”

HONOLULU – The Hawaii legislature is considering passing a law which would require “digital blinder rack capabilities in products that make content accessible on the internet.” The proposed legislation is very similar to various versions of the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act” which have been considered by other states.

In an email to CNN, Hawaii State Sen. Mike Gabbard, the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, said it “doesn’t make sense for children to have to access to X-rated material on their cell phones.”

“By making it harder for people to access these porn sites, we can make prostitution hubs harder to access which will reduce sex trafficking,” Gabbard added.

As with other versions of the HTPA, Hawaii’s bill would require consumers to pay a “one-time $20 digital access fee” to unblock online content subject to the bill. The digital access fees would then be deposited into a “human trafficking and child exploitation special fund” established under the new law.

The bill includes a section on “material that is improperly blocked” which states that if the digital blinder rack “blocks material that is not covered… and the block is reported to a call center or reporting website, the material shall be unblocked within a reasonable time, but in no event later than five business days after the block is first reported.” The same section states that a consumer “may seek judicial relief to unblock filtered content and other forms of relief allowed by law.”

Under the proposed law, a person “commits the offense of failure to include digital blocking capability if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, offers for sale, leases, or distributes a product that makes content accessible on the Internet… Unless the product contains digital blocking capability that makes any attempt to render content described in section -1(b) inaccessible and… to a minor unless the digital blocking capability is active and attempting to make obscene material described in section -1(b) inaccessible… provided that this section shall not apply to the occasional sale of an internet-enabled device by a person that is not regularly engaged in the business of selling internet-enabled devices.”

If the bill were to become law, intentionally failing to include the required digital blocking capability would be a misdemeanor.

As CNN noted, the Hawaii bill and others like it around the country are being pushed by a group called “Special Forces of Liberty” (SPL). Unsurprisingly, the SPL appears to be associated with Chris Sevier, the anti-porn activist and author of the HTPA who has a checkered past, to put it mildly. Sevier is widely considered so bizarre and untrustworthy that even the staunchly anti-porn National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE) has declined to support his proposed legislation.

In a statement issued in January 2017 explaining the NCSE’s reasons for not backing the passage of the HTPA, the organization cited concerns over the bill’s constitutionality – and even greater concerns over Sevier himself.

“The second matter relates to the author of the HTPA,” the NCSE said in the statement. “The bill… was developed by Chris Sevier, also known as Chris Severe. We have had a difficult relationship with Mr. Sevier over the last several years, to say the least.”

“We have not found him trustworthy in our past dealings and therefore cannot rely on his assertions that those groups and those legislators that he claims are supporters of HTPA are actually in support,” the statement continued. “That is because, in the past, Sevier has falsely represented that our organization and NCOSE President Patrick Trueman and NCOSE Executive Director Dawn Hawkins are in support of his work. We have demanded that Sevier stop using our names.”

It remains to be seen if the Hawaiin legislature ever votes on either the Senate or House version of the bill. In several other states where HTPA-style legislation has been considered, it was eventually pulled by its sponsors without coming to a vote. Arizona is the latest state where a legislative sponsor has withdrawn such a bill.

Image of State Senator Mike Gabbard via Wikipedia, Creative Commons ShareAlike License