The Fool wrote:
>
> http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000336.html
>
> The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills
> that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium
> Copyright Act. (TX bill; MA bill) The bills are obviously related to each
> other somehow, since they are textually similar.
>
> Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills.
> Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies
> that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or
> place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a
> communcation service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or
> destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with
> no exceptions.
I took a look at the Texas bill, and someone who knows more about what
he's talking about WRT internet issues than I do took a look as well, and
there's a key provision in there that's being overlooked:
SECTION 2. Sections 31.12(a), (b), and (e), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if, with the intent to harm
or defraud
In other words, if you're not intending to harm or defraud, it's OK.
Text of Texas Senate Bill 1116 at
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/78R/billtext/SB01116I.HTM
(Also, section 4 of the bill begins:
SECTION 4. Sections 31.13(a), (b), and (d), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if, with the intent to harm
or defraud a communication service provider, the person possesses
or uses a communication device or unauthorized access device
which again, has the "intent to harm or defraud" clause in it.)
Julia
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