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the fcc is planning on offering free wifi for people. one of the hooks is that it will be controlled. things like porn won't be available on their free wifi.

I think that raises some pretty significant first amendment issues. Pornography is protected under free speech for the most part, so long as you don't distribute it to minors. A private entity could impose a "no porn" restriction on it's access (and I'll betcha most universities do), but I highly doubt the government could get away with it.

That said...that doesn't sound right. Building and maintaining a national wireless network seems to fall outside of the FCC's scope. They're more able to regulate such a network build by another company than build one themselves. Something like that also seems horribly expensive. Where did you find out about it?

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You say it like it is a fact. Do you know for sure?

Nothing involving the law can be known "for sure" when there's so much vagueness and differences between place to place. But I have a good background in this stuff, yeah.

So long as it doesn't cross the line into "obscenity", or break any other laws (like exploiting children), pornography is generally legally protected free speech. What is "obscenity"? Well, that's hard to define, but a pretty famous case before the supreme court has this quote come out of it: "I shall not today attempt further to define it ...But I know it when I see it". It's not necessarily pornography, though.

As for the laws you linked, ignoring the fact that we're talking about the Federal government and not the Massachusetts one, three of them do not have anything to do with porn (and are probably not enforced anymore anyways). The fourth one (the obscene materials one) does, but porn is not necessarily obscene. If it were...well, you couldn't buy it at Cumbys, could you?

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Never say that the government "can't do something"

There are several Constitutional amendments that say just that: the government can't do something.

They're pretty good at finding loopholes in those, though, I'll give you that.

A year in prison for blasphemy? Holy sh...

er...

I mean, egad, that's steep.