A House committee advances a bill to let the attorney general crack down on adult website who do not age verify users as adults. In the House Commerce Committee, bill sponsor and Jefferson parish Representative Laurie Schlegel says her bill is a follow-up to a bill passed last year that requires all adult websites to require users to verify they are adults…:
“Some just decided ‘yeah, we’re just not going to comply’…and so this allows the A.G. to bring a little bit more teeth into the bill,” says Schlegel.
Under the bill, violators could face fines of up to $5-thousand for every day they are non-compliant. New Orleans Representative Candace Newell (new-ELL) was the sole “no” vote on Schlegel’s bill. She is concerned with the bill’s language, though she says she’s all for keeping kids off adult sites…:
“…however, I don’t want us to go through and push through legislation which might be kind overbroad and vague….in its actions; in its consequences,” says Newell.
Newell worries the bill, if passed, could render a website intended to offer sex education vulnerable to attack by an overzealous prosecutor. Schlegel says her bill uses the well-regarded Miller Test: a three-point tool used to gauge obscenity, and no legitimate website or public library website has anything to worry about…:
“We’re only talking about commercial entities. I’m not talking about public schools; I’m talking about commercial entities that have a substantial portion of pornography on the internet.”
By a vote of 15-to-1, the measure moves forward to the House floor.
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