Wifi in Utah: Legal and Social Issues

• Publication year: 2007
• Pages: 15

Utah Bar Journal Volume 20.

Vol. 20, No. 6, 15. WiFi in Utah: Legal and Social Issues

Utah Bar Journal
Vol. 20, No. 6
September/October 2007

WiFi in Utah: Legal and Social Issues

WiFi in Utah: Legal and Social Issues

by Cheryl B. Preston

All over Utah, parents are buying their children the tools necessary to access astonishingly degrading and violent sexually explicit materials. For instance, innocent looking gaming systems, i.e., PlayStation Portable, X-Box 360, and Nintendo Wii, can access the internet and are available everywhere from around $130 to $500. Many minors also have internet enabled cell phones, PDAs, and Blackberrys. Most of these systems do not come with a content filter and cannot be modified by software to add any protections

These tools, as well as laptop computers, can pick up wireless internet signals in "hot spots" all over Utah, including in Salt Lake City alone, Liberty Park, Main Street, the library, and numerous cafes and restaurants.1 And, as more devices become available with internet access capacity, more locations in Utah and around the country are boasting of "free wireless access" provided by governments, mall owners, and internet service providers who enjoy the advertising and hope to lure free users to faster paid programs. In Utah, hundreds of businesses from Logan to St. George (and everywhere in between) provide free wireless internet access,2 and proposals are in the works for more including city-wide access. In addition, hundreds of homes in Utah are set up with wireless routers. These electromagnetic signals cannot be stopped at property lines, and when not secured with a password or otherwise, they can be used by anyone on the street or neighboring property.

Law enforcement agencies are trying to draw attention to the risks of identity theft, invasion of privacy, and other computer crimes perpetuated through the use of someone else's unsecured wireless network.3 An often overlooked, and more serious long term concern, is the risk of WiFi hotspots is to the wellbeing of our youth.

Anyone familiar with the internet now knows that it has become a marketing miracle for commercial pornographers and a haven for sexual predators. The harm caused by internet pornography is extensive and devastating. The FBI claims that "[p]ornography is often used in the sexual victimization of children."4 Pornography is an effective tool for seduction because it "is used to lower the natural, innate resistance of children to performing sexual acts, thus functioning as a primer for child sexual abuse."5 One recent study suggested a direct link between the use of pornography and actual acts of sexual abuse against children.6 It showed that as many as 85% of those convicted for trafficking in child pornography admitted also to inappropriately touching or raping children.7

The Harm that Comes from Unsecured Wireless Connections

While the abilities to instant message and access information on the internet are truly spectacular advancements with vast educational, business, and inter-personal benefits, the world wide web comes with real costs. In addition to the illegal material, such as obscenity and pornography made using child victims, millions of other websites are inappropriate for minors even if currently legal.8 A court considering the constitutionality of the federal Child Online Protection Act recently estimated, "A little more than 1 percent of all Web pages on the Surface Web (amounting to approximately 275 million to 700 million Web pages) are sexually explicit."9

Parents and educators are becoming increasingly aware of online pornography and are fighting back by installing filters on home and school computers, establishing computer use rules, and monitoring home computer use. Nevertheless, few are aware of the extent to which the internet can be freely accessed in other places and by other means, such as through the neighbor's wireless network or at a shop. Away from parental controls and without the filters or other restrictions on their home and school computers, minors can easily browse lurid obscenity that more than answers their curiosity, be trapped in pornographic sites they didn't intend to access, receive less-than-wholesome pictures from friends and casual acquaintances (including those they met on MySpace and FaceBook), and, with the help of a digital or phone camera, send pictures parents might not even imagine them capable of taking.

Moreover, free wireless internet access can actually assist those who peddle child pornography, obscenity, and other sexually explicit material. Service providers of free wireless hot spots are not required to verify or retain information, even if they require a log in name; anyone using the wireless signal can view and trade illicit materials without being traced. These free wireless hot spots provide "unparalleled anonymity for traders of child pornography."10

Socially Responsible Wireless Networks

Enabling ordinary protections on a wireless network is simple and can be done by anyone who sets up such a system, including individual users in homes. When a user sets up a wireless router, the instructions typically ask the user if he or she wishes to secure the network by password. Thus, during the setup procedure for most routers, the user can enable a password; then only those who are given the password can log on to the internet service. In contrast to filters, which require continual updates, the one-time password protecting of wireless internet networks is easy and free.

Securing wireless networks is smart for other reasons. An unsecured wireless network is a virtual invitation to outsiders to intercept personal information, credit card numbers, passwords and other communications sent over the web. In addition, because online crimes, copyright infringement, obscenity, child pornography, fraud, and other illegal use of computers can be traced to particular computers and networks, a wireless owner should be most reluctant to have an unsecured network to which others can gain access and use for illegal and inappropriate purposes.

A second choice for those deploying a wireless internet connection is to install a filter that is reasonably effective in restricting the availability of sexually explicit content through the connection. Although filters are not 100% effective, parents should be able to assume that wireless networks are either secured or protected by filters designed to protect minors.

Regulating Wireless Connections

We would like to believe that Utahns will soon become sufficiently aware of the risks and sufficiently socially responsible to secure or filter all wireless networks; but that may not be true. The question then arises about how to require those who choose to use wireless networks to take the precautions necessary to protect children.

Existing Internet Pornography Laws

Currently, there are no enforceable federal laws punishing the online posting or viewing of sexually explicit material (outside of a public library that accepts federal funds)11 unless the material qualifies under the very limited and strict Supreme Court definition of "obscenity"12 or is pornography created using actual children.13 And, even so, obscenity and child porn is easily accessible on the web since enforcement efforts have not even begun to deter the vast onslaught of such material.

Utah has statutes criminalizing the distribution of pornography, see Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1204 (Supp. 2007), "dealing in materials harmful to minors," Id.§ 76-10-1206 (Supp. 2007), and posting pornography on the internet if the content provider is domiciled in Utah, see id.§ 76-10-1233 (Supp. 2007). None of these statutes, however, regulate the millions of pornographic websites that are posted by content providers outside of Utah and, thus, have done little to stop the inundation of sexually explicit material on the web.

One might argue that making an unsecured wireless network available in Utah, especially to minors, is a form of "distributing" pornography. Although most network owners lack the requisite "intent" under the Utah statutes, someone who intentionally provides to another person, especially a minor, access to pornography on the internet would presumably fall within the statutory language These sections explicitly exempt "internet service providers," but that term is defined to include only those who provide internet access as a...