Not a lawyer, but deeply involved in the law from the tech side for many years at various deeper levels from the engineering side and bridge to product and so forth.
It doesn’t need to be unconstitutional to be struck down as the constitution doesn’t cover all laws, especially not state and local laws. All you need to do is prove that the language or intent of the law is either:
impossible to enforce (ex: software processes cannot be patented or controlled/patrolled)
the language is too broad (ex: What is an OS exactly?)
it violates a prexisting law or creates a verifiable conundrum (ex: this would violate California’s own data privacy laws)
it creates an undue tax or burden on existing technology (ex: devices out in the wild can’t be retrofitted to comply, which sort of fits with #1)
it DOES actually violate a constitutional right (ex: 4th amendment)
Being on my side of things, the legal team would most likely start a case with something like “So you say the OS needs to be locked with age verification. Does that mean every TV, router, public computer, tablet…blah blah blah”, so it’s very likely to get tossed on #1 quite easily because these folks have no idea what an OS actually is, and that every piece of technology you interact with on a daily basis has an OS. The lack of specificity alone would get this tossed in a heartbeat.
If that failed, they’d argue there is no way to police or enforce this law because sites who rely on this rule existing are putting themselves in legal jeopardy by simply allowing any traffic from California to access their services. What if someone from another state or country is in California and wants to watch porn in their hotel, or play a game with friends on Discord? Police have zero right to verify that any device entering California complies with the law, so the provider of the service would have to be on the hook to do the verification, which means they would just block any device from California that doesn’t meet whatever flag is sent to say it safe. THEN you have the infrastructure that is required to ensure those devices…blah blah blah.
It’s just a stupid idea by dumbass technically illiterate people. It won’t go anywhere.
As soon as these idiots figure out what an OS is, this is dead in the water because of the above.
I appreciate the insight. And you are right, that was my lack of understanding about how it could be struck down in court.
I do want to talk briefly on your point about these other devices where the law might actually apply since I have seen a few people bring up this point.
I the definition of an OS provider the law asserts that an OS is “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” (emphasis mine)
To me this clearly excludes those other types of devices because routers, tvs, etc are not general purpose.
As far as public computers I think that is a really good point and speaks to the vagueness of the law. There is no clear direction on how that works in such a common use case.
Coming from the engineering side as well and I’ve put more time, thought, and effort into project proposals than it feels like they put into this law.
Solid point on the “single purpose” nature of some devices, but that’s also the legalese going to work here in that “Depends what the meaning of IS, is” sort of way 🤣
Making laws with vague definitions will get challenged, as you point out.
My first thought was maybe this will work for us. Can you imagine how many of these ancient fuckheads who vote for shit like this are going to die every day because they can’t figure out how to log in to their pacemakers and verify their age?
This will immediately get struck down in court even if it passes, though everyone should make their voices heard in saying this is complete nonsense.
Yet another case of antiquated politicians not understanding technology whatsoever.
According to you?
No doubt the law is hopeful and leaves out many details in regards to how such a system could/would/might be implemented.
But I am not seeing anything in the law that would be unconstitutional. But I’m not a lawyer so what do I know.
Not a lawyer, but deeply involved in the law from the tech side for many years at various deeper levels from the engineering side and bridge to product and so forth.
It doesn’t need to be unconstitutional to be struck down as the constitution doesn’t cover all laws, especially not state and local laws. All you need to do is prove that the language or intent of the law is either:
Being on my side of things, the legal team would most likely start a case with something like “So you say the OS needs to be locked with age verification. Does that mean every TV, router, public computer, tablet…blah blah blah”, so it’s very likely to get tossed on #1 quite easily because these folks have no idea what an OS actually is, and that every piece of technology you interact with on a daily basis has an OS. The lack of specificity alone would get this tossed in a heartbeat.
If that failed, they’d argue there is no way to police or enforce this law because sites who rely on this rule existing are putting themselves in legal jeopardy by simply allowing any traffic from California to access their services. What if someone from another state or country is in California and wants to watch porn in their hotel, or play a game with friends on Discord? Police have zero right to verify that any device entering California complies with the law, so the provider of the service would have to be on the hook to do the verification, which means they would just block any device from California that doesn’t meet whatever flag is sent to say it safe. THEN you have the infrastructure that is required to ensure those devices…blah blah blah.
It’s just a stupid idea by dumbass technically illiterate people. It won’t go anywhere.
As soon as these idiots figure out what an OS is, this is dead in the water because of the above.
I appreciate the insight. And you are right, that was my lack of understanding about how it could be struck down in court.
I do want to talk briefly on your point about these other devices where the law might actually apply since I have seen a few people bring up this point.
I the definition of an OS provider the law asserts that an OS is “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” (emphasis mine)
To me this clearly excludes those other types of devices because routers, tvs, etc are not general purpose.
As far as public computers I think that is a really good point and speaks to the vagueness of the law. There is no clear direction on how that works in such a common use case.
Coming from the engineering side as well and I’ve put more time, thought, and effort into project proposals than it feels like they put into this law.
Solid point on the “single purpose” nature of some devices, but that’s also the legalese going to work here in that “Depends what the meaning of IS, is” sort of way 🤣
Making laws with vague definitions will get challenged, as you point out.
What legal team? The people with money are supporting this. They’ll continue to do what they like as always.
Even if this particular law doesn’t pass, they’ll continue to waste resources on more and more violent control. That’s how we got here.
Linux, Gimp, etc. aren’t going to assemble and afford a legal team AFAIK.
Appreciate your explanation!
You’re right. I had the same thought about the definition of “account”.
My first thought was maybe this will work for us. Can you imagine how many of these ancient fuckheads who vote for shit like this are going to die every day because they can’t figure out how to log in to their pacemakers and verify their age?