Well, the Utards in the Utah House of Representatives are at it again. Michael Morley-R, has submitted a new bill, H.B. 407, which would create a self-imposed censorship system for ISP’s, quaintly known as a Community Conscious Internet Provider (CCIP). This would allow the attorney general to issue a seal for qualifying ISP’s, and impose fines against CCIP ISP’s who violate the snooping, Orwellian “anti-porn” content censorship that the bill demands.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a not-for-profit advocacy group in Washington, voiced skepticism about the proposed legislation.

“The bill demeans the concept of community by labeling those ISPs who block content access and spy on their customers as a CCIP,” Chester said. “They might as well use the acronym to mean ‘Communist-like Control over Information Privacy.’”

The bill requires that ISP’s basically spy on the network traffic of their clients and prevent any “unwanted” material from being transfered on the Net. If your ISP decides to become CCIP certified, you have no choice but to go to another ISP, because as a client you are forced to meet the CCIP standards that your ISP has vowed to. If there are no competing ISP’s in the area who are not CCIP, you’re stuck.

It’s not even remotely surprising that such a bill has hit the Utah house floor. The Mormon influence on the Republican Party in Utah is overwhelming. The Mormon philosophy has long been, that if you stick your head in the sand to avoid looking at something you don’t like, it will magically go away. This is part of the reason why they try to prevent their followers from having any exposure to things deemed inappropriate.

The message of bills like this is clear: The moral values of their religion are simply not strong enough to guide their followers to perform the prescribed behavior, so they must force their standards on them (and everyone else) to obtain obedience by force of law. They use the well over-worn mantra of “Save the Children!” as their rallying cry and go for the forced execution of behavior control, Bill of Rights be damned. What more can you expect from a religious group that believes in Magic Underwear?

In any case, I can’t think of a single rational ISP who is going to go along with this crap if it passes. This means they’ll make CCIP certification mandatory for all Utah ISP’s once this law is in place. Fascism sneaks up on you like that.