Jury duty today- Texas CHL Forum blocked

[philip964]

Texas CHL Forum is a website that is blocked in the Jury Assembly Building in Harris County.

I am assuming I am prohibited from carrying.

[Keith B]

Texas CHL Forum is a website that is blocked in the Jury Assembly Building in Harris County.

I am assuming I am prohibited from carrying.

Uh, yeah, it's jury duty for court, which courts are off-limits. You will more than likely have to go through metal detectors as well.

[MeMelYup]

Did they give an explanation as to why the forum is blocked? Is Facebook or any of the other type forums blocked?

[philip964]

Yep, metal detectors. Not in basement now so I have cell service so I can post on this site.

[philip964]

Did they give an explanation as to why the forum is blocked? Is Facebook or any of the other type forums blocked?

It said the website dealt with weapons.

Copy from denial-

Reason: The Websense category "Weapons" is filtered.
URL: search.php?search_id=active_topics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Charles L. Cotton]

What county? It's one think for a private company to block whatever they wish, but governmental action is censorship and possibly violates the First Amendment.

Chas.

[bubba84]

How is their limiting what you can view THROUGH their provided WiFi a violation of the First? Are they obligated to provide WiFi? If they turned it off entirely would that also be a violation? I dont see it violating anything.

[Javier730]

I agree with bubba84. It think it would only be a violation if they tried censoring what you were looking at on your personal device, unless of course its something obscene or graphic which would be illegal in public.

[mojo84]

What county? It's one think for a private company to block whatever they wish, but governmental action is censorship and possibly violates the First Amendment.

Chas.

Looks like Harris County.

I too see it as a problem. If the are going to provide WiFi, they shouldn't be able to block what they want in my opinion. I know public school districts do this also.

[G.A. Heath]

If there is public access to the WiFi then they can only censor specific types of content (such as obscene content). Simply turning off the public access WiFi would solve the censorship problem. If the WiFi is for employee use then censoring content becomes more grey. If they permit only work related websites that would be OK. If they permit general internet use but block access to a specific political party or candidate that is not. It's kinda like the advertising on the sides of a city owned bus, they can't let Bloomberg advertise "For a safer America" but prevent the NRA from advertising Eddie Eagle.

[mojo84]

I'm sure they'll claim "weapons" are offensive.

[Cedar Park Dad]

Moral of the story - avoid jury duty?

[Vol Texan]

And this is why I use a personal VPN service...no matter where I am in the world (and I do travel to a lot of sketchy places), I can open my Witopia service and appear as if I'm surfing in Dallas, Miami, or even Prague, if I so choose. Local servers or monitors have no view of what I'm doing at that point.

Why is this important? It's good for remaining anonymous while viewing this CHL forum in 2nd Amendment free zones such as China, Nigeria, and Washington, DC. Plus, it adds a layer of security for me if I happen to interact with my bank, credit cards, or other places with personally identifying information online.

As a side note: you'd be amazed at how differently the results show up in Google when searching for the same thing from different countries.

[rotor]

How is their limiting what you can view THROUGH their provided WiFi a violation of the First? Are they obligated to provide WiFi? If they turned it off entirely would that also be a violation? I dont see it violating anything.

When you say "their provided WIFI" are you suggesting that they are paying for it. I thought that I was paying for it. This is a taxpayer run facility and not a private business. It is most probable though that they block sites for their employees ( porn, you-tube, etc) to keep bandwith use ( and to censor) and they just apply that to the public as well. Hopefully they have a sign-in when you try to use WIFI that explains that it is not open to all sites. Otherwise the public would be downloading Netflix movies and overload the WIFI. So, I can see limiting sites for the purpose of not overloading the system but I am against censorship on the basis of ideology. Perhaps Lois Lerner has had some influence here.