"Banned site" Anti-gun hysteria.

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dahermit

New member
Recently, having to endure planned five-day stays in the hospital for chemotherapy, I bought a new notebook/tablet computer with which to access my customary internet sites to alleviate the boredom (the first day they infuse the chem than flush with constant I.V.'s for the next five days until that chem level goes back to zero). I accessed the internet via the Henry Ford Allegiance, Jackson, MI Hospital's WI-Fi system.

When I attempted to access this site, it stopped me and flashed a warning that I was violating their WI-fi access agreement. I read further that I had attempted to access an internet site that "sold firearms".:rolleyes:

I don't know why I am posting this, just for general FYI I guess. Very irritating that some low-level functionary at Henry Ford Hospitals, in their anti-gun enthusiasm, can arbitrarily block what is a harmless internet site.
 
Thanks for posting. Sounds rather like degrading our first amendment rights to suppressing our second amendment rights.




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I guess you have to keep them crazy gun nuts from talking to each other. They be dangerous. I hope your stay in the hospital wasn't too bad and you are on the mend. Take care of yourself.
 
Had the same thing happen when my wife was in the hospital. I had to use my data plan to get on some various sites out there.

Craziness.

--Wag--
 
It's not some grand conspiracy.

I use OpenDNS, which is a free service, to control site access on my home internet. They have broad categories of blocking. One of them is "Weapons". If I turn that category on, it blocks this site, firearms manufacturers, knife makers, hunting sites (archery talk, for instance) and many more.

You should see what gets block if I turn on the "adult content" or "german youth protection" filters.

There's not a human making the decision, directly. There is not someone reviewing every possible website. There's a search algorithm that looks for key words and possibly (but less likely) images. If they're there, it's blocked. If not, it's not.

Further, at an institution like a hospital, you've got another layer of "no one is looking". For my own purposes, I can individually decide that certain sites don't meet the criteria and add them to a Whitelist. No one in a hospital is going to do that. Customizing the filters on their service (that they're not required to offer you at all, BTW) is simply not on the list for their IT people.
 
Sounds rather like degrading our first amendment rights to suppressing our second amendment rights.
Click to expand...

The first does not apply to the private sector; their house, their rules........
 
Same thing here at a couple of DFW area hospitals and a few stores that have in-house wifi. My guess is they subscribe to a service that provides X levels of filtering.
 
Sounds rather like degrading our first amendment rights to suppressing our second amendment rights.

The first does not apply to the private sector; their house, their rules........



Strange how that doesn't apply to discrimination on other grounds.
 
True, but the First has only applied to government restricting your right to free speech. This site restricts certain speech - as is their prerogative to do so.
 
And many gun sites restrict threads about politics, religion and other contentious topics; so what? Their house, their rules and their right to do so. If their Wi-fi blocks sites you want to visit, use your data plan and not their Wi-fi. ;)
 
TFL has been blocked on companies’ WIFI or wired internet for a very long time. As a matter of fact I usually try TFL to see if there are any filters on. :D
 
I encountered the same during a few vacation and scouting trips this year.
My solution: VPN via my security software (Bitdefender, in this case).

I can do what I want, and the local network can't see it. Everything is encrypted and passed through a 3rd party.
I only ran into trouble when attempting to watch Netflix and Vudu through the VPN. (They detected it and temporarily locked my account, or just denied access.)
 
I was an employee for the city of Madison WI (bus driver) and had a lot of time to burn between pieces of work or if I was on standby. I could access a site where I could buy an anti-tank gun but I couldn't access my email! Some other drivers didn't believe me until I showed them. ????
 
Just use a VPN proxy to bypass all the filters. That's what I have to do if I wanted to browse Gunbroker while waiting for my wife at our health club 'cause the place is in a hospital's campus.
 
If you don't like the free wifi, don't use it, plain and simple.

Bring in your phone, surf with it, or use it as a mobile hot spot for which to surf with your computer.

Sometimes I have to wonder if people would complain about free ice cream if it didn't come in the flavor they wanted at that moment.
 
Sorry to hear about your treatments, hope for a smooth and comfortable stay for you there.

I've encountered the same thing before. I think I was eating at a Pollo Tropical one time and tried to visit this site and it was blocked. Private wi-fi is private, so what can you do?

As other posters suggested, trying using your phone as a hot-spot (if you have the data) or a VPN. Obviously you were able to get on here to post this?
 
Jim Watson said:
...Strange how that doesn't apply to discrimination on other grounds.
Click to expand...

Why do you think there's anything wrong with discrimination?

  1. Rights protected by the Constitution are essentially irrelevant when dealing with a non-governmental actor. As explained by the United States Supreme Court (Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company, Inc, 500 U.S. 614 (U. S. Supreme Court, 1991), emphasis added):
    ....The Constitution structures the National Government, confines its actions, and, in regard to certain individual liberties and other specified matters, confines the actions of the States. With a few exceptions, such as the provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, constitutional guarantees of individual liberty and equal protection do not apply to the actions of private entities. Tarkanian, supra, 488 U.S., at 191, 109 S.Ct., at 461; Flagg Bros, Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 156, 98 S.Ct. 1729, 1733, 56 L.Ed.2d 185 (1978). This fundamental limitation on the scope of constitutional guarantees "preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law" and "avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed." Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 936-937, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2753, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982). One great object of the Constitution is to permit citizens to structure their private relations as they choose subject only to the constraints of statutory or decisional law. ....
    Click to expand...

  2. In general, discrimination is not illegal. You do it all the time. Every time you decide to shop in this store rather than that, you have discriminated. Every time you decide to buy this rather than that, you have discriminated.

  3. Businesses discriminate all the time too, and legally. Apple stores discriminate against people who want to buy a PC by only selling Apple computers. Many restaurant discriminate against Orthodox Jews or Muslims by not strictly following the dietary laws of those religions. Many restaurants also discriminate against persons not wearing shirts and/or shoes by not admitting them. Tiffany discriminates against poor people in the prices they charge. Businesses also discriminate whenever they hire one person instead of another who has applied for the job.

  4. Discrimination is merely choosing one thing over another or rejecting a possible choice. Discrimination is the very essence of freedom and private property. It is the right to choose. It is the right to exclude. It is the right to decide how you want to use your property.

  5. Discrimination is perfectly legal, unless some law makes it illegal. There are laws that make discrimination illegal on various, specifically identified and defined bases, illegal -- at least if you're a business open to the public or an employer or in some other specified category.

  6. There are a slew of civil rights laws, federal and state. They define classes of persons from being discriminated against on certain bases, and they also address discrimination only in certain specified activities or transactions.

  7. Most such laws prohibit discrimination on the bases of race, religion, and national origin. Most also protect one from being discriminated against on the basis of sex and, in many cases, sexual orientation. Certain civil rights laws also prohibit certain types of discrimination on the basis of age, if one is between age 40 and 70, or on the basis of disability. Sometimes there are overlaps and sometimes there aren't.

  8. So a state law might prohibit discrimination in employment of the basis of age, but there might be no state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age in the renting of residential property.

  9. And there are usually exceptions. While an employer might be prohibited from discriminatory hiring on the basis sex, a health club can refuse to hire a man to hand out towels in the women's locker room.
 
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