From CNN Money: Error 451: A proposed Internet status code for censorship

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — If a website you’re trying to reach is blocked for legal reasons, do you have a right to know about it?

Developer advocate Tim Bray thinks so, and he’s got a perfect error code for it: 451, a tribute to the late Ray Bradbury’s landmark novel about censorship, Fahrenheit 451.

Bray, a self-described “general-purpose Web geek” who helped develop several key Internet standards, wrote a formal specification for his proposal and submitted it to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body that develops and promotes Internet standards. The group is slated to take up Bray’s proposal at next week’s annual meeting, which begins Sunday in Vancouver, Canada.

In addition to Bradbury, Bray’s sample text includes a Monty Python reference which should endear him to the IETF.

In general you will see a 403 – Access Forbidden page or a DNS fail message when you attempt to reach a banned site. I have a feeling that this will annoy the media moguls and governments, so it has a good chance of passing.

I first read the Kathy Kattenburg post, So Why the Voter ID Law, Then?. at the Agonist, and then saw the information at Mustang Bobby’s from a different source.

The State of Pennsylvania has signed a stipulation agreement in the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice over the state’s new voter ID law that admits that the state has no evidence of fraud in in-person voting in Pennsylvania.

I mean, given the history of politics in Pennsylvania, this is really sloppy. They had plenty of time to fake some evidence of voter fraud, but the standards of political corruption have really fallen this century. They don’t expect any fact-checking, nor to have to make their claims under penalty of perjury.

So, why doesn’t the state just dump the law and save the taxpayers the cost of a trial – it’s the fiscally conservative thing to do … 😈