© hansol
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As a resident of Denver, I can’t help but admire DIA. Not for it’s blocking of Vanity Fair’s website or BoingBoing.net, but because the whole thing is just a glorified group of tents with a subway system. Its a new-age airport, defining an era of architectural excess and American one-oneupmanship.
While I commend DIA’s officials for providing free WiFi since November, 2007 to travelers forced to sit through snowy layovers and delays, its downright ugly to restrict said travelers from using the internet to view pornography and anything remotely connected to pornography through name association. It’s simple equations: Vanity = women, Boing = boners, so obviously anything even hinting at those sort of things will be blocked.
Chuck Cannon, a spokesperson for the airport said that “they would rather deal with infrequent complaints about access than handle angry parents whose children might see pornography.” The key word is “might.” If you’re lounging in an airport terminal or doing some work on the ol’ laptop in a bathroom stall, odds are you’re going to be very careful about who is peering over your shoulder and gaining access to the pornography you may or may not have paid for.
Critics decrying the internet filtering are comparing the censorship system to similar filtering methods used in “repressive regimes” such as Sudan and Kuwait. My message to critics: Go outside.