Freedom of Speech
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/f
acts/funddocs/billeng.htm
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Amendment I
“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.”
Part 1
Changing Communications Paradigms
Regulatory Paradigms
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Internet
Technology has advanced since the time
when the Constitution was written
3 specific categories the First Amendment
protects within the U.S. communication
technologies:
Print media
 Broadcast
 Common Carriers
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Regulations
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Telecommunications Act of 1996
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What is it?
Importance?
Communications Decency Act (CDA)
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“…uses any interactive computer service to display in a
manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any
comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other
communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in
terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary
community standards, sexual or excretory activities or
organs, regardless of whether the user of such service placed
the call or initiated the communication…”
(http://www.epic.org/free_speech/CDA/cda.html)
Part 2
Offensive Speech and Censorship in Cyberspace
What is out there?
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Pornography
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What about it is illegal?
Controversial technological laws
Attempts to protect children
First Attempts
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Federal Censorship Laws
Federal agents monitoring people by any
means necessary
Cooperation from commercial services
Software filtering
Censorship Laws
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CDA
Child Online Protection Act (COPA)
“…to obtain verifiable parental consent for the
collection, use, or disclosure of personal
information from children;”
(http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm)
 2000 rejection; 2001 appeal; 2007 second
rejection
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Child Online Protection Commission
COPA
 Reports yet no proposals
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Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
“imposes certain types of requirements on any
school or library that receives funding support for
Internet access or internal connections from the
“E-rate” program…”
(http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html)
 Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006
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Libaries & Schools: Filtering
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Filter’s Problems
Controversial and Unconstitutional
 Perfection?
 Weaknesses
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Problems in Libraries
What are people accessing?
 Some solutions to the problems
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Other Issues
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Bombs Away!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=h8V9u_0qzBA
 Federal law steps in…
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/cpquery/T?&report=sr141&dbname=106&)
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Censorship…really!?
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Government finding new ways to regulate
citizens on the web
What other nations are doing
Part 3
Anonymity
Issues
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“Anonymity on the Internet Must be
Protected”
Hide criminal activities
Distribution of child pornography
 Posting and downloading copyrighted material
without authorization
 Hard to track terrorists and criminals
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Discussion on socially sensitive topics
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Open discussions
Models
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Society (Journal), “Internet and
Anonymity”
Libertarian Model
 Private Enterprise Model
 Statist Model
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Libertarian Model
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Minimal to no govt. regulation
Peer pressure prevents abusive posts
Site Administrators can delete or remove
accounts
Private Enterprise Model
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E-commerce based
Customer privacy and information can be
compromised
Statist Model
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Internet should be regulated by
government
Citizens are always subordinate to the
government
Anonymous Browsing
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Businesses
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Statists
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Businesses cannot get demographic characteristics
of frequent viewers
Fear communication between criminals with each
other and with victims
Libertarians
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Individuals have a choice whether they want to be
anonymous or not
Laws against Anonymity
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Require ISPs to maintain records of true
identity of users and records of online
activity for a specified period of time
We can send hardcopy mail without a
return address; should there be more
restrictions on anonymity on the Net than
in other contexts?
Part 4
Spam
Development
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Definition
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Cost
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Unsolicited mass e-mail; mostly commercial
Much cheaper than printed direct-mail advertising
First case of spamming
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Advertising messages sent by a law firm to over
6000 bulletin boards and newsgroups in 1994
Issues
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Content
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Advertisement, pornography, “get rich quick”
schemes
“Junk Mail”
Cost users money
Cases
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AOL vs. Cyber Promotions
1996, half the e-mails received at AOL was spam –
mostly from Cyber Promotions
 AOL filtered out their e-mails.
 Cyber Promotions obtained injunction against AOL
from its use of filters, claiming it’s First
Amendment rights were violated
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Cases (2)
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Intel Employee
Ken Hamidi sent mass mailings to over 30,000
Intel Employees.
 He disguised return address to avoid filters
 Not commercial e-mail, but is it still spam?
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Cases (3)
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Human Rights and Political Organizations
Amnesty International use thousands of volunteers
to send mass mail to countries when a political
prisoner was being tortured or executed.
 Now, volunteers can go online and send prewritten mail to government officials.
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Cases (4)
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Harris Interactive (Harris polls)
Sued Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) for
putting them on their blacklist
 Harris claimed people signed up to receive it
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Suggested Solutions
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Increase cost of sending e-mails
Anti-Spam laws
Spam must include valid email reply address
 False, misleading subject lines prohibited
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Issues with anti-spam laws
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
 Who determines what spam is?
 What happens in other countries?
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Part 5
Ensuring Valuable and Diverse Content
Ensuring Content Diversity
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Importance of ensuring valuable content
on web
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1990, if left to big companies, then web will be
filled with advertisements and shopping malls
“Public spaces”
Issues with tax-funded content
Other Information Media
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Parallels between Internet and printing
press
Worried about printing junk fiction, magazines
filled with advertisements and no good educational
books
 Who controls the printing press?
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Who prevents diversity?
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Mergers
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AOL and Time Warner
Commercial Interests
Large companies
TV networks vs. cable
 Small radio stations
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Discussion
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To what extent is violence on the Web and in
computer games responsible for shootings in
school? What should be done about it, without
violating the First Amendment?
Should ISPs be required by law to keep records
on the real identity of all users?
Should spam be considered a form of trespass?
Restaurants are open to the public but can
exclude rowdy people. What rules or laws does
that analogy suggest about sending spam to
subscribers of an ISP? Is the First Amendment
more relevant in one case than in the other?