Freedom of Speech

"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. " -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1.

Above is how we here in the United States define the term "Freedom of Speech".  All of the laws concerning speech in this nation revolve around this one simple statement.  This statement protects your right to say what you feel and not fear for your safety afterwards.  It also protects someone else's right to say whatever they feel to you.  This quickly turns Freedom of Speech a double edged sword.  It is only human nature to always feel that what you have to say is the correct and morally right thing even though it is sometimes not..  Similarly, there are always a number of sides to every issue, each one feeling that their way is the correct way.

All of the information presented in these pages is intended to help you take away a better understanding of what Freedom of Speech means with respect to the internet and world wide web.  The internet is by far the fastest growing medium of communication since the advent of the telephone.  Therefore, many issues quickly arise concerning Freedom of Speech and the rights of the netizens (those who use the net).   Since the internet is not confined to the borders of the United States, the issue is made even more difficult. 

But, what is appropriate for such a medium as the internet?  This single question has become a major issue.  While Freedom of Speech supports most everything a person may say or do, there is also the question of ethics and appropriateness.  But then there is the issue of who defines appropriate?  Whose ethics do we use?   Everyone has a differing sense of morality, so to simply choose what is appropriate and inappropriate would be a serous infringement onto some people's freedom of speech.   This is why this issue is not as simple as one may first believe.

These pages will tend to focus on a few major areas of this issue.  The areas the will be discussed will show that there is never a simple solution.  There are always two or more sides to every issue.  The following areas just tend to create more debate in the public arena than any others.

• Cyberporn - Or the distribution of pornography via the internet.   This issue has sparked a great debate throughout not only the people of this country, but also its leaders.  There have now been a number of laws enacted to both protect and limit this sort of communication.  This issue is made even more important due to the large number of sites on the internet dedicated solely to this sort of content.
• Cyberhate - Or the dissemination of hate via the internet.   How far can a page go in terms of content and still be protected by the Constitution?  At what point is the line crossed and who has the right to decide where the line is even drawn?
• Cryptography - Or the freedom to send and/or receive information free from interception.  How much freedom do we have to communicate via the Internet using encryption tools and software?  What can the government do about this and how do you know your information is truly safe?

To understand what is currently happening with respect to the law, you have to first understand what has been happening recently.  There is also a timeline available to show this progression of the law over the past few years.

February 1995

• Communications Decency Act Introduced - Senator Exon (D-NE) introduces a bill to regulate minors access to "indecent" material on the web. The CDA bill criminalizes commercial Web sites that include material that is "harmful to minors" unless they block access to persons under the age of 18.

September 1995

• The W3C issued a press release titled "Industry and Academia Join Forces to Develop Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)" stating that:
• "A wide-ranging group of publishers, telecommunications companies, Internet and online service providers, and software firms are working together under the auspices of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to develop an easy-to-use labeling and selection platform, called PICS, that empowers people worldwide to selectively control online content they receive through personal computers. PICS stands for Platform for Internet Content Selection, and is expected to be available royalty-free in early 1996. PICS is the result of a merger of independent efforts by the W3C and the Information Highway Parental Empowerment Group (IHPEG)."

PICS homepage: http://www.w3.org/PICS/

February 1996

• Congress Passes Online Indecency Bill - Makes Net Most Heavily Regulated Communications Medium in the United States!

February 1996

• The Recreational Software Advisory Council launched the RSACi rating system for Internet content labeling.
• SafeSurf announced that they had expanded their original rating standard to comply with the PICS protocol.

October 1996

• The article "PICS: Internet Access Controls Without Censorship", by Paul Resnick and Jim Miller, was published in Communications of the ACM. This document was the first, and remains one of the very few, in which PICS developers acknowledge the probability that PICS will be used by governments to assist in enforcing censorship. The article notes:
• "Governments may want to restrict reception of materials that are legal in other countries but not in their own."
• "Governments may also mandate country-specific vocabularies."

June 1997

• Supreme Court Rules CDA Unconstitutional -
• "As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship." -- Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority
• The Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens held that "the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech" and found that all provisions of the CDA are unconstitutional as they apply to "indecent" or "patently offensive" speech. In a separate concurrence, Chief Justice William Rhenquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed that the provisions of the CDA are all unconstitutional except in their narrow application to "communications between an adult and one or more minors."

August 1997

• In a Wired News article titled ACLU: Labeling May Lead to Lost Liberty, Ashley Craddock reported:
• " "People are under the delusion that if they embrace voluntary rating schemes, it'll prevent a second CDA," Steinhardt [of the ACLU] said. "The reality is that those schemes create the architecture to support a second one. Something like Senator Patty Murray's proposal to make it a crime to misrate sites couldn't exist without a standard already in place."
• Or, as his report more bluntly puts it, "We are moving inexorably toward a system that blocks speech simply because it is unrated and makes criminals of those who misrate." "

Full article: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/5882.html

October 1998

• Congress Passes Internet Censorship Bill - Despite the best efforts of civil liberties groups and hundreds of calls from Internet users, Congress has again passed legislation restricting speech on the Internet.
• The Oxley "CDA-II" bill criminalizes commercial Web sites that include material that is "harmful to minors" unless they block access to persons under the age of 18. It was attached to the massive federal budget bill passed by the House yesterday and the Senate today.

January-February 1999

• Two major events were the overturning of COPA and the jury finding against the anti-abortion website.

Related Readings and Web Sites

• http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/safe/news/stop-cyberscare
• http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/safe/indecency/bible-1
• http://www.ciec.org/
• http://www.rsac.org/
• http://www.w3.org/PICS/
• http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.text.html#AmendmentI
• http://rene.efa.org.au/liberty/

Definition

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines pornography as:

1. Sexually explicit material that sometimes equates sex with power and money.
2. The presentation or production of this material.

Cyberporn is the the presentation or production of pornography via the Internet.

Events In The Past

• The United States vs. Thomas -- In 1991, Robert and Carleen Thomas began running an Amateur Action Bulletin Board System (AABBS) from their home in California. In 1993, an individual living in Tennessee downloaded this site and found the material to be extremely offensive, and sent a complaint to a United States Postal Inspector. In 1994, Robert and Carleen Thomas were found guilty of violating federal obscenity laws. This case was later appealed in 1996.
  
  
• The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 -- Many challenged this act saying that it violates the First Amendment, but it was upheld by a U.S. District Court judge.
  
  
• Internet Sting 'Nets' 1,500 Child Pornography Suspects -- In October 1997, "The New York Attorney General's Office announced the success of an 18 month operation to cut the flow of child pornography across the internet".
  
  
• Cyberporn law struck down -- In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that Cyberporn "may be indecent, but it's still freedom of speech".
  
  
• Judge rules against fake-kiddie porn law -- In April 1998, a law that makes it illegal to post computer-generated (fake) child porn or to post "sexually explicit images of youthful-looking adults" was struck down.

Current Events

• Ruling against anti-abortion website raises storm in US over rights. The anti-abortionists who ran the 'Nuremburg Files' website were fined $ 105 million this week. The Irish Times, February 4, 1999
• Judge Halts Enforcement of COPA Internet Censorship Law, EFF, PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 10, 1998
• Senate Passes CDA II (also known as COPA, Child On-lIne Protection Act) -- In July 1998, the Senate passed the bill that "bans open display of sexually explicit materials judged 'harmful to minors' on the Internet". It was then passed by Congress in October 1998. The ACLU and the CIEC are appealing this ruling, taking it to the Supreme Court.
  
  
• Cybersurvey: Internet sites ease sexual inhibitions -- "An online survey indicates that while men are the predominate users of sexual Web sites, young women surf them in higher numbers than expected".

In The Future

The immediate future of Cyberporn depends on the Supreme Court's final ruling of the CDA II. If the Supreme Court rules that it is unconstitutional, then Cyberporn will continue to be displayed openly. Will Congress continue to propose more bills in an effort to further censor (even ban) Cyberporn? Most likely, the answer is yes. But the ACLU and the CIEC will be right there to criticize these bills.
There is, however, one portion of Cyberporn that will most likely remain illegal, and that is child pornography. While the issue of whether or not minors should be subject to adult pornography remains controversial, child pornography is viewed by most as going "too far".

Relevant Links

• Child Pornography & The Internet
• PedoWatch -- Monitoring pedophilia (child pornography) on the Internet.
• State Laws on obscenity, child pornography, and harassment
• Project 2000 - The Cyberporn Debate
• COVER: Cyberporn -- "It's popular, pervasive and surprisingly perverse, according to the first survey of online erotica."

Overview

    What is Cyberhate? Well, I think the most general definition we can give is any writings, pictures, or other electronically transmitted information that advocates violence against, separation from, defamation of, deception about, or hostility toward other people based upon race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. There are many examples of Cyberhate sites and situations dealing with Cyberhate, only a few of which will be covered in this report. But your view of Cyberhate and whether it should be allowed under the first amendment may depend on which you value more; freedom of speech, or stooping people from voicing their hate.

Current Status

• Cyberhate is growing rapidly. The number of hate sites, some of which can be found here, grows everyday.
• Various anti-hate groups are hosting sites on the web. Such as HateWatch, a Website dedicated to combating online bigotry, and Stop-The-Hate.org, another Website with information on how to stop racism in general, are just two of the bigger ones. There are a number of sites that talk about how to deal with Cyberhate such as Dealing with anti-Semitism on the Internet , and Dealing with Hate on the Net.
• Some articles discussing Cyberhate and the first amendment:

           - CYBERHATE AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
           - We must find room for hate speech, too
           - Free Speech or Decency?

Future

    If the present is any representation of the future, Cyberhate will increase. People will continue to express their views about politics, religion, sports, TV shows, and yes people of different race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation as long as they are allowed too. Will they continue to be allowed to? I don't think that is easy to say. The internet is a very large form of communication, expression, and advertisement, and as long as the first amendment come before how people feel, the internet will also be a forum for people who hate to express it. Whether they should be allowed to or not, depends on who you ask.

Relevant Links

• HateWatch
• Stop-The-Hate.org
• Dealing with Hate on the Net
• Cyberh@te
• The Hate Directory

Overview

    Cryptography is an ever growing form of computer security that very well affect individuals, businesses and the government in the coming years.  This topic has been known to be quite a debatable one.  It seems as if everyone has a differing opinion on how cryptography should be used today.  Many citizens believe that they should have the right to use encryption software for their own purposes without any intervention from the government.  Some in the government feel that they should regulate how encryption can be used and what can be done with them.  

Current Status

• In November of 1996 the Clinton Administration created efforts to promote "escrowed" or recoverable encryption in overseas markets.    This type of encryption technology allows government agencies to decrypt encrypted information at any time.  Numerous agencies and organizations have commented on this type of encryption method as too costly and "inferior" to other forms of encryption technologies. 

• The European Council rejects the US efforts to promote "escrowed" encryption abroad. The policy paper is available at the EPIC Website.

• Senators John Ashcroft (R-MO) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) recently introduced the "Encryption Protects the Rights of Individuals from Violation and Abuse in Cyberspace (E-PRIVACY) Act.".  This act, like past acts (SAFE H.R. 695), attempts to reduce pressure on export restrictions of encryption software.  The Electronic Privacy Information Center contains information related to the E-PRIVACY Act and other crypto issues.

Future

  Who knows exactly what PC crypto will hold for us in the future.   Surely the government will continue its attempts to push on-demand recoverable crypto technologies.  This all depends on how other governments respond to this issue and how the corporations that create the software feel on the issue.  Other government agencies, such as the European Council, will most likely suggest their own crypto strategy, in an attempt to reach a happy medium with the US government.  It's really hard to say what may happen in this ever dynamic field, with the varying views on how crypto should be used and if it can be recoverable. 

Relevant Links

• Computer Security Act of 1987

• Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)  Encryption Software by Network Associates.

    As you can see Freedom of Speech has many applications,   and as a result, can cause several problems.  Only a few topics of application were discussed and summarized here, there are certainly several others as well.   There never seems to be a quick and dirty solution to any of these problems, and there may never well be in the near future.  When Constitutional Freedom of Speech was drafted, computer technology hadn't even been dreamed of yet.  The problem that we're having today is that these older Freedom of Speech rights and policies didn't apply to our newly created virtual world and as a result these problems arise.  We are merely at the beginning of the computer technology revolution and so we should expect the debate about how to apply the Freedom of Speech to these new realms to change accordingly.  This may mean continued controversy over what should or shouldn't be done about Internet pornography, Cyberhate and Cryptography.   From what we can see in our future today, computers and the Internet will become less constricted by bandwidth issues in such a way that the Freedom to use it will change completely.  New issues will arise and older ones will most likely subside.  Who knows what the future will hold for these topics, only time will tell.   Let's just hope that we all will continue to have the Freedom to discuss it electronically in the future.