The importance of freedom of expression has been ingrained in everyone’s heads since childhood. Why was the catty comeback, “It’s a free country!” so widely used on the playground? Because that is the image and thought-process drilled into American people.
I can do what I want and say what I want whenever I want!
Well… not really.
For example, just look at the Congressional wiretapping debacle last month. According to the BBC News article, “The House of Representatives allowed the law to expire this month after refusing to rubber stamp a Senate bill that would give telecommunication firms immunity from lawsuits.”
Warantless tapping of phone calls and emails, regardless if it is only implemented on “suspected terrorists,” is frightening! Even though the (telecommunication immunity) temporary law expired, this seems to only be the tip of the iceberg. With wireless phone tapping comes loss of rightful freedoms. I’m sure the wireless tapping issue is here to stay and it is only the beginning.
Even students gabbing on their personal computers is starting to garner legislative attention.
On the extreme side, there have been very sad and unfortunate incidents of students committing suicide because of cyberbullying. More and more students are being cyber-bullied, or harassed online. Many states are lobbying to create cyberbulling legislation that will give the school freedom to control student Internet bullying. This is now getting into the freedom of expression and right to privacy realm.
Many of the laws are contained to monitoring the school’s own computers and networks. Understandable. Now it gets into the nitty-gritty when some state laws “call for education officials to take action against off-campus bullying that disrupts their schools.”
The USA Today article also said, “School administrators were told they “may impose consequences” for off-campus bullying — but only when it “substantially interferes” with a school’s operation.”
School disruption? May impose consequences? Substantially interferes?
I’m channeling last semester’s Research Methods in Mass Communication course: how are those terms conceptualized and operationalized? IE, how are the terms defined and measured? I can guarantee many people have different ideas and definitions for those terms and concepts.
In the Center for Scholastic Journalism’s blog, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism, Mark Goodman, summarized the concern more clearly:
“Only when school officials can reasonably forecast that student speech will cause actual, material disruption does the First Amendment allow it to be punished.”
This is when it starts getting reaaaally difficult and hairy.
Should schools step in? If so, how far should they step in? Should students be wary about what they write on a school computer for fear of being monitored or censored? Should students be wary about what they write on their own computers for fear of the school stepping in?
Where will it stop? How far will it go?
As far as bullying and writing negative comments about people- can’t we go back to the other playground mentality of “treat others as you would like to be treated”?
So simple yet so profound.
RSS feed
Sariade said,
March 13, 2008 @ 1:06 am
But what happens if people can be bullied out of freely discussing publicly distributed material? There’s a vast difference between posting unfounded innuendo and sharing material that is on the public record. Here’s a scary situation shaping up regarding internet blogging and forums. From PR Channel website:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/22a6el
If this guy pulls it off, every blogger on the web who posts anything more controversial than pics from cuteoverload is a sitting duck. I hope you will go have a look.
kzupan said,
March 13, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
Sariade,
This is slightly off my blog topic but is also very interesting.
People should never be bullied out of discussing public records because that’s why it’s called a public record- people have a right to know or investigate this information by law. We as people still have rights thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.
In the case of the SOTT.net lawsuit and from what I can gather about the specific times of the forum posts, I think the suit has completely no bearing and will most likely get thrown out in one hearing. (I’ve also received similar feedback from John Bowen, a Journalism Professor here as well as from Mark Goodman, the Knight Chair of Scholastic Journalism and whom is quoted in this post).
First, the reason the time of the forum posts is important because if someone said Pepin was found guilty and turns out he was not, then that could be defamation. The press release isn’t too clear on the timeline of the situation. If the contributors were merely commenting that Pepin was being charged, that’s fair comment.
Second, because SOTT.net is an international public forum, not only do international regulations apply and are factors here, but a Web site is not held responsible for what other people post on your site.
Which leads to what Mark said: Oregon, like a number of other states, has an anti-SLAPP law (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?id=13565#Oregon) that allows those sued in this kind of situation to get the lawsuit thrown out quickly and with a minimum of effort.
This is a perfect example of how anyone can file a lawsuit that goes nowhere.
I don’t think bloggers need to worry about losing their freedom of speech if they are writing or “sharing information” (as you say) about publicly-posted material.
I’m interested in seeing what happens with this case.
If you’re interested in press-related laws, you might want to check out http://www.splc.com.
kzupan said,
March 13, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
By the way, if anyone wants the FISA bill update:
Bush threatens to veto House Democrats’ surveillance proposal
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/13/bush.fisa/index.html?iref=newssearch