Civil Liberties

On March 19, 1997, the Supreme Court first addressed the constitutionality of online speech. The oral argument that day was Janet Reno, Attorney General v. American Civil Liberties Union. The case considered a new law by Congress, the Communications Decency Act, which attempted to regulate offensive or “indecent” communications over the Internet. Civil libertarians were up in arms over this law. Led by online activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation [link to http://www.eff.org], Internet advocates argued that the World Wide Web should not be regulated with the same degree of scrutiny that the government applied to a communications medium like television.

In the twenty-first century, however, the controversies over the Internet and free speech persist. As you answer the exercises below, think about the following questions: how can the United States both preserve free expression and creative potential online, but also maintaining oversight over terrorist or hate groups who use the Net to communicate online and organize illegal acts? Of close interest to many college students, twenty-first century conceptions of free speech and Internet expression are also be in tension with federal copyright law, and protections for an artistic work’s original creator. College campuses are a focus of controversy from the Recording Industry Association of America, over the ongoing peer-to-peer file sharing of movies and music. What “speech” over the Internet should government regulate?

a. Which of the following is not explicitly protected by the First Amendment: assembly, petition, privacy, or the press?

Civil Rights

In the 1950s and 1960s, the face of the African-American civil rights movement was groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Council of Federated Organizations, and the National Urban League – to name only a few. Today, modern civil rights movements for racial justice and equality have an online division. They include a younger generation of black bloggers and activists who collectively refer to themselves as the Afrospear.

African-American civil rights bloggers do not always receive the same amount of media coverage as other online activists. But they are an influential group nonetheless. For example, in 2006, when a group of black teenagers were charged with attempted murder for the beating of a white student in Jena, Louisiana, bloggers helped coordinate a protest that drew tens of thousands of demonstrators, and over a hundred thousand dollars in legal defense fees.

“As activists, we can be so much more effective now,” said Eddie Griffin in a Chicago Tribune article [link to http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-blackbloggers_wittjun06,0,4302661.story], a former Black Panther and now Afrospear member. “And we’ve learned some things over the years in the art of communication.”

African-American online activism is but one example of the different civil rights movements that now utilize the Web. Numerous groups have online presences, either to illustrate the history of the civil rights struggle in America, or to advocate for new reforms.

Afrospear

Feministing

Gay Rights Watch

Vivirlatino

Disability Law 2.0

Which blog did you visit? What were some of the issues the blog discussed?