The linked article popped up on my Google news feed and it brought a few ideas to my mind. It's about a federal judge in San Fransisco who sided with an anonymous online avatar named Stokklerk who apparently posted on a blog criticizing chief executive, George Jensen. Criticism happens all over the internet in blogs and threads and this case wasn't much different from any other about online comments.
What got me thinking was what would happen to the United States if the reverse of the decision had happened. What if the federal courts decided that the internet needed to be watched and supervised? Sure it goes against the first amendment and the right to speak, but in a time of facebook, twitter, and texting the world is drastically changing. Its a pretty far-off thought, but it would scare me if our country became a less free country because technology allows us to network to whoever we want and say whatever we please and thus needs to be monitored. Who knows what can happen in the near future, Maybe not going as far as losing our freedom of speech, but perhaps our government would requre all our comments to be posted behind a known and track-able screen name? Like I said, its a whacky scenario, and for the time being I'm grateful to be able to type a blog post like this and at least have the option to be anonymous.
Two Things
4 hours ago
5 comments:
This is a good issue that needs to be discussed. Personally, I believe that if you're going to make a statement, you should be fully behind it and not submit it anonymously. Although there are cases where that would be much better, I think making statements with a person behind it is most powerful. I don't think the government will be able to regulate the internet very effectively, but I guess we'll have to see if they really try to.
If the government regulated the internet I think it would effect my feelings about using it. My main reason for saying this is that i would not my personal information to be out there like that. In a way, I would argue that my rights were being violated. But from a national security view point, I would understand there need to regulate the internet; maybe it is not intrued in our personal lifes, but maybe to trace certain actions of the public that may or may not lead to attacks on the US.
-charlotte
I personally don't think that there would be any remotely valid reason for the government to monitor our computers nor any way they could get a bill that allows them to passed. This is a democracy and I'm sure that a lot of people would very much dislike this policy and fight for its removal.
Although this scenario is similar to the patriot act, that act was passed during times of chaos (9/11) and received little opposition. For those of you who do not know, the patriot act was the act that talked about warrantless searches, wiretapping, regulated cameras, etc. to help stop and catch terrorist. But during times like this, I don't think there are any really major threats to the US that the government can use as an excuse to take away another freedom. Although if there is something valid such as terrorists taking over America I would consider giving up this one freedom rather than lose all of them.
That is a really interesting idea, but I don't think it would ever be possible. It simply isn't realistic to monitor technology...it's far to vast and easily concealed.
But I don't really understand this case, was the George Jensen (cool last name, btw) guy trying to prove libel or something? Why did the judge have to "side" with an internet source?
-Katie Jensen
I know that countries such as China track emails to America because my church has missionaries in China, and they always have to type their emails in code. I don't remember what our code name for Jesus.
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