What It All Means

Historically when there is an issue in legislation and there is no uniform conclusion across the country for a particular issue, the Supreme Court or another legislative body of our government will step in and give an overarching decision. Freedom of speech was at stake when people continuously sued newspapers for libel and slander, often groundlessly, with mixed success depending on the particular state it was being tried in. The Supreme Court developed clear criteria for this matter based on the United States Constitution so that there would no longer be questionable verdicts. With the development of the internet and search engines that make is possible for anyone to develop international publications the appliance of this verdict became more complex and in many cases impossible to relate. In a meager effort to nullify some of these problems that the internet had created congress wrote the Digital Millennium Act that would make it easier to prosecute people on copyright infringement. However the law is vague and people have attempted to apply it in many different ways that it was not originally intended for. The internet also has the added issue of being an international body so much of its content does not fall under the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore much of the substance is not liable to the copyright infringement and slander standards of the US. The government as a whole has not seen a proper conclusion for this conundrum. However one subset of the government, the military have put definite regulations on their employees and troops even when they are over seas, not only when they are on military developed websites but on public forums as well. We have not seen the conclusion for the problems that the internet has created for the legal entitlements of United States citizens. Nevertheless based on our country’s previous record of created legislation to more uniformly hold people accountable across the board, it is not preposterous to expect that there will be new legislation for the media content of the internet in the next few years. We will see history in the making.

The Church of Scientology

Although the slander laws that were set forth in the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case apply to the digital media the issue becomes much more complex. First there are more than just the major news makers that have a right to publish on the internet there are an extraordinary amount of blogers and other media friendly amateurs that make the works available to the public. There is no way to sift through all that information and overabundance of sites to make certain that they are complying with the law. Another issue is that not all of these sites are created by American composers. The authors of many blogs are international and are not held to the same restrictions as the American press. Yet they can publish commentary on situations and people from the United States and Americans have access to their works. An additional issue is the question of who should ultimately be held responsible for what people find on the internet; the search engine that guided you to that site or the author of the site itself.

A perfect example of this conundrum is when in March of 2002 the Church of Scientology sent complaints to Google for bring up links to anti-Scientology websites when searching for the keyword “Scientology.” They “cited the Digital Millennium Act, a 1998 law that can make it illegal to link to copyright-infringing material”[1] to persuade Google to sever these links. The Digital Millennium Act was written to prevent Internet pirates or hackers from breaking down firewalls and other security measures and stealing copies of copyrighted material[2]. This law was passed on October 28, 1998 by the 105^th Congress along with a few other technology bills[3]. Under the threat of being sued for aiding copyright infringement Google pulled the links to the Norwegian based website, www.xenu.net which can not be held accountable to United States copyright act, but is however fully within its rights under the international copyright laws[4].

Google severing these links had freedom of speech advocates up in arms. This becomes a sticky situation for an innocent company that links people to over two billion websites that they have absolutely no control over. With the amount of pages that are being added to the net everyday it would be impossible for a company to sift though every one of them. Google soon reanimated the links to this website. After this event Google set up a policy in which if they had to remove a site because of complaints they would put a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that would direct the searcher to a site where the complaint would be logged.[5] Since this time Google has been forced to hire a small army of lawyers to combat challenges such as these with a good success rate. They are now known for being in the forefront for fighting for intellectual property rights and priding itself on combating all lawsuits against them quickly and efficiently[6].

---

[1] Gallagher, David. "Technology Briefing: Google Removes Anti-Scientology Links." New York Times 22 Mar. 2002, sec. C: 4. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.
[2] Clausing, Jeri. "Technology Bills Languish as Congress Races for Exit." New York Times 12 Oct. 1998, sec. C: 2. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.
[3] “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” 28 Oct. 1998. www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf. 29 Jan. 2008
[4] Gallagher, David. "New Economy: a Copyright Dispute with the Church of Scientology is Forcing Google to Do Some Creative Linking." New York Times 22 Apr. 2002, sec. C: 4. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.
[5] Ibid
[6] Hafner, Katie. "We're Google, So Sue Us." New York Times 23 Oct. 2006. 29 Jan. 2008.

Interview Revealed

Jimmy is a marine with the United States Marine Corps (he would prefer it if his last name was not posted on this site). He has been in the service since he was nineteen and is now twenty-two. This interview with him is extremely pertinent to the topic of internet regulation. Where the US government for the most part is leaving the internet and its authors to regulate itself, here is a clear cut case of one subset of the government, the military enforcing regulations. These regulations do not only pertain to government created sites but to public sites or forums that anyone can access and be a contributor to. The military is blatantly with no uncertain terms explaining to the troops that they can not post any video whatsoever on YouTube and the like. They are even going so far as to say what troops, who are government employees, must omit to their friends and family in emails home. They are crossing the borders of the United States in these regulations.

This topic reveals the shining disparity of government regulation of the internet. The military, a subdivision of our government, is trying to tightly control who has access to specific information. Where as the rest of the internet goes vastly anarchically, with slander and copyright infringement galore.

My Interview with Jimmy

Courtney: When were you in Iraq?

Jimmy: From February 2007 to September of the same year.

Courtney: Did you ever post anything, video or pictures, on youtube or myspace or anywhere on the internet while you were over there?

Jimmy: Ya, I posted some pictures on my myspace. And when I came back I put them on my facebook, too. But I never posted video it wasn’t really allowed.

Courtney: What were the rules on that?

Jimmy: Well you could only take pictures inside the wire because you aren’t supposed to take your cameras outside.

Courtney: What’s the wire?

Jimmy: The wire is the perimeter of the base. Going outside the wire is just another way of saying that you are going out of the base. You are going outside of the secure area. You don’t know what could be out there, well you know what’s out there because you aren’t always on base, but you don’t know what could be going on outside of the base. It isn’t a secure area.

It’s also an issue of being aware of your surroundings. Obviously if you are fiddling around with your camera you’re not doing your job and taking in what is going on around you. It’s a safety issue you need to be on your guard, not only for your own safety but for the safety of the guys that you are with as well.

Courtney: So is that why they banned posting video? Because it’s unsafe for you to video tape? Or can you video on the base?

Jimmy: Not exactly. It’s a security thing. People can find anything on the internet. So if you post information on the net, you have to make sure its nothing to specific or else you could put yourself or others in danger. You have to be aware that it isn’t only your friends and family that are seeing the things that you post the enemy or bad guys or whatever you want to call them can see it to.

Like if you tape us doing some type of drill or the routes that we take or anything like that and post it, you are basically giving that information to them. They will know what we are working on, weakness or not, and they can figure out how we will act when put in specific situations and plan accordingly. So just to be on the safe side you just shouldn’t post video because you don’t know what it would reveal to them and you have to be careful with your pictures to.

Courtney: How did they tell you that you couldn’t do it? Was it a sitting down and telling you or is it more of an unspoken agreement?

Jimmy: They were pretty blatant about it.

Courtney: Has it always been like that? Or was there a particular event that fueled them to say you can’t post certain things?

Jimmy: I think that it has always been that way. They don’t want you to give information to people that shouldn’t be privy to it. As for a specific event, I don’t know about that. But there have been tons of kids that posted things that they shouldn’t have and it got people hurt. You aren’t supposed to post specific dates of when you’re doing things. Like you shouldn’t say I’m going to arrive at such and such base on this date or I’m going to leave on this date.

They already know when we are coming and going. It’s weird. They knew when we were arriving. That first day we got mortared or bombed four times in that one day. I was there for seven months and they obviously knew where the base was, but we only got mortared about twelve times in those seven months.

Who’s to say that some one didn’t post the date that we were arriving somewhere and it was read by the wrong people. Its just better if you don’t give specifics, it has the potential to get people hurt or killed.

Courtney: What happens if your superiors find out that you posted something that you weren’t supposed to?

Jimmy: Sorry, I’m not really sure of the consequences. I’m guessing that it would involve counseling with your superiors. Basically they would sit you down for a talk. Or a lot of paperwork detail and stuff like that.

Courtney: So tell me if I’m wrong, but what I gather is that they don’t focus on the consequences of what happens to you personally if you post specific dates or videos. They emphasize the safety concerns of doing so. That it could get you are one of your men killed and that is the reasoning for not having you post secure information.

Jimmy: That was more of the overarching theme. You don’t want to be responsible for getting other people hurt because you posted something online that you didn’t need to.

Synopsis of the rest of the interview:

The interview went on to describe the internet available to the troops. Jimmy explained that on his base the internet was normally available to all the troops at all times, however there was a thirty minute time limit as well as a line at all hours. He also described that they could use the internet like you can in a library, he didn’t noticed any sites being blocked, but he knew that they couldn’t look at pornography or the like.

Another large section of the interview pertained to “River City.” This is what they call the time when the internet and all communication is cut off to the troops. They do this when a soldier has been killed or injured. This enables the government to contact the family of the solider without the fear that they have already found out through the grapevine of communication. These blackouts normally last two to three days but no longer than a week.

The Beginning of Print Media Censorship: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan Explained

The first amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech for all citizens[1]. However throughout the years we have found that there are curbs on this particular freedom and generally for good reason. In the early history of American newspapers we were in an age of mudslinging tactics. Politicians would smear their competitor’s good name in the hopes of getting elected themselves. The newspapers we see today are extremely different from ones of the past. Newspapers must check their facts in attempt to educate the public. They can print things that are negative about a particular individual or company, but they can not knowingly print false reports on a person they happen to not like or disagree with.

These standards on slander came about because of the 1964 Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan[2]. This case laid the ground work for the rights of newspapers to publish the truth without fear of repercussions. The main clause in that right is that it must be the truth. Before this time “[d]ifferent states followed different rules”[3] for their own definition of what constituted slander. This Supreme Court case made it a nationally held law, that the person filing the suit against a newspaper must prove that the defendant knowingly printed false statements. It was feared that this decision would not be held up nationally in the future, however on April 25^th of that same year the March 9^th decision of the Supreme court was upheld in another newspaper case[4] and has been ever since.

---

[1] 1^st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, 15, Dec. 1791.
[2] Supreme Court of the United States. New York Times Co. V. Sullivan. 09 Mar. 1964.
[3] Lewis, Anthony. "Court Broadens Freedom of the Press." New York Times 15 Mar. 1964, sec. E: 10. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.
[4] "Newspaper Cleared of Libel Accusation." New York Times 26 Apr. 1964: 65. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.

Pertinent Historical Dates

1638/1639-First American Broadside “The Oath of a Freeman” by Stephen Daye [1]

September 26, 1690- First Colonial Newspaper, Boston, by Benjamin Harris[2]

December 15, 1791-Creation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution[3]

1860’s- New York Times has a Circulation of over 40,000 Subscribers[4]

March 9, 1964 -New York Times Co. v. Sullivan Supreme Court Case Decision[5]

September 1998- Creation of Google[6]

October 28, 1998 -Creation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act[7]

March 2002 -Google Disconnects Anti-Scientology Links For a Time[8]

February 13, 2008 -My interview with Jimmy Young

---

[1] Lecture
[2] Lecture
[3] 1^st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, 15, Dec. 1791.
[4] Lecture
[5] Supreme Court of the United States. New York Times Co. V. Sullivan. 09 Mar. 1964
[6] "Google Corporate Information." Google. 2007. www.google.com/corporate/history.html.10 Mar. 2008 .
[7] “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” 28 Oct. 1998. www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf. 29 Jan. 2008
[8] Gallagher, David. "Technology Briefing: Google Removes Anti-Scientology Links." New York Times 22 Mar. 2002, sec. C: 4. ProQuest. University of Oregon Library, Eugene. 29 Jan. 2008.

Entering a New Age

We have entered into a new age of media. People no longer have to rely on local newspaper or even print media to know what is going on the world around them. They now have a plethora of options; from 24/7 news channels on television, national newspapers to blogs and internet sites. We have more access to information now in the 21^st century than there ever was before. More and more people are getting their news daily from online blogs than from print newspapers.

In a recent survey it was poled that close to half of all respondents got their news form internet resources with only ten percent of the people getting their information from newspapers[1]. However there is a discrepancy on the laws that the government has put forth for newspapers and print media and that which is allowed to be published on the internet. This is an issue because there are many people with access to what is being published on the internet but very little check on what is being published. This can severely damage credibility of individuals or the brand image of a company even if the information is completely false or taken out of context. This also begs the question of who is at fault; if a damaging website is found, is it the responsibility of the search engine it was found by or the individual website’s creator.

Through court cases the government has been able to determine what constitutes slander in the print media. Newspapers rarely overstep their bounds for fear of the repercussions. Although these censoring laws are in effect for internet use they do not have the same effect, for they have not been applied in the same way. Because of this ambiguity it has been up to the public sector of the internet in many cases to self censor. As much as the government has not gotten involved with this particular issue there is one subdivision of the government that does have very exact rules on the matter; this sector is the military and the censorship of its troops.

[1] "More Americans Turning to Web for News." ZDNet. 28 Feb. 2008. 05 Mar. 2008 .

The Project

I am creating this blog as a class project. This particular journalism class, J387: Communication History, called for us to do a research paper or project on a topic of our choosing pertaining to the history of communication. I found it pertinent to follow my main field of study for my undergraduate degree, political science, for that is where I would be able to ascertain the most insight. A topic that had always fascinated me was censorship and freedom of information. However I found it extremely difficult to find primary sources on what the United States media was not covering. I realized that it would be more relevant for me to see the government regulation of information or media that the public is exposed to. The question I posed to my self was “How do United State’s censorship laws of print media differ from censorship laws of digital media?” I chose these two particular forms of media because newspapers have traditionally been the main source of information for the public, nevertheless there has recently been a shift in which the new generation is relying on the internet. However there is a huge difference in the regulation of these media. The following are my findings.