Reply to Madpuffinkeeper
quote:
NuShoes, what would you change about the first ammendment? You have me curious.
quote:
NuShoes, what would you change about the first ammendment? You have me curious.
Oh, I could fill a 500-page book on that. Easily. EASILY. I'll just touch on a few since I want to get some sleep within the next few days!
However, if you read this entire thing through without skipping anything, you'll START to have an idea why.
The First Amendment - or, more accurately, the twisted, modern interpretation of it - does very little to protect what it's supposed to. Freedom of religion, freedom of political discourse and redress, all that. In the last 40 years, it is far more likely to be used as an instrument of harm, even oppression, than a right. For example, if you care at all about your right to privacy, or if you don't want to be the victim of identity theft and other crimes, you'd better consider the First Amendment public enemy #1.
Just a few examples:
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Barnicki v. Vopper that the media has a right to broadcast private conversations and encounters as long as some level of "public concern". In fact, this ruling has gone so far as to allow
any information about someone to be told to someone else, as it is reasonably believed to be true.
In the Bartnicki case, a radio DJ played an illegally-intercepted cell phone conversation between a union president and an employee. The union official, as plaintiff, argued that she had a right to have a private cell phone conversation. The defendant, the DJ, argued that, since he felt that the conversation was of "public concern", he had the right to air it. The court sided with him.
The problem is that this case now allows pretty much anything that could even vaguely be of public interest to be allowed to be broadcast. If somebody videotapes you and your significant other knockin' boots, while the act of videotaping is still illegal, the sale of videotapes or the broadcasting of it is considered "protected speech".
Furthermore, even someone who illegally videotapes you can avoid being identified. If the person broadcasting/selling tapes of you and your lover also videotaped you, he would be protected from incriminating himself under the Fifth Amendment. If someone else made the tape, the person selling or broadcasting it is allowed to protect the identity of the person who recorded it, thanks to another Supreme Court decision intended to protect informants.
What's particularly interesting about this - and it may be just coincidence, although it very likely isn't - is that within weeks of that decision being handed down, I noticed a major change on a lot of stuff I'd been seeing on the Internet. You know those super-annoying X10 camera ads that you see everywhere now? The ones that pitch themselves as being great for "spying on your nanny" or whatever? Those started appearing within a month of the Supreme Court's decision. It's possible this was just a coincidence, but not likely.
Here's another one for you. Did you know that people have the right, under the First Amendment, to sell detailed, even deeply personal information about you? I'll touch on one of the less intrusive cases here.
Several years ago, two of the nation's largest telecoms, Qwest and Verizon, began selling lists of their customers and who they call to marketing and research firms. This includes people with unlisted numbers. With such information, marketers can determine which businesses and the geographic locations of those with whom you associate, and can therefore get a better idea of the kind of people you deal with and your social class.
Customers, miffed about this, sued Verizon and Qwest (a.k.a. USwest) in a class-action lawsuit to stop the sales. Several consumer and privacy groups also filed on behalf of the plaintiffs, arguing that the sale of such information invaded their right to privacy. Verizon and Qwest filed a defense on the grounds that forbidding the sale of such information violated their First Amendment right to free speech. The defense contended that stopping such transactions was akin to preventing one person from talking about another. Obviously, the Supreme Court bought that defense, and held that the sale of such information was, in fact, protected under the First Amendment. The court cited prior case law affirming the sale of personal information as free speech as well.
Now, this only begins to touch on why I mentioned earlier that, if you value your right to privacy, you should consider the First Amendment enemy #1. But it bears some explaining about the consequences of the sale of personal, private information about individuals and how the First Amendment has destroyed any semblance of privacy we all have. I'll use a different analogy, since I've studied this and similar issues.
You know those "loyalty" cards that supermarkets use, which allow you to get "discounts" at the store? When they were first developed, they were intended as a form of cheap market-research into customers' shopping habits. Today, this information is used much more broadly and is often sold to independent firms (and government, of course) so that it can be compiled into demographic, sociographic, and psychographic data that can then be sold to others.
Take, for example, the simple act of buying Diet Pepsi using one of these cards. Your card is scanned, identifying you, as well as the products you buy. But, combined with other information, that one item can reveal a lot about who you are. It is known from focus groups that the two largest groups that consume Diet Pepsi are women and homosexual men. So, by combining the information garnered from your supermarket purchase with other information, marketers can guesstimate a lot about you. If you're a woman, then it's no surprise that you buy Diet Pepsi. What if you're a man? Well, if you're married, then odds are reasonable that you are buying Diet Pepsi for your spouse. On the other hand, if you are a single or divorced male, and you regularly buy Diet Pepsi, then there's a good chance you are a homosexual.
Of course, this is only one sampling point out of many, and there are almost unimaginable combinations of information and demographic data that can come from using various samples like these (although soft drink consumption is one of the major sampling points the number-crunchers at marketing firms use.) The point is that, thanks to the First Amendment, others can sell detailed information about you to whomever they chose. Worse, others can make assumptions based on that information, and there is absolutely nothing you can do at all to stop it. Without the First Amendment, you would have a right to privacy and to have at least some control over the invasion into your life that others can make.
Remember, I have only barely skimmed the surface of the problems involving or directly caused by the First Amendment. I do not feel like writing an entire book on this website. Putting the privacy issues aside, remember that one of the primary purposes of the First Amendment was to create a system in which government officials and power is balanced by a media that aids in exposing that corruption. It doesn't work. If the 1st Amendment really works, why do we still have so much government corruption?
Some interesting reading and sources:
Professor Volokh, Eugene, Freedom of Speech and Information Privacy: The Troubling Implications of a Right to Stop People From Speaking About You, 52 Stanford L. Rev., 1049 (2000)
http://www.cfif.org/5_8_2001/Free_line/america/free_line_summer.htmWa case showing how 1st Amendment can aid identity theft
http://www.justicefiles.org/Law%20Suits/01-2-09513-7/MOTION%20FOR%20RECONSIDERATION%20OF%20PRELIMINARY%20INJUNCTION.htmhttp://www.techlawjournal.com/privacy/20010521.asp
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