Constitutional Amendment on Internet Freedom

[ChiTownVenture]

It's time we added the first 21st Century amendment to the Constitution -- an amendment that parallels the First Amendment but explicitly prohibits the government from ever shutting down the Internet. Freedom of the Internet in today's world is just as important as freedom of the press, religion or speech.As revolutions spread around the world questioning dictator after dictator, it is clear that the Internet has been the same kind of catalyst that a free press has been in past democratic revolutions -- it has given people an easy way to share their experiences, a tool for organizing, and served to publish atrocities in cases where the press was blocked.

Dictators and governments around the world are busy studying this phenomenon, trying to understand how they can control it. Governments refuse to give Blackberry contracts unless they have the ability to snoop on its traffic. Even in the U.S. the Internet has to be available for government monitoring and supervision -- justified quite fairly on the basis of the need to catch criminals and terrorists who use the Internet as they used the phone system in the past.

And the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given a series of speeches on Internet freedom. She has said clearly that other countries should refrain from cutting off access to the Internet and social networks when besieged by protesters, noting that "those who clamp down on Internet freedom may be able to hold back the full expression of their people's yearnings for a while, but not forever."

it is time for the U.S. to take the lead with a model constitutional amendment on preserving and defending internet freedom. The First Amendment has withstood the test of time, but it does not explicitly cover social networking or the Internet any more than it covers shut downs of the phone system or TV broadcasting. And especially as agencies like the FBI and NSA are pushing to further their Internet oversight through stricter data retention laws and a more-efficient online wiretap system, it makes no sense to leave these things to chance.Such amendments are rarely about today and their impact here and now -- they are about an unexpected situation and an unexpected president bending the law to the maximum to preserve their own power. Anything as powerful as the Internet is something that governments irresistibly will try to control over time -- they are at the heart of our communications here and abroad. We have urged others to say hands off -- how about committing the US to the same position for the next 200 years in the only ironclad way we have -- a 21st Century Constitutional Amendment on Freedom of the Internet.

www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-penn/internet-freedom-amendment_b_830524.html

Should there be a constitutional amendment? I think so.

[ChiTownVenture]

Did we loose the ability to put up polls on proboards?

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Mar 7, 2011 9:08:12 GMT -5 ChiTownVenture said:

It's time we added the first 21st Century amendment to the Constitution -- an amendment that parallels the First Amendment but explicitly prohibits the government from ever shutting down the Internet. Freedom of the Internet in today's world is just as important as freedom of the press, religion or speech.As revolutions spread around the world questioning dictator after dictator, it is clear that the Internet has been the same kind of catalyst that a free press has been in past democratic revolutions -- it has given people an easy way to share their experiences, a tool for organizing, and served to publish atrocities in cases where the press was blocked.

Dictators and governments around the world are busy studying this phenomenon, trying to understand how they can control it. Governments refuse to give Blackberry contracts unless they have the ability to snoop on its traffic. Even in the U.S. the Internet has to be available for government monitoring and supervision -- justified quite fairly on the basis of the need to catch criminals and terrorists who use the Internet as they used the phone system in the past.

And the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given a series of speeches on Internet freedom. She has said clearly that other countries should refrain from cutting off access to the Internet and social networks when besieged by protesters, noting that "those who clamp down on Internet freedom may be able to hold back the full expression of their people's yearnings for a while, but not forever."

it is time for the U.S. to take the lead with a model constitutional amendment on preserving and defending internet freedom. The First Amendment has withstood the test of time, but it does not explicitly cover social networking or the Internet any more than it covers shut downs of the phone system or TV broadcasting. And especially as agencies like the FBI and NSA are pushing to further their Internet oversight through stricter data retention laws and a more-efficient online wiretap system, it makes no sense to leave these things to chance.Such amendments are rarely about today and their impact here and now -- they are about an unexpected situation and an unexpected president bending the law to the maximum to preserve their own power. Anything as powerful as the Internet is something that governments irresistibly will try to control over time -- they are at the heart of our communications here and abroad. We have urged others to say hands off -- how about committing the US to the same position for the next 200 years in the only ironclad way we have -- a 21st Century Constitutional Amendment on Freedom of the Internet.

www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-penn/internet-freedom-amendment_b_830524.html

Should there be a constitutional amendment? I think so.

We do not need a Constitutional Amendment to restrain government from doing something it is already prohibited from doing.

The motivation of HuffPo is unclear, but it's nice to have them with us on the issue of STOPPING "net neutrality" and blocking the Obama administration that is salivating at the thought of an "internet kill switch":

www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/28/senate-president-emergency-control-internet/

A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.

Details of a revamped version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 emerged late Thursday, months after an initial version authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., was blasted in Silicon Valley as dangerous government intrusion.

"In the original bill they empowered the president to essentially turn off the Internet in the case of a 'cyber-emergency,' which they didn't define," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which represents the telecommunications industry.

"We think it's a very bad idea ... to put in legislation," he told FOXNews.com.

Clinton said the new version of the bill that surfaced this week is improved from its first draft, but troubling language that was removed was replaced by vague language that could still offer the same powers to the president in case of an emergency.

"The current language is so unclear that we can't be confident that the changes have actually been made," he said.

The new legislation allows the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online -- a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president "amorphous powers" over private users.

"As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET News.

Now if we could just get the left to drop "Net Neutrality", abandon the "Fairness Doctrine", and defund the FCC, and admit government does not, nor did it EVER have the authority to regulate communication in a free country.

[ChiTownVenture]

Mar 7, 2011 10:58:47 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Mar 7, 2011 9:08:12 GMT -5 ChiTownVenture said:

www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-penn/internet-freedom-amendment_b_830524.html

Should there be a constitutional amendment? I think so.

We do not need a Constitutional Amendment to restrain government from doing something it is already prohibited from doing.

The motivation of HuffPo is unclear, but it's nice to have them with us on the issue of STOPPING "net neutrality" and blocking the Obama administration that is salivating at the thought of an "internet kill switch":

www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/28/senate-president-emergency-control-internet/

A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.

Details of a revamped version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 emerged late Thursday, months after an initial version authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., was blasted in Silicon Valley as dangerous government intrusion.

"In the original bill they empowered the president to essentially turn off the Internet in the case of a 'cyber-emergency,' which they didn't define," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which represents the telecommunications industry.

"We think it's a very bad idea ... to put in legislation," he told FOXNews.com.

Clinton said the new version of the bill that surfaced this week is improved from its first draft, but troubling language that was removed was replaced by vague language that could still offer the same powers to the president in case of an emergency.

"The current language is so unclear that we can't be confident that the changes have actually been made," he said.

The new legislation allows the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online -- a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president "amorphous powers" over private users.

"As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET News.

Now if we could just get the left to drop "Net Neutrality", abandon the "Fairness Doctrine", and defund the FCC, and admit government does not, nor did it EVER have the authority to regulate communication in a free country.

The bill mentioned above was to give the President the power to turn off the internet with a "flip of a switch", this didn't get passed, but that is a far cry from being prohibited from shutting down the internet.

The articles goes on to explain that the government current has the ability to take over and control TV airways, and telephone lines (wired and cell). The government already has the power to shut down the internet by disabling these two services.

The push is to prohibit the government from being able to shut down the internet even if they feel it necessary to take over the telephone and tv airways.

[henryclay]

Isn't it true that, as a national security measure, the "government" can shut down satelites entirely, including radio and TV transmissins. GPS, internet, , , , the whole "airwaves" schmeer?

During WWII the government used civilian HAM radio operators for back-up communications world wide. The low frequencies they used are supposed to be the most reliable for long ranges, even today, outside of satellites.

I just a few days ago read a reminder that when Eisenhower got the interstate highway system started there were provisions for straight stretches included so that Air Defense Operations could use them as runways.

[safeharbor37]

It's time we added the first 21st Century amendment to the Constitution -- an amendment that parallels the First Amendment but explicitly prohibits the government from ever shutting down the Internet. Freedom of the Internet in today's world is just as important as freedom of the press, religion or speech.

A suggestion no doubt by someone who has no idea what the Constitution is for. In the introductory paragraph [above] it points out that the First Amendment already exists and covers the issue.
This suggestion falls in the category of Amendments proposed to outlaw abortion, ERA, etc. That is; Amendments which could [should] be simply subject to already existing provisions in the Constitution or which could [should] be adequately addressed by laws.
The US Constitution was designed to provide general guidelines which could be addressed by laws which, in turn, were subject to review by the Courts. The only appropriate details in the Constitution regard the operation of the government itself, not protections or rights of the citizens which are addressed generally under the category of "rights."
The Eighteenth Amendment is a good example of an Amendment which acted as a law. Fortunately it was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.
Take a look sometime at a typical State Constitution [California & Florida are good examples] and you'll see the difference. The US Constitution does not need to be cluttered with temporal amendments which will inevitably require further amendment or repeal. Fortunately, the people [dumb as they may appear] are too smart to go for nonsense like this.

[ChiTownVenture]

Mar 7, 2011 14:46:25 GMT -5 safeharbor37 said:

It's time we added the first 21st Century amendment to the Constitution -- an amendment that parallels the First Amendment but explicitly prohibits the government from ever shutting down the Internet. Freedom of the Internet in today's world is just as important as freedom of the press, religion or speech.

A suggestion no doubt by someone who has no idea what the Constitution is for. In the introductory paragraph [above] it points out that the First Amendment already exists and covers the issue.
This suggestion falls in the category of Amendments proposed to outlaw abortion, ERA, etc. That is; Amendments which could [should] be simply subject to already existing provisions in the Constitution or which could [should] be adequately addressed by laws.
The US Constitution was designed to provide general guidelines which could be addressed by laws which, in turn, were subject to review by the Courts. The only appropriate details in the Constitution regard the operation of the government itself, not protections or rights of the citizens which are addressed generally under the category of "rights."
The Eighteenth Amendment is a good example of an Amendment which acted as a law. Fortunately it was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.
Take a look sometime at a typical State Constitution [California & Florida are good examples] and you'll see the difference. The US Constitution does not need to be cluttered with temporal amendments which will inevitably require further amendment or repeal. Fortunately, the people [dumb as they may appear] are too smart to go for nonsense like this.

The First Amendment already has exceptions and only covers the restriction of laws against speech, press and peaceful assemblage.

The "clear and present danger test" renders the first amendment useless if the government warrants a threat. A separate amendment would free the internet from strictly falling under the provisions of the first amendment. While the first amendment would still support the use of the internet as it pertains to the first amendment, a separate amendment would create a new definition of laws that could not be written to protect US citizens to access, transfer and exchange information, data, etc that may or may not be speech.

IMO the advances in technology have pushed this past the existing amendments.

[ChiTownVenture]

This message has been deleted. - Double post

[fairlycrazy23]

Mar 7, 2011 14:46:25 GMT -5 safeharbor37 said:

The Eighteenth Amendment is a good example of an Amendment which acted as a law. Fortunately it was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.

I think you are wrong about the 18th amendment, I think the 18th amendment clearly shows that the Federal Government did not have the enumerated power to regulated liquor so HAD to have the states in the form of the 18th amendment give that power to the federal government, and by extension since the federal regulation of liquor required an amendment, I would argue that in order for the Federal Government to have the power to shut down or regulate in any way the internet in the first place should itself require an amendment.

But I don't think internet is a right, since it is a service that has to be provided by a third party, similar to how I feel health care is not a right.

[ChiTownVenture]

But I don't think internet is a right, since it is a service that has to be provided by a third party, similar to how I feel health care is not a right.

It is not completely true that the internet has to provided by a third party, a single party can access and control a portion of the internet autonomously, why should the government have the right to shut that down?