Topeka, Kansas high school senior Emma Sullivan found herself in uncharted territory last week when she posted a tweet to her fifty-odd followers during a visit from Kansas Governor Sam Brownback to her school. “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person,” she tweeted, adding, “#heblowsalot.”
The governor’s communications staff got wind of the tweet (by trolling Twitter for mentions of the governor) and alerted public officials at Sullivan’s school, who gave her an hour long lecture about not saying mean things about Governor Brownback and ordered her to write a letter of apology. When word of her punishment got out, thousands of supporters castigated Brownback and the public school district for abridging Sullivan’s right to free speech without intimidation by the government.
One Thanksgiving weekend internet furor later, Gov. Brownback acquiesced, acknowledging Sullivan’s First Amendment rights on his official Facebook page, saying, in part, “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.” In addition, Sullivan’s school reversed course, deciding not to punish her at all.
It’s a politically smart move for Gov. Brownback and the school, but is Brownback right? Is there free speech on Twitter, and by extension, the internet? Other recent cases suggest that there is not.
Take this case from August. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officials took the unprecedented action of shutting down the government agency’s underground mobile internet service to quell a rumored protest by disrupting communication between protesters. The move left some constitutional experts warning that this may be a case of unconstitutional prior restraint. Other observers point out that BART’s new tactic is dangerously close to what Middle East dictators have recently done to quiet dissent.
A few months earlier in February 2011, the Washington Post published a story about the ongoing court case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, which pointed out that the law is well behind the curve on digital speech rights even as requests for private information increase.
The number of court orders and subpoenas from authorities demanding that technology companies and telecommunications firms turn over information about their clients is rapidly growing. But the rules protecting personal information are spotty and not up to date with Internet technology. Experts say they were meant to deal with telephone records, not such evolving technology as e-mails and tweets.
Chris Calabrese, a lobbyist for the ACLU in Washington, said the laws pertaining to accessing communications date back to 1986.
In an early November development of the Wikileaks case, a Judge Liam O’Grady ruled that the government can require Twitter to turn over personal information, keep secret the list of information gathered, and perhaps most shockingly, do so without even obtaining a warrant. This development not only calls into question free speech, but the constitutional right to privacy and the third party doctrine. The Wall Street Journal explains.
Also at issue: a concept known as the “third-party doctrine,” which holds that people don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy if they give information to another party, such as an Internet provider. Without a reasonable expectation of privacy, access to such information is not likely to count as a search under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
The concept is increasingly creating tensions as people use third parties such as technology companies in more of their everyday activities.
“With this decision, the court is telling all users of online tools hosted in the U.S. that the U.S. government will have secret access to their data,” Ms. [Birgitta] Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament, said in a statement.
What does all this mean for Emma Sullivan? The U.S. government seems to be saying that no, she does not have unfettered First Amendment and other constitutional rights on Twitter; or alternatively that no, her constitutional rights aren’t recognized as plainly and clearly as Gov. Brownback and most Americans instinctively know they should be.
[image via The New Atheist]
While our speech is, and must also be kept free, we also have to realize that if we say something in a place where we KNOW it will be gathered, and are told as much, we are the ones who need to watch what we say if we so choose, or, f** the consequences and say whatever.
As for the BART fiasco, that is inexcusable from a speech point of view, but no different from jamming a walkie frequency to stop communications between those who could cause serious harm to the public. I gotta side with SanFran on that.
Free speech does not exist, villificastion laws have taken free speech form us