By Kate Wood, Fellow, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:36pm
Last week the Supreme Court rejected another attempt by the government to carve out an exception to the First Amendment. It struck down the Stolen Valor Act, a law that makes it a federal crime to lie about receiving medals for military service. In doing so, the Court reinforced the right of citizens to be free from unnecessary government censorship.
By Aden Fine, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:07pm
A New York criminal court judge has issued a decision denying Twitter’s motion to quash a court order requiring it to produce information about one of its users pursuant to a subpoena that the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan issued in connection with the prosecution of an Occupy Wall Street protester.
In “Fixing Citizens United,” Professor Geoffrey Stone—usually a friend to the First Amendment—argues for a constitutional amendment to “fix” the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Professor Stone mentions the proposal rather offhandedly, but the idea is a nuclear option. A constitutional amendment—specifically an amendment limiting the right to political speech—would fundamentally “break” the Constitution and endanger civil rights and civil liberties for generations.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:40pm
There has been some discussion lately of whether the output of computer algorithms should be considered protected free speech, as Tim Wu discussed in an op-ed and my colleague Gabe Rottman addressed in a blog post in response.
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:19pm
Late last month a Montreal homicide detective was found guilty of accessing a police database to pass citizens’ information to an organized crime ring to help it ship stolen vehicles overseas. We always keep an eye on these kinds of stories because abuse is one of the risks that is created by governments’ collection of personal data on citizens at all levels. These include records containing sensitive medical and employment history, contact details like email addresses or phone numbers, and even bank and credit card information. But when proponents argue for new databases, the fact that at least some of these records are almost certain to be exposed by crooked insiders is rarely accounted for.
By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 12:11pm
Recently, Dr. James Watson filed an amicus brief opposing gene patents in our lawsuit challenging the patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Dr. Watson, along with Francis Crick, identified DNA’s ability to create life through its double helical structure and its information-coding sequences in 1953. His brief explains why, from the perspective of a scientist whose work laid the foundation for all genetic research, gene patenting is “lunacy.”
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:51pm
While the Internet community came out in force to protest the free speech and privacy threats posed by the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an international trade agreement with the same stated goals—and potentially greater threats—was being negotiated behind closed doors. While the First Amendment can be served by intellectual property protections that incentivize content creation, IP laws can easily be misused. Like PIPA and SOPA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (“ACTA”) is another misguided and overbroad attempt to crack down on counterfeiting and piracy over the Internet. There has been excellent analysis of the issue by sources including EFF, Tech Dirt and Ars Technica, but we have also been watching this issue and wanted to summarize what’s at stake.
I spoke on a panel yesterday sponsored by OpenSecrets.org on the future of campaign finance reform. In the course of the panel, an opinion piece by Fred Wertheimer, who was not at the event, but who is one of the most visible advocates for campaign finance reform, came to mind. The ACLU and Wertheimer’s progressive Democracy 21 agree on many issues of the day. But we’ve been at loggerheads on the big issue of campaign finance reform.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:23am
Professor Tim Wu at Columbia had an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday arguing against First Amendment protections for “automated” speech. Here’s the argument distilled:
As a matter of legal logic, there is some similarity among Google, Ann Landers, Socrates and other providers of answers. But if you look more closely, the comparison falters. Socrates was a man who died for his views; computer programs are utilitarian instruments meant to serve us. Protecting a computer’s “speech” is only indirectly related to the purposes of the First Amendment, which is intended to protect actual humans against the evil of state censorship. The First Amendment has wandered far from its purposes when it is recruited to protect commercial automatons from regulatory scrutiny.
