Big win for free speech online

The San Jose Mercury News reports on an important and common-sense ruling by the California Supreme Court: Justices hand victory to free speech online.

Legions of Web users and Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other major Internet providers dodged a legal morass Monday when the California Supreme Court ruled they cannot be sued for posting or distributing libelous material written by others.

In a 34-page ruling, the state's high court overturned a lower court decision that had stripped immunity against such lawsuits and alarmed free speech advocates who warned it could chill expression on the Internet.

The Supreme Court unanimously concluded that federal law is clear on insulating Internet providers and Web sites against lawsuits for the inflammatory statements of others. The ruling does not, however, protect the original authors of defamatory material. ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has discusses the ruling here, and the court's decision is here (PDF).

Meantime, a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Chicago has ruled that Craigslist is not responsible for openly discriminatory housing ads placed on its site by users. Another important victory for the online community.

Teachers still have rights as citizens

Maggi Hall, a veteran public school teacher who has written four books and now owns a real estate firm in Florida, wrote a letter to the newspaper in Marion County, South Carolina, criticizing her school district more than a decade ago. That simple act escalated into a First Amendment lawsuit against her school district. In 1994 the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the district violated her civil liberties, and the cast now stands as case law to project the rights of teachers.

Hall now has a book out abou the case its continued relevance in an age when teachers' rights are under assault: Affirmed: Teachers as Citizens.

Student journalists granted freedom-of-speech rights

MediaNews: Student journalists granted freedom-of-speech rights. New law prohibits before-print censorship at state universities.

College journalists in California will soon have the same free speech rights as their professional counterparts, as legislation prohibiting the censorship of student publications was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday.

The Assembly bill, AB 2581, grants first-of-its-kind free speech protections for college journalists. A recent federal ruling put the work of college journalists at risk for prior review by college administrators. ...

This is great news, and a cause I've supported since my high school administration confiscated the East Paterson, NJ, Scarlet Quill during my tenure as editor in chief.

Court to rule on bloggers' First Amendment rights

I'm sooooooooo tired of the are-or-aren't-bloggers-journalists? question. But the press continues to be riveted by the issue. ABCNews.com: Apple Lawsuit Could Define Cyber 'Journalists.' California lawsuit could determine First Amendment rights of bloggers.

The Netroots win at the FEC

The Daily Kos has the lowdown on the FEC's splendid decision not to regulate Internet content during federal election campaigns with the exception of paid advertising. An important victory for free speech online.

Get a clue on value of dissent

Wonderful letter from Melanie Kriese of Campbell, Calif., in today's San Jose Mercury News: Get a clue on value of dissent.

My kitchen table now has a forehead-sized dent in it. For this I would like to thank the myriad letter writers who regard questioning the president and the policies of his administration as unpatriotic and, yes, even treasonous. Perhaps as a public service, the Mercury News would consider printing -- in full -- the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. For those who have neither the time nor the inclination to reacquaint themselves with these documents (all once considered treasonous), a couple of quotes to ponder: Benjamin Franklin once said, ``They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' And from Albert Einstein, ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.''

I'd add three more quotes, all from journalist Edward R. Murrow:

• "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. "

• "We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility." - From the March 9, 1954, "See It Now" television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy.

• No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices." – Speech to staff, March 9, 1954

Online Freedom of Speech Act

Kos supports H.R. 1606, the newly reintroduced Online Freedom of Speech Act, which would "exclude the Internet from the definition of 'public communications' under campaign finance law." Sounds good to me, though I need to dig deeper into this.

China censorship: what now?

Rebecca McKinnon: China censorship: what now?

So now what? I hope that this draft legislation will be the beginning of a long and constructive process. I would like to see detailed analysis from all potentially affected U.S. technology companies as to whether they think this legislation would enable them to continue doing business in China, but more ethically.

Rebecca, a friend and a fellow at the Berkman Center, is someone I look to for a savvy and moral international perspective on these issues. I'm with her here, too: We need a smart cross-industry or government approach to conducting business in China rather than the current go-it-alone approach.

Business Week: The Web and China: Not So Simple. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft say they face a stark choice: Conform to Beijing's edicts or quit the market. The truth is much more complicated.

San Jose Mercury News: Net censorship angers House. High-tech execs get a earful over China policies.

Cindy Sheehan's arrest at the State of the Union

By now, some of you no doubt read about peace activist Cindy Sheehan's arrest last night before President Bush's State of the Union address. She was arrested for "unlawful conduct" for wearing a T-shirt that said: "2,245 Dead. How many more?"

Not surprisingly, the media commentariat is lashing out at her for inappropriate behavior.

Here is what really happened -- Sheehan's blow-by-blow account, on MichaelMoore.com.

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2,245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2,244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shirt that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing. ...

Yes, I oppose the war, but even if I did not, the mere wearing of a political statement should not be grounds for physical removal and arrest, for God's sake, from the so-called People's House.

A Republican Congressman's wife also wore a T-shirt to last night's address. It said: "Support The Troops." (As I do. As Cindy Sheehan does.) She was not expelled. She was not arrested.

Why?

Later: CNN had reported that the Congressman's wife was not expelled or arrested, when she apparently was forced to leave the House. As the Daily News reports today: "Capitol Police said they were sorry for booting 'peace mom' Cindy Sheehan and a GOP congressman's wife from the President's State of the Union speech Tuesday night - all because they wore slogans about the war on their shirts."

Outwitting the world's Internet censors

Short article in the NY Times: How to Outwit the World's Internet Censors. Excerpt:

Every day in China, [Berkman's John] Palfrey said, an underground economy of proxy server addresses comes alive — usually connecting to servers made available by volunteers around the globe. These addresses are passed along and traded, using elaborately coded language, on electronic bulletin board systems or chat channels.

Elsewhere on the Web, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) helps maintain Tor, a communications network that helps make Internet communications anonymous, and it appears to be accessible from within China. Peacefire.org offers a program called The Circumventor that lets anyone turn a Windows-based machine into a proxy, allowing others to use it to circumvent local Internet restrictions.

Even two small commercial companies, Dynamic Internet Technology and UltraReach Internet, offer software or Web services that try to poke holes in China's "great firewall." ...

No mention of darknets, oddly.