In this day and age the internet has become a big part of our lives. The internet is now a medium that connects millions of different people across the world in the matter of seconds. However, the vast sea of communication and information that comes along with the internet is not a safe place. More and more often we hear of a security breach within a major company or leaked information, from hackers. Many people are questioning whether or not the government should get involved and regulate the internet. However, people don’t realize that the government’s involvement might infringe on our constitutional rights by censorship of information, invading privacy and the possibility of suppressing our freedom of speech
People in the United States
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"Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." Those are the words of the first amendment in our constitution and the law the government must follow.
U.S civilians run the risk of losing many rights with government regulating the internet. For example privacy, many government requests has been sent to Google for information on their consumers. In the Google transparency report, a U.S. law enforcement agency asked Google to take down a blog that "allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity." The company denied that request. Another separate and different law enforcement group asked Google to take down one thousand four hundred videos on YouTube (Google owns YouTube) because of "alleged harassment." Dorothy Chou, a Google analyst states, "It 's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect, Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.” The company did not oblige either of those demands but as the report states, they did fulfil at least with forty- two percent of the removal requests from the United States in 2011. That number compared to the past reports is very low; in 2010, for example, Google said it complied with eighty-seven percent of U.S. requests to take down content. In 2011, Google received six thousand three hundred and twenty one requests for
Freedom of speech is defined by the first amendment as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
Over the years, there has always been a lot of controversy surrounding the topic of whether or not the government should be able to monitor our activity on the internet. This especially become a huge debate more recently simply because of the many terrorist attacks and dangerous events that we’ve encountered. Many believe that if the government was given more insight to what the people of this country looked at on the internet, then they would be able to prevent many horrible things from happening. On the other hand, however, others feel that this is a violation of personal privacy and therefore should not be allowed. The government already monitors our internet usage but they are thinking of increasing what they monitory which has lead to many differing opinions among the people of the United States of America.
The internet is a vital part of our lives, but what if I said it was a completely public one? Privacy is a rare commodity in today's world. As Nicholas Carr writes about in his essay “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” corporations pay close attention to citizens. The most frightening part is that this practice is perfectly legal. Even recently the government stripped more of our privacy away. In the beginning of April 2017, President Trump repealed regulations by the Federal Communications Commission that would have forced internet service providers to gain consent before selling data collected from their customers. However, corporations aren't the only ones capturing data from internet users. The government is also making use of these records.
Freedom of speech has been a controversial issue throughout the world. Our ability to say whatever we want is very important to us as individuals and communities. Although freedom of speech and expression may sometimes be offensive to other people, it is still everyone’s right to express his/her opinion under the American constitution which states that “congress shall make no law
The United States Constitution grants American citizens the freedom of speech. This single line in the First Amendment has been a staple of American culture since its ratification on December 15, 1791 (Constitution Center, 2018). The Founders recognized the significance of this freedom and the power it had to shape a young nation. It was George Washington who declared-“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter” (Global Research, 2016). The legal definition of this vision is “the right to express information, ideas, and opinions- free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2018). Consequently, this sole clause
An important thing to know about freedom of speech is it does not actually protect anything we want to say. However freedom of speech is something that the United States holds high. The first amendment of our constitution is one of the most important amendments we have to protect us. The first amendment gives us the right to free speech with very few limits. Even though this may not be the best policy it is important we protect any speech so long as it is not harming anyone. The constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Madison)” This is saying that the freedom of speech is protected by the constitution and congress cannot make laws to limit anything covered by freedom
The United States Constitution grants American citizens the freedom of speech. This single line in the First Amendment has been a staple of American culture since its ratification on December 15, 1791 (Constitution Center, 2018). The Founders recognized the significance of this freedom and the power it had to shape a young nation. It was George Washington who declared-“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter” (Global Research, 2016). The legal definition of this vision is “the right to express information, ideas, and opinions- free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). This sole clause has been the subject
In chapter five The First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech…”(121). This means that citizens expect the government to give them the choice to speak and hear what they want. In addition, freedom of speech can include symbols, signs, and non-verbal
The First Amendment protects any person’s freedom of speech from Congress, state government and local public officials. However, this does not allow individuals to be free in saying anything that they want to say. One example of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment are crimes involving speech. If a form of speech is used to commit a crime such as perjury, harassment or extortion, it will not be provided protection by the First Amendment. Another example is Conduct Regulations. Our government has the right to make laws in regards to the specific conduct used in the speech such as stating when, where and how the speech can be provided. These regulations can be upheld by courts as long as they considered content-neutral and are not constraining the expression of ideas. For example, they are allowed to limit the size of collateral used for speech and are also able to limit the level of sound in speech that can be heard at distinct times.
The Internet’s continuous advancement has produced the need for an on-going debate on whether or not the government should have the power to control the Internet. The idea of the government having control over what each country’s citizens can see on the Internet is also called Internet Censorship. Internet Censorship “is the control or suppression of the publishing of, or access to information on the Internet.” Internet Censorship varies from country to country depending on each country’s current usage and philosophy of how it should be used. (toptenreviews.com) Currently, there are ten countries including
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech among other valued standards. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (U. S. Constitution). What does it mean by “Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech?” The framers of the Constitution held the rights to free speech in such utmost regard that they deliberately chose to make it a First Amendment right.
"To what extent does the Government have the duty to monitor the internet? The Internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. The Government should have control of the internet depending on the situation.
"In today’s society, many advances in technology have taken into effect, affecting almost every person in the world. One popular advance in technology is the invention and mass use of the Internet. Currently, more than three billion people are using the Internet on a daily basis for either personal and business usages. The Internet, today, allows users to transfer large amounts of information across great distances in a fraction of a second. The information that they transfer into the Internet can range from educational, businesses, political, entertainment, social networking, to world security purposes. Because the Internet has become the primary source of communication in our society, the government feels obligated to control the contents of information distributed throughout the interweb. The question is to what extent in the U.S. should the government be able to monitor internet content.
These days the internet has become an essential part to living for almost everyone but one of the controversial topics that people bring up is that whether or not the government should regulate information on the internet. Both sides have valid points which form a reasonable argument. Some people would say that they need to because of the dangers lurking around in the cyber world but the reasons for why the government shouldn’t regulate the Internet outnumber the reasons for why they should. The federal government should not regulate or censor information on the internet because doing so violates the first amendment and citizen’s right to privacy, degrades the educational value of the web, prevents the promotion and facilitation of
“In the long, twilight struggle against Communism, we had been reminded that the very liberties that we sought to preserve could not be sacrificed at the altar of national security “ (“Obama’s Speech On…” 1). One of these very civil liberties, recently recognized by the United Nations, is the “right to privacy in the digital age”. Although the actions of the United Nations are not legally binding, it is evident that the right to Internet privacy is becoming increasingly important in the international world. Breaches in Internet privacy have become commonplace as Social Security and credit card numbers are stolen along with passwords to bank accounts and social media sites. Breaches in Internet privacy have become especially problematic in