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Summer 2009: Table of Contents
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Stratospheric Transparency: Perspectives on Internet Privacy
Rita M. Hauck
Abstract
As a parent of teenagers in the 1980s, I recall a concern of the intrusion by MTV into our home. After futile attempts to block the program, my spouse and I set out to convince our sons of its intrusion. Our challenge was miniscule when compared to the Internet privacy issues of today. This paper addresses such challenges and proposes some guidelines based on research and experience that may help Internet users to strike a balance between the advantages of social networking and virtually limitless information access, and possible calamities wrought by Internet intrusions and personal privacy breaches. The concept of “stratospheric transparency” touches the social responsibility of what to put in cyberspace, a cyberspace prophylactic that may encourage people who use the Internet to ask themselves questions such as, “Do I want to live in an Internet fishbowl?” “Would I want my most respected relative or friend to see my post?” “Am I using the same standards for behavior in Cyberspace that I use at home and at work?” and, “If I do not have any standards when I 'surf the Net' is this a time of my life when I should seriously avoid Cyberspace?”
This paper relates the “Karman line” (highest atmospheric altitudes of the earth) to the possibilities for innovation and wisdom in the future development of Cyberspace. Some people are traveling into Cyberspace without knowledge about how they are influenced by activity there, and without knowledge that they can influence its development and help keep it from litter and pollution. It is as if they are traveling into space, not realizing that to maintain altitude at that level, one must travel faster than the rotation of the earth.
The Expanding Government Speech Doctrine in United States Jurisprudence And Its Implications For Internet Privacy And Private Speech
Rita R. Woltz, System Counsel and Assistant Attorney General, Virginia Community College System, Richmond, VA
Abstract
In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 129 S. Ct. 1125 (2009),the U. S. Supreme Court recently decided that a city did not discriminate against a religious sect’s views by not accepting its park monument, because park monuments constitute government speech, and therefore government action concerning them is not subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Thus, despite the fact that a park has always been considered a traditional public forum for private speech, government is free to control the messages sent by permanent monuments, even when receiving private assistance for them, because it maintains final approval authority over their selection. Id.at 1131-1134.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to say that the Internet is a traditional public forum, it has been relatively free of regulation and an open source for communication. However, government control of it continues to increase and recent U.S. legislation will provide greater government programs and funding for it as well as regulation of it for access, health, and cyber security. The question is whether such control will benefit individual autonomy and the marketplace of ideas, or constitute government speech that commandeers privacy information and inhibits private speech.
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