Sexting..... Can it be regulated?

There certainly has been a lot of talk lately about “sexting:” sending or receiving sexually explicit photos via cell phone. From working in the cell phone industry, to reading an article about it in People, to hearing a sermon about it and other moral issues on a church’s website that I listen to, I figure that this would make a nice blog. Personally, since the whole sexting thing became prevalent, I did not think too much of it. I thought it was pretty nasty that middle schoolers were doing it, but I did not think such a big deal of it- at Verizon you see all kinds of crazy stuff on people’s wallpapers on their phones all the time. But today I had a discussion with someone at work about this topic, and initially I argued that it is the sexter’s right to be able to text whatever they want. Then I remembered that the recent issues at hand dealt with minors, which, as discussed in class and on http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/studentexpression/overview.aspx, “do not possess the same level of constitutional rights as adults.” The person I was having a discussion with did not have knowledge of the specifics of the First Amendment, but he said that whether the child has the right or not is not the issue. The issue is that the images were of minors, and because they were explicit in nature, they are automatically considered child pornography, which is not legal in any situation. This is what many of the offenders are being charged with. According to David Rosen, author of “Sex Scandal America: Politics & the ritual of Public Shaming on http://www.counterpunch.org/rosen03252009.html, “participants [in sexting] can face felony child pornography charges.” Two teenage girls who took nude/semi nude photos of themselves, and texted them are facing charges of “manufacturing, disseminating, [and] possessing child pornography.” Rosen argues that “sexting makes everyone, including teenagers, pornographers.”

            But it is really child pornography to send, or have, a nude picture of yourself? According to Wikipedia.com, child pornography “refers to images or films depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child; as such, child pornography is a visual erecord of child sexual abuse.” Is a mere nude picture a depiction of a sexual act? In my opinion, (not that I think sexting is ok) no. If nude pictures not depicting any sexual act are considered porn, then what about all the pictures parents take of their newborns? What about art? There are paintings of partially nude/nude babies, and there are fountains depicting naked children. That’s just relating to children. What about Michelangelo’s “David?” Or the Greek paintings of naked adults, are those porn too because the subject is naked? These artists had a right to free expression, and being as these nude pictures really cannot be considered  child porn, they cannot be regulated by the Government. This is the statement the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to make. According to http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1608142/20090331/story.jhtml, three teenage girls engaged in sexting, and they were brought to court to be prosecuted for child pornography. The ACLU stepped in claiming that the “images are not pornographic, and that they are protected as First Amendment speech.” The ACLU is arguing that the images are not porn, because they “do not constitute child pornography under Pennsylvania’s criminal code since they depict no sexual activity and do not display the public area of the girls” (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/aclu-sues-da-ov.html).

            So what about the First Amendment? If sexting nude pictures is not child pornography, then does being prosecuted for engaging in sexting infringe on the sexters First Amendment rights? The ACLU says yes: it “chills [the] First Amendment right of expression.” While the children might be able to get in trouble with their parents, or at school if the sexting was taking place at school, if the ‘sexts’ cannot be labeled as child porn, the Government has no reason to charge these teenagers. These issues are still being debated in court today, and it will be interesting to see the outcome. While I do feel bad for those who are hurt by sexting, like the case of the girl who killed herself because she was depressed and embarrassed from others seeing her nude sexts (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/), she knew what she was getting into. Text messages are easily forwarded, and if a teen is worried that others might view the text, other than who it was intended for, they should not send it at all. I can see how sexting can have moral issues, and I can see how it can be a problem for our society, but ultimately, I think it does infringe on First Amendment rights to punish it (unless it displays any kind of sexual act—then if done by a minor, I could be considered child porn). Plus, for those who do it without causing an uproar—for instance a girlfriend sends a sext to her boyfriend, and the texting line ends there, how are authorities going to punish that? How can you regulate sexting when much goes on every day; we just don’t hear about it? While not directly talking about this issue, in his Presidential campaign, President Obama spoke his stance on the First Amendment and media: “We know that with the pervasiveness of mass media today…it’s very difficult to regulate our way out of this problem. And for those of us who value our First Amendment freedoms…we wouldn’t want to” (http://www.counterpunch.org/rosen03252009.html) While sexting might be a silly and stupid concept, with possibly no redeeming value, I believe to regulate it infringes on First Amendment rights.

Google Analytics

Here's the link to add Google Analytics to your blog- pretty interesting stuff.

http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html

Simply sign up, and it directs you from there (great instructions, huh?) Actually it merely asks you for your blog URL, and then it gives you some code to edit into your blog. It's very simple, as Google makes everything. Then they send you an e-mail that details all Google can do for you. :-)

You can also use AdSense to make money off your blog, by letting Google place relevant advertisements/ links on it.

Yes, I think Google is awesome. Maybe someday I will be a Googler.....

Cell Phone Jammers: No, they are not about making music with your phone

I was talking with my boss about current free speech issues, and he told me about a somewhat new technology that I had never heard of before, called ‘cell phone jamming’. Evidently, you can purchase a device (but not legally) that blocks cell phone signals for a certain diameter surrounding it. Hypothetically, if a consumer had one of these devices: and they did not like listening to another person’s cell phone conversation near them, they could turn the jammer on and the other person would cease to get a signal. This sounds like a nasty little piece of technology, if you ask me. My boss and I got into a discussion about how this relates to our business—we work for Verizon Wireless. It’s bad for our company, because it blocks signals, so customer’s phones will not work, which can in turn cause them to get upset at us for providing ‘poor service.’ It’s not fair to the customer, because they are paying for a service, and others with the jammers are disrupting the customer’s ability to use the service. How do you feel about this technology?

The big issue right now is that businesses are trying to obtain legal use of these jammers to silence the people on their premises. Specifically, in January, the FCC agreed to a demo in a District of Columbia jail. I guess there is a problem of cell phones being smuggled into jails for use by the inmates. “The authorities argued that prisoners with cell phones can cause trouble even when incarcerated, and saw jammers as a solution” (FCC Hammers Slammer Jammer). On the surface, this seems like a decent solution, but the jammers not only affect the inmates’ cell phones; they also affect the workers’ cell phones, and surrounding citizens’ cell phones. Wireless phone companies, including Verizon fought against this proposal, and the ok for the demo was repealed.

Is this a free speech issue? Yes, because the use of a jammer is no different than being forced to remain silent in a certain area. Consumers are paying for their cell phones to work, and others using jammers interferes with their service. Also, “wireless phone companies paid a lot of money for their spectrum… and they are entitled to a say in who gets to use it. There is an exception to non-interfering uses…but a jammer by definition is an interfering device” (FCC Hammers Slammer Jammer). Currently, jammers are illegal in the US. Any purchase of one can be deemed a violation. “Once the FCC starts allowing demos, then importers and retailers can try to argue that their products have a legal application, greatly complicating the enforcement effort.” If these devices are legalized, there will have to be a whole new policy detailing their allowed uses and punishment for illegal use. It will be one more thing we have to regulate. Also, what about 911 calls? “phone-jamming is a safety hazard. You’re risking a wireless user’s ability for a life-threatening situation to be reported as it happens” (Is there a Case…).

There has been talk of using jammers in a plethora of places: theatres, schools, libraries; the list goes on and on. Pretty soon no one will be able to get a wireless signal anywhere! As an agent for Verizon, I personally do not want to deal with customers griping about jammers affecting their service that they pay so much for…nor do I want to have my cell phone service disrupted. Then there is the argument that jammers can be used to stop terrorist attacks. To this I say: maybe. Honestly, if we take away their ability to use a cell phone, if they really want to cause damage, they will find a way to do it without using a cell phone. It’s not fair to silence everyone because of the faults of a few. This is a major free speech issue; I don’t want some random person, or even the government, interfering with my cell phone signal that Verizon Wireless has worked so hard to provide. I don’t want to be silenced just because the person across the bus from me doesn’t want to hear me talk.

I have searched for about an hour now trying to find a court case surrounding the use of jammers, but it is hard to find one since they are supposedly illegal (I'm assuming that’s why). I did find a lawsuit that is taking place where CellAntenna, a maker of jammers, wants the FCC to allow jammers, at least for law enforcement. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 11th Circuit in Atlanta on November 22, 2006. According to CellAntenna’s website, no progress has really been made in the case. The FCC has used the Communications Act of 1934 (Summary) and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Summary)to justify their declaring the jammers illegal (that the wireless spectrum is paid for by Wireless companies [and in turn, their customers], and there shall be no interference with the signals. According to Wikipedia, it is “illegal to operate, manufacture, import, or offer for sale, including advertising, with fines of up to $11,000 and imprisonment of up to one year.” What’s interesting, is that if you look at the Wikipedia site, in a lot of other countries, jammers are legal (in Norway, anyone can own and operate one!). Could this be because it goes against free speech, something that no other country protects like we do?

Hate Speech: Hate it enough to regulate it?

Hate speech in regards to a university setting—a very salient topic potentially affecting all of us. According to the First Amendment, hate speech is protected speech, however, much controversy has arose in regards to if it should be protected in universities. Universities offer a unique environment, both in diversity and freedom. For many, the University experience is the students’ first time living away from parents. Most students are now legal adults, and very much protected by the first amendment, so why should Universities consider codes against hate speech?

First, let us examine a case. In Doe v. University of Michigan, the University decided to enforce certain codes against hate speech. Their policy prohibited “any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, [or] creed…and creates an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment for educational pursuits, employment, or participation in University sponsored extra-curricular activities” (Doe v. Michigan). One student challenged these codes, arguing that they might prohibit discussion necessary in his major of psychology. The Supreme Court decision in this case was that the University’s speech codes were too vague, too broad, and deemed them unconstitutional: “it is fundamental that statutes regulating First Amendment activities must be narrowly drawn to address only the specific evil at hand.”

I agree with the Supreme Court. University Speech Codes are too vague, and in the large setting of a University, are too difficult to regulate. I believe that every person has a right to say what he or she wants because speech is one of the hardest things to control. According to Milton Heumann, author of Hate Speech on Campus: Cases, Case Studies, and commentaries, “hate speech, despite its potentially harmful qualities, is assuredly speech” (17). If it cannot be controlled completely, it should not be controlled at all—it would be unfair for one person to be punished for saying something hurtful while another receives no penalty. Here lies the rub: how do you determine when to punish someone? What if the person the statement is directed toward did not hear it? How do you obtain proof if it was fleeting and solely verbal and not recorded? It is too difficult to make all cases in this law fair, because there is no way to outline a specific, exhaustive listing of what is ok to say and what is not. One won’t know if what he says is protected or not until after he says it!

I do believe in self-control; that we should have the opportunity to speak harmful words, but should choose not to. Samuel Walker discusses this in his book, Hate Speech: the History of an American Controversy, when talking about his proposed new movement: ‘communitarianism’, “the rights revolution has gone too far in emphasizing individual rights and that more attention should be given to individual responsibilities and the needs for a society as a whole. [This movement] endorses freedom of speech, but calls for individual self-restraint: even thought you have the right to call someone a name, you should not exercise that right” (142). We need to learn when to use our right to free speech.

Likewise, everything a student learns while at a college does not come from the classroom; interactions with others will perhaps have the most influence. Silencing interactions, friendly or otherwise, is taking away from a huge forum for decision making among students. It could produce a chilling effect throughout the campus body, silencing students for fear of getting into trouble. While campus speech codes might be a nice idea on the surface, for promoting equality and helping to ensure nobody’s feelings get hurt, the world outside of the university is not sheltered by these ideals. If not introduced to the world as it is when still young and learning, how will young people ever learn tolerance? College students should be learning to tolerate each other; to tolerate diversity. Rather than having students be silent about ideals, even if wrong or evil, they should be allowed to express them to learned how to change those ideas. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “the principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate." I agree that hate speech is a horrible act, but as you cannot control thoughts, people are going to have malicious cognitions. Not everyone is going to like everyone else. Like I said before, I think instead of trying to lawfully control speech, we ought to focus more on individually controlling speech, by helping people form tolerance, the solution to this form of speech is more speech.

On the other side of the story, hate speech does cause discrimination, and possibly even more feelings of hate. On campus, it can make people insecure, and deter learning. Thomas David Jones, author of Human Rights: Group Defamation, Freedom of Expression and the Law of the Nations, says, “racially defamatory speech…should not be classified as constitutionally protected speech in the US. The value of such speech is so slight that it does not merit the respect of the First Amendment, and it is clearly not protected at international law. It is nothing more than the rotten fruit in the marketplace of ideas, it must therefore be expurgated before it spoils the healthy fruit or is purchased by some naive customer” (5). I think this is an ingenious quote (I am a fan of well used metaphors/similes in writing). His argument is that hate speech is speech, but it should be the law’s job to get rid of it, so that it does not taint other speech, or even available as an idea for thought, and it can be used by people who do not know how much it really hurts others.

Likewise, a study at Princeton revealed “persistent stereotyping and bias is both a sever impediment to [the] academic success [of minority students], and as well as a deterrent to healthy, unforced, unstructured association with members of other races on campus” (Marcus 93). Hate speech on campus creates a further separation of minorities, when in this day we are trying to be tolerant of others. A student at William Patterson College said, “I felt that I was nothing, that I didn’t deserve to be getting a college education…no one has the right to make you feel inferior” (Marcus 91). Everything one does ultimately affects someone else. Everyone has the right to feel that they belong, especially in a university setting, where everyone went though the same admissions process.

Though my side has its flaws, I still stand by the view that hate speech is too complex and broad to regulate in a university setting. There are not necessarily nationwide laws to regulate hate speech in the ‘real world.’ Both liberalists and neoliberals wish for a free exchange and marketplace of ideas, entertaining practically all speech to enable that. By silencing hate speech, a huge sector of speech is being removed from this marketplace. On the other hand, hurtful speech does not deserve a place in the marketplace of ideas, because virtually no good can come from it. To regulate or not to regulate, that is the question.

Works Cited:

Heumann, Milton, et al. editors. Hate Speech on Campus: Cases, Case Studies, and commentaries. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1997.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, et al. “Freedom of speech.” No date given. Available: Online: 9 March 2009 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech.

Jones, Thomas David. Human Rights: Group Defamation, Freedom of Expression and the Law of the Nations. The Hague, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 1998.

John Doe v. University of Michigan. No. 89-71683. Supreme Court. 22 Sept. 1989. Available: Online: 9 March 2009 http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/doe.html

Marcus, Laurence R. Fighting Words. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1996.

Walker, Samuel. Hate Speech: the History of an American Controversy. University of Nebraska Press, 1994.