Free Speech & First Amendment Issues
Despite the existence of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, policy makers in America have a long and lamentable history of interfering with the right of free speech and free expression. Television and radio broadcasters have always faced the equivalent of second-class citizenship when it comes to First Amendment protections. And now the Internet community is facing a seemingly endless barrage of controls on speech and expression online.
Regrettably, policymakers have all too often fall into the trap of attempting to sanitize the Internet, television and radio in the name of "protecting children," preserving "community standards," and serving "the public interest." But given the global reach of modern communications technologies, it is impossible to determine what "community standards" even mean anymore. And the task of raising children is a family responsibility, not the government's. Parents should decide what their children see and listen to, not Congress, the FCC or the courts.
Finally, the "public interest" should not be defined as the random whims of five commissioners on the FCC, rather the public interest is whatever the public says it is. How is that determined? By the interaction of millions of diverse interests and actors in a free marketplace. Asking the FCC to define the public interest for the communications sector is akin to asking a hypothetical Federal Automobile Commission to define what types of cars consumers will demand next year and then determining which firms should be able to supply them and on what terms. Just as the forces of supply and demand are spontaneously calibrated by a free market in cars, computers, corn or coffee, so too can the public interest in communications be discovered by the voluntary interaction of companies and consumers in a free market.
The problem here is clear: neither party seems ready to take the First Amendment seriously. Free speech rights and the First Amendment are of paramount importance to individual liberty and should be fully honored and protected against government interference. Moreover, electronic media (radio, television, telephones, the Internet) should be accorded the same protections received by print media (newspapers, magazines, newsletters). This is no conceivable justification for subjecting electronic media to a lesser standard than its print counterparts.
-- by Adam Thierer (athierer@cato.org) Director of Telecommunications Studies
