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I have more comments on interpreting the Constitution in my Miranda commentary. Next, Steven Den Beste has an excellent commentary on this subject (scroll down to "A lot of people have only a cartoon understanding of the First Amendment . . . "). He has another one here. He makes many of the same points I try to make (and many I don't), but in a more articulate fashion.
The media are always eager to defend their actions (covering the sex lives of celebrities, numerous instances of biased reporting, ignoring important news stories) as "freedom of the press" protected by the First Amendment. Never mind that the fourth amendment, which has been severely undermined by Bill Clinton and the War on Drugs, has been studiously ignored by the media (as they ignored Clinton's crimes). (After all, if they think the Constitution is valuable, shouldn't they defend all of it, not just the part that protects them?) But if you examine the role of the press in U.S. history, it's changed dramatically. Two hundred years ago, virtually anyone could start a newspaper. It was easy to get your opinions into one, either by writing to the editor or by being an editor. This is no longer true. Virtually all U.S. cities are served by only one newspaper – if there are two, the second one is either facing financial ruin, has very low circulation, or is run by an extremist group. While there's nothing wrong with non-violent extremist groups, there's something wrong when they're the only ones which offer an alternative to the prime news outlet. And most major American newspapers are owned by conglomerates. So, two hundred years ago, you might have had – easily – half a dozen newspapers in a city. Today, you have about half a dozen independent media companies nationwide. A few years ago, I was telling anyone who would listen that "freedom of the press" was dead in the U.S. But it's now alive, strong, and getting stronger. If you're reading this, you know what I mean. Anyone with internet access – and by the time you read this it might be half the United States – can get his or her views published, by putting them on a web page. So, in my opinion, protecting the freedom of the Internet is more important than protecting freedom of the (conventional) press. The founders intended for people to be able to make their views known – even publicly – without interference from government. The only way that can be done now is to use the Internet. The major media outlets might as well be government-run. [I do not mean that government control of newspapers would be desirable, or allowable. It would set too dangerous a precedent. Even today's conglomerate-owned newspapers have plenty of criticism of the government, by their editors and reporters as well as by letter-writers. And the stories the newspapers cover often hold the government in a less-than-favorable light. Government control would end that. The problem with current media outlets are – many stories are covered only superficially ("should we raise the minimum wage a token amount, or not at all"); misinformation is rampant ("economic growth requires growing energy consumption"), and many important stories are not covered at all.] Not only do many people express themselves via the Internet, many read opinions and get news primarily from it. Now a "strict constructionist" might have said "this new-fangled Internet doesn't need Constitutional protection – it didn't exist in 1787, and who knows what the founders intended with it?" Well, I don't know what they would have intended, but I do know what they said. They were very concerned about government supression of dissenting views, and wrote the First Amendment into the Bill of Rights to protect against such abuses. The Internet is now the main (the only?) way for most citizens to make their views publicly known. So it needs protection. To protect freedom of speech and press today requires protecting the Internet. I'll try stating this another way. The founders intended for U.S. citizens to have freedom of speech. The Internet is a valuable addition to freedom of speech. In fact, for most people, the Internet may be the only way they can exercise freedom of speech, in the way the Founders envisioned the use of newspapers. |
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