“We are extremely proud to announce a CEO and president of Jeffrey Rosen’s caliber as a constitutional scholar, journalist, and educator,” said National Constitution Center Chairman Jeb Bush. “I look forward to working in hand with Jeffrey to continue to elevate the Center’s national profile and unparalleled role as a museum, town hall, and civic educational headquarters.”

“I’m thrilled and humbled by the opportunity to lead the National Constitution Center, a great institution devoted to promoting bipartisan debate about constitutional issues,” said Rosen. “The Center is both a magnificent museum and America’s town hall, a national and international forum for constitutional debate and education. I Iook forward to working with the Center to host those debates in Philadelphia, on the Internet, and around the world.”

“As the Center looks towards its next decade, we are proud to welcome a leader and highly respected constitutional expert who will provide a fresh perspective on our important work of illuminating constitutional ideals and inspiring active citizenship,” said Doug DeVos, chairman of the Center’s executive committee.

“Jeffrey Rosen is a prominent Constitutional scholar and acclaimed author whose legal commentaries are widely read and respected,” said Dr. Amy Gutmann, a National Constitution Center Trustee and the president of the University of Pennsylvania.  “His stature, passion, and vision are a perfect match for the National Constitution Center, which seeks to draw connections between the Constitution and current events and inspire lively intellectual exchange among people of all ages.”

Rosen is a professor at The George Washington University Law School, where he has taught since 1997, and is the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, which covers politics and culture from an “unbiased and thought-provoking perspective.” He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he explores issues involving the future of technology and the Constitution. He has recorded a lecture series for the Teaching Company’s Great Courses on Privacy, Property, and Free Speech: Law and the Constitution in the 21st Century.

Rosen is a highly regarded journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, on National Public Radio, and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America and a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times called him “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.” He received the 2012 Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute for his “extraordinary contribution to the cause of better legal writing.”

Rosen was an adviser to the National Constitution Center during its early planning phases and a visiting scholar at the Center during the summer of 2003. He has appeared on many panels at the Center, including a 2007 program about the Supreme Court with then-ABC News correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg.

Since 2000, he has served as a moderator at The Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization with a mission to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. At Aspen, Rosen moderates panels and conducts seminars on technology and the Constitution, privacy, and free speech and democracy.

He is the author of several books including The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America; The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America; The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age; and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America. His most recent book, as co-editor, is Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change. Books about Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and President William Howard Taft are forthcoming.

Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.

The National Constitution Center is the first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed: the U.S. Constitution. Located on Independence Mall in Historic Philadelphia, the birthplace of American freedom, the Center illuminates constitutional ideals and inspires active citizenship through a state-of-the-art museum experience, including hundreds of interactive exhibits, films and rare artifacts; must-see feature exhibitions; the internationally acclaimed, 360-degree theatrical production Freedom Rising; and the iconic Signers’ Hall, where visitors can sign the Constitution alongside 42 life-size, bronze statues of the Founding Fathers. As America’s town hall, the Center engages diverse, distinguished leaders of government, public policy, journalism and scholarship in timely public discussions and debates. The Center also houses the Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach, the national hub for constitutional education, which offers cutting-edge civic learning resources both onsite and online. Join us at the museum of “We the People” as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary in 2013. For more information, call 215.409.6700 or visit constitutioncenter.org.

TWEET IT: Welcome! @gwlaw @tnr Jeffrey Rosen named new president and CEO of @ConstitutionCtr

Related Links
Read a letter from Jeffrey Rosen
Hear Jeffrey Rosen’s vision for the National Constitution Center

Members of the media are invited to speak in person with Rosen on Monday, May 13, 2013, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Please contact Lauren Saul, director of public relations, at lsaul@constitutioncenter.org to make arrangements.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Lauren Saul
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According to news reports of the incident, the game was stopped for several minutes to verify the bingo claim, and when the false utterance was discovered, it caused an uproar. After he refused to apologize, Whaley was arrested for disorderly conduct. As punishment, he received no jail time but was ordered not to utter the word bingo for six months. And while, after his brush with the law, Whaley probably never wants to say the word “bingo” again as long as he lives, it makes those of us who love the Constitution (if not the game of bingo) wonder: Is that a violation of his right to free speech? Like most interpretations of the Constitution, First Amendment protection of free speech can be understood by taking a look at Supreme Court decisions on the matter.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the seminal cases to the understanding of free speech rights involved a man named Charles Schenck, who was chairman of the U.S. Socialist Party. Schenck was staunchly opposed to the United States’ involvement in World War I. He printed up 15,000 leaflets opposing the draft, advising people to “Assert Your Rights” and cautioning them not to submit to intimidation. For this, he was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the most controversial laws criminalizing conduct during wartime and creating penalties against anyone who “shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or of the United States.” Schenck appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, claiming that it violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court in Schenck v. U.S. unanimously upheld Schenck’s conviction, saying that the United States government during a time of war had the right to limit speech that it said would lead to an imminent risk of harm. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in what has become the most widely known exception to the right to freedom of speech, wrote:

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. … The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Over time, the Supreme Court has modified slightly the “clear and present danger” test first articulated by Justice Holmes. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 case involving the arrest of members of the Ku Klux Klan, the court found that to be illegal, speech must have the intent and the likelihood of causing imminent violence.

And so we must ask: How much violence is likely to occur if one gets between a bingo player and her game? Should someone have the right to falsely shout “Bingo” in a parlor full of people who are likely to become furious when they realize that you’ve made a mockery of their game? Whaley may have been judged not just by the word he uttered but by the fact that he was not, apparently, at the bingo hall for any reason other than to cause a disruption. But had he chosen to fight his arrest on free speech grounds, the prosecutor would likely have been hard-pressed to prove that as infuriated as the elderly bingo patrons might have been, Whaley’s actions had neither the intent, nor the likelihood, of causing imminent violence.

Further Reading

• Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). Read online at oyez.org.
• Schenck v. U.S. 249 U.S. 47 (1917). Read online at oyez.org

Amy E. Feldman is the Legal Education Consultant to the National Constitution Center. She is the General Counsel of The Judge Group, Inc., a leading global professional services based in Philadelphia.

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The statement at issue:

“When the president can bypass media to reach the public, it is not far-fetched to imagine a time–perhaps now?–when the state controls the message. … No president since Richard Nixon has demonstrated such overt contempt for the messenger. And, thanks to technological advances in social media, Obama has been able to bypass traditional watchdogs as no other has.”

 – Kathleen Parker, a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, in an op-ed article in The Washington Post on March 1, titled “Why the ‘threat’ on Bob Woodward matters.” She was commenting on the tiff between the White House and Post senior writer Woodward over his story saying that the White House originated the idea of the massive federal budget cuts that took effect March 1.

We checked the Constitution, and…

The “watchdog” role of the press is, indeed, one of the political values that the First Amendment’s free press clause was designed to achieve, from the very beginning of the nation. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1789, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

It is fair to ask, though, whether a president’s choice to “go to the people” because the White House believes the presidential message is not getting through via the media is a serious limit on freedom of the press. The press depends upon access to White House officials to monitor their official conduct, but that is an issue quite separate from a chief executive who goes out on the hustings to tell his administration’s story the way he wants it told.

The logical fallacy in Kathleen Parker’s column is that it treats President Obama’s speechmaking tours as merely an extension of a threat (or an implied threat) to cut off reporter Woodward’s access to the White House (leaving aside the hyperbole suggesting that America is near–or even at–the place where the government “controls the message”).

There are two kinds of accountability at issue here, and both are related to constitutional purposes. Those who wrote the Constitution wanted the president to function as the one government official who was accountable to the whole nation, because he was elected to do just that. They turned aside suggestions that the president be chosen by Congress, and opted for election by the people. And those who added the First Amendment to the Constitution wanted the press to help ensure that the president remained true to that constitutional stewardship.

From George Washington’s time onward, presidents have used the high visibility of their office to communicate to the people. They have not always communicated honestly and candidly, but by the very fact that they are speaking or writing in public makes their message subject to criticism, from the press and their political adversaries, and by the public at large.

The fact that the means of expression have changed over time–the penny press, the telegraph, urban newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet and social media–has not meant that the president was steadily gaining the unchecked power to “control the message.” Presidents have had press secretaries who daily met with reporters to make announcements and field questions, but no one expects the reporters to suspend their own professional judgment in response.

None of that has altered the constitutional order in a way that has scuttled the First Amendment, or muzzled the press. A journalist like Bob Woodward has managed to get behind the scenes to a really unusual degree, for some of the most penetrating Washington journalism that America has ever known. Although in recent days he has publicly communicated his “discomfort” with being a target of White House criticism and what he interpreted as a threat, it hardly seems likely that he will now be isolated from the public square, or that he will be truly intimidated.

In fact, by taking his feud with the White House to various public forums, Woodward has risked making himself the story, drawing attention away from the reporting that displeased the White House. Reporters whose personalities get in the way of their stories do no favors to journalism in general or to their stories in particular.

It is well to remember that, as a very young, energetic reporter, Woodward, along with another young one, Carl Bernstein, uncovered the massive scandal that history knows as “Watergate.” While there was glory in that (including being somewhat idolized in a very popular Hollywood movie), it was the substance of the journalism that had a lasting effect.

While Kathleen Parker and others have complained of a “thin-skinned” White House in the Obama years, it does not appear–at least not yet–that the president and his aides have compiled an “enemies list” that includes members of the press, and have not been known to wiretap reporters’ telephone calls. Now that was an attempt at “state control of the message.”

There is a natural tension between presidents and their aides and the media that covers the White House, and each side regularly complains about the message that the other is conveying. The First Amendment has accommodated that tension, and perhaps even fostered it. And the First Amendment also has been very good for the social media, where literally everyone (including presidents) can have their say. Indeed, America may well be on the verge of becoming a real democracy, where everyone can try to control–or at least to influence–the message.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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James H. Billington. Source: Library of Congress.

Article I, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution grants Congress power to regulate copyright. But the semi-obscure law that covers phone-unlocking certainly doesn’t date back to the time of James Madison or even Alexander Graham Bell.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) sprung up during the Clinton era and was designed to protect copyrighted content on the Internet and computer devices, while not curbing freedom of expression.

Digital publishers like Constitution Daily and any business that publishes digital content are very aware of the “take down” procedure under the law. If someone has a copyright claim to an image, audio recording, or video, the copyright holder files a DMCA notice and the publisher takes down the content until the issue is resolved.

Another part of the law was designed to curb pirated video, audio, and software on the Internet and on digital devices.

That’s where the librarian of Congress comes in. The DMCA says that the librarian, as the final authority on copyrights, can grant exemptions to the law every three years.

Wireless providers use copyrights to make phones they sell proprietary to their own networks, by requiring a code to “unlock” the phone for use on competitors’ networks. One reason is that a provider may sell a phone to you at a deep discount in exchange for a two-year service contract.

Link: Latest carrier unlocking costs

Last October, Librarian of Congress James Hadley Billington (of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) decided to end an exemption that allowed people to unlock their cellphones without their carrier’s permission. The updated rule went into effect in January amid much fuss in the digital world.

So now, if you have a locked phone, you need to negotiate a deal with your provider. Some will provide an unlock code after your current contract expires, or even sooner. (Policies vary among carriers.)

In his ruling, which remains in effect for three years, Billington said today’s consumers can just buy an unlocked phone on the market. Typically, the markup on an unlocked phone can be 300 percent, and you still need to buy a monthly service plan for voice, texting, and Internet access.

But another key point is that Billington’s ruling makes it illegal to unlock a phone without a carrier’s permission.

Since the rules went into effect, the White House received more than 100,000 signatures on an online petition to overturn the ruling.

On Monday, the Obama administration responded with a statement supporting the unlocking of all phones after a consumer meets a contractual requirement. The administration also supports the idea of tablets like the iPad being unlocked in a similar way.

“Neither criminal law nor technological locks should prevent consumers from switching carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement or other obligation,” said David Edelman, White House Senior Advisor for Internet, Innovation, & Privacy.

On Tuesday, Billington responded with a low-key rebuke to the president, saying that the review process that led to the ban was executed within the DMCA.

“Rulemaking can often serve as a barometer for broader policy concerns and broader policy action. The most recent rulemaking has served this purpose,” the statement said.

In Congress, the idea of some controlled form of unlocking is getting bipartisan support.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) supports the idea and Senator  Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) is proposing a new unlocking law.

Representative Darrell Issa (R-California), an influential force in Congress, has also supported an unlocking law, but he’s also voiced concerns about a rise in cellphone prices if people can break their contracts with providers.

For now, the librarian’s ruling stands, but the administration did drop one hint about how it could get around Congress to make it easier for people to get unlocked phones.

It said the Federal Communications Commission, an executive-branch agency, should have a role in the process.

The FCC is involved in rulemaking for cellphone plans. One theory, explained on the industry website eWeek, is that the FCC could require providers to give permission to consumers who want an unlock code—no questions asked.

That could be problematic, says CNET’s Marguerite Reardon in her review of the current situation, because the FCC should work to support laws passed by Congress.

Reardon says the actual legality of the DCMA and unlock codes could be questioned.

“Until the law is actually tested in court or until Congress amends it to make it more clear, it’s difficult to say whose interpretation is correct,” she said in an article that lays out the broad debate about the issue.

The stakes in the debate are huge. According to Pew Research, more than 45 percent of American adults own a smartphone, and 31 percent have computer tablets. The value of the wireless services industry in the U.S. is about $211 billion.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

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President Obama on Twitter.

The political world fell in love with Twitter during last year’s presidential campaign, when Democrats and Republicans used the digital messaging service to argue about the campaign, the debates, and the truth of candidates’ statements.

Link: Read full Pew Research study

The Pew study shows that attempts to gauge overall trends on Twitter, in most cases, disconnected with polling research conducted nationally.

For example, when public opinion surveys showed that 52 percent of people were satisfied with President Barack Obama’s win over Mitt Romney, Pew estimates that 77 percent of Twitter reaction was positive about President Obama’s win.

But Twitter doesn’t always lean toward the liberals.

Public polling showed that about 48 percent of people had a positive opinion of President Obama’s inaugural address in January; among Twitter users, only 13 percent of users had a positive opinion of the speech.

Of eight major events tracked in the past year by Pew, only one had similar popularity results between major public opinion polls and Twitter: Paul Ryan’s selection as Romney’s running mate.

A second, the Supreme Court’s health care decision, was at least close when it came to negative reaction. The difference was only 8 percentage points between a national survey and Twitter. (However, the difference was 16 percent points among people who had a positive opinion of the health care decision.)

Pew’s conclusion is that the audience that uses Twitter doesn’t reflect the general adult population when it comes to politics.

“The lack of consistent correspondence between Twitter reaction and public opinion is partly a reflection of the fact that those who get news on Twitter–and particularly those who tweet news–are very different demographically from the public,” it says.

Another issue is that Twitter is heavily used, but only by a small percentage of the population. Pew cites data that shows only 13 percent of adults use Twitter or read Twitter messages, and only 3 percent of people get their news from Twitter.

Twitter also tends to have younger users who also tend to be Democrats.

The findings aren’t likely to stop politicians who have become obsessed with Twitter and have made a considerable investment in building up a huge number of Twitter followers.

President Obama can claim to have more than 25 million Twitter followers, according to the website Fanpagelist.

Obama’s Twitter efforts far outshine other American and global politicians. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore have more than 2 million followers, and John McCain tops the Republicans with 1.8 million. The Dalai Lama has more than 6 million followers.

And in some cases, Twitter can hurt politicians. On Tuesday, McCain was defending himself after a tweet from his account compared Iran’s president to a monkey.

The most famous Twitter mistake came from former political rising star Anthony Weiner, who accidentally posted a lewd photo of himself on the microblogging service in June 2011.

Weiner is now out of the political limelight, but he returned to Twitter last November.

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The first version of Paine’s pamphlet was printed just a few blocks from the current-day National Constitution Center in colonial Philadelphia in 1776, and it went viral, in the current sense of the word, when it hit the cobblestone streets here on January 9, 1776.

Common Sense sold 120,000 copies in its first three months, and by the end of the Revolution, 500,000 copies were sold. The estimated population of the Colonies (excluding its African-American and Native American populations) was 2.5 million.

So about 20 percent of colonists owned a copy of the revolutionary booklet. In current-day sales, that would amount to sales of 60 million, not including overseas sales.

Link: Read Common Sense

Only a handful of books have sold more than 60 million copies in the past two centuries, and those books had the benefit of modern publishing outlets and promotion.

In the case of Common Sense, the publicity was literally word of mouth, since people would buy the pamphlet and shout the words on street corners and inside taverns for the illiterate to hear.

Paine was born and raised in England, and he had been in Philadelphia for little more than a year, after getting a letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin.

He published Common Sense anonymously, and its simple words made the case for the Colonies’ separation from England, in no uncertain terms.

For example, in explaining his objection to England’s constitutional monarchy, Paine says, “as a man who is attached to a prostitute is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.”

The pamphlet sparked a public debate that now included most of the colonists, including those who couldn’t read or understand some of the more complicated arguments being made for freedom.

Paine’s follow-up to Common Sense was a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis.

General George Washington had the first pamphlet read to his troops at Washington’s Crossing in late 1776 to convince them to extend their enlistments so he could attack Trenton.

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” said Paine.

In his later years, Paine would become a controversial figure because of his writings on religion and his role in the French revolution; only a handful of people attended his funeral in 1809.

President Thomas Jefferson had permitted Paine to return from France in his final years, and wrote about the author in 1821.

“No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language,” Jefferson said. “ In this he may be compared with Dr. Franklin; and indeed his Common Sense was, for awhile, believed to have been written by Dr. Franklin, and published under the borrowed name of Paine, who had come over with him from England.”

At the time, it was still a crime in England to publish any sections of Common Sense.

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The First Amendment allows the media to publish information of public interest, and the Second Amendment, as interpreted under a Supreme Court ruling, allows people to own guns to use for self-defense and other purposes.

So what happens when a newspaper deliberately publishes a map showing the names and locations of gun-permit owners in two huge suburban counties?

There was a lot of outrage over the decision by the Journal News, a Gannett-owned newspaper, to make it easy for readers to find some gun owners in New York’s Rockland and Westchester counties.

The paper filed a series of state freedom of information requests to get the data and then placed the names and addresses of some gun owners on a street-level map.

The newspaper had a right to the data under several laws.

There is a federal act dating back to the era of President Lyndon Johnson that allows the public to file a request to see most federal government-gathered information that isn’t easily accessible.

There are nine type of exceptions where the federal government can deny a request.

New York has its own freedom of information law, which allows citizens to receive information within two months. The Journal News had partial information on the two counties within days.

The newspaper has been unapologetic.

“We knew publication of the database would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” said CynDee Royle, editor and vice president/news.

“People are concerned about who owns guns and how many of them there are in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Our Freedom of Information request also sought specifics on how many and what types of weapons people owned. That portion of the request was denied.”

While the newspaper didn’t break any Freedom of Information Act rules, it came in for a lot of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.

People in favor of the Second Amendment took to the Internet to attack the Journal News for grandstanding and trying to exploit the gun issue for readership.

Others who don’t own guns bashed the newspaper for invasion of privacy and said they would cancel their subscriptions.

And still others said the Freedom of Information Act information didn’t include anyone who owned rifles and shotguns, so the newspaper’s claim to reveal “the gun owner next door” was far from accurate.

The Journal News did succeed in drawing attention to the issue, especially after CNN and other outlets started to report the reader revolt against the newspaper just before Christmas.

“Hundreds of callers have complained, claiming publication of the database put their safety at risk or violated their privacy. Others claimed publication was illegal. Many of the callers were vitriolic and some threatened members of the newspaper staff,” the newspaper said in a follow-up story.

The Journal News published one comment from a caller, who equated the use of an online map to similar products used to show the locations of sex offenders in a neighborhood.

“The implications are mind-boggling,” said the caller. “It’s as if gun owners are sex offenders (and) to own a handgun risks exposure as if one is a sex offender. It’s, in my mind, crazy.”

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And people in journalistic circles are questioning if the display of the data was the best use of Freedom of Information Act information.

At the Poynter Institute, Julie Moos ran down the problems in a December 26 story that showed how other publications tried similar projects in the past, with mixed results.

Two publications pulled gun-ownership databases after they realized privacy issues were involved. Both were in heavily urban areas that were plagued with violence.

Poynter senior faculty Al Tompkins, who is a widely read figure in the journalism world, bluntly said the newspaper needed to do a little thinking.

“Publishing gun owners’ names makes them targets for theft or public ridicule. It is journalistic arrogance to abuse public record privilege, just as it is to air 911 calls for no reason or to publish the home addresses of police or judges without cause,” he said in Moos’ article.

In the end, the free market will decide if the Journal News made the right decision. Profit margins are razor thin in today’s newspaper business, and any loss of subscription revenue would be a tough financial blow to take.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

The last-second addition of wording about the rights of all nations to have a role in controlling the Internet sparked outrage from Western nations and their allies.

Forbes says 80 allies joined the U.S. in refusing to sign the pact.

The argument in Dubai was over some very familiar American concepts, such as freedom of speech, sovereignty, and equal access to markets.

For months, critics in the U.S. have called the conference a veiled attempt to close markets to American companies and to allow nations, under an indirect U.N. sanction, to block and control Internet content within their borders.

And for months, officials from the U.N.-sponsored International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have denied the claims and said they were inaccurate.

The 12-day World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) was run by the U.N.-sponsored ITU, and it was seeking to update a 1988 document called the International Telecommunication Regulations Treaty.

The U.N. group was considering controls over the Internet as an expansion of its current mandate over telephones, television, and radio networks.

In the end, a late nonbinding provision tacked on to the treaty stated, “the Internet is a central element of the infrastructure of the information economy, and recognizes that all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance, the security and stability of the Internet, and its future development.”

The U.S. government, in a rare sign of internal unity, strongly opposes the U.N. group’s proposed role as a conduit for nations to monitor and block Internet content, under the apparent indirect sanction of the international group.

The trade publication Communications Day says the addendum was sponsored by a bloc of African nations, and Iran led the effort to get it passed by a majority vote.

Communications Day said the development was stunning because another group of nations, including Russia, China, and Egypt, dropped similar plans last Monday, in an effort to get the U.S. and its allies to sign a deal that excluded any Internet provisions.

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U.S. ambassador Terry Kramer bluntly said his country had no interest in signing the treaty.

“The Internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without U.N. regulation,” Kramer said.

“Today, we’re in a situation where we still have text and resolutions that cover issues on spam and also provisions on Internet governance … the United States continues to believe that Internet policy must be multi-stakeholder driven. Internet policy should not be determined by Member States, but by citizen, communities, and broader society. And such consultation from the private sector and civil society is paramount. This has not happened here,” Kramer said.

In a statement on Thursday night, International Telecommunications Union Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré said the Western nations shouldn’t be threatened by the document.

“I repeat that the conference did NOT include provisions on the Internet in the treaty text. Annexed to the treaty is a non-binding Resolution which aims at fostering the development and growth of the Internet–a task that ITU has contributed significantly to since the beginning of the Internet era, and a task that is central to the ITU’s mandate to connect the world, a world that today still has two thirds of its population without Internet access,” Toure said.

“The word ‘Internet’ was repeated throughout this conference and I believe this is simply a recognition of the current reality–the two worlds of telecommunications and Internet are inextricably linked,” he said.

Simon Towle, the leader of the U.K. delegation, agreed with Kramer.

“On the Internet itself, our position is clear. We do not see the ITRs as the place to address Internet issues,” Towle said.

The summit in Dubai debated Internet censorship and “fees” related to the Internet, mostly behind closed doors.

In all, 193 countries were at the summit, with about 1,500 delegates.

The event was serious enough that in a highly charged partisan environment of Washington, the Obama administration, top Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and even top tax fighter Grover Norquist all agreed the Internet should be kept free when it comes to access and taxes.

Russia had been attached to a proposal, leaked last month, that would take away the power of ICANN, a U.S.-based nonpartisan agency that regulates all Internet addresses, and give that power to the U.N. and individual nations. But that proposal was dropped.

In reality, some countries already block Web access, but an official mandate to let ITU members control how Internet access points are assigned and monitored would make the whole process much easier to manage—and censor.

Some critics say the real issue is a power grab to take ICANN away from any swaying influence exerted on it by the U.S. government.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of Constitution Daily.

Internet servers in Serbia. Source: WikiCommons

There seems to be some truth in both claims, as a prominent group of American officials is in Dubai for an international summit called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (or WCIT).

The U.N. does sponsor the group holding the summit in Dubai, and the issues of Internet censorship and “fees” related to the Internet are in two proposals leaked to the public in advance of the closed-door meeting.

But the U.N. itself wouldn’t have a direct role in Internet censorship, and an indirect role, at the most, in allowing nations to charge Internet providers like Google for access to their markets.

The debate in Dubai is over some familiar American concepts, such as freedom of speech, taxation, sovereignty, and equal access to markets.

WCIT is run by the U.N.-sponsored International Telecommunications Union, and it is seeking to update a 1988 document called the International Telecommunication Regulations Treaty.

The head of the ITU, Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, says that fears that a new treaty would allow countries to tax Internet content providers and give the ITU and its member nations the power to control Internet addresses are unfounded.

In an editorial on Wired, Touré said, “The sole focus of the event is making regulations valuable to all stakeholders, creating a robust pillar to support future growth in global communications.” He’s also called the press coverage of the conference “sensationalist.”

So why is a group of 120 heavy hitters from the United States in Dubai? The United States team, led by Ambassador Terry Kramer, includes National Telecommunications and Information Administration Chief Larry Strickling, Ambassador Philip Verveer of the State Department, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

In all, 193 countries are at the summit, with about 1,500 delegates.

The event is serious enough that in a highly charged partisan environment of Washington, the Obama administration, top Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and even top tax fighter Grover Norquist all agree the Internet should be kept free when it comes to access and taxes.

Leaked proposals behind the controversy

Leaked proposals from Russia and a European telecom group, which may be presented at the WCIT, have caused much of the controversy.

Two research fellows at George Mason University have set up a website called WCITleaks, where the documents for the closed-door meeting have been appearing for months, including the two controversial ones.

Russia has been attached to a proposal, leaked last month, that would take away the power of ICANN, a U.S.-based nonpartisan agency that regulates all Internet addresses, and give that power to the U.N. and individual nations.

ICANN operates as a nonprofit through a contract with the United States’ Commerce Department. That contract was renewed in August and ends in September 2015.

In reality, some countries already block Web access, but an official mandate to let ITU members control how Internet access points are assigned and monitored would make the whole process much easier to manage—and censor.

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Some critics say the real issue is a power grab to take ICANN away from any swaying influence exerted on it by the U.S. government.

The leak of the Russian proposal last month drew a sharp response from U.S. ambassador Kramer.

“There have been a variety of proposals that have come in that are alarming. There have been proposals that have suggested that the ITU should enter the Internet governance business,” Kramer said. “There have been active recommendations that there be an invasive approach of governments in managing the Internet … These fundamentally violate everything that we believe in in terms of democracy and opportunities for individuals, and we’re going to vigorously oppose any proposals of that nature.”

Larry Downes, an author who wrote two recent commentaries about the ITU controversy, said that Touré has sent mixed messages about the Russian proposal, and that Touré denied receiving the Russian proposal days after it was leaked online. (Touré also went to school in Leningrad and Moscow.)

Internet fees an issue on the table

The other big issue is a proposal that started with a group of European telecom operators, to charge Internet content providers fees or taxes when they serve Web content to users inside various countries.

The concept is called “sender party pays” and was floated out by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) this summer. One benefit is that European telecom companies could use the revenue to improve their networks.

The European Union didn’t buy into the ETNO proposal and doesn’t support it, but the idea has received support in other nations, and there are reports Cameroon will introduce it at the current summit in Dubai.

“That model, in general, lends itself to fewer providers, higher prices, slower take-up of Internet, slower economic growth,” Kramer said in October.

Companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix strongly oppose the concept of sender party pays.

In the end, the WCIT meeting will probably include an intense debate about the subject of who controls the Internet and how nations deal with issues about fair access, privacy, and combating cybercrime.

It’s unknown if any votes will be taken to change the treaty, but the United States and the European nations (who oppose the Russian and ETNO proposals) are under no obligation to sign an amended treaty.

There also are questions about a conflict between the passage of an “Internet tax” and international laws already on the books at the World Trade Organization, and if the ITU even has standing to control the Internet, since it was designed to monitor telephone, television, and radio networks.

The bottom line is that the WCIT meeting will shine more light on the Internet as a global phenomenon; the United States’ key role in running the Internet; and the concept of freedom of speech as a global idea.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of Constitution Daily.

There’s nothing good about getting arrested, even if the charges are dismissed or you’re found innocent at trial. The same goes for having a “mug shot” — a photo made at a jail or holding area — taken and filed with a county lockup or police department, complete with ID information.

In the past, those arrested usually could count on something called “practical obscurity” to keep their images and records out of sight. Given that just a tiny number of arrests are newsworthy, prompting news organizations or others to seek such photos, arrest data and mug shots would remain part of rarely accessed government files.

But now, an uncounted number of the nation’s county jails post mug shots and arrest data online. For public officials, the motive often is a corrective one. One Idaho sheriff said recently the threat of a publicly displayed photo works wonders in deterring drunk drivers: “I don’t know how many times I have heard from people that they got a designated driver so they don’t end up on our Website,” Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney told the Associated Press earlier this year.

Others praise the postings as a way to hold jail officials accountable. Not only do the mug shots offer visual evidence of an imprisonment, but they also show whether the person entered custody with any facial injuries — perhaps proof of mistreatment during the arrest.

So far, so good. But now let’s consider companies that take mug shots and print or post them online in publications with names like “Checkmate” or “ArrestCentral.” Is there a truck stop or convenience store that doesn’t offer an update on who got thrown into the local slammer — often complete with color photo?

At least one site, Mugshots.com, cloaks itself in constitutional robing, including the First Amendment value of insuring public-records transparency and the Sixth Amendment fair-trial guarantees.

In its “frequently asked questions” the site states: “Imagine a world with no transparency, ‘star chambers’ and citizens who are secretly dragged into investigation [never to see] the light of day again. No one sees. No one hears. No one knows. It’s hard to imagine this was all not so long ago. Russia? China? North Korea? Cuba? Or even today, Guantanamo Bay, or the CIA’s ‘black sites’? Greater openness and transparency are the foundation of strong government of the people.”

All true. But though the postings benefit the individual and the public, who gains from taking down the photo? The individual and his or her reputation, certainly — especially when prosecution was erroneous or failed to convict. But the benefit to society of a private company or person profiting from removing information from public view is, well, nonexistent.

There’s the rub: Those public-spirited companies like Mugshots.com suddenly turn self-serving in demanding from $99 to $399 to take down a photo. Critics call the practice “unfair” or “extortion.” But given that the postings are done by private companies, not public officials, legal cures proposed thus far seem as bad as the ailment.

Don’t make jail or booking photos available to the public? Then we lose accountability and transparency.

Outlaw commercial use of such material? But there are so many legitimate and long-time users, from real estate agencies to scholars to journalists.

Let the government define “news” to protect local news outlets but screen out tabloid arrest-profiteers? That would invite abuse and might be futile. Arrests are news – and also public records – and identifying those in custody is important to society. It’s one role of an independent free press.

In 1913 Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” In that spirit, perhaps posting the mug shots of those profiting in such bald fashion from public records would be the best, most First Amendment-friendly response.

But so far, ideas to stop profiteering from arrest records seem less than satisfying and fall short of a solution.

Gene Policinski is Senior Vice President/Executive Director of the First Amendment Center. He is a veteran journalist whose career has included work in newspapers, radio, television and online operations.

This story first appeared on the First Amendment Center’s website at http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/.