Lawmakers in Tennessee have passed a Livestock Cruelty Protection Act and sent it on to the state’s governor, Bill Haslam, to sign or veto. The measure is similar to laws in at least nine states.

Haslam asked state attorney general Robert Cooper for an opinion on the act’s constitutionality, and Cooper’s 10-page report raises some broad issues.

The law would compel anyone shooting video of alleged animal cruelty to give a copy of it to law enforcement within 48 hours, or face a misdemeanor charge and a possible fine.

Supporters of Tennessee’s proposed law say it will help officials fight against animal cruelty; protect public safety; and aide investigators as they try to determine when the incidents happened—and if video released by organizations or news gatherers is outdated or edited.

The bill passed by a 50-43 margin in the state House, and a 22-9 margin in the state Senate.

Opponents have labeled it an “Ag-Gag” law and an attempt to curb the activities of animal rights groups (who are undertaking prolonged investigations) and advance the interests of livestock owners. Celebrity Carrie Underwood is among the opponents of the law.

Attorney General Cooper’s opinion from Thursday was that the bill is “constitutionally suspect” on at least three grounds. In addition, Cooper has fears that the law could violate a person’s Fifth Amendment right to protection against self-incrimination.

One of the three grounds listed by Cooper has broad implications: “[The] reporting requirement could be found to constitute an unconstitutional burden on news gathering.”

Cooper points out that the First Amendment protects against burdens on news gathering and “while this principle has been recognized primarily in the context of the press, it has also been acknowledged that the concept of news gathering is very broad and can encompass a wide scope of activity outside what is recognized as the traditional press.”

Supporters of the bills say the crux of their argument is that the law should protect a right to privacy.

While journalists have a right to shoot video, they also are restricted by state laws as to where they can record, especially in areas where the public doesn’t normally have access.

Related Link: Learn more about privacy and consent laws

“At the end of the day it’s about personal property rights or the individual right to privacy,” said Bill Meierling, a spokesman for the American Legislative Exchange Council, in a statement to the Huffington Post. “You wouldn’t want me coming into your home with a hidden camera.”

Others argue that act poses First Amendment problems for journalists, assuming they’ve obtained video under the consent and privacy laws in their states.

“The First Amendment protects an independent press because the Founders understood that freedom of the press is a logical extension of the basic freedom of speech and is vital to keeping government power in check,” said Knoxville News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy in an April editorial.

“Freedom of the press means anyone can be ‘the press.’ In this era of websites, blogs and tweets, there are no practical barriers to self-publication, either,” says McElroy.

And in a USA Today editorial, Ken Paulson from the First Amendment Center wonders how Upton Sinclair, the famous muckraking journalist who covered the meat packing industry in his novel The Jungle, would deal with the laws.

But he also makes an important point about state laws already on the books that should protect livestock owners from unwanted intrusions by photographers.

“State laws bar trespassing, so farm owners already have a means to keep activists off the premises. And if any videos are used to actually libel a business—meaning that the video is untrue or significantly misleading—there are other recourses in the courts,” he says.

However, whether citizen journalists understand state privacy and consent laws is another matter.

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

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The SGR-1 by Samsung, a security guard robot.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission plans to address part of the issue later this month in Geneva. Christof Heyns, a South African professor of human rights law, released an extensive U.N. report on the topic in April that has ominous overtones.

Specifically, Heyns warned about “lethal autonomous robotics” and posed a very serious question.

“Their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legal accountability can be devised, and because robots should not have the power of life and death over human beings,” Heyns said.

Thankfully, he said, there’s no immediate threat from a Terminator or RoboCop gone rogue.

“Robots with full lethal autonomy have not yet been deployed,” Heyns said. But he qualified that statement with a list of automated systems that have lethal power.

On the list is the Samsung Techwin SGR-1 robot (SGR stands for “security guard robot”), which has the ability to make many nonlethal decisions on its own about targets.

The SGR-1 can follow targets visually from two miles away in daytime and from one mile away at night using thermal imaging. A human working with the SGR-1 can talk to a target using a microphone and speaker. The robot also has a machine gun and grenade launcher on board (those features are optional), but the human makes the decision about using lethal force. The robot is stationary and can be mounted on top of poles or buildings. The basic model costs about $200,000.

The SGR-1 is part of system that Samsung will offer to airports, border crossings, prisons, nuclear plants, and even military bases, according to its patent information.

The SGR-1 has already been deployed by South Korea to monitor its demilitarized zone with North Korea. The U.S. military uses the Talon, a mobile robot that handles explosives and can be used for surveillance. Domestic versions, which have night-vision abilities like the SGR-1, are used for surveillance and bomb disposal.

Like many military technologies, these robots are also making their way into the civilian world. FEMA’s website lists government-approved robots including the SNEAKY, a small surveillance robot that literally sneaks around gathering evidence. SNEAKY can do border inspections, gather audio and video evidence, sniff bags, and issue voice instructions.

These new robots are essentially ground-based versions of drones—and much like with drones, robot owners will likely face privacy tests in court as they’re adopted for civilian use.

For example, the Supreme Court recently ruled that police who used a trained dog to sniff marijuana inside a home had violated a person’s Fourth Amendment rights. Another Supreme Court decision said the use of a pot-sniffing dog was acceptable during a police traffic stop.

Back in 2001, the court ruled in Kryllo v. United States that the use of thermal imaging technology by police to detect a marijuana-growing operation inside a home without obtaining a warrant was unconstitutional.

The technology exists for robots to electronically sniff out marijuana using an “electronic nose” and examine objects using thermal imaging. Robots could also be equipped with listening devices, which would raise some interesting wiretapping issues, depending on the presence of warrants.

And what happens if a commercial version of a military robot uses lethal force on its own?

That seems unlikely, but the U.S. Department of Defense stressed in a planning document from 2011 “the need to transition to a more autonomous modern system of warfare.”

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THE STATEMENTS AT ISSUE:

“Americans may disagree about what is sexually appropriate for their children. And everyone surely wishes to prevent children from having babies. But public policy should be aimed at involving, rather than marginalizing, parents. … The debate about Plan B is fundamentally about whether government or parents have ultimate authority over their children’s well-being.”

– Kathleen Parker, Washington Post columnist in an op-ed article on May 5, titled “Prude or prudent?” commenting on the Food and Drug Administration decision to make the pregnancy-preventing drug Plan B available over-the-counter and without a prescription to girls as young as 15.

“This case involves the constitutional right to obtain and use contraceptives.  The restriction on the sale of time-sensitive [Plan B] contraceptives to pharmacies and health clinics, which affects all women, implicates this right.”

– Senior U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of Brooklyn, New York, in a decision on April 5 in the case of Tummino v. Hamburg, ordering the Food and Drug Administration to remove all age and retail sale restrictions on the availability of Plan B pills.

WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…

The Constitution, of course, does not set up the federal government as a super-parent to the nation’s children, displacing their own parents. When the Constitution is understood to protect rights for children, it is not a zero-sum game: Just because children—especially teenagers—have rights, does not mean that parents must give up their own rights.

A child with rights is on the way toward becoming a better citizen—surely a goal that most parents support. And the Constitution makes room for parents to shape how their children use the rights that they have; having rights includes the opportunity to learn how to use them sensibly, and parents surely can teach those lessons.

The factual reality is that teenagers do have a constitutional right to obtain contraceptives, under a 1977 Supreme Court decision in the case of Carey v. Population Services International. In that ruling, the court took note of studies that showed that “with or without access to contraceptives, the incidence of sexual activity among minors is high, and the consequences of such activity are frequently devastating.”

Not all members of the Supreme Court have joined in what has been a steady expansion of free-standing rights for minors. Two years ago, for example, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that “the historical evidence shows that the founding generation believed parents had absolute authority over their minor children and expected parents to use that authority to direct the proper development of their children.” But that was a view that he alone expressed, in a case in which the majority recognized a right of minors to have access to video games that had violent content.

The more prevalent constitutional understanding is that children, while they are more vulnerable and impressionable and thus need substantial parental protection, may also be in need of protection by government. The more important to a child’s personal identity a constitutional right may be, the more likely courts will respect it as an independent right. That certainly has been true in disputes over a constitutional right of a minor to access to birth control, and to abortion.

A teenage girl’s interest in avoiding pregnancy, or in dealing with a pregnancy after it develops, is of constitutional dimensions, the courts have said, precisely because it is vital to her development and her chance to grow at a more measured pace into maturity. Most parents, no doubt, want that for their daughters, and a government policy that makes preventive or corrective measures more accessible is aimed at reinforcing both the girl’s interest, and her parents support for that interest.

In the Plan B controversy, two opposing views of a policy of greater access have brought out fundamentally different cultural perspectives. There are those, like columnist Kathleen Parker, quoted above, who see such a policy as almost certainly intruding on parental authority, as a government-knows-best approach. Others, even more hostile to Plan B access, argue that such access inevitably will encourage younger and younger girls to engage prematurely in sexual activity.

But on the other side, advocates of greater access to Plan B are persuaded that teens are going to enter into sexual activity at earlier ages as social trends change and not as a result of the availability of contraceptives, and that the role of government is to provide them with a means to protect themselves after they have been drawn into sexual activity.

The role of the Constitution is not to reconcile those different perspectives; indeed, the opposing views start from such fundamentally different views of government that they may not be capable of reconciliation under any circumstances.

But the Constitution might have a mediating effect between such polar opposites, if Americans were able to develop a stronger habit of seeing constitutional rights not as a relaxation of all restraint, or as an invitation to indulge whimsically in excess, but rather as a gateway toward social and civic maturity. That might start at a very simple level, perhaps as simple as having a dinner-table conversation about what it means to have rights in the first place.

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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“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
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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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The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) was passed by House vote on April 18. The final vote in the House was 248-168, as 42 Democrats voted for the bill, while 28 Republicans voted against it.

The Huffington Post, among others, said on Monday that a committee staffer for Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Commerce Committee chair, told it that the Senate will not consider the bill for a vote.

Similar reports had surfaced late last week that the House version of CISPA wouldn’t see life on the Senate floor. U.S. News and World Report indicated that Rockefeller thought the bill lacked adequate privacy protections.

President Barack Obama had indicated he would veto CISPA if it came to his desk.

The Senate will reportedly work on its own cybersecurity bill, or bills, in the coming months. An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said last week that a Senate bill would force companies to block sensitive user data from government access in real time.

The Bloomberg News Service said as many as three Senate bills might be introduced. But they would need to be approved by the House after passage.

At the heart of CISPA is a Fourth Amendment issue.

The amendment reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

CISPA was designed to let the federal government work with private companies to fight hackers and cybercriminals in and outside of the United States. As part of the effort to detect cyber threats, private companies could voluntarily share with the government data in real time about Internet users. The personal data of users wouldn’t be screened from the data feed.

Another proposed part of CISPA would have designated the National Security Agency as the recipient of the data feed. But the House changed the bill at the last moment to allow the civilian-run Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department as gatekeepers of cybersecurity data.

Another CISPA criticism was that a warrant wasn’t needed for the government to obtain that information. And companies that share your information won’t be held legally liable for sharing it, a practice that seemingly conflicts with privacy policies on existing websites.

Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan and the House Intelligence Committee chairman, has been leading the CISPA effort, along with Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat from Maryland.

Rogers believes the measure is long needed. “People were stealing their identities, their accounts, their intellectual property, and subsequent to that, their jobs,” he recently said. “[Web users] began to question the value of getting on Internet and using [it] for commercial purposes. Their trust in the free and open Internet … was at risk.”

He has also stressed that participation in CISPA is voluntary for companies.

Unlike SOPA, the failed legislative attempt last year to halt online piracy, large tech companies were supporting the efforts to get CISPA passed.

At one time, Facebook and Microsoft had signed on to support CISPA, but now they are reportedly backing away. Google appears to be on the fence about the issue.

Major communications and utilities companies support CISPA, according to a list released by the House.

Last year, the House passed a similar CISPA bill, only to see it die in the Senate. Last August, a successful filibuster blocked CISPA from getting to the floor for a vote. Both libertarians and liberals had issues with the bill, and there were disagreements about which government agencies would be involved with CISPA.

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Despite being 14 years old—ancient by Hollywood standards—the show manages to offer political commentary that is timeless, and in some cases, eerily prescient. Today, we’ll look at the top timely political predictions, including a few where life imitates art.

1. The Buffet Rule

The West Wing, 2003: Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) explains to his interns a proposed tax on millionaires (Red Haven’s on Fire,” Season 4, Episode 17).

Today: Warren Buffet and the Obama administration have fought for a plan to require a higher share of taxes for households making more than $1 million a year. Macon Phillips, White House new media director, even credited the Will Bailey scene as an inspiration for his explanation of the plan.

2. DOMA

The West Wing, 2004: Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) clashes with a conservative Supreme Court nominee about the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. The twist: they just might agree (“The Supremes,” Season 5, Episode 17).

(Note: Start at 1:49 below for the relevant scene.)

Today: The (real) Supreme Court is considering a case, Windsor v. United States, about whether DOMA violates the equal protection of laws as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

3. The debt ceiling

The West Wing, 2005: With a close presidential election in full swing, the sitting president, Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), must wrestle with Congress to raise the debt ceiling (“In God We Trust,” Season 6, Episode 20).

Today: In this case, it may be less of a prediction and more of a commentary on the fact that political history repeats itself. Like many years past, in late 2012, just after the election, Congress and President Obama faced another last-minute debt ceiling clash–which compounded into the so-called fiscal cliff, and was followed just a few months later by the sequester. So many crises, so little time.

4. The 2008 election

The West Wing, 2004 – 2006: Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), a young, good-looking, idealistic congressman from Texas, rises to secure the Democratic nomination (Seasons 6 & 7).

Today (well, 2008): Barack Obama, an idealistic rising star like Santos, won the nomination and made history with his win in the 2008 election. Turns out, the similarities are no coincidence—a writer for the show, Eli Attie, revealed that the Santos character was indeed shaped by Obama, and that he even talked with David Axelrod, who at the time was working on Obama’s campaign for Senate, to learn more about Obama.

5. Privacy rights

The West Wing, 1999: When President Bartlet and Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) confront a candidate for the Supreme Court about his views on a constitutional right to privacy (or lack thereof), Sam pontificates about privacy becoming the constitutional issue of the next few decades (“The Short List,” Season 1, Episode 9).

Today: Privacy certainly permeates numerous constitutional debates. Just last week, the House passed a bill called CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which died in the Senate last year–as did a related bill, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act)–but has quietly re-emerged. The bill has raised questions about the Fourth Amendment and online privacy. Another recent major debate involving privacy is the use of drones, GPS devices, and other technology for surveillance.

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The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a draft bill, with little fanfare last week, that repeated a claim that “it is the policy of the United States to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet.”

Congress had passed a resolution to that effect last year, but now it’s seeking to get an official law on the books before a big international conference in October in South Korea.

Some contentious language was struck from the bill that might have affected the current policy of net neutrality, which allows the federal government to make sure Internet providers provide equal access to companies that want to stream video and other content.

But the basic gist of the bill was to make sure a message was sent to U.N.-sponsored International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Last December, the United States and its key allies didn’t sign a draft ITU treaty in Dubai that proposed that individual nations had the power to potentially censor the Internet.

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.

This February, departing Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell warned the House committee that the ITU had plans that weren’t in the best interest of the United States.

“Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international powers over the Internet reverberated throughout the world and had a positive and constructive effect,” he said.

“The dramatic encroachments on Internet freedom secured in Dubai will serve as a stepping stone to more international regulation of the Internet in the very near future. The result will be devastating even if the United States does not ratify these toxic new treaties,” he added.

McDowell said the meeting this fall in South Korea will be “literally a constitutional convention” to “define the ITU’s mission for years to come. Its constitution will be rewritten and a new Secretary General will be elected. This scenario poses both a threat and an opportunity for Internet freedom. The outcome of this massive treaty negotiation is uncertain, but the momentum favors those pushing for more Internet regulation.”

The ITU is seeking to update a 1988 document called the International Telecommunication Regulations Treaty. It is considering controls over the Internet as an expansion of its current mandate over telephones, television, and radio networks.

A late nonbinding provision tacked on to the treaty last year 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 addendum was sponsored by a bloc of African nations, and Iran led the effort to get it passed by a majority vote.

At the time, former 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.

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.

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.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages domains and controls the Internet’s backbone. ICANN operates as a nonprofit company at the direction of the U.S. Department of Commerce. (Prior to 1998, the U.S. government managed Internet domain names directly.)

Some critics say the real issue is a power grab by the ITU (and the U.N.) 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.

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Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA) is making its way through Congress, and it’s passed a House vote on Thursday.

The final vote in the House was 248-168, as 42 Democrats voted for the bill, while 28 Republicans voted against it.

And like gun control, it’s far from a done deal after the House passes CISPA. It would need Senate approval, and President Barack Obama has indicated he’ll possibly veto CISPA if it comes to his desk.

Both sides of Congress would need to muster a two-thirds majority vote to override the president’s veto, which would seem unlikely in the current political atmosphere of Washington.

At the heart of CISPA is a Fourth Amendment issue.

The amendment reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

CISPA is designed to let the federal government work with private companies to fight hackers and cybercriminals in and outside of the United States. As part of the effort to detect cyber threats, private companies could voluntarily share with the government data about Internet users.

The sharing could be done in “real time” as the cybercops try to defeat and track down the evildoers. Companies could also share data among themselves as part of the effort.

There are major drawbacks about the legislation, say CISPA’s critics. The privacy provisions for consumers, they claim, are vague or nonexistent. The government and companies can’t look at your personal data, such as medical records and tax returns, if they are part of the “data dump” that is shared in real time. But the law doesn’t require that companies excise, or edit out, that information in the transfer process.

Another criticism is that a warrant isn’t needed for the government to obtain that information. And companies that share your information won’t be held legally liable for sharing that information, a practice that seemingly conflicts with privacy policies on existing websites.

CISPA’s biggest critic in Congress is a representative from Colorado, Jared Polis. The Democrat told the House on Wednesday, “This is the biggest government takeover of personal information that I’ve seen during my time here in Congress.”

Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan and the House Intelligence Committee chairman, is leading the CISPA effort, along with Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat from Maryland.

Rogers believes the measure is long needed. “People were stealing their identities, their accounts, their intellectual property, and subsequent to that, their jobs,” he recently said. “[Web users] began to question the value of getting on Internet and using [it] for commercial purposes. Their trust in the free and open Internet … was at risk.”

He has also stressed that participation in CISPA is voluntary for companies.

The Intelligence Committee also released a five-page document to counter what it calls “myths” about CISPA, including how much personal data would be shared with the government—which it says would be a rare occurrence.

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, calls CISPA “fatally flawed.”

“The core problem is that CISPA allows too much sensitive information to be shared with too many people in the first place, including the National Security Agency,” it says.

Unlike SOPA, the failed legislative attempt last year to halt online piracy, large tech companies are supporting the efforts to get CISPA passed.

At one time, Facebook and Microsoft had signed on to support CISPA, but now they are reportedly backing away. Google appears to be on the fence about the issue.

Major communications and utilities companies support CISPA, according to a list released by the House.

Last year, the House passed a similar CISPA bill, only to see it die in the Senate. Last August, a successful filibuster blocked CISPA from getting to the floor for a vote. Both libertarians and liberals had issues with the bill, and there were disagreements about which government agencies would be involved with CISPA.

The tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks is on record, again, as opposing CISPA on Fourth Amendment grounds.

“There are grave Fourth Amendment concerns with CISPA. The bill would override existing privacy laws to allow companies to share ‘cyber threat information’ with the federal government without making any reasonable effort to strip out any personal information from the file,” the group said in a statement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also has Fourth Amendment concerns.

“As it stands, CISPA is dangerously vague, and should not allow for any expansion of government powers through a series of poorly worded definitions.  If the drafters intend to give new powers to the government’s already extensive capacity to examine your private information, they should propose clear and specific language so we can have a real debate,” the EFF said on its website.

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

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Senator Mitch McConnell

On Tuesday, Mother Jones published audio and a transcript of an 11-minute conversation in Louisville, Kentucky, on February 2, 2013. The muffled audio was allegedly made without the knowledge of the campaign committee members for Mitch McConnell, which met at their campaign headquarters to discuss tactics in the senator’s upcoming re-election bid.

McConnell was in the room as the staff discussed the perceived weaknesses of actress Ashley Judd, who at the time was considering a run as a Democrat against McConnell. The tape and the transcript indicated campaign staffers were considering attaching past mental health issues involving Judd, who is a three-time rape survivor.

Judd declined to run for office, and the chance never came for the tactics to be considered.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, a liberal columnist, said later on Tuesday that the tactics discussed weren’t unusual.

“They show the McConnell team debating the use of tactics that are nasty but not that unusual by oppo research standards,” he said.

Sargent also spoke with Mother Jones writer David Corn, who broke the McConnell tape story. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he also published the Mitt Romney “47 percent” video last fall.

Corn said Mother Jones asked for comment from McConnell’s Senate and campaign offices before releasing the audio, and the magazine’s lawyers approved the story.

The reaction from McConnell and his staff was swift.

“We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters is above and beyond,” said McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton.

McConnell accused the group Progress Kentucky of bugging his campaign office.

“As you know last month my wife’s ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky and then apparently they also bugged my headquarters,” McConnell said. “So I think that pretty much sums up the way the political left is operating in Kentucky.”

Politico reported on Tuesday that McConnell’s team has swept the room for a recording device and found nothing.

Mother Jones also issued a statement that indicated how it justified releasing the audio.

“As the story makes clear, we were recently provided the tape by a source who wished to remain anonymous. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but we published a story on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that,” the magazine said in a statement.

When Mother Jones faced the critics in the Romney case, some legal experts pointed to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that could shield it from federal prosecution. In that case, the magazine also claimed it wasn’t involved in videotaping Romney at a private Florida presidential fundraiser.

The case of Bartnicki vs. Vopper established that the First Amendment protected a media organization publishing information obtained from illegal wiretapping, as long as the publisher wasn’t involved in the act and the information was of public interest.

Jeff Hermes, director of the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard, wrote extensively on the subject last September.

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“Regardless of whether the recording was illegal, Mother Jones is likely protected by the First Amendment. The legitimate public concern over comments made by a presidential candidate would override any interest in preventing Mother Jones from disseminating this information,” Hermes said about the Romney tape.

As the most powerful Republican member of the U.S. Senate, McConnell is also a public figure.

McConnell has asked the FBI to investigate the incident.

“Senator McConnell’s campaign is working with the FBI and has notified the local U.S. Attorney in Louisville, per FBI request, about these recordings,” said Benton. “Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell’s campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished presumably will be the subject of a criminal investigation.”

Kentucky has its own laws regarding privacy. It is a one-party consent state, meaning that at least one person in the room needs to consent to the recording, even if it is the person hitting the button.

McConnell’s aides say about a half dozen close, long-time staffers were in the conference room at the time.

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

The Washington Redksins are an iconic brand in football and the most popular pro sports team in the D.C. metro area. The team formerly known as the Boston Redskins moved to Washington in 1937, and they’ve won five NFL titles since, including three Super Bowl wins.

Forbes magazine ranks the Washington franchise as the third-most-valuable team in the NFL, at $1.6 billion. The current owner, Daniel Snyder, bought the club for $700 million in 1999. The team could easily go up in value as it becomes a contender again, led by Robert Griffin III.

But that hasn’t stopped some long-term fans and local leaders from asking Snyder to drop the “Redskins” nickname, since they view it as offensive to Native Americans. Some Native American groups have made the same request.

The team has argued for decades the name originated in the 1930s as a tribute to the bravery of Native Americans and also as a tribute to a team coach from that time period.

In February 2013, team general manager Bruce Allen repeated the club’s stance. “There’s nothing that we feel is offensive,” Allen said. “And we’re proud of our history.”

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On Friday, former Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt wrote in a Washington Post editorial that the time has come for Snyder to act in the best interest of the community.

Hundt said that he and “other former FCC officials and concerned parties [have] asked Snyder to change the name of our beloved football team—so that broadcasters no longer would have to describe it using a name they would never use in any other context.”

Hundt believes the FCC has the power to investigate if it can fine broadcasters who use the team’s name in public while describing a game, or in any context.

“As chairman of the FCC, I prosecuted a case against Howard Stern for violating indecency rules. Such cases have often led to subtle debates in appellate courts about the application of the First Amendment,” he argued.

In his letter to Snyder, Hundt uses the term “XXXSkins” to refer to the team.

Whether the current FCC could put financial pressure on Snyder is at best a theoretical question. If anything, the FCC could be relaxing its rules about indecency—when it does enforce them.

This week, the FCC asked for public comment on whether it should cut back on enforcement to focus on only the worst cases. But there would be some hope for nickname opponents, since the FCC wants feedback on focusing on “deliberate and repetitive use [of expletives] in a patently offensive manner.”

But the FCC also announced this week that it had eliminated 70 percent of pending indecency complaints filed since September 2012.

Last June, the Supreme Court confirmed the right of the FCC to fine over-the-air broadcasters if they aired profane words. It also said the FCC had to make its rules clearer to broadcasters.

One issue would be whether anyone can prove in court that the word’s use is obscene or profane.

In its official guidelines, the FCC states: “Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be broadcast at any time.”

Its rules for profanity are different.

“The FCC has defined profanity as ‘including language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance.’ Like indecency, profane speech is prohibited on broadcast radio and television between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.,” the FCC policy reads.

It has been years since the FCC has issued a significant obscenity fine against a broadcast TV network.

Washington, D.C., mayor Vincent Gray also wants the name changed, and he has said that the team shouldn’t be allowed to move back to the city of Washington to play their games until it has a new name.

Currently, Snyder’s team plays in Maryland and has a lease on that stadium until 2026.

Other opponents are using a different tactic: attacking Snyder’s ability to trademark the team’s name. In 1999, the Trademark Board did rule in favor of taking the Redskins trademark away from the team, in a decision that was later reversed.

That battle took 17 years and ended on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, when the justices refused to hear an appeal.

On March 6, a group was in front of the Trademark Board pursuing the case again. It could take years to move forward. Their hope is to put enough financial pressure on Snyder to drop the name and replace it with something he can trademark and get paid for.

Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins has also taken up the cause. (If her name sounds familiar, she was granted the last interview with the late Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno.)

“It would be nice if the NFL franchise in the nation’s capital were an example for all the land. But apparently Snyder takes his example from 10th graders,” said Jenkins in February, citing a campaign by the team that talked about 70 high schools that shared the same name with the NFL club.

Jenkins argued that most teens don’t understand why the name could be construed as an insult.

“Given that the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress found that only 12 percent of high school seniors were proficient in American history. And only 2 percent were able to identify the social problem addressed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education,” she said.

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

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