Protecting the Public or Violation of Freedom of Speech?
"Can you imagine what the police forces of our country would do with the power to shut down cell phone service at will?" asked a member of the public directed at the board of BART in San Francisco, CA. This question was asked after cell phone service to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was cut off in an attempt to squelch protests in the BART stations.
Is this a violation of free speech or is it a legally acceptable solution to ensure public safety? It is a tough call that the courts will ultimately have to decide but it raises a lot questions we should all take seriously.
If the government is allowed to shutdown cell phone service then why would they not be able to moderate your FaceBook postings or perhaps this blog article? Why not be able to censor the entire Internet and control results from search engines such as Yahoo or Google? This is how China operates, if they do not want a piece of information to get to its citizens they block it.
This may seem like a far stretch but I believe it is a slippery slope that we need to be very careful how we navigate. The underlying question is "How much control does the government have to control information in order to keep the citizens safe?". While I don't believe we will be living in 1984 by George Orwell, but I do believe we need to be careful.
References
BART's Cell-Service Cuts: Not Egypt, But Not Quite America Either. (2011). Retrieved August 2011, from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/barts-cell-service-cuts-not-egypt-but-not-quite-america-either/244161/
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1 comment:
Very interesting article. I had not heard of the issue in San Francisco. I can see how turning off cell phone service for an hour could help calm a dangerous or chaotic situation. Well, I at least see how it could potentially aid in not adding fuel to the fire. At the same time, if my son was near an area where protests were taking place, I would want to be able to call him to see if he was okay. I do not feel comfortable with that right being taken away from me.
I agree this could be a very slippery slope. Reading the first paragraph, I immediately thought about places like China, where I have heard certain websites are unavailable there just because the government doesn't want it's people to access it. That to me is beyond scary. Controlling the type and amount of knowledge to an entire country is terrifying. Not allowing people to talk to others in a time of need or call for help is equally as terrible. I'd rather a protest last an extra hour than all of our rights to speech be stripped.
I forsee many interesting debates on this topic! Thanks for sharing!
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