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Freedom of Speech and Assembly in the Digital Age: How the United States Is Struggling with the Digital Revolution
Abstract
The United States is facing challenges in applying First Amendment principles from the eighteenth century to modern communications. Speech and assembly in the eighteenth century was extremely limited when compared to speech now. This chapter examines two cases where the government has intruded upon fundamental rights contained in the First Amendment. In the first case, a government, in an effort to stop a protest, cut off all wireless mobile and Internet communications. This amounted to a digital gag and ear plugs for the protesters. In this case, the responsible government officials did not even contemplate that this might violate the fundamental rights of the protesters. In the second case, government employees were fired for using Facebook to “like” the page of a political candidate. The trial court ruled that “liking” on Facebook was not speech and therefore did not garner constitutional protection. These two cases represent warning signs that the United States, just like other countries, is struggling to adapt eighteenth century legal principles to modern communication. The digital revolution is happening in the United States and the courts will eventually have to develop a new set of rules based on the principles in the First Amendment.
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