first amendment

Court: 15-year-old molester has a right to Facebook, Twitter

A 15-year-old juvenile delinquent can't be completely prohibited from using Facebook, Twitter, or other social-media sites, a California state appeals court says.

The San Diego court ruled that a teenage boy who molested a toddler and grabbed and detained a teenage girl has a First Amendment right to use social media and chat rooms -- in part, the justices said, because his offenses didn't involve the Internet.

Those restrictions "are not tailored to Andre's convictions for violating another's personal liberty, willfully annoying and molesting another, unlawful use of force, and lewd and lascivious conduct, or … Read more

Critics raise specter of police state in challenge to new Calif. law

California voters yesterday approved a new law billed as curbing human trafficking. A lesser-known section of Proposition 35, however, requires residents convicted of indecent exposure and other sex-related crimes to register their social-networking profiles and e-mail addresses with police.

That violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, including anonymous speech, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a lawsuit (PDF) filed today.

Prop 35 takes effect immediately and sweeps broadly. It says that California residents convicted of crimes since 1944 including misdemeanor indecent exposure -- courts have included in that category nude dancing on a … Read more

Inmate sues over the 'right' to read Facebook from prison

A Pennsylvania prison inmate is waging a novel legal battle -- for a supposed First Amendment right to Facebook.

Mark Nixon, who is incarcerated in Frackville, Pa., filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after he was denied access to printouts of Facebook pages sent through the U.S. mail, which prison officials labeled "unacceptable correspondence" and discarded.

A federal appeals court rejected his lawsuit on Friday, ruling that Nixon had not demonstrated that his First Amendment rights -- which are limited during his incarceration -- have been violated.

"Inmates' right to receive and send mail can be … Read more

Anti-DEA rants on Facebook spark criminal prosecution

Anti-government rants on Facebook can land you in a heap of trouble.

A federal judge has given the green light to the U.S. Justice Department's prosecution of an Indiana man who allegedly posted incendiary remarks about police.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Lawrence in Indiana rejected requests by the defendant, Matthew Michael, to throw out the charges on the grounds that no specific Drug Enforcement Administration agent or other individual had actually been named in the posts.

Lawrence ruled that -- assuming the Facebook postings were illegal threats, which has yet to be proved -- they &… Read more

Facebook to court: Likes are protected by First Amendment

When you "like" something on Facebook, that expression is indeed covered by the First Amendment, Facebook is arguing in a new court document.

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed last night, also urges an appeals court to vacate a recent ruling by a judge in Virginia that Facebook "likes" are not protected speech.

In that ruling in the spring, U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson had said, essentially, that just clicking a Facebook button differs materially from the kinds of statements traditionally protected by the First Amendment. As a result, the judge dismissed a claim by six employees … Read more

D.C. chief allows citizens to record and photograph police

Cell phone videos and photos have increasingly brought law enforcement activities to the public eye, such as the killing of Oscar Grant in Oakland, Calif., and crowd control tactics during the Occupy Wall Street protests. But this has also meant that police are more wary of camera-toting citizens.

However, Washington D.C.'s police chief, Cathy Lanier, recently announced that cops are going to have to learn to live with people recording and snapping photos of them, according to DCist. In a six-page General Order, Lanier outlines specific do's and don'ts that her staff must adhere to when … Read more

Verizon Wireless wants to 'edit' your Internet access

What if your wireless provider gave you Internet access and search results according to what it decided was a "priority"?

As a Verizon Wireless customer, I'm furious at the idea that it would "pick favorites" over what I was actually looking for -- especially if it was an emergency.

But that's just what Verizon is fighting in court to do right now. Verizon has filed a brief (Verizon vs. FCC) with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for the "freedom" to edit your Internet, dear customer.

If … Read more

Proposed NY ban on anonymous posts comes under fire

In an attempt to combat cyberbullying, some New York state legislators want people who post mean-spirited personal attacks online to be prepared to identify themselves.

A resulting bill, known as the Internet Protection Act (IPA), wouldn't stop with cyberbullying. If it became law, the legislation would also prevent people from posting anonymous criticism of local businesses or making "baseless political attacks," wrote James Conte, a member of New York's state assembly and one of the bill's sponsors.

"With more and more people relying on social media and the Internet to communicate and gather information,&… Read more

Google report says search results protected by First Amendment

Do Google and other search engines have a constitutional right to control their own search results?

The answer is yes, at least in the opinion of UCLA law professor and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh.

In a report commissioned by the search giant (PDF), Volokh asserts that search results are a type of "opinion" based on what information the search engines believe would be most relevant to their users, according to news site PaidContent. Therefore, the results are protected by the First Amendment.

"Google, Microsoft's Bing, Yahoo Search and other search engine companies are rightly seen … Read more