UNC Celebrated Its Sixth Annual First Amendment Day Event

By on September 28, 2014 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill celebrated its sixth annual First Amendment Day on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. This campus-wide, daylong event celebrated the First Amendment and explored its role in the lives of Carolina students.

University community members read from banned books, a cappella groups sung controversial music, and many people participated in panels to discuss the importance of the First Amendment.

Click on the story ‘First Amendment and First Freedoms’ to read more about the different events that students enjoyed on First Amendment Day or visit the webpage.
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First Amendment Day is organized by the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy. The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is a collaboration between the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Law.

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First Amendment Day Retold by Social Media

By on September 24, 2014 in First Amendment, Journalism

Journalism students followed the hashtag #UNCfree to learn what people were saying on social media about First Amendment Day.  After compiling the content, they connected the images, tweets and videos into a news story to summarize their experiences of First Amendment Day events.

Check out some of their multimedia stories edited with Storify.

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Public Records Online at open-nc.org

By on September 2, 2014 in Internet, Journalism, Transparency

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Many of us talk about the importance of public records, but Ryan Thornburg has moved beyond talking. He has found a way to make public records in North Carolina easily accessible to the media and the public. Thornburg, an associate professor in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has created a project called Open N.C. It is an index of state, county, and local digital public records that are being used by journalists and others. Thornburg explains his project here: Tar Heel Talks — Data-Driven Journalism.

Making a cameo appearance in Thornburg’s video is David Ardia, co-director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy.

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UNC’s Constitution Day, Featuring David Medine

By on August 28, 2014 in Privacy

ConstitutionDayOver the past few years, the UNC School of Law has served as host of UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus-wide Constitution Day celebration. This year the speaker will be David Medine, chairman of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, who will speak on the topic of “Providing for the Common Defense without Compromising Privacy and Civil Liberties.”   The talk will take place on September 17, 2014 at noon in the law school’s rotunda.

David Medine has served as chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board since May 2013. Previously he was an attorney fellow for the Security and Exchange Commission and a special counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. From 2002 to 2012, he was a partner in the law firm WilmerHale, where his practice focused on privacy and data security, having previously served as a Senior Advisor to the White House National Economic Council from 2000 to 2001. From 1992 to 2000, Mr. Medine was associate director for financial practices at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) where, in addition to enforcing financial privacy laws, he took the lead on Internet privacy, chaired a federal advisory committee on privacy issues, and was part of the team that negotiated a privacy safe harbor agreement with the European Union. Before joining the FTC, he taught at the Indiana University (Bloomington) School of Law and the George Washington University School of Law.

The event is open to the public.  More info is available here.

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Student to Publish in Hastings Comm/Ent Law Journal

By on August 25, 2014 in First Amendment

P. Brooks Fuller, a second-year Ph.D. student and Roy H. Park Fellow in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has had an article accepted for publication in the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent). The article, “Evaluating Intent in True Threats Cases: The Importance of Context in Analyzing Threatening Internet Messages,” will appear in the Fall issue of Comm/Ent. The journal is published by the University of California’s Hastings College of Law and is among the best-known law reviews specializing in communications law and policy issues. The article is based on a research paper written for one of the J-School’s graduate media law courses. Brooks also presented his research earlier this month at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Montreal, Canada.

Brooks’ article examines federal courts’ treatment of Internet threats in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Virginia v. Black. The full abstract is below.

Following the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling on the true threats doctrine, Virginia v. Black (2003), significant conflict emerged among the federal circuit courts. The primary issue is whether an objective or subjective standard should apply to statutes that criminalize threats. Speakers’ use of social networking websites and Internet forums for the purposes of posting violent and intimidating communications raises significant questions regarding the posture of the true threats doctrine and its application to modern modes of communication. This paper utilizes legal research methods to examine federal courts’ treatment of Internet threats and highlights aspects of Internet speech that are particularly problematic for the doctrine. Ultimately, this paper calls for the Supreme Court to revisit the true threats doctrine in light of significant inconsistency among the circuits regarding the impact of the Internet on recipients of threatening communications.

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