Archive | Internet

A UNC Student’s Summer Experience at the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society

By on January 14, 2014 in Copyright, First Amendment, Internet

Berkman Center LogoLet me start by saying that I really like information. Numbers, lists, facts, data, trivia. I like them all. I’m an information junkie. I also happen to love the First Amendment. Given this, it’s not surprising that I was so excited to spend this past summer interning with the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Chilling Effects collects threats to free expression online, mostly in the form of DMCA take-down notices and similar intellectual property infringement claims, although Chilling Effects receives notices of other threats to free speech as well. All of that information is compiled into a searchable database. Being able to work with Chilling Effects, to explore this database, and to see “under the hood” was a great way to combine my interest in data with my passion for the First Amendment.

The summer was jumpstarted with a joint project involving myself and the two other Chilling Effects interns. Our task was to track down questionable trademark infringement claims in the database. We sorted through hundreds of these claims, looking to see if the people who filed them had concerns beyond trademark infringement — for example, someone whose real issue might be closer to a defamation claim than a trademark claim, but the latter might more quickly and effectively take down the content in question, since defamation claims can be costly to pursue and difficult to win. In other words, we scoured the database looking at potentially fraudulent trademark infringement claims that were being used to stifle free expression online. Once we wrapped up our search we worked with Jeff Hermes at the Digital Media Law Project to turn our findings into content for a presentation he was giving. One of the best parts of summer at the Berkman Center was a project like this one because I got to work with the other interns, all of whom were passionate, curious, and eager to spend the summer researching and working on a variety of Berkman projects.

On top of working with these great people, interns attended weekly presentations by leaders in the technology and policy fields. One week we got to hear from NYU privacy scholar Helen Nissenbaum, who spoke about transparency and privacy issues in accessing online court records. Earlier in the summer many of us attended a book launch for ReWire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection by Ethan Zuckerman of the MIT Center for Civic Media. But perhaps the most fun “intern hour” was an interactive demonstration of Google Glass. We might have looked ridiculous, but we loved being among the first to check out this new wearable computing technology.

The summer flew by. When news broke about the NSA’s PRISM program, I started reading everything I could about the issue and turned my research into a blog post featuring a timeline of Edward Snowden’s leaks and related news about the program. The best part about the blogging for Chilling Effects was that I got to use the Chilling Effects database to add color, facts, and figures to the stories that were already out there. For example, when Twitter released it’s annual Transparency Report in July, I combined their reported data with information stored in the Chilling Effects database. By layering the Chilling Effects’ data on top of Twitter’s, it was easy to start to see the bigger picture for how Twitter handles attempts by countries to censor tweets or account holders.

My summer internship at the Berkman Center gave me the opportunity to work with an area of the law that I am passionate about and introduced me to dozens of new friends and peers who are equally excited about the future of technology, law, and policy. It was by far the most exciting and memorable summer I’ve had and it was an honor to work with some of the world’s leading tech and policy thinkers. Summer 2014 Berkman Center internship applications just opened up and are being accepted until February 16.  If you’re interested applying you can find more information on the Center’s Internship page here.

1

Appeals court (mostly) strikes down net neutrality rules

By on January 14, 2014 in FCC, Internet

The D.C. Circuit today held that the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality nondiscrimination rules were invalid because the FCC lacked the authority to regulate how Internet providers treat content. The “Open Internet” rules, passed in 2010, required ISPs to treat all Internet content equally. Under the rules, a provider such as Verizon could not block or slow down certain Internet content or allow companies to pay for their content to be delivered faster. The Court said that the FCC can only impose such regulations on common carriers, such as telephone companies, and that ISPs are not common carriers. Read the opinion here.

5

Free Speech Assumptions and the Case of Netflix

By on December 13, 2013 in First Amendment, Internet, Journalism
From left to right: Haben Girma, Harvard Law graduate; Elizabeth Ekstrand, daughter of the author; Victoria Ekstrand, UNC asst. professor; and Katie Savage, president of Advocates for Carolina.

From left to right: Haben Girma, Harvard Law graduate; Elizabeth Ekstrand, daughter of the author; Victoria Ekstrand, UNC asst. professor; and Katie Savage, president of Advocates for Carolina.

There are two (among many) huge assumptions we make when we speak of a right to free speech or free expression.

The first assumption is that such speech can actually be formed.

The second is that such speech will be heard.

For the disabled, neither assumption is a given.  The disabled who can speak are often not heard. Their voices are either lost in a crowded marketplace focused on elite influencers or their speech is lacking or misunderstood because of the nature of their disability.

How then do we conceptualize a right of free speech for the disabled? Can we think about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in connection with a right of free expression? Do we have any case law that might lead us to consider such a connection? (The short answer to this last question, I think, is “yes.” More on that below.)

Haben Girma, the first deaf/blind student to graduate from Harvard Law School, had me reflecting on these questions during her visit last month to UNC. Haben, who was invited by Advocates for Carolina, a student group formed to reflect on life for the disabled on the UNC campus, spoke about her disability and her story to WUNC and to more than 100 students gathered in the Student Union. She now spends her days as a Skadden Fellow at Disability Rights Advocates in San Francisco, where she works to increase the accessibility of digital instructional materials at colleges and universities.

Like others who have struggled to make a life for themselves amidst an able-bodied culture, Haben refused to allow society to shut her out. She has spent her young life problem-solving around a profound inability to engage in the marketplace of ideas as seamlessly as the rest of us do. While certainly no law has directly infringed Haben’s right to free speech, it is very clear that her speech experience has been profoundly different than the experiences of most U.S. citizens.

That raises the question of government responsibility: What is the state’s role, if any, in assuring access to the marketplace of ideas for those whose access is impaired by a physical and/or mental limitation? And how can digital and online media technologies contribute to that access?

It’s a question I’m interested in thinking more about after Haben’s visit and in the wake of a settlement last year between Netflix and the National Association of the Deaf. The Netflix case revolved around the movie service’s “Watch Instantly” on-demand service, which failed to provide closed captioning on all content. The case ended with a consent decree that mandated Netflix provide captions on all streamed programming by 2014.

Federal District Court Judge Michael Ponsor rejected Netflix’s argument that the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) did not require Internet Service Providers and other digital media providers to make accommodations:

“In a society in which business is increasingly conducted online, excluding businesses that sell services through the Internet from the ADA would run afoul of the purposes of the ADA and would severely frustrate Congress’s intent that individuals with disabilities fully enjoy the goods, services, privileges and advantages, available indiscriminately to other members of the general public.”

In other words, the Internet’s marketplace of ideas must and should be accessible to the disabled. This expanded view of the ADA bears watching for its First Amendment implications going forward. In the meantime, I’ll be sending the link to this post to Haben, hoping that she will post a response below.

 

 

 

1

Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to NSA surveillance

By on November 18, 2013 in Internet, Privacy, Transparency

The Supreme Court Friday declined to consider the legality of the National Security Agency’s collection of Verizon customers’ phone call records.

The Court declined without comment to decide whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court exceeded its jurisdiction when it issued orders to Verizon to turn over the records of all phone calls made wholly within the United States or between the United States and abroad.

The challenge came from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which asked the Court for a “writ of mandamus,” a process by which the Supreme Court directly reviews a case that has not been appealed through lower courts. A writ of mandamus is only proper when the plaintiff has no other adequate means of obtaining relief. In this case, EPIC argued that it could not pursue relief in lower district and appellate courts because those courts have no jurisdiction over the FISC, and that only the government or the recipient of a FISC order can appeal that order to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.

In its response, the Justice Department argued that EPIC must file its challenge in federal district court as other plaintiffs have done. However, the government didn’t concede that EPIC would be a proper party to challenge the FISC order in district court — only that EPIC could not seek relief from the Supreme Court that it could not obtain in district court. SCOTUSblog reported that “the government has attempted to thwart court review of challenges…already filed [in lower court].”

The Justice Department also argued that EPIC did not show that the NSA had reviewed phone records relating to EPIC’s members, “particularly given the stringent, FISC-imposed restrictions that limit access to the database to counterterrorism purposes.” No court has ruled on this issue, and it could come up again in the district court challenges to the NSA’s phone records collection program.

A federal court has yet to rule on the legality of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program since a series of leaks in June revealed that the NSA had been collecting Americans’ phone call records for at least seven years.

Natasha Duarte is a 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law and a first-year master’s student at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

0

A Not-So-Secret Pacific Trade Deal

By on November 14, 2013 in Copyright, Internet, Transparency
Over the last week, opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership has gone from a quiet rumble amongst policy wonks to a major struggle over free trade, intellectual property rights, and executive power. Here is a timeline of featured news stories and blog posts. Scroll to the bottom of the timeline for updates as they become available.
0