Hello Again and Welcome to My Week 7 Blog!
Almost to the finish line so thank you for staying with me these weeks! Today’s subject includes the law and media, specifically what I think of how one affects the other after this week’s class readings. Well, in order to tackle this fickle subject, I decided to break it into two of the many issues within the articles that affect the law and media: following the laws intended to keep everyone safe while keeping the right to protest peacefully and how much information should truly be public (government documents, police arrest footage, etc.).
I read articles like the ACLU piece “Know Your Rights: Protesters’ Rights” and I have to admit certain questions come to mind that may not flow in line with what most people think. I have in the past believed in the right to protest, however, the way that protests have become in certain cities in the past couple of years, I have thought that maybe there should be more restrictions around certain events. I know that this is not the popular opinion but hear me out for a second. In terms of protesting for your rights, the article mentioned above does a great job of talking about one’s rights as a protester but I can’t help but think that these are great in theory but many times protesters don’t go by these “rights”. For example, it speaks about the right to protest on public property as long as there is no blocking to the building or interference for people going in but I have literally been in the scenario where a protest was going on in front of the capital building and all entrances were blocked by protesters. Not only that but if the police are doing their job of trying to maintain peace and a group gets rowdy, why is a person allowed to video that police officer doing their job to maintain the peace? There is also talk about dispersal orders and I can say from experience living in a large city during times of certain protests, that no matter whether or not a rally became a riot, many of the protesters actually stayed and became more violent towards police presence. While protesters have their rights, shouldn’t they have to follow the law and respect the right of officers to keep the general public safe?
Another article I read that brought up questions was the piece from Wired “Introducing Aaron’s Law, a Desperately Needed Reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” The truth is that I have always been of the opinion that certain sensitive items, whether government related or not, should remain shielded from the public in every way. Per the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was previously put in place to address hacking issues that were more than likely threat related to protect the public and I am sure, government documents. I appreciate the fact that the article speaks about using the tragedy and loss of Swartz as a way to enact changes within the CFAA for the types of crimes covered under it. The one thing I tend to not understand in situations like this, where a person may know they are going against legislation currently in place on the use of certain digital media, why hack or make items public if there could be any repercussions that potentially fall under the realm of prosecution? Again, in this case, shouldn’t people try to follow the legal rules to a “T” while trying to fight for change through the appropriate legal avenues?
The thing is, the law is not without error and I think we all see this play out in different situations on a daily basis. To that point though, humans are not without error either and there are many times where I have seen people who just do not want to follow restrictions around certain media interactions or what are considered rights such as protests. I genuinely believe that the intention of many of these laws put in place for media of all types were for public safety. I do believe that there can be a general lack of respect for these laws as well as a bit of resistance to be lax on these laws, however, I think the only way to affect change is to follow the laws while simultaneously working on the change that may be needed to what is no longer applicable.
Thanks for taking the time to read and until next week!
