Painting a Bulls-Eye on the First Amendment

Yesterday on CNN's morning show, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal continued his full-frontal jihad against Craigslist by proclaiming that Internet-based content doesn't have the same First Amendment protections as do print publications. He could not be more wrong.

Blumenthal, along with more than 40 other state AGs, has dogged Craigslist in an effort to get the online classified ad service to remove all adult services ads from its site. Blumenthal and others claim those ads on Craigslist are thinly veiled come-ons for prostitutes with the ads themselves being "absolutely raunchy," as Blumenthal told CNN yesterday during a live interview about his crusade against Craigslist.

When a CNN anchor pointed out that the Hartford Advocate, the home paper of the state capitol, also carried obvious ads for prostitution services and wanted to know if he was "aggressively" pursuing other publications like he was Craigslist, Blumenthal said (at 4:06 into the interview): "We're also looking at publications, but obviously there are First Amendment considerations there... so I think there are differences here" when we're going after Craigslist.

Blumenthal's assertion that online speech has lower First Amendment protection than speech in newspapers is shocking -- he clearly needs to brush up on First Amendment law. Back in 1996, in a case known as Reno v. ACLU, the Supreme Court reached exactly the opposite conclusion. The Court struck down the so-called Communications Decency Act and held that speech on the Internet merits the fullest protection under the First Amendment. Blumenthal is right that there would be constitutional implications raised by attacks on a newspaper, but those same constitutional problems are raised by his witch-hunt against Craigslist.

Moreover, beyond the clear constitutional protection that online speech merits, the U.S. Congress has extended even greater protections for online sites such as Craigslist. In a law known as "Section 230," Congress made crystal clear that states could not hold online sites liable for content posted to the site by users (and this clearly includes the ads posted to Craigslist).

This madness needs to stop. In the same interview Blumenthal admitted that he is "pursuing other Internet classified ad sites" (4:22) but he wasn't willing to name them. "We have them 'in our sights' so to speak," he said. Apparently, he's also painted a bulls-eye on the First Amendment and free speech.

Comments

[Merlin7]

Don't be fooled. This so-called crackdown is not really about sex ads. It's really about finding a vehicle, a lever, a weapon with which to legally limit free speech on the internet. Many politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, are really squirming under the intense scrutiny they are receiving because of the internet. I'm sure they desperately want to find a way to limit that scrutiny and mute that discussion. Using the old "law and order" approach never fails; it brought us the Nazi-like Patriot Act and could lead to new rules that would spay/neuter political websites like this one.

Whenever some Harvard-educated gumshoe starts preaching morality, watch out. Keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your MacBook, because you could lose either or both.

[Ray46]

Many of the customers and prostitutes are using adds from Craigslist, other publications, the phone book (escort services, etc), and the internet.to find each other. These methods are almost invisible to most citizens and should be made legal.

For the prostitutes that will abide by restrictions: no public solicitation or servicing of their customers; regular blood testing; and other regulations, it should be legalized for both the prostitute and customer.

The alternative will be for prostitutes to go back to publicly soliciting on streets in each city and often servicing their customers in their cars.. Citizens will then be rightly outraged by prostitutes and their customers when: Prostitutes solicit and service customers in front of their house or business; customers assume their wife or daughter who is walking home or to a friends house, or to a store is a prostitute and try to solicit them; and used condoms litter the streets and small children think they are balloons.

[twogunmojo]

its funny that when the subject of gun control comes up the unthinking masses on the left always point out that the 2nd amendment was written at a time when the only gun available was the single shot musket...i­f you apply that logic to the 1st amendment the only speech that is protected is what can be produced with the pen and quill and a gutenberg press....

[anothermba]

A gun can kill someone. Words cannot. I think there are no parallels, my "unthinking" friend. Next time, think through your argument from all angles before you speak. After all the first amendment is the right to freedom of speech, not freedom of gibberish.

[twogunmojo]

if words can't kill why all the uproar over bill o and the rest of the rights comments especially about the late dr. tiller and the museum shooter...­it would be hard for fox to reach so many people without the assistance of electronic media..ima­gine if both the left and the right had to hand deliver talking points by pony express...­.if you can't see the parallel between the 1st and 2nd amendment with regards to technology you really do need to leave the thinking to someone else....

[ProgressiveVoice]

Printing technology had gone well past the Gutenberg press stage by the late 1700s

[twogunmojo]

so are you saying that the founding fathers knew that printing technology would advance but did not know that firearms would advance...

[SShaw490]

It's funny to me that people demand equal First Ammendment rights for this largely anonymous Internet blather but they get apoplexy when anyone mentions that "free speech" also means "subject to libel and slander lawsuits". There's a notion that the Internet is immune to normal tort laws but should be treated like publications that ARE subject to torts. They want it both ways.

Personally, I think the Internet is free speech and should be subject to all applicaple laws, even by anonymous bloggers and etc. If you say it, you're liable for the results of your free speech. Of course, that kind of takes the fun out of everything, but...