What's the Biggest Threat to Free Speech in America?

If you thought phone companies were simply supposed to get you connected, think again. Over the last week we learned that the nation's two largest telecommunications firms want to get into the business of censorship as well -- blocking the free flow of information over phones and the Internet.

Verizon's notion of "progress" may not agree with your notion of free speech

We saw an unsettling example of just how bad this can get last week. Verizon Wireless blocked text messages that national pro-choice group NARAL wanted to send to their members. That they reversed the decision after the censorship was exposed should offer little comfort.

While they may have scrambled to fix one "dusty policy" and let these messages through, we can see in the details of this and other episodes a worrisome pattern of abuse. And it's not just at Verizon. Over the weekend, the technophiles at Slashdot exposed what many of us failed to read in the fine print of our AT&T customer agreements.

Censorship Is in the Details

Deep in its "terms of service" for high-speed services AT&T had buried this tidbit: The phone company may "immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your service ... without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes ... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."

We have since sifted the agreements of other access providers and found even more explicit language over at Verizon: The company "reserves the right and sole discretion to change, limit, terminate, modify at any time, temporarily or permanently cease to provide the Service or any part thereof to any user or group of users, without prior notice and for any reason or no reason."

You got that?

You're Busted!

These multi-billion dollar network giants are telling their Internet and cell phone customers this: If you want "your world delivered," you better play nice with the phone companies.

That means no speaking out of turn against AT&T and Verizon's slow services, high prices or anti-competitive practices.

Speak out for Net Neutrality and you could find your self on the wrong side of the digital divide. Losing an Internet connection would hit especially hard those millions of Americans in markets where the phone company is the only Internet service in town.

It gets weirder. Listed among AT&T's "prohibited activities" are "creating or attempts to utilize a domain or domain name that is defamatory, fraudulent, indecent, offensive, deceptive, threatening, abusive, harassing, or which damages the name or reputation of AT&T." [my emphasis]

This seems to take AT&T's content policing one further. It is not enough that you can be disconnected for conduct that damages the reputation of AT&T, but you can lose your feed for simply visiting a Web site -- or "domain" -- that does the same.

Guess what? You're doing that right now.

Free Speech Everywhere

Perhaps you think we're making much out of nothing -- that such fine print is created by lawyers to cover a company's butt in rare, worst case scenarios.

Try thinking about it this way: If a phone company can't tell you what to say on a phone call, then it shouldn't be able to tell you what to say in a text message, an e-mail, a blog or anywhere else. Speech should be free wherever it occurs - on the Internet, over cell phones, on the streets - everywhere. And it should be protected.

More and more of our communications occur in digital formats. It's time Americans safeguarded free speech in this new media with the passion that we protect it in old. A good place to start is with the two companies that control Internet and cell phone access for more than 120 million Americans.

Earlier today, my organization Free Press called on Congress to convene hearings that address phone company censorship policies. You can support this effort by writing your member of Congress and urging them to stand with the rest of us and investigate this abuse.

The biggest threat to free speech in America is public complacency. We must have this discussion about our democratic rights while we still can.

Phone lobbyists exert immense power over both Democrats and Republicans in the halls of Washington. As an alternative to opening their doors wide to AT&T and Verizon lobbyists, the least our elected officials could do for us is keep new communications open for everyone.

Comments

[Kendo Nagasaki]

If Hillary gets the Presidency she will take on the phone companies just like she did the insurance companies on health care.

Who owns the airwaves ?

I would suggest signing up for internet phone Vonage, but they are being sued out of existence by guess who?

[kingsXrulz]

"the nation's two largest telecommunications firms want to get into the business of censorship"

They want to "get into" it, eh? How much money will they be paid for this new venture? What's the going rate for censorship these days? Is there a price list? I want to buy me some. If the cost is reasonable enough, I'll use my leftover money to purchase a book on how to compose coherent sentences.

"That they reversed the decision after the censorship was exposed should offer little comfort."

Really? Public embarrassment and a threat by customers to take their business elsewhere worked, but it's no big deal? Interesting.

"Slashdot exposed what many of us failed to read in the fine print of our AT&T customer agreements."

Did they expose what was IN the fine print (which was never hidden, only tiny) or, did they expose the FACT that customers fail to read it (which is their fault, and is also common knowledge)? Either way, what was "exposed"?

"Try thinking about it this way: If a phone company can't tell you what to say on a phone call, then it shouldn't be able to tell you what to say in a text message"

I thought the company was telling you what NOT to say, rather than what TO say. Try thinking

"Speech should be free wherever it occurs"

I thought this blog was liberal, not libertarian.

[Timothy Karr - Huffpost Blogger]

KingsXrulz you're clearly a smart and brilliant writer. A passing familiarity with the issue, however, might put your extraordinary talents to better use.

1. Indeed, phone companies want to increase their revenues by becoming gatekeepers to content -- this involves charging companies extra to push content while blocking or degrading the content of others. They've already created technology that filters and blocks Web content; they've spoken about using it to media and at shareholder meetings. Check it out.

2. Public embarrassment is a big deal -- But Verizon won't release its new policy for allowing or disallowing text messaging. This is cause for concern. Also worrying is the emerging pattern of abuse by phone companies. Time and again they have broken trust with the public. Earlier this year, we learned that they had passed customer phone records to the NSA -- in gross violation of law. Now, they're working with the White House to gain immunity from prosecution for turning over our private communications to the government. You may be comfortable with their accountability. I am not.

3. Yes, everyone should read every letter of their phone company agreements. But the difference between "should" and "do" is vast. I would venture a guess that less than 5 percent of phone customers actually read through their full agreements (and 5% could be generous). Phone companies have full knowledge of this and take advantage by burying extraordinary powers in arcane and off-putting legal language. That it took the geeks at slashdot to "expose" what was lurking in available fine print is a sad commentary. But to blame customers for not sifting through the legalese seems off the mark.

4. Your point on whether a phone company can tell you what to say or NOT to say seems highly irrelevant. We HAVE thought about this. Have you?

5. Ascribing a political ideology to those who support free speech is silly. Whether you're liberal or conservative, libertarian or socialist, Democrat or Republican, pro-choice or pro-gun, the democratic right of free speech is fundamental.

[AlwaysAmused]

WHy oh why dont any of you so called "free speech advocates" actually know what you rights are?

The first Ammendment only ensures the government will not censor your speech. Thats it. Verizon, AT&T the Huff and Puff post, and any other private entity in the world is compeltely unbound by the first ammendmendt.
Period. SO long as they state their policies upfront they can decide to ban any message containg the word "the" if they want to.

[Libsrule]

That's not entirely true. When there is no competition, then there has to be protected rights. IF a company is the sole provider for local or long distance then they cannot be allowed to control the speech of any user.

If my memory serves me correctly, SPRINT is the sole phone provider in Las Vegas. You have no other choice. So if a monopoly of local calls exists, then that company MUST be kept from censorship as a matter of constitutional protection.

The Founding Fathers, bless them, had NO IDEA of the technical revolution that would come to exist and as such had no way to be able to foresee the problems that now exist.

When a company has the power and ability to keep you from your free speech rights, then that company's customers have to be brought under the protection of the 1st Amendment.

I don't need to come to Huffpost.I don't need to go to most sites, BUT business and information are now part of our lives through the internet and if a phone company can restrict that movement of information, then they need to be brought to heel. Some companies exist solely on the internet. What if one or two or all phone companies decide they do not like that service, irrespective of what it is, and block it?

Can you see someone like Clear Channel if they were a phone company? They would have blocked all access to democratic sites because they support the republican party. Or when they went on a rampage against the Dixie Chicks and blocked access to any site that sold their music?

WOULD that be contitutionally protected for them to block access?

It's not right and I am sure it's not going to be considered constitutional. Particularly if they are the sole providers.

[JustifiablyParanoid]

Where's John Lennon when you need him.

[AngryAmish]

Wait a second. If I am to believe the avid First Amendment Fetishists who frequent this site, the single biggest threat to free speech in the US is posed by irate private citizens who have a problem with a private university's inviting a Holocaust denier/killer of gays to speak within its hallowed halls.

Do you mean to tell me that the corporatocracy's vise-like grip on how we access and exchange information is actually a bigger threat to democracy than the question of who gets to eat lunch in a walnut-paneled faculty dining room at an Ivy League university?????

Get outta here!

[ZingoBonMot]

Well, yeah.

[research]

Everyone should start to encrypt all communications.

[nottoworry]

Have to add my "little story". I have a package with AT&T including my telephone, DSL, etc. They are totally in bed with SBC and Yahoo.
On my Yahoo SBCglobal.nett" mailbox, I started receiving 2 e-mails each day, (Keyword..Pentagon and Keyword..President Bush). They started appearing on or about the time AT&T merged or bought SBC.
I also have a SPAM directive on my mailbox that deletes and blocks any thing I direct as SPAM. So each day I delete these 2 e-mails and send them to SPAM for the addresses to be blocked. Won't work! They are back the next day. I complained to AT&T, was told what to send them so they could investigate this problem. Did it!
That has been 2 weeks ago and I have resigned myself to disposing of this unwanted mail each day.
Do they think by forcing me to have these items on my mailbox that I will suddenly see the light and think republican? Sheesh!

[Superfelo]

"Phone lobbyists exert immense power over both Democrats and Republicans in the halls of Washington. As an alternative to opening their doors wide to AT&T and Verizon lobbyists, the least our elected officials could do for us is keep new communications open for everyone."

Sir,
what have you got against lobbyists? "lobbyists are people too." Hillary said so.
Lobbyist people would not threaten the liberty, the health-care, and free speech
of people like you and me.
You can look it up: "Lobbyists are people too."

[AnRoistac]

what have you got against lobbyists? "lobbyists are people too." Hillary said so.

What's her point? Terrorists are people too.

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

LOL... that was funny!!

[cyaker]

Both ATT and Verizon are public companies whose stockholders have the right to vote and control the companies. ATT is selling for about $24 and Verizon is selling for about $46. One share gives an individual the right to recommend a change to the bylaws and vote for the removal of directors. In the final analysis "We The People" are the corporations and the corporations are us. It amazes and pains me that all the pundits on the left and all the organizations actively engaged in trying to change our society are either unaware or are ignoring this basic fact.

[BBackSoon]

Do you really believe that if you own 5 or 10 or even 1000 shares the powers that be give a good god damn, when the big dogs own a million shares or more? Hell I bet the Board got a million shares last year.

[cyaker]

Maybe not but enough shares are owned by pension funds, employees and other Liberal organizations to,if nothing else be like a mosquito.We can make them take notice. Wall Street hates controversy. Furthermore, It was done in South Africa with apartheid and liberal groups are bringing divestment pressure over Darfur. One other point would you rather pressure the hired help in Congress or take your issues to the people who have hired our representatives away from us. I still say we are the corporations and they are us.

[ZingoBonMot]

Maybe that's why Coca Cola kept throwing old granny and me out of their stockholder meetings in the 1980s.

[TheRavingAtheist]

It's hilarious that NARAL is criticizing Verizon for finding the topic of abortion "unsavory" -- pro-choicers are very careful not to use the word "abortion" when describing what they're promoting for the very same reason. It's also hilarious that NARAL is complaining of a private company engaging in censorship -- on its own blog, NARAL engages in very strict censorship of anyone who attempts to leave a comment there -- pro-life and pro-choice alike. NARAL is not really pro-democracy, it's just pro-abortion.

[eddiestardust]

Ravingatheist, I'm not an atheist myself but I have to agree with you 100%

NARAL does equal abortion and this is just another way for them to bother the rest of us.

I'm afraid that NARAL doesn't get the point..
they are falling out of favor..oh, it's going to be a hard fall for them and they will go down kicking and screaming and biting...but they are going down period.

Sanity is beginning..ever so slowly to return

[duboisist]

It would be great to have "free speech" for the user, but what is a company to do if THEY can be held libel for allowing that user access? So, it isn't all up to decisions made by Verizon. What laws the government passes and the courts upheld matter too.

[Chris]

Not quite sure how you can claim what a private entrprise does with it s prodcuts has to do with free speech.

There are no laws limiting these acts.

[DemandTruth]

Except when the "private enterprise" is using the PUBLIC's airwaves and bandwidth.

Or do you think Delta Airlines owns the sky and the clouds?

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

right on!

[rollingdivision]

There should be no, zero restrictions on content. The best measure of free speech is in the amount and level of offensive speech one can make without official repercussions. Common carriers of data should have no say in the content carried over their networks. But, the same common carriers should also have no responsibilities or liabilities due to the content. Rather all responsibility and liability for content should lie with originator of the content. There should be no, zero restrictions on content.

[dadw5boys]

Well ALL AMERICANS have to make un their minds. Is Free Speech going to be FREE or do you want CONSTRAINTS on it.
Before 9:00 pm you don't want a lot of suggestive sexual scenes in T.V. Shows but you accepted the show Friends with constant sexual lines. Even old AL BUNDY had constraints about the scenes of a screwed up Family Life they could show. You allow constraints then your opening up a can of worms.
WE CAN NO LONGER TRUST THE SUPREME COURT TO PROTECT OF RIGHTS.
WE HAVE TO DECIDE!

[Purple Girl]

Freedom of Speech and Privacy have already been taken away- you are only seeing ghosts.This is also the state of the entire governing Document- quaintly referred to as the US Constitution. The fight now is to regain the them-
Tell Harry & Nancy to put Impeachment back on the Table- or the next body we will seek help from is the world community- the UN to help US oust this Regime (including all those that have supported, harboured and CAVED TO. One last chance- State Your allegience!! US or them
Cave Adsum

[nickyboy1]

THANK YOU AND AMEN, PURPLE GIRL.