South by Southwest: Modern communication issues in the forefront of the news

(photo credit: datarec @StockXCHNG)
Talk, computer information, phone calls, etc.; it all flows together for us. Modern communication is woven together in today's world of widespread, instant and international interaction. In this current reality the concepts of legality, right and wrong, free speech, ethics and propriety are becoming entangled into a fuzzy mess.

But it is not impossibly complex for us to figure out. Certain principles can guide us through the morass:

No one is above the law. The U.S. constitution has served us long and well. Officials in all three branches of government take oaths to preserve and protect that revered document.
Politics should be practiced with honor. Republicans do not have exclusive right to be defined as Strong Loyal Americans. People all along the political spectrum also have the right to be given basic respect.
Think about it before deciding. Black and white, simplistic thinking and slogans are traps for uninformed voters. These communication/freedom issues are complex and nuanced and deserve to be studied.
A free press is the Fourth Estate. In addition to the three branches of government, democracy depends on an engaded media. Right now the mainstream media does not do its job of informing the public very well.
A society is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. As laws are passed and enforced, they must work in behalf of those least able to protect themselves. Children, the infirm, elders, undereducated people and others must be represented in the debate.

The standard argument from a number of conservatives very often is, "If you have nothing to hide, why do you worry about information being know by others?" And that is a false argument. That is not the point at all. The point is that government's protection of citizens must also include protecting their constitutional rights. It must never be allowed to be framed as an either-or thing, or as a loyalty to America question.
Current issues of confidentiality, pretexting, data retention, data-mining, domestic surveillance, privacy, and civil liberties are the stuff of headlines. And defining what is right or wrong is very hotly debated politically. One of the most significant has to do with Congress' current legislative action regarding domestic warrentless wire-tapping. To quote Yahoo! News,

House passes warrantless domestic spying measure
By Thomas Ferraro, Thu Sep 28, 11:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would provide congressional authorization for President George W. Bush's warrantless domestic spying program but subject it to new rules.
With a court battle waging over the program's legality, the House, controlled by Bush's fellow Republicans, approved the measure on a largely party-line vote of 232-191, and sent it to the Senate for needed concurrence.
The Senate, however, has been unable to agree on such legislation, preventing Bush from getting a final measure to sign into law before members of Congress go home to campaign for the November 7 elections. That had been a top Republican goal.

Currently in the courts - The push-back against an overreaching executive branch of government is not only in Congress but also in the court system. According to the Detroit Free Press, Detroit's Judge Anna D. Taylor has given the current administration 7 more days to continue its domestic surveillance program. To quote,

Domestic spying program gets 7-day extension from Detroit judge,
September 28, 2006. By DAVID ASHENFELTER
The Bush administrations domestic spying program that intercepts international phone calls and e-mails of suspected Al-Qaeda members without court orders can continue for seven more days, a federal judge in Detroit ruled Thursday.U.S. District Judge Anna Digga Taylor, who declared the National Security Agencys program unconstitutional on Aug. 17 on grounds that it violates Americans constitutional rights to free speech and privacy, said she would delay enforcement of her decision for seven days to give government lawyers time to ask the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals for a longer stay.

Hewlett-Packard - Where is the line between ethical or unethical, legal or illegal behavior in the corporate sector? HP is mired in a scandal that is giving that old and highly respected company a million dollar's worth of bad publicity. C-SPAN is currently rebroadcasting yesterday's House hearing on Hewlett Packard's use of "pretexting" in an internal investigation of alleged leaks to the press by members of their board of directors.

FROM THE HOUSE-Access to Your Phone Records. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) conducts a second day of hearings on Pre-texting. Representatives of wire-less carriers and the Federal Trade Cmsn. discuss the fraudulent access of private phone records. The Justice Dept. considers Tele-phone Pretexting a crime. This is a House Energy & Commerce Subcmte. hearing. FRI., C-SPAN3, 10AM ET

Protecting children - Another issue discussed earlier in the same Congressional committee is child porn online. Thus, retention and sharing of internet customer data can also work in favor of citizen protection, in this case our children. According to CNET NEWS, legislation will be introduced requiring ISP retention of customer records. To quote:

Data retention bill expected next week: Proposal expected to require Internet providers to keep customer information for a year for police convenience.
By Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: September 21, 2006, 4:25 PM PDT
WASHINGTON--A Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives said Thursday that she plans to introduce legislation next week that would force Internet providers to record customer information for one year.
Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado said that she is working with Republicans Reps. Ed Whitfield, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, and Joe Barton, chairman of the full committee, to finalize language mandating a controversial practice known as data retention.
"Internet service providers across the board do retain this data for some period of time right now, so all were doing in this legislation is requiring a standard in the industry," DeGette said at a morning hearing here on online child pornography, which was at least the sixth event dealing with online child exploitation in the House this year.

Free speech and journalism - The other aspect of this, is of course, speaking out against the government about all of this. In a very ironic development, it turns out that this can get you killed if you are an Iraqi journalist. The New York Times reports that, quote,

. . . a reporter for Baghdadiya TV in the violent city of Ramadi, did his best to ignore the death threats, right up until six armed men drilled him with bullets after midday prayers.
He was the fourth journalist killed in Iraq in September alone, out of a total of more than 130 since the 2003 invasion, the vast majority of them Iraqis. But these days, men with guns are not Iraqi reporters’ only threat. Men with gavels are, too.
Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.
Currently, three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried here for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.