3 censorship privacy

Ethics - MS008A - Kirsten Ribu - Siri Fagernes HiO - 2004 1
Censorship and Freedom of
Speech. Intellectual Property.
Privacy
21.09.2004
Chapters 3, 4 and 5

Ethics - MS008A - Kirsten Ribu - Siri Fagernes HiO - 2002
Today
 Censorship – Internet censorship
 Intellectual property
 Privacy

But first …..
A Home Computer
 http://users.net1plus.com/scottm/
HomeComputer.jpg

Censorship
 What is censorship?
 Discuss
 Case:
 Revenge on the Internet

What is censorship?
 ’The attempt to supress or regulate
public access to material considered
offensive or harmful.’
 Excercised by governments and religious
institutions
 Example: Government monopolization: The
Soviet Union: suppressed flow of
information and freedom of speech
 Possesion of child pornography

The Internet: Challenges
 Many-to-many communications
 Difficult to censure compared with
newspapers and Television
 The Internet is dynamic, large
 More….discuss

Cases described in Dagbladet
(Magasinet)
 Revenge on the Internet
 Revenge by e-mail
 Slander about the love life of a well-known
lawyer
 Not just in the office, but in all cyberspace (!)
 Usenet discussions -
 Difficult to stop e-mail campaigns

Ethical problem:
 Chain letters (e-mails) describing
people in a negative way.
 Not necessarily illegal
 Unethical?
 Protection of privacy vs. freedom of
speech?

Example
 Information about private things must
be of interest to the public
 For instance:
 A politician for the Christian Democratic
Party (KrF) who publically advocates a
moral view and in private does something
completely different

Ethical Views on Censorship
 Kant’s view:
 Have courage to use your own reason
 Obstacles to using own reason were
removed in the Enlightenment
 Kant opposed censorship

John Stuart Mill
 Freedom of expression
 Good ideas prevail over bad ones
 Applied to the www: supports the free
exchange of opinions and oppose all
government censorship

Priniciple of harm - John Stuart
Mill
 ’The only ground on which intervention
is justified is to prevent harm to others,
the individual’s own good is not a
sufficient condition’.
 Excercise
 Write down examples of censorship that
are based on this principle.

Freedom of Expression
 A constitutional right
 An absolute right?
 Discuss

INTERNET FREE EXPRESSION
ALLIANCE
 http://www.ifea.net/
 Quote: ’The Internet is a powerful and
positive forum for free expression.
 It is the place where "any person can
become a town crier with a voice that
resonates farther than it could from
any soapbox," (as the U.S. Supreme
Court recently observed). ’

Cont.
 ’Internet users, online publishers, library and
academic groups and free speech and journalistic
organizations share a common interest in opposing
the adoption of techniques and standards that could
limit the vibrance and openness of the Internet as a
communications medium.
 Indeed, content "filtering" techniques already have
been implemented in ways inconsistent with free
speech principles, impeding the ability of Internet
users to publish and receive constitutionally
protected expression. ’

Freedom in Cyberspace
 Discuss these views:
 The Internet is a common area, a public
space like a village square, except that it is
the largest common area that has yet
existed.
 This world-wide community is as large and
diverse as humanity itself. Therefore, no one
community's standards can govern the type
of speech permissible on the Internet.

Continued….
 In the words of John Gilmore, a founding
member of the EFF (Electronic Frontier
Foundation)
 "The Inernet interprets censorship as
damage, and routes around it."
 Because of the Internet's robust design, it is
impossible to completely block access to
information except in very limited and
controlled circumstances
 blocking access to a specific site from a home
computer
 using a firewall to block certain sites from
employees on a workplace network.
 http://livinginternet.com/i/ip_speech.htm

Freedom of Speech and Press
on the Internet
 The Free Software Foundation
supports the freedoms of speech,
press, and association on the Internet.
 Save the Web is a movement
dedicated to ensuring that the highest
priority of Internet law in Europe is to
protect individual Internet users'
rights.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
basic-freedoms.html

Red Alert
 The digital copyright threat : The most dangerous
new proposed law is being pushed in Brussels by
powerful multinational film, music and software
companies. They are telling EU politicians that the
Internet will turn us all into thieves, and want
sweeping new laws that extend their rights on the
Internet. If succeeds, they will destroy the Web as
we know it. But they didn't succeed in America, and
we can still stop them in Europe . But we have to
act now.
 Threats to privacy : A wide range of businesses,
governments, and law-enforcement agencies want
to watch what we do on the Internet. We will lose
our rights to privacy if we don't defend them.

Organizations that work for freedom in
computer development and electronic
communications
 openrevolt.org This site is devoted to providing
information about the European Copyright Directive
and similar legislation.
 OpenCores The OpenCores project exists to further
the aims of the Open IP Core definition,
 chillingeffects.org Chilling Effects is a collection
point for cease and desist notices concerning online
activity -- we invite visitors to enter C&Ds they have
received or sent. The website collects the C&Ds in
a searchable database and hyperlinks them to
explanations of the legal issues.
 The League for Programming Freedom The League
for Programming Freedom is an organization that
opposes software patents and user interface
copyrights.

Cont
 Free Protocols Foundation The Free Protocols
Foundation (FPF) is an independent public forum,
dedicated to the support of patent-free protocols.
 Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, is a non-profit, non-partisan
organization working in the public interest to protect
fundamental civil liberties, including privacy and
freedom of expression, in the arena of computers
and the Internet.
 Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC is a
public interest research center in Washington, D.C.
It was established in 1994 to focus public attention
on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect
privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional
values.

Cont….
 Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility CPSR is a
public-interest alliance of computer scientists and others
concerned about the impact of computer technology on
society. We work to influence decisions regarding the
development and use of computers because those decisions
have far-reaching consequences and reflect our basic values
and priorities.
 Global Internet LibertyCampaign The GILC comprises of
members from American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, Human Rights Watch, the Internet
Society, Privacy International, the Association des Utilisateurs
d'Internet, and other civil liberties and human rights
organizations. They advocate the prohibition of censorship of
on-line communication, and insist that on-line free expression
should not be restricted by indirect means such as excessively
restrictive governmental or private controls over computer
hardware or software, telecommunications infrastructure, or
other essential components of the Internet.

Intellectual Property
 What is intellectual property?
 Definition: ’any unique product of the
human intellect (and that has some
value in the marketplace )’
 Source: (The university of Texas –
Intellectual properties: www.uta.edu/tto/
ip-defs.htm)

Fair use
 It is legal to reproduce a copyright
work in some cicumstances:
 Educational use
 Use of non-fiction rather than fiction
 Parts rather than whole chapters
 Use of out-of-print material

Siri’s Example
 Could she publish the material she
used in class on the web?

Peer-to-peer Networks
 Napster – the DVD Jon case
 KaZaA – ehical considerations?

Ethics - MS008A - Kirsten Ribu - Siri Fagernes HiO - 2004 27
Protection of Privacy

Electronic surveillance
 The Internet poses threats to personal security and
privacy.
 Sensitive information is circulating in electronic
form, including telephone conversations, FAX
messages, electronic mail, fund transfers, trade
secrets and health records.
 The same technological advances that have
brought enormous benefits to humankind also make
us more vulnerable than ever before to unwanted
and potentially dangerous snooping by
 Governments
 business competitors
 Terrorists
 Nosy neighbors
 Hackers
 thieves.

Harms and benefits of privacy
 Illegal and unethical acvtivities
 Privacy – A Necessary right?
 Discussion

Laws
 §2 – ’The Law of Personal Privacy’ –
’Lov om personvern’ – Norway
 US law – Privacy Act of 1974
 More next week

Spyware
 Computer users are finding programs on
their computers that they did not know were
installed and that they cannot uninstall
 The programs create privacy problems and
open security holes that can
 hurt the performance and stability of their
systems
 lead them to mistakenly believe that these
problems are the fault of another application or
their Internet provider.

The Center for Democracy and
Technology
 CDT is working on several fronts to combat
the "spyware" problem.
http://www.cdt.org/mission/
 ’We believe a complete solution will require
 a combination of better enforcement of
existing laws,
 anti-spyware technologies,
 self-regulatory policies,
 and possibly new legislation.’
 Yes?

Privacy International
 Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group
formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance and
privacy invasions by governments and corporations.
 PI is based in London, England, and has an office in
Washington, D.C.
 PI has conducted campaigns and research
throughout the world on issues ranging from
wiretapping and national security, to ID cards,
video surveillance, data matching, police
information systems, medical privacy, and
freedom of information and expression.
 http://www.privacyinternational.org/

Crime, terrorism and
wiretapping
 Wiretapping: Traditional interception of
telephone conversations
 Affects innocent people
 Is it acceptable in the combat against
crime/terrorism?
 Discuss
 Voice over IP – how does new technology
influence the view on wiretapping?

Wiretapping
 Big Brother in the Wires
 Wiretapping in the Digital Age
 http://archive.aclu.org/issues/cyber/wir
etap_brother.html

Anonymity. How safe are you?
 Remaining anonymous on the Internet
helps secure your identity, and prevent
it from getting into the wrong hands.
 Knowledge is the best weapon
against the threat of being exploited.
 Should one be able to remain
anonymous on the Internet?

Excercises
 Write half a page - one page about one of the
following topics:
 What are the benefits and harms of Internet censorship?
 Why copyright?
 Spyware and privacy concerns.
 Wiretapping – ethical concerns
 Send it to the others on your group. Read the
other’s work.
 Group 1: Bård, Fatima, Le, Håvard
 Group 2: Weng, Ismail, Stig, Ole
 Group 3: Raheel, Claudia, Trond, Phong, Ellef

Next Week
 Computer crime
 Laws and regulations

3 censorship privacy

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