"THE FOUNDING ARCHITECTS OF FREEDOM ARE ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVES
BY LES L. FRENCH
A Dade County, Florida, federal circuit court judge, Judge Eleanor Schockett, speaking of anonymous message board posters, recently declared, 'Give them anonymity and nothing holds them back. That's why the Ku Klux Klan wears hoods.' The judge went on to say that 'Free Speech' applies only to 'responsible' speech. I suppose that she has appointed herself to determine just exactly what speech falls under the category of 'responsible'.
Allowing the Ku Klux Klan to wear hoods is what makes the United States the greatest nation in the history of the earth. Our tolerance for freedom of thought and free expression of opinion, no matter how offensive to some, guarantees our defense against tyranny and oppression. But to the extent that we permit or allow the government to dictate what opinion we can or cannot express through comment, and therefore by derivitive to compel thought, we have submitted to oppression. The basic freedoms of the 'Bill of Rights' protects the minorities against the majorities.
Obviously, the contempt that this particular federal judge has for the United States Constitution, and the principles on which it stands, sends a clear signal that our legal system is in disrepair, and that our democratic model of freedom is in jeopardy. A passive attitude by the American public will not defend our First and Fourth Amendment rights which are presently under attack.
Clearly, Judge Schockett missed a history lesson somewhere along the way. Many of the great founding Fathers of our American Constitution... Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, and many others, published their philosophical and political works anonymously. Following the institution of the Constitution, and indeed, the institution of our federal governement including the federal courts, while many political critics considered the 'American Dream' to be nothing more than a floundering experiment, Hamilton, Jay, and Madison anonymously authored and published a series of documents known as 'The Federalist Papers'. The publishers, concealing their true identities for decades, left the exact authorship of some of these articles in doubt, even today. Publishing under the pseudonymn 'Plubious', the retired President Madison, confessing his role in the publications after Hamilton and Jay had long since died, could not recall for certain the actual author of each document.
Unfortunately, anonymous publishing has not played a significant role in American political thought during the past century, the tradition of 'The Federalist' long since forgotten. But the advent of the Internet is changing the significance of anonymous publishing of thought and commentary. Throughout the Internetís public news groups and message forums, the common man has suddenly become imbued with powers of communication previously reserved only to the press, the government, and big corporations. In fact, two of these three institutions, government and corporations, and to a degree, the press, have long enjoined a monopoly in the ability to express and promote their own propaganda and agenda.
One big problem, however: at least one cateory of these groups, public corporations, is having difficulty coping with this Re-birth of Freedom to the common man. Not used to being challenged to dialogue with their critics and shareholders, public corporations are unconfortable at being held accountable for their actions in public forums accessible by at least one third of the earth's population. What was it, again, that Judge Schockett was saying about 'responsibility'? The fact is, Freedom of Speech is no longer a one way street.
In response to 'protect' themselves against this new-found power of their shareholders and critics, these companies default to doing what they have always done worst: they sue their investors and critics with frivolous lawsuits. These lawsuits are frivolous because the matter has long since been decided: the First and Fourth Amendents guarantee free speech, and anonymous free speech. Anonymous speech has long been upheld by the Supreme Court as protected speech, even though some consider the publication to be 'defamatory'. These lawsuits, often called SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuits, are failing, and it is just a matter of time before the legislative bodies adopt stricter rules to ban them altogether.
The Founding Architects must be rolling in their graves after the comments and actions of Judge Schockett. But in their wisdom, they foresaw that Free Speech itself is the balancing act against political and commerical domination. We must not allow our most precious freedoms to be trampled upon. For these are the extreme values that our forefathers fought and died for. Sometimes, the sacrifice must be great, but the reward is abundant. For it was Alexander Hamilton, one of the early anonymous publishers of The Federalist articles, who, as a model for the modern anonymous poster, wrote, 'Give me liberty, or give me death.' (© 2000 Les L. French)"
posted 10-07-2000 08:50
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