By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
In this article, describes the current case of Anthony
Elonis who was sentenced to forty four months in prison by a federal court over
the Facebook postings that he posted on his personal account back in May of
2010. The postings were of him saying that he “I want to kill my wife”, and a
picture of him with a knife over his coworker at a Halloween party with the
caption “I wish”. Of course Mr. Elonis’ posts seemed to be threating however he
states in the article that “Art is about pushing limits. I’m willing to go to
jail for my constitutional rights. Are you?” Most people see that the
government is stealing or trying to limit our right to Freedom of Speech.
However, should not a person have the right to voice their opinions on all
mediums, whether it is vocal, in writing, or visually?
The question that all
Americans are starting to ask when it comes to the U.S government and how it
deals with people speaking out on issues they believe in. In "Freedom for the thought we Hate" written by Anthony Lewis, it states that "The makers of the our Constitution...recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, his feelings and his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations." (69) This shows that Americans should have the Freedom to write or verbalize their feelings or opinions no matter what, they are protected. However, the government is going over and above when dealing with this new age of technology. They do not know how to regulate crimes when dealing with the internet. For example, "Cyber-Bullying", this is a term that has just been recently defined and made into an issue. Cyber-bullying is a person or group of people harass another individual or group over the internet by social media or email or other technology. The government does not yet have the laws to keep up with this fast paced technology, so there is not a specific way to actually prosecute someone.
Based on this article I think that Mr. Ellonis had the right to say his feelings even though they made the people who interacted with him on the internet feel uncomfortable, however this is when the harm principle could come in to affect. The principle that was learned in the reading of Freedom of Speech, the book that helped educate us on the fact that we can over look things that we do not particularly care for.
Amber Fleet
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