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Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

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Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US courts recognize many exceptions to the first amendment. IP rights fall into that category.

Which rather demolishes the telecoms' argument. Clearly, the First Amendment right to free speech isn't absolute and unrestricted.

The existence of intellectual property rights isn't really relevant to the telecoms' argument here.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#132
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d go to jail like weev did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev AT&T put hundreds of thousands of subscriber emails on the web with no password or firewall or meaningful authentication of any kind. (They were server-sent autocompleted values in the username field of a login form that had a sequential integer URL argument.) He and a conspirator downloaded them all and sent them to the media to run stories about AT&…

Please let's not use weev as a cautionary tale. The guy had been baiting people to clock him in the face for his anti-social behavior on the internet since forever. I don't think it was what he did to AT&T that got him sent up, he'd been on the feds' radar since at least the Sarah Palin email hack.

If the government doesn't have enough evidence to convict you they shouldn't be allowed to trump up some other bogus charge and defend their unfair treatment by saying "well we wanted to get him on this other charge..."

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which rather demolishes the telecoms' argument. Clearly, the First Amendment right to free speech isn't absolute and unrestricted.

The existence of intellectual property rights isn't really relevant to the telecoms' argument here.

The similar existence of privacy rights and their conflict with the telecoms' right to free speech is, though.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm feeling verbose today. So. Demand is far too overstating it. And I'm not proposing or demanding it become law. There's a bunch of side-effects we might not like. But let's go with it anyway: Freedom of speech is different from freedom of the press. But both are linked because the amendment was written to allow for people to record their grievances to government via a free press. This is why free press was linked…

I'm ignoring the legalese to make a distinction between a human and non-human person. Corporations were granted free speech in a couple famous supreme court cases (NYT v. Sullivan, NYT vs. U.S.) and is not tied to the more recent non-human 'person' law. The relevant question in my mind is how to protect Wikipedia and the New York Times and The Red Cross and ... from censorship by the government. There are very many o…

I would actually argue that wikipedia, newspaper like the Times etc are acting as a press. Therefore covered by the amendment's specific mention thereof. Don't even need to invoke the freedom of speech of those who did the actual writing. You still could however[1].

The ISPs aren't acting as a press, unless they wish to assert that their primary objective is to publish IPs and other metadata. That is fine as well but they should then lose protection as a simple carrier of data. They would also incur liability of what is published. I'm fair sure they wouldn't want that. They would scream "we're not a press we're a carrier!" to escape that liability.

This is similar to the postal service asserting that they are a press and then selling delivery details or even opening your letters and sharing their content. So, what business are they in? Publisher or carrier? I think it matters.

[1] The weaker fallback of a corporation using its employee's freedom of speech asserts that those employees are fully protected from the corporation. I doubt that is ever true. So in a real way the employees don't have free rein over their opinions and speech. Restricted speakers. I'd therefore not be relying on that. I'd want wikipedia etc protected under freedom of press instead.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of intellectual property rights isn't really relevant to the telecoms' argument here.

The similar existence of privacy rights and their conflict with the telecoms' right to free speech is, though.

There isn't a similar existence of privacy rights.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of intellectual property rights isn't really relevant to the telecoms' argument here.

The similar existence of privacy rights and their conflict with the telecoms' right to free speech is, though.

[deleted]

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The similar existence of privacy rights and their conflict with the telecoms' right to free speech is, though.

There isn't a similar existence of privacy rights.

SCOTUS begs to differ, in Griswold v. Connecticut. So do various state laws.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a similar existence of privacy rights.

SCOTUS begs to differ, in Griswold v. Connecticut. So do various state laws.

A case about access to contraception has nothing to do with free speech at all, nor is it even the same kind of "privacy." They're two different concepts, with the same word.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SCOTUS begs to differ, in Griswold v. Connecticut. So do various state laws.

A case about access to contraception has nothing to do with free speech at all, nor is it even the same kind of "privacy." They're two different concepts, with the same word.

Griswold v. Connecticut established that the Constitution has some inherent rights to privacy. I cite it as you claim those rights don’t exist.

Re: Telecoms say they have a First Amendment right to sell private data

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a similar existence of privacy rights.

SCOTUS begs to differ, in Griswold v. Connecticut. So do various state laws.

It's a pretty big stretch to say that location and financial data is protected by a right to marital privacy.
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