by Jeffrey A. Cohen

Internet Attorney; Founder & CEO InternetLitigators; Founding Partner Cohen & Richardson, PC

February 2011

As I watched the events of this month in Africa and Egypt and listened carefully to our Nation’s leaders make their way through what must have been a rather dicey media cycle involving the fall from grace and what may become the eventual fall from power of Hosni Mubarak (after supporting him militarily and financially through many administrations), I could not help noticing a very clear running theme.

“Limit my freedom all you want but mess with my access to Facebook or Twitter and we have a problem” seemed to be coming from the crowds of demonstrators in Cairo. By the fourth day of unrest the White House made sure there was no secret about its position on the issue of access to social networking and the internet. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stated “We urge the Egyptian authorities to allow peaceful protests and to reverse the unprecedented step it has taken to cut off communications” in a direct reference to the cutting off of internet access in Egypt. I watched live as the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs clarified and specified the meaning of this statement by describing the basket of rights to which we believe the Egyptian people are entitled as including access the Internet. Secretary Gibbs tweeted later in the day “Very concerned about violence in Egypt – government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people turn on social networking and internet”. See. http://twitter.com/PressSec.  The Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley tweeted “We are concerned that communication services, including the Internet, social media and even this #tweet, are being blocked in #Egypt.” See. http://twitter.com/pjcrowley.

If the message being sent by the administration was not clear enough with that, there is this… In an interview, U.S. President Barack Obama is quoted as saying “there are certain core values that … we believe are universal: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, people being able to use social networking.”

Facebook has existed for about seven years now and Twitter about five. Before that, they didn’t exist – at all. Now, it seems that the right to access to these services and all of the lesser known social networking outlets that have proliferated since that time has become one of the inalienable rights belonging to all people which are considered to be self-evident and universal. That is, they fall within the category of rights that we consider not to be contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government. See. Wikipedia. They are above that, they are in effect guaranteed – certainly for Americans, and apparently to all human beings.

As I digest this elevation of social networking to the level of “inalienable right” it occurs to me that the First Amendment – our freedom of speech – reaches only to our borders. It occurs to me therefore, that the real concern here must be broader in scope than simply freedom of speech for its own sake. The inalienable component of the right to access social networking, while it might sound trivial, is about the underlying ideas themselves. Those are what are important and those are what, when denied, create intolerable conditions that lead to a very real risk of violence. The comments from the Administration are all, without exception, colored with the seeming urgency to preserve the right of expression so as to avoid the violence – directed both to the governments and to the people.

The aspect of all of this that seems most important is that there is no call to preserve the freedom of expression for one person, one country, one viewpoint or one belief. The call to action is to preserve access to the medium – for all viewpoints and all people. The call to action is to preserve the beliefs and ideas themselves. The basis for the urgent expression of support  for a seemingly trivial  and sometimes inconsequential right  – to access social networking  – is found in the belief that more speech is better than less. It lies in the belief that the best ideas, the truest and most honorable beliefs and actions and nations will always rise to the top given the freedom to have any idea, believe any idea, share any idea and hear any idea – which is ultimately what social networking is about.

Copyright (c) 2011 – JACO Product Development LLC – All Rights Reserved.

Jeffrey A. Cohen is an Internet attorney and the founder of InternetLitigators. He is a partner in the California business law firm  Cohen & Richardson, PC. Mr. Cohen has a degree in advertising from the Arizona State University School of Business and  represents Internet and Internet marketing companies around the world.  Mr. Cohen can be reached at JCohen [at] InternetLitigators.com. The reader is cautioned that the information contained herein is not legal advice and is not a substitute for legal advice. There is no attorney client relationship created by this information. The opinions expressed herein are those of Mr. Cohen and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lunarpages, InternetLitigators or Cohen & Richardson.