Packingham v. North Carolina

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Packingham v. North Carolina is a legal case before the United States Supreme Court that was ruled in 2017. In this case, the question of whether social media such as Facebook should be viewed as public spaces and whether access to them can be prohibited by law was discussed for the first time . According to Judge Anthony Kennedy, it was one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court had to discuss the relationship between freedom of speech and freedom of the press and the Internet.

prehistory

In 2002, the then 21-year-old college student Lester Gerard Packingham had sexual contact with a then 13-year-old girl and was sentenced to 12 months in prison. In addition, he received a subsequent probation period of 24 months . A law passed in 2008 prohibits convicted sex offenders in North Carolina from using social networks such as Facebook and Snapchat ; the intention behind this is to protect the public from attempted contact by repeat offenders.

In 2010, Packingham was arrested after posting a post on Facebook about a suspended traffic fine:

“Man God is Good! How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court cost, no nothing spent. . . . . .Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS! "

“Man, God is good! How is it that I got so much favors [from God] that they stopped repenting before the judgment began? No fines, no legal fees, nothing spent. . . . . . Glory to GOD, WOW! Thank you JESUS! "

North Carolina Law Section 14-202.5 prohibits registered sex offenders from using commercial social networks if the sex offender is aware that minors may create user profiles on those networks. In North Carolina, contraventions are minor offenses (so-called class I felonies , the I is the letter after H , not the Roman number for one ), these are punished with a maximum of 24 months imprisonment.

While the first instance found that Section 14-202.5 did not violate the freedom of the press and freedom of expression enshrined in the US Constitution because the public interest prevailed, the North Carolina appeals court ruled differently. The North Carolina Supreme Court again overturned this ruling on the grounds that the protection and safety of minors was of a higher priority.

In the paper by Hitz (2014) mentioned below, similar laws in the states of Indiana, Nebraska, and Louisiana are discussed. While that of Indiana explicitly permits the use of e-mail and Internet forums , that of Louisiana even forbids access to news websites, the use of e-mail services and peer-to-peer networks .

Before the Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court accepted the case; the case was heard on February 27, 2017. Various amici curiae had submitted arguments in advance, such as the libertarian Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union .

Packinghams' attorney argued that the law prohibits a convicted person from wide areas of freedom of speech and expression, and would in fact prohibit him from using the Internet . Packingham was also unable to read opinions on his own case on Twitter .

The Supreme Court finally ruled 8-0 votes -  Neil Gorsuch did not participate in this process - in the sense of Lester Packingham, and described § 14-202.5 as unconstitutional. Judge Anthony Kennedy wrote in his statement of reasons, supported by Ruth Ginsburg , Stephen Breyer , Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan :

“A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more. [...] By prohibiting sex offenders from using those websites, North Carolina with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square [. ..] ”

“A fundamental principle of the First Amendment [to the United States Constitution] is that all people have access to places where they can talk and listen, and then, after reflecting on it, talk and listen again. [...] By banning sex offenders from using such websites, North Carolina is blocking, with a thick stroke of the brush, access to what for many people is the main source of news, job search, and talking and listening in the modern public space represents [...] "

Judge Samuel Alito wrote in his dissenting verdict - supported by Clarence Thomas and chairman John G. Roberts - that prohibitions on the use of sex offenders are permissible if they only concern portals aimed at teenagers.

Meaning of the judgment

While the immediate aftermath of the verdict - Lester Packingham's acquittal - is undisputed, it is not yet clear what the long-term impact it will have. Primarily, the judgment did not deal with the question of whether operators or owners of online offers can exclude certain users, but only with whether state authorities are allowed to do so.

Traditionally, the private operators of a website - for example Facebook or Twitter - are equated with a publisher of a newspaper. They determine what is reproduced in their medium and who is entitled to express their opinion in this medium. The government may then not restrict this freedom of the publisher or the website operator. The majority opinion of Judge Kennedy recognized, however, that social media are not only a privately operated offer, but also represent a public place for social exchange, and that access to it is a good worth protecting.

David Post , professor of intellectual property and online law , raised the question of whether parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act should be repealed in light of this ruling. For example, ISPs are currently required to deny people access to the Internet after they commit multiple copyright violations.

Packingham v. North Carolina later became Sandvig v. Sessions as an argument tried. In that case, a researcher, Christian Sandvig , in collaboration with The Intercept and the ACLU, wanted to clarify before a federal court whether it was allowed for research purposes to violate the terms of use of rental and job placement portals in order to obtain information about using specially created user profiles procure potentially discriminatory algorithms . It should also be clarified whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) is partially unconstitutional, because the CFAA declares the unauthorized use of a computer system to be a criminal offense. The court recognized that online offers, for which anyone can open an account, are public forums and that access to them is legal even in violation of the respective terms of use.

With regard to the US President Donald Trump , the question has been raised whether he, according to Packingham v. North Carolina is entitled to exclude critical Twitter and Facebook users from reading and commenting on his messages - provided he does not publish the statements as a private person. In May 2018, a federal court with jurisdiction over the southern part of New York State ruled that this was the case and that Donald Trump was not allowed to block Twitter users in his role as President.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To be found in the introduction to the judgment Packingham v. North Carolina: In 2010, a state court dismissed a traffic ticket against petitioner. In response, he logged on to Facebook.com and posted the following statement on his personal profile:
  2. ↑ North Carolina Crime Classification List , accessed May 29, 2020
  3. ^ David Post: Supreme Court unanimously overturns North Carolina's ban on social-media use by sex offenders. In: The Washington Post. July 3, 2017, accessed May 1, 2018 .
  4. ↑ United States District Court for the District of Columbia: Memorandum Opinion. March 30, 2018, accessed May 1, 2018 .
  5. ^ Noah Feldman: This Court Case Is Bad News for Social Media Privacy. In: bloomberg.com. April 5, 2018, accessed May 1, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Supreme Court Hints That Trump Can't Legally Block You on Twitter. In: motherboard.vice.com. Retrieved May 2, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Sam Wolfson: Donald Trump cannot block anyone on Twitter, court rules. In: The Guardian. May 23, 2018, accessed May 24, 2018 .