Internet censorship in the United States
Encyclopedia
Internet censorship in the United States is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet
in the United States
.
. These protections extend to the Internet and as a result very little government mandated technical filtering occurs in the U.S. Nevertheless, the Internet in the United States is highly regulated, supported by a complex set of legally binding and privately mediated mechanisms.
After a decade and half of ongoing contentious debate over content regulation, the country is still very far from reaching political consensus on the acceptable limits of free speech and the best means of protecting minors and policing illegal activity on the Internet. Gambling, cyber security, and dangers to children who frequent social networking sites—real and perceived—are important ongoing debates. Significant public resistance to proposed content restriction policies have prevented the more extreme measures used in some other countries from taking hold in the U.S.
Public dialogue, legislative debate, and judicial review have produced filtering strategies in the United States that are different from those found in most of the rest of the world. Many government-mandated attempts to regulate content have been barred on First Amendment grounds, often after lengthy legal battles. However, the government has been able to exert pressure indirectly where it cannot directly censor. With the exception of child pornography, content restrictions tend to rely more on the removal of content than blocking; most often these controls rely upon the involvement of private parties, backed by state encouragement or the threat of legal action. In contrast to much of the rest world, where ISPs are subject to state mandates, most content regulation in the United States occurs at the private or voluntary level.
The first wave of regulatory actions in the 1990s in the United States came about in response to the profusion of sexually explicit material on the Internet within easy reach of minors. Since that time, several legislative attempts at creating a mandatory system of content controls in the United States have failed to produce a comprehensive solution for those pushing for tighter controls. At the same time, the legislative attempts to control the distribution of socially objectionable material on the Internet in the United States have given rise to a robust system that limits liability over content for Internet intermediaries such as Internet service providers (ISPs) and content hosting companies.
Proponents of protecting intellectual property online in the United States have been much more successful, producing a system to remove infringing materials that many feel errs on the side of inhibiting legally protected speech.
National security concerns have spurred efforts to expand surveillance of digital communications and fueled proposals for making Internet communication more traceable.
, including child pornography
, which enjoys no First Amendment protection.
(CDA), which attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace
. In 1997, in the case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court found the anti-indecency provisions of the Act unconstitutional. Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens held that "the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech".
Section 230
is a separate portion of the CDA that remains in effect. Section 230 says that operators of Internet services are not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services and also protects ISPs from liability for good faith voluntary actions taken to restrict access to certain offensive materials or giving others the technical means to restrict access to that material.
(COPA) to restrict access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law was found to be unconstitutional because it would hinder protected speech among adults. It never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009.
(DMCA) criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms
and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement
on the Internet. The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
(OCILLA) is included as Title II of the DMCA and limits the liability of the on-line service providers
for copyright infringement by their users.
(COPPA) went into effect on 21 April 2000. It applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age and details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13. While children under 13 can legally give out personal information with their parents' permission, many websites disallow underage children from using their services altogether due to the amount of paperwork involved.
(CIPA) (CIPA) was signed into law.
CIPA requires K-12 schools and libraries receiving federal Universal Service Fund (E-rate
) discounts or LSTA
grants for Internet access or internal connections to:
CIPA does not:
published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC), an agency established under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917 and other federal legislation, included a number of websites, so that U.S. companies are prohibited from doing business with those websites and must freeze their assets. The blacklist has the effect that domain name registrars based in the U.S. must block those websites. According to the New York Times, eNom
, a private domain name registrar and Web hosting company operating in the U.S., disables domain names which appear on the blacklist
. It describes eNom’s disabling of a European travel agent’s Web sites advertising travel to Cuba
, which appeared on the list published by OFAC. According to the report, the U.S. government claimed that eNom was "legally required" to block the websites under U.S. law, even though the websites were not hosted in the U.S., were not targeted at U.S. persons and were legal under foreign law.
was introduced, but did not become law. Two similar bills were introduced in 2007, but neither became law.
The proposed legislation would have required schools, some businesses, and libraries to block minors access to social networking websites. The bill was controversial because, according to its critics, it would limit access to a wide range of websites, including many with harmless and educational material.
was introduced in 2010, but did not become law.
The proposed Act caused controversy for what critics perceived as its authorization for the U.S. President to apply a full block of the Internet in the U.S.
A new bill, the Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act of 2011, is under consideration by the U.S. Congress in 2011. The new bill addresses many of the same issues as, but takes quite a different approach from, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act.
was introduced in September 2010, but did not become law.
The proposed Act would have allowed the U.S. Attorney General to bring an in rem
action against an infringing domain name in United States District Court
, and seek an order requesting injunctive relief. If granted, such an order would compel the registrar of the domain name in question to suspend operation of, and may lock, the domain name.
The U.S. Justice Department would maintain two publicly available lists of domain names. The first list would contain domain names against which the Attorney General has obtained injunctions. The second list would contain domains alleged by the Justice Department to be infringing, but against which no action had been taken. Any service provider who willingly took steps to block access to sites on this second list would immune from prosecution under the bill.
, in January 2011:
States that require Internet filtering in schools and/or libraries to protect minors include: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia.
States that require Internet service providers to make a product or service available to subscribers to control use of the Internet include: Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, Texas, and Utah.
In July 2011 Missouri
lawmakers passed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act which included a provision that barred K-12 teachers from using websites that allow "exclusive access" in communications with current students or former students who are 18 or younger, such as occurs with private messages on sites such as Facebook
. A circuit court order issued before the law went into effect blocked the provision because "the breadth of the prohibition is staggering" and the law "would have a chilling effect" on free-speech rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In September the legislature replaced the controversial provision with a requirement that local school districts develop their own policies on the use of electronic communication between employees and students.
program or LSTA
grants for Internet access or internal connections are required by CIPA
to have an "Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place".
Many K-12 school districts in the United States use Internet filters to block material deemed inappropriate for the school setting. The federal government leaves decisions about what to filter or block to local authorities. However, many question this approach, feeling that such decisions should be made by a student's parents or guardian. Some of the fears associated with Internet filtering in schools include: the risk of supporting a predominant ideology, that views held by filter manufacturers are being imposed on students, over blocking of useful information, and under blocking of harmful information. A 2003 study "found that blocking software overblocked state-mandated curriculum topics extensively–for every web page correctly blocked as advertised, one or more was blocked incorrectly.
program or LSTA
grants for Internet access and internal connections are, like schools, required by CIPA
to have an "Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place".
Some libraries may also block access to certain web pages, including pornography, New York Times, advertising, chat, gaming, social networking, and online forum sites, but there is a long and important tradition among librarians against censorship and the use of filtering and blocking software in libraries remains very controversial.
rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America
from using their text messaging services to speak to their supporters. Verizon claims it was in order to enforce a policy that doesn’t allow their customers to use their service to communicate “controversial” or “unsavory” messages. Comcast, AT&T and many other ISP's have also been accused of regulating internet traffic and bandwidth.
prohibits its personnel from accessing certain IP address
es. The US military's filtering policy is laid out in a report to Congress entitled "Department of Defense Personnel Access to the Internet".
prompted the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
to issue a permanent injunction against the website Wikileaks
' domain name registrar
. The result was that Wikileaks could not be accessed through its web address. This elicited accusations of censorship and resulted in the Electronic Frontier Foundation
stepping up to defend Wikileaks. After a later hearing, the injunction was lifted.
In December 2010, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.S. Air Force, and other government agencies began advising their personnel not to read classified documents available from WikiLeaks and some blocked access to WikiLeaks and other news organizations' websites. This action was intended to reduce the exposure of personnel to classified information released by Wikileaks and published by those news organizations.
On December 1, 2010 Amazon.com
cut off WikiLeaks 24 hours after being contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman
, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security
. In a statement Lieberman said:
Constitutional lawyers say that this is not a first amendment issue because Amazon, as a private company, is free to make its own decisions. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
, agreed that this is not a violation of the first amendment, but said it was nevertheless disappointing. "This certainly implicates first amendment rights to the extent that web hosts may, based on direct or informal pressure, limit the materials the American public has a first amendment right to access".
WikiLeaks faces a global financial blockade by major finance companies including Moneybookers
, Mastercard
, Visa
, and PayPal
. In October 2011 Julian Assange
said the blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks' revenues and announced that it was suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting the blockade and raising new funds.
by adopting policies on how the web site may be used and by banning or requiring pre-approval of editorial contributions from users that do not follow the policies for the site.
, Yahoo!
, Microsoft
, and MySpace
practice greater levels of self-censorship in some international versions of their online services. This is most notably the case in these corporations' dealings in China
.
In October 2011 US-based Blue Coat Systems
of Sunnyvale, California
acknowledged that Syria is using its devices to censor Web activity, a possible violation of US trade embargoes.
issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein
forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement
from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company
intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
appealed this as prior restraint
on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets. It was later held that the judgment was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.
(BART) Police shot and killed Charles Hill at Civic Center Station in San Francisco. On August 12, 2011, BART shut down cell phone services, including mobile Internet access, for three hours in an effort to limit possible protests against the shooting and to keep communications away from protesters at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. The shutdown caught the attention of international media, as well as drawing comparisons to the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak
in several articles and comments.
On August 29, 2011, a coalition of nine public interest groups lead by Public Knowledge
filed an Emergency Petition asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) to declare "that the actions taken by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (“BART”) on August 11, 2011 violated the Communications Act of 1934,
as amended, when it deliberately interfered with access to Commercial Mobile Radio Service
(“CMRS”) by the public" and "that local law enforcement has no authority to suspend or deny CMRS, or to order CMRS providers to suspend or deny service, absent a properly obtained order from the Commission, a state commission of appropriate jurisdiction, or a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction".
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Overview
The strong protections for freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship are rooted in the First Amendment to the United States ConstitutionFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. These protections extend to the Internet and as a result very little government mandated technical filtering occurs in the U.S. Nevertheless, the Internet in the United States is highly regulated, supported by a complex set of legally binding and privately mediated mechanisms.
After a decade and half of ongoing contentious debate over content regulation, the country is still very far from reaching political consensus on the acceptable limits of free speech and the best means of protecting minors and policing illegal activity on the Internet. Gambling, cyber security, and dangers to children who frequent social networking sites—real and perceived—are important ongoing debates. Significant public resistance to proposed content restriction policies have prevented the more extreme measures used in some other countries from taking hold in the U.S.
Public dialogue, legislative debate, and judicial review have produced filtering strategies in the United States that are different from those found in most of the rest of the world. Many government-mandated attempts to regulate content have been barred on First Amendment grounds, often after lengthy legal battles. However, the government has been able to exert pressure indirectly where it cannot directly censor. With the exception of child pornography, content restrictions tend to rely more on the removal of content than blocking; most often these controls rely upon the involvement of private parties, backed by state encouragement or the threat of legal action. In contrast to much of the rest world, where ISPs are subject to state mandates, most content regulation in the United States occurs at the private or voluntary level.
The first wave of regulatory actions in the 1990s in the United States came about in response to the profusion of sexually explicit material on the Internet within easy reach of minors. Since that time, several legislative attempts at creating a mandatory system of content controls in the United States have failed to produce a comprehensive solution for those pushing for tighter controls. At the same time, the legislative attempts to control the distribution of socially objectionable material on the Internet in the United States have given rise to a robust system that limits liability over content for Internet intermediaries such as Internet service providers (ISPs) and content hosting companies.
Proponents of protecting intellectual property online in the United States have been much more successful, producing a system to remove infringing materials that many feel errs on the side of inhibiting legally protected speech.
National security concerns have spurred efforts to expand surveillance of digital communications and fueled proposals for making Internet communication more traceable.
Federal laws
With a few exceptions, the free speech provisions of the First Amendment bar federal, state, and local governments from directly censoring the Internet. The primary exception has to do with obscenityObscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
, including child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
, which enjoys no First Amendment protection.
Communications Decency Act (CDA)
In 1996, the United States enacted the Communications Decency ActCommunications Decency Act
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the first notable attempt by the United States Congress to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In 1997, in the landmark cyberlaw case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court struck the anti-indecency provisions of the Act.The Act was...
(CDA), which attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
. In 1997, in the case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court found the anti-indecency provisions of the Act unconstitutional. Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens held that "the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech".
Section 230
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at...
is a separate portion of the CDA that remains in effect. Section 230 says that operators of Internet services are not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services and also protects ISPs from liability for good faith voluntary actions taken to restrict access to certain offensive materials or giving others the technical means to restrict access to that material.
Child Online Protection Act (COPA)
In 1998, the United States enacted the Child Online Protection ActChild Online Protection Act
The Child Online Protection Act was a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of restricting access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet...
(COPA) to restrict access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law was found to be unconstitutional because it would hinder protected speech among adults. It never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
Signed into law in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright ActDigital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA) criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms
Anti-circumvention
Anti-circumvention refers to laws which prohibit the circumvention of technological barriers for using a digital good in certain ways which the rightsholders do not wish to allow...
and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
on the Internet. The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act is United States federal law that creates a conditional safe harbor for online service providers and other Internet intermediaries by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as...
(OCILLA) is included as Title II of the DMCA and limits the liability of the on-line service providers
Online service provider
An online service provider can for example be an internet service provider, email provider, news provider , entertainment provider , search, e-shopping site , e-finance or e-banking site, e-health site, e-government site, Wikipedia, Usenet...
for copyright infringement by their users.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
The Children's Online Privacy Protection ActChildren's Online Privacy Protection Act
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is a United States federal law, located at .The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age...
(COPPA) went into effect on 21 April 2000. It applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age and details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13. While children under 13 can legally give out personal information with their parents' permission, many websites disallow underage children from using their services altogether due to the amount of paperwork involved.
Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
On December 21, 2000 the Children's Internet Protection ActChildren's Internet Protection Act
The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that K-12 schools and libraries in the United States use Internet filters and implement other measures to protect children from harmful online content as a condition for the receipt of certain federal funding...
(CIPA) (CIPA) was signed into law.
CIPA requires K-12 schools and libraries receiving federal Universal Service Fund (E-rate
E-rate
E-Rate is the commonly used name for the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission .-Function:...
) discounts or LSTA
Library Services and Technology Act
The Library Services and Technology Act was signed on October 1, 1996 by United States President Bill Clinton. LSTA is a United States federal library grant program. Its roots come from the Library Services Act that was first enacted in 1956. LSTA replaced the Library Services and Construction Act...
grants for Internet access or internal connections to:
- adopt and implement an Internet safety policy addressing: (a) access by minorsMinor (law)In law, a minor is a person under a certain age — the age of majority — which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood; the age depends upon jurisdiction and application, but is typically 18...
to inappropriate matter on the Internet; (b) the safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat roomsChat roomThe term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
, and other forms of direct electronic communications; (c) unauthorized access, including so-called “hackingHacker (computer security)In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
,” and other unlawful activities by minors online; (d) unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors; and (e) measures restricting minors’ access to materials harmful to them; - install internet filters or blocking softwareContent-control softwareContent-control software, also known as censorware or web filtering software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web...
that prevents access to pictures that are: (a) obscene, (b) child pornographyChild pornographyChild pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
, or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors); - to allow the filtering or blocking to be disabled upon the request of an adult; and
- adopt and enforce a policy to monitor the online activities of minors.
CIPA does not:
- require the tracking of Internet use by minors or adults; or
- affect E-rate funding for schools and libraries receiving discounts for telecommunications services, such as telephone service, but not for Internet access or internal connections.
Trading with the Enemy Act
In March 2008, the New York Times reported that a blacklistBlacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control
Office of Foreign Assets Control
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury under the auspices of the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on U.S...
(OFAC), an agency established under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917 and other federal legislation, included a number of websites, so that U.S. companies are prohibited from doing business with those websites and must freeze their assets. The blacklist has the effect that domain name registrars based in the U.S. must block those websites. According to the New York Times, eNom
ENom
eNom, Inc. is a domain name registrar and Web hosting company that also sells other products closely tied to domain names, such as SSL certificates, e-mail services, and Website building software...
, a private domain name registrar and Web hosting company operating in the U.S., disables domain names which appear on the blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
. It describes eNom’s disabling of a European travel agent’s Web sites advertising travel to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, which appeared on the list published by OFAC. According to the report, the U.S. government claimed that eNom was "legally required" to block the websites under U.S. law, even though the websites were not hosted in the U.S., were not targeted at U.S. persons and were legal under foreign law.
Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 is a bill brought before the United States House of Representatives on May 9, 2006 by Republican Pennsylvania Representative Mike Fitzpatrick...
was introduced, but did not become law. Two similar bills were introduced in 2007, but neither became law.
The proposed legislation would have required schools, some businesses, and libraries to block minors access to social networking websites. The bill was controversial because, according to its critics, it would limit access to a wide range of websites, including many with harmless and educational material.
Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset ActProtecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 is a bill introduced in the United States Senate by Joe Lieberman , Susan Collins , and Tom Carper on June 10, 2010...
was introduced in 2010, but did not become law.
The proposed Act caused controversy for what critics perceived as its authorization for the U.S. President to apply a full block of the Internet in the U.S.
A new bill, the Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act of 2011, is under consideration by the U.S. Congress in 2011. The new bill addresses many of the same issues as, but takes quite a different approach from, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act.
Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA)
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits ActCombating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act
United States Senate Bill S.3804, known as the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was a bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy on September 20, 2010...
was introduced in September 2010, but did not become law.
The proposed Act would have allowed the U.S. Attorney General to bring an in rem
Jurisdiction in rem
In rem is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have "in personam jurisdiction"...
action against an infringing domain name in United States District Court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
, and seek an order requesting injunctive relief. If granted, such an order would compel the registrar of the domain name in question to suspend operation of, and may lock, the domain name.
The U.S. Justice Department would maintain two publicly available lists of domain names. The first list would contain domain names against which the Attorney General has obtained injunctions. The second list would contain domains alleged by the Justice Department to be infringing, but against which no action had been taken. Any service provider who willingly took steps to block access to sites on this second list would immune from prosecution under the bill.
State laws
According to the National Conference of State LegislaturesNational Conference of State Legislatures
The National Conference of State Legislatures is a bipartisan non-governmental organization established in 1975 to serve the members and staff of state legislatures of the United States...
, in January 2011:
Twenty-five states have Internet filtering laws that apply to publicly funded schools or libraries. The majority of these states simply require school boards or public libraries to adopt Internet use policies to prevent minors from gaining access to sexually explicit, obscene or harmful materials. However, some states also require publicly funded institutions to install filtering software on library terminals or school computers.
States that require Internet filtering in schools and/or libraries to protect minors include: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia.
States that require Internet service providers to make a product or service available to subscribers to control use of the Internet include: Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, Texas, and Utah.
In July 2011 Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
lawmakers passed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act which included a provision that barred K-12 teachers from using websites that allow "exclusive access" in communications with current students or former students who are 18 or younger, such as occurs with private messages on sites such as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
. A circuit court order issued before the law went into effect blocked the provision because "the breadth of the prohibition is staggering" and the law "would have a chilling effect" on free-speech rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In September the legislature replaced the controversial provision with a requirement that local school districts develop their own policies on the use of electronic communication between employees and students.
Censorship by institutions
Institutions that provide Internet access will sometimes limit this access in an attempt to ensure it is used only for the purposes of the institution.Schools
K-12 schools that accept funds from the federal E-rateE-rate
E-Rate is the commonly used name for the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission .-Function:...
program or LSTA
Library Services and Technology Act
The Library Services and Technology Act was signed on October 1, 1996 by United States President Bill Clinton. LSTA is a United States federal library grant program. Its roots come from the Library Services Act that was first enacted in 1956. LSTA replaced the Library Services and Construction Act...
grants for Internet access or internal connections are required by CIPA
Children's Internet Protection Act
The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that K-12 schools and libraries in the United States use Internet filters and implement other measures to protect children from harmful online content as a condition for the receipt of certain federal funding...
to have an "Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place".
Many K-12 school districts in the United States use Internet filters to block material deemed inappropriate for the school setting. The federal government leaves decisions about what to filter or block to local authorities. However, many question this approach, feeling that such decisions should be made by a student's parents or guardian. Some of the fears associated with Internet filtering in schools include: the risk of supporting a predominant ideology, that views held by filter manufacturers are being imposed on students, over blocking of useful information, and under blocking of harmful information. A 2003 study "found that blocking software overblocked state-mandated curriculum topics extensively–for every web page correctly blocked as advertised, one or more was blocked incorrectly.
Libraries
Libraries that accept funds from the federal E-rateE-rate
E-Rate is the commonly used name for the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission .-Function:...
program or LSTA
Library Services and Technology Act
The Library Services and Technology Act was signed on October 1, 1996 by United States President Bill Clinton. LSTA is a United States federal library grant program. Its roots come from the Library Services Act that was first enacted in 1956. LSTA replaced the Library Services and Construction Act...
grants for Internet access and internal connections are, like schools, required by CIPA
Children's Internet Protection Act
The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that K-12 schools and libraries in the United States use Internet filters and implement other measures to protect children from harmful online content as a condition for the receipt of certain federal funding...
to have an "Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place".
Some libraries may also block access to certain web pages, including pornography, New York Times, advertising, chat, gaming, social networking, and online forum sites, but there is a long and important tradition among librarians against censorship and the use of filtering and blocking software in libraries remains very controversial.
Telecommunications companies
In 2007, Verizon attempted to block the abortionAbortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NARAL Pro-Choice America , formerly the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, then National Abortion Rights Action League, and later National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, is an organization in the United States that engages in political action to oppose...
from using their text messaging services to speak to their supporters. Verizon claims it was in order to enforce a policy that doesn’t allow their customers to use their service to communicate “controversial” or “unsavory” messages. Comcast, AT&T and many other ISP's have also been accused of regulating internet traffic and bandwidth.
Military
The Department of DefenseUnited States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
prohibits its personnel from accessing certain IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es. The US military's filtering policy is laid out in a report to Congress entitled "Department of Defense Personnel Access to the Internet".
Wikileaks
In February 2008, the Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks lawsuitBank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks lawsuit
Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks lawsuit was filed by Bank Julius Baer against the website WikiLeaks.In early February 2008, a California judge forced Dynadot, the domain registrar of wikileaks.org, to disassociate the site's domain name records with its servers, preventing use of the domain name to...
prompted the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
The United States District Court for the Northern District of California is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San...
to issue a permanent injunction against the website Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
' domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
. The result was that Wikileaks could not be accessed through its web address. This elicited accusations of censorship and resulted in the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
stepping up to defend Wikileaks. After a later hearing, the injunction was lifted.
In December 2010, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.S. Air Force, and other government agencies began advising their personnel not to read classified documents available from WikiLeaks and some blocked access to WikiLeaks and other news organizations' websites. This action was intended to reduce the exposure of personnel to classified information released by Wikileaks and published by those news organizations.
On December 1, 2010 Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
cut off WikiLeaks 24 hours after being contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
. In a statement Lieberman said:
[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.
Constitutional lawyers say that this is not a first amendment issue because Amazon, as a private company, is free to make its own decisions. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
, agreed that this is not a violation of the first amendment, but said it was nevertheless disappointing. "This certainly implicates first amendment rights to the extent that web hosts may, based on direct or informal pressure, limit the materials the American public has a first amendment right to access".
WikiLeaks faces a global financial blockade by major finance companies including Moneybookers
Moneybookers
Moneybookers is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. Moneybookers performs payment processing for websites, online auction sites, and...
, Mastercard
MasterCard
Mastercard Incorporated or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial services corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters, Purchase, Harrison, New York, United States...
, Visa
Visa
Visa or VISA may refer to:* Visa , a document issued by a country's government allowing the holder to enter or to leave that country...
, and PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
. In October 2011 Julian Assange
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
said the blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks' revenues and announced that it was suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting the blockade and raising new funds.
Individual websites
Some websites that allow user-contributed content practice self-censorshipSelf-censorship
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own work , out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities of others, without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority...
by adopting policies on how the web site may be used and by banning or requiring pre-approval of editorial contributions from users that do not follow the policies for the site.
By corporations abroad
Several U.S. corporations including GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, and MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
practice greater levels of self-censorship in some international versions of their online services. This is most notably the case in these corporations' dealings in China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
.
In October 2011 US-based Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat Systems Inc. is a network security and network management company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States.It identifies itself as an application delivery network specialist...
of Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...
acknowledged that Syria is using its devices to censor Web activity, a possible violation of US trade embargoes.
- See also: Censorship by Google, Yahoo! in China, Criticism of Microsoft censorship in China, and MySpace in China
Trade secrets and copyright
A January 4, 2007 restraining orderRestraining order
A restraining order or order of protection is a form of legal injunction that requires a party to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. A party that refuses to comply with an order faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein
Jack B. Weinstein
Jack Bertrand Weinstein is a United States federal judge in the Eastern District of New York. Judge Weinstein was appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson. From 1980 to 1988, he served as chief judge of the district. On March 1, 1993, he took senior status; however, unlike some senior...
forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement
Psychiatric survivors movement
The psychiatric survivors movement is a diverse association of individuals who are either currently clients of mental health services , or who consider themselves survivors of interventions by psychiatry, or who identify themselves as ex-patients of mental health services...
from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company
Eli Lilly and Company
Eli Lilly and Company is a global pharmaceutical company. Eli Lilly's global headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the United States...
intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
appealed this as prior restraint
Prior restraint
Prior restraint or prior censorship is censorship in which certain material may not be published or communicated, rather than not prohibiting publication but making the publisher answerable for what is made known...
on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets. It was later held that the judgment was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) cell phone service suspension
On July 3, 2011, two officers of the Bay Area Rapid TransitBay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...
(BART) Police shot and killed Charles Hill at Civic Center Station in San Francisco. On August 12, 2011, BART shut down cell phone services, including mobile Internet access, for three hours in an effort to limit possible protests against the shooting and to keep communications away from protesters at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. The shutdown caught the attention of international media, as well as drawing comparisons to the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
in several articles and comments.
On August 29, 2011, a coalition of nine public interest groups lead by Public Knowledge
Public Knowledge
Public Knowledge is a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based public interest group that is involved in intellectual property law, competition, and choice in the digital marketplace, and an open standards/end-to-end internet....
filed an Emergency Petition asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) to declare "that the actions taken by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (“BART”) on August 11, 2011 violated the Communications Act of 1934,
as amended, when it deliberately interfered with access to Commercial Mobile Radio Service
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
(“CMRS”) by the public" and "that local law enforcement has no authority to suspend or deny CMRS, or to order CMRS providers to suspend or deny service, absent a properly obtained order from the Commission, a state commission of appropriate jurisdiction, or a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction".
External links
- Global Integrity: Internet Censorship, A Comparative Study; puts U.S. online censorship in cross-country context.