#law
onaissues:
New! ONA members now receive priority attention from First Amendment Coalition (FAC) lawyers, thanks to a partnership between ONA and FAC. The next time you have a question about your legal rights as a journalist, check out FAC’s legal consultation service, the Legal Hotline, free of charge.
ONA and FAC are collaborating to make the Legal Hotline service available on a priority basis for ONA members to give journalists expert guidance and support in holding government accountable.
The Legal Hotline handles questions about freedom of speech, access to government records, attending court proceedings or meetings of government agencies and many more matters involving journalists and their legal tools and rights.
Learn more: ONA Members, Have a Question About Your Legal Rights? | Online News Association
Convincing potential sources to share information and publishing independent journalism on social media or with the help of crowd-funding are a few of the practices that are likely to suffer under a pair of new Chinese laws–one passed, one still in draft form–local journalists tell CPJ.
On July 1, the Chinese government announced that it had passed the National Security Law. The legislation’s definition of national security is all-encompassing, covering everything from politics to finance, energy, food, religion, culture, as well as cyberspace and outer space. The wording of the law is such that nearly any activity in Chinese society could be construed as a national security concern.
Read more.
Image:
Jason Lee
India’s landmark online speech ruling is step toward greater press freedom
In an historic decision, India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down part of a law used to silence criticism and free expression. While this marks a pivotal victory that has been welcomed in many quarters, many challenges remain for press freedom in the country.
India is expected to overtake the U.S. as the second largest population of Internet users in the world, behind only China, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India, a nonprofit group representing the Web and mobile industry.
Read more
Image: REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Legal actions are increasingly being used by large corporations to threaten the media into silence in India.
Legal actions such as this notice fall under what are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation–or SLAPPs, Acharya said. She described SLAPPs as a tactic intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critical voices by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism.
Read more.
Rushed data legislation would give UK worrying surveillance powers
The British government’s attempt to rush through a bill on data retention before the House of Commons summer recess next week has run into opposition–not from members across the aisle but from Internet companies, civil liberty defenders, and lawyers, who say the law would extend the authorities’ already vast snooping capabilities.
Continue reading.
More on Internet Freedom.
“Perhaps even more than other Internet platforms, Twitter thinks of itself as a medium for free speech: its former general counsel calls Twitter “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” its CEO calls it the ‘global town square.’”
– Harvard Law Review
marketinginfographics:
Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant to Search Your Cellphone.
In a landmark digital privacy decision, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that police officers must have warrants to search suspects’ cellphones upon arrest.
The justices ruled that police cannot search a cellphone without a warrant because they deserve special protection, as they contain so much information about a person’s private life, and they are pervasive. The court ruled together on two separate but very similar cases
Prior to this decision, police officers did not need warrants to search suspects’ cellphones. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that police could empty a suspect’s pockets and examine the contents to ensure officers’ safety and prevent the destruction of evidence. Now, the Supreme Court is saying that a cellphone isn’t fair game. Read more…
“By 2025, it will become more apparent that personal digital devices have become the uncredited third lobe of our brain, and network connections more like an extension of our own nervous system, a new sense, like seeing and hearing. Questions about our rights over our own devices and connections will treat them more like parts of our bodies and beings than some third-party thing that is a privilege to own or something we merely rent. It will force us to redefine what being human means — and what personhood means, in terms of the law, representative government, and every other issue.”
– Brian Behlendorf, Internet pioneer and board member of several non-profits and for-profits, predicted that people will feel the information network has become a “new sense” by 2025. (via pewinternet)
