Washington — Imagine an Internet chat room dedicated to everyone. Everyone would have his own chat room where anonymous users could post at will. Every morning you would wake up, turn on your computer, log onto the Internet, and read what your friends and enemies had to say about you especially your enemies.
You might find yourself referred to as a lowlife who cheats on your taxes, your spouse and your business associates. You might suddenly discover that you have about as much privacy as a movie star in a supermarket tabloid.
Is this scenario possible? No it is probable. It is already happening to publicly-traded companies. Chat rooms devoted to each company are being used by liars and criminals to manipulate stock prices. Believing they are safely anonymous, these despicable people will write almost anything, make almost any unsubstantiated claim, and defame any person if it will help them drive down the price of a stock.
So, if this is being done for companies and their officers, why not for individuals? Under the guise of First Amendment rights, Internet bashers claim they can write anything. They do not. They do not have the right to defame. They do not have the right to write libelous comments. They do not have the right to remain anonymous.
But not having the right is not the same as saying they can be stopped. Civil litigation is expensive, and criminal investigations are inhibited because the FBI is busy with other cases.
This is the ugly side of the Internet. Worse than any Orwellian fear of a future in which Big Brother the government would watch our every move, the Internet can publicize our every move. Worse, it can distort and fabricate. It can put each of us up to public ridicule. Will this happen? Absolutely. There is nothing to prevent it from happening.
What makes this possible is the lack of a clearly defined right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution. Such a right has been construed in part from the 14th Amendment, but because it is not clearly delineated, the area is murky. The result is that the clearly stated First Amendment's right to freedom of speech tends to overwhelm any presumed right to privacy.
Enactment and ratification of a Right to Privacy Amendment an RPA is the best way to stop this poison that threatens the fabric of our society, a society in which evil people revel in exposing, ridiculing, defaming, undermining, fictionalizing and destroying other people at will.
The difficulty comes in the crafting of such an amendment so as to strike a balance with the First Amendment. When, for example, does normal newspaper reporting slip over the line into an unwarranted invasion of privacy? What right do people have to use their freedom of speech to defame other people? What right do they have to remain anonymous? What responsibility do people have to be truthful? Is lying protected by the First Amendment? Ridiculing? Defaming?
These are difficult questions, and the risk of undermining the First Amendment is real. But the risk of undermining society is equally real.
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