The Importance Of Monitoring The Internet

791 Words4 Pages

"The internet, in its most basic definition, is a giant network of communications. Millions upon billions of people, all broadcasting information to each other. The internet, and computers in general, have come to dominate life in the modern age. We use it to work, to shop, to learn, to debate, to entertain, and the list goes on and on and on. The internet is also currently the world’s largest and fastest growing public forum, a place to hear and to be heard.
Any communication made in a public forum is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech.” However, the Supreme Court has declared, in cases such as Miller v. California and Dennis v. United States, that certain forms of speech, such as obscenities and overt threats, are not protected by the “free-speech” umbrella and are thus not legal. Certainly the same rules apply to the internet.
So should the government monitor the internet for these abuses? While the most immediate answer would be “no,” I am not sure it is the correct one. Government should monitor the internet and e-mails, but only for explicit criminal …show more content…

The government certainly will not have real people looking at every blog post or Facebook page. That would be a violation of privacy but it would also be too time consuming and expensive to be practical. Instead it would use computer programs that scan for keywords (such as “bomb the White House” for instance). Messages containing the key phrases would then be saved to be read by a government employee, who can then determine if the message is expressing explicit criminal intent and decide what legal action, if any, to take. This system would ensure that only those trying to do others harm are monitored, and decent people, who have nothing to hide anyway, can continue their lives without

Open Document