The Internet: The Last Bastion Of Personal Freedom? A person up to date in today’s society must acknowledge the importance and the parcticality of the internet. Just as in other areas of society, personal freedoms are stretched to the very limit on this modern invention, raising isuues in regards to what type of information the internet should be allowed to broadcast. Since its inception, the internet has spawned overnight millionaires, served as the new information medium, and even played host to some heinous crimes. The topic of greatest concern though, is in how the people legislate the division between what is obscence and what is allowable. The way that these issues are dealt with will shape the very form in which the internet and other communications are viewed for generations to come. However, since it may be the last bastion of personal freedom, the people of this country have an obligation to protect the unalienable right of free speech from censorship.What does the word obscene mean in today’s society? In the case of Miller vs. California in 1972, the Supreme Court declared that, “Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment…A work may be subject to state regulation where that work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex; portrays, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” This ruling has been the groundwork upon which many of the obscenity cases have been prosecuted. Although ruling has been, in part, left open to interpretation by the states, this does little good in the way of the internet. This excerpt is from an adult site webmaster describing to others in this line of work the dangers of displaying what the federal court ruled as obscene, regardless of what state the site is located in. “The Intern...
