Law keeping up with Technology
11/17/2008A recurring problem in the law enforcement world is the need to update the law to match the technology that is available to people. Since the development and subsequent explosion in popularity of the Internet, virtually anybody with a computer or smart phone can communicate, share various materials, or have any number of interactions with almost anyone else in the world. Consequently, the Internet has become not just an effective way of maintaining relationships with others or a valuable source of information on every topic imaginable, but also a vehicle for crime. Because the technology that some people use to commit crimes is constantly being improved upon and advanced further, law enforcement officials and legal experts have been having trouble keeping up.
Australia, a country where the announcement of content filtering by Internet service providers sparked a national debate over citizens rights and the net, is taking steps to confront this issue. Senior legal experts in technology and media hope to reconcile the gap between technology and law at the Media, Communications & Technology Law Conference in Sydney, Australia on November 27th. At the conference, several controversial topics will be addressed, including filtering inappropriate content, social networking sites, privacy issues, and issues relating to defamation. Although the list of presenters represents a dearth of government officials, it is hoped that some conclusions about technology and law will be reached, potentially conclusions relating to how future technology law issues should be addressed.
Meanwhile, the abilities granted Americans by camera phones and the Internet continue to create legal problems, most recently (and perhaps unfortunately) for the nations teenagers. Almost every day there are new reports of high school students sending nude images of themselves to other teens by cell phone, email, or social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. What most of these teenagers fail to understand is that the images, as long as the student is under the age of 18, are considered child pornography, and that possessing the images is a violation of federal and state law. So far, cases involving the distribution of nude photos among high school students have cropped up in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Georgia, and Utah. The incidence of students sharing nude photos of each other has become such a problem that many districts are holding informational meetings and assemblies for students, parents, and educators to warn against the dangers of creating and distributing this sort of material, and the legal implications for a student who might consider committing the crime. However, presenting and maintaining the appropriate technology law education to students may prove challenging in the future.
These topics are relevant to the issues facing individuals throughout the United States, and procedures for confronting and laws for prosecuting violators of the pertinent legislation compose a hotbed of discussion throughout the world not only in Australia and the States. A conference hosted by the European University Institute in Florence at the end of October addressed issues of the chasm between the current status of technology law and where it should be to match the global technological capabilities, as well as the directions in which technology law is likely to diverge in the future in conjunction with problems and changes officials will potentially have to deal with in the future.
