The FCC recently published the National Broadband Plan, and an excerpt is below:
Civic engagement is the lifeblood of any democracy and the bedrock of its legitimacy. Broadband holds the potential to strengthen our democracy by dramatically increasing the public’s access to information and by providing new tools for Americans to engage with this information, their government and one another. Increasingly our national conversation, our sources for news and information and our knowledge of each other will depend upon broadband. The transition to new information technologies and services can open new doors to enhance America’s media environment, but with traditional sources of news and information journalism under severe stress in the current media and economic environments, we confront serious challenges to ensure that broadband is put to work to strengthen our democracy.
The First Amendment guarantees no law abridging the freedom of speech or press. Both speech and press are now virtually synonymous with he internet.
Of special interest to lawyers, however, is the FCC's recommendation 15.1, reproduced verbatim below:
Recommendation 15.1: The primary legal documents of
the federal government should be free and accessible to the
public on digital platforms.
➤➤ For the Executive Branch and independent agencies,
this should apply to all executive orders and other public
legal documents.
➤➤ For Congress, this should apply to all votes, as well as
proposed and enacted legislation.
➤➤ For the Judicial Branch, this should apply to all judicial
opinions.
Every person who is subject to the laws of this country should
have free access to those laws online. Online legal documents
should be appropriately digitally watermarked to preserve their
integrity. For the Executive Branch and independent agencies,
this means publishing all executive orders and other public legal
documents on the Internet and in an easily accessible, machine readable
format.
For the Legislative Branch, this means that
Congress should publish all votes, as well as proposed and
enacted legislation, in a timely manner, online and in a machine-
readable and otherwise accessible format.
Finally, all federal judicial decisions should be accessible
for free and made publicly available to the people of the United
States. Currently, the Public Access to Court Electronic Records
system charges for access to federal appellate, district and bankruptcy
court records. As a result, U.S. federal courts pay private
contractors approximately $150 million per year for electronic
access to judicial documents. While the E-Government Act
has mandated that this system change so that this information
is as freely available as possible, little progress has been made.
Congress should consider providing sufficient funds to publish
all federal judicial opinions, orders and decisions online in an
easily accessible, machine-readable format.
Agreed. See the entirety of Chapter 15 here. What's your take?
