1. I have tremendous respect for the press and the work they do. I am separating personal values from what the law is. But I do believe that this is a case where the law and ethics are on the same side.
2. This isn't my standard. It is the standard that courts across the country use. The majority of states (including California) adopted a less stringent version call the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Only 4 states, including my Massachusetts, whose version you see above, haven't adopted the act and instead employee their own versions.
3. Tobacco cancer data might be distinguished. First, it is a stretch to find that it has competitive value. Therefore it would not be classified under trade secret. Second, it probably isn't even covered under copyright because facts are not copyrightable, no matter how much effort was undertook to find them.
But I don't really know the facts of the leaked cancer data. I would have to read them in order to determine whether it was legal for it to be leaked to the press.
If the President of the United States can't block secrets from being published... you think Twitter can? I would submit your knowledge of the practices of Journalism and the law in this area are lacking. Publishing secrets is the business of newspapers. It happens every day. Its their job.
I am very surprised that so many people here fail to understand this. Just because you like Twitter does not mean its not appropriate to publish their extremely newsworthy secrets.
Yes, because that is exactly how the 1st Amendment works. In NYT, the Federal Government tried to abridge the freedom of press. That triggered the 1st Amendment protections. Here, with TechCrunch, neither the Federal Government or any State Government are trying to prevent TC from printing the information. Therefore, the 1st Amendment does not apply.
I admit that I have zero knowledge of journalism practices. But my legal knowledge is much greater; I am just over one semester away from graduating from law school.
I am neutral on Twitter. They are a company that I neither like nor dislike and I do not use their product.
But, if I understand rjurney correctly, wouldn't any case brought up in a court that ruled against TC be in fact the government, through the courts, preventing free speech? I.e. if this went to court TC would have to win due to the 1st Amendment?
Just because the court rules in favor of the victorious party does not mean that it is the victorious party.
For the 1st amendment to be invoked, the federal/state/local government has to be on one side of the "vs." in the case name. Otherwise, it's a normal civil case between two private parties, and the appropriate laws apply.
Because the government has no way of forcing the third party to do its bidding. If the government were to pass a law saying "Newspapers should not print any op-eds critical of the government", for example, then it becomes a first amendment issue and the newspaper can sue for the right to print such things. (Which has happened, BTW.) But if the newspaper decides on its own not to print such op-eds, it's perfectly within its rights and there's no first amendment issue.
Similarly, the government can pass a law allowing copyright holders to protect their intellectual property - say, the DMCA. But it's then up to the copyright holders to bring lawsuits against people who publish their work - the government can't force them to do so, and they're completely within their rights to release their work under the GPL or Creative Commons. No free speech issue - it's a property issue.
IANAL, but listen to the law student above. His comments basically square with my understanding from lawyer friends and civics classes and occasional reading of court cases.
From a political philosophy perspective, you could look at it as libertarianism vs. anarchy. The libertarian POV is "You can do anything you want, as long as it hurts no-one." The anarchist POV is "You can do anything you want." The Bill of Rights is intended to protect libertarian ideals, not anarchist ones. It does not give you license to say anything you want, it prevents the government from arbitrarily restricting what you can say. The government can and should still make laws preventing your speech from hurting others.
Thanks. Here in Australia I would assume it does because being based on the Westminster system a lot of legislation is based on court rulings rather than the law. For instance, Australia doesn't have freedom of speech through the law, but the high court has ruled that we have an implicit freedom to all speech not outlawed.
