A Quasi Fairness Doctrine

By:  Dale Weckbacher

Mark 7:35

Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.

NKJV

During Jesus’ ministry on earth, he healed the sick, opened blind eyes, cast out demons, and even raised the dead.  Jesus also healed the speech impediment of the man mentioned in Mark 7.  Jesus understood the importance of the ability for someone to speak.  However, the Bible also reminds us that the tongue is a powerful tool that can do good as well as evil (James 3:8). 

The authors of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution did not believe government had the duty to distinguish evil speech from good speech and authored the First Amendment to insure the free expression of ideas through speech.  This left the duty of differentiation between good and evil speech up to the listener who could judge speech against a moral standard such as the Bible.  However, the recent data breach at Sony and the subsequent revelation that the motivation behind the breach was to stop the release of a movie represents a threat to free speech. 

When I first heard of the data breach at Sony, I did not give it much attention equating it with the data breaches at Target and Home Depot.  However, as the story unfolded and we discovered the data breach originated in North Korea in retaliation to a movie, (1) I have determined that what occurred to Sony is something we all need to give our attention.  Besides the obvious data breach and potential identity theft, we have the fact that a foreign country was able to restrict free speech by preventing the production of what they viewed as a controversial movie.  (2)   Failure to respond to this data breach as a threat to constitutionally protected free speech and an act of war against the United States is tantamount to a foreign country initiating a fairness doctrine on the United States. 

To understand why the attack on Sony is a form of fairness doctrine we must first understand what the fairness doctrine is.  The policy, initiated in 1949 by the predecessor to the FCC, the Federal Radio Commission was a casualty of Reagan administration deregulation.  The FCC initiated the policy in an interest to insure balanced coverage of controversial issues.  (3) 

The main benefactors to the reversal of the Fairness Doctrine are political talk radio.  (4)   This is because a radio host no longer is required to present both sides of an issue and instead can present his or her side and let the public decide what is right.  Some believe the fairness doctrine should be reinstated (5) but when we investigate the motivation behind their wanting to reinstate the doctrine, we most likely find that they are not able to have their opinions heard in the arena of the media and want to silence opposition voices by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.  (6)

I believe the authors of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution would be against the fairness doctrine.  The reason behind their desire for free speech was not that everyone involved in public discourse be required to present both sides of an issue but that each person be free to present his or her opinion.  The First Amendment authors believed in the ability of the public to form their own opinions based upon what they heard from people on both sides of an issue. 

What, however, does the fairness doctrine have to do with the data breach at Sony?  The answer is that whereas the Fairness Doctrine amounted to the U.S. Government restricting free speech by media outlets in the United States, the pulling of the movie “The Interview” by Sony due to a data breach from North Korea constitutes implementation of a fairness doctrine by North Korea against Sony.  In addition, the failure of the U.S. Government to respond to this breach as a threat to the Constitution and national security is disturbing.  This data breach constitutes a threat by a foreign enemy and we must treat it as an act of war.  I am not calling for the sending of troops to North Korea but we should implement additional sanctions and protections to insure a breach such as this does not occur again. 

There is now a dangerous precedent in place that not only restricts free speech but also inhibits the ability of citizens to be properly informed on issues.  The Interview is a comedy movie depicting an attempted assignation attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.  (7)   The movie is a comedy and made strictly for entertainment purposes.  However, comedy is a great vehicle for the expression of opinion for as people are being entertained and their guard is down, they are open to learning.  (8)   We must speculate that the reason behind the data breach was to stop the movies production out of fear that people who normally pay little attention to global politics would learn of the evils of the regime in North Korea.  The precedent now in place means that movie studios may hesitate to produce controversial movies about evil world leaders (7) out of fear of some data breach thus depriving many who pay little attention to world events of the opportunity to learn the truth about these evil leaders. 

Any enemy of the United States, or any other country for that matter, now knows they can stop the expression of the truth concerning their evil activities by hacking a movie studio’s computers and threatening violence against theaters showing the movie believing the studio will stop production and the government will not treat the hack as an act of war.  In essence, we now have a quasi-global fairness doctrine threatening free speech and hampering the exposure of truth. 

Jesus came to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37) and scripture also tells us truth will set us free (John 8:32).  However, without free speech, tyrannical leaders that will suffer removal from power if truth is revealed easily suppress truth.  Government’s main duty is the protection of its citizens, which includes companies doing business in that country.  The First Amendment of the Constitution protects movie companies doing business in the United States and the government has a duty to do whatever is necessary to protect that right. 

It is only a matter of time until someone hacks a TV network, book publisher, or even a web host such as Google, which hosts this blog.  Will they respond to a hack of their data by stopping the TV show, book, or blog that offended the country’s leader who originated the hack, or will they take a stand for their first amendment right to allow the free expression of opinions through their media.  We must also ask if the government will do whatever is necessary to deal with the source of the breach or just allow a foreign enemy to restrict free speech through a form of quasi fairness doctrine.  We can only hope those hacked and the government will stand up and defend their First Amendment right to free speech. 

1. Chabrow, Eric. FBI Attributes Sony Hack to North Korea. www.bankinfosecurity.com. [Online] Bank Info Security, December 19, 2014. [Cited: December 19, 2014.] http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/fbi-attributes-sony-hack-to-north-korea-a-7703/op-1.

2. Steinberg, Joseph. Massive Security Breach At Sony -- Here's What You Need To Know. www.forbes.com. [Online] Forbes, December 11, 2014. [Cited: December 19, 2014.] http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephsteinberg/2014/12/11/massive-security-breach-at-sony-heres-what-you-need-to-know/.

3. Gill, Kathy. What is the Fairness Doctrine. uspolitics.about.com. [Online] About News. [Cited: December 19, 2014.] http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/fcc_fairness.htm.

4. Sobel, Robert. Repeal of fairness: How Ronald Reagan gave us Fox News and other bias sources. www.muscletak.co.uk. [Online] Examiner, March 24, 2014. [Cited: December 20, 2014.] http://www.muscletak.co.uk/article/repeal-of-fairness-how-ronald-reagan-gave-us-fox-news-and-other-bias-sources.

5. AARP. It is time to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine". community.aarp.org. [Online] AARP, March 3, 2012. [Cited: December 20, 2014.] http://community.aarp.org/t5/Politics-Current-Events/It-is-time-to-reinstate-the-quot-Fairness-Doctrine-quot/td-p/459767.

6. Limbaugh, Rush. Rush Limbaugh and Liberalism’s Fatal Flaw. www.freerepublic.com. [Online] Free Republic, May 15, 2006. [Cited: December 20, 2014.] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632393/posts.

7. Bahr, Lindsey. 'The Interview' Jeopardizes Overseas Movie Villains. abcnews.go.com. [Online] ABC News, December 18, 2014. [Cited: December 20, 2014.] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/interview-jeopardizes-overseas-movie-villains-27704760.

8. Atkins, Amy. "Comedy is The Last Great Expression of Free Speech" . www.boiseweekly.com. [Online] Boise Weekly, December 27, 2006. [Cited: December 20, 2014.] http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/comedy-is-the-last-great-expression-of-free-speech/Content?oid=930561.