Vickie, Terry, Leo

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) authority shut down cellular communication in an attempt to control a protest that the authority feared would get out of hand. The BART authority claims that it did not shut down communications as an immediate measure, but did so only when the protest spread from the designated protest area to a location that would negatively affect the functionality of the BART commuter system. The similarity to the issue of communication in places such as London and Egypt is not lost on free speech activists, who say that the BART authority was violating the First Amendment, and that there were better solutions the authorities could have employed rather than preemptively shutting down communications, such as detaining those using communications for criminal purposes.

The debated issue falls in the area of knowledge and reasoning; should a government or any group have the right to block access to social media and how does this differ from censorship? Does this action violate an individual's freedom of speech as stated in the Amendment? In terms of language, it is critical to clarify what warrants the restriction of speech. There is a language issue in determining what exactly constitutes as the freedom of speech or freedom in general. What if one's words will mentally or physically harm another, under which circumstance should the freedom still be granted? Although these questions immediately address concerns of the people regarding the situation, a more essential question to consider draws upon the ethical considerations of individual safety versus group safety, or rather just the debate between individual and group.

Some argue that individual rights should outweigh all other factors, including collective security. The benefits of allowing individuals the right of speech and the access to uncensored knowledge is that each individual will be directly responsible for their corresponding actions. In addition an individual will be allowed to gather all available information on a particular subject to fabricate an educated and strong stance. The freedom of speech will allow one to fearlessly state their truthful opinions but the flip side of allowing individual freedom is that freedom can easily be abused and manipulated to harm others. By allowing access to uncensored knowledge and information, one can easily be swayed by biased or perhaps false information circulating social networks. In which case whose responsibility would it be to protect individuals? What if children were given access to information that are well beyond their maturity; this could potentially have a negative impact on the future generation of children.

Suppose the security of the group is placed before the rights of the individual. The authority would be able to presumably protects it people from harmful or dangerous activities. The benefit of placing group before individual is that there will be a sense of unity and security among the community that can contribute to further good will, and this will recycle to increase the standard of living in a community. The cons of placing group over individual is that individualistic thoughts could easily be discarded and discriminated against. This will have a negative affect on innovation and invention in a society if all who stray from the norm are isolated for their unique characteristics.
    Additionally, consider the social freedom in a developed nation. What kind and degree of danger must society face in order for society to accept the rights of the individual to be infringed upon?