Showing papers by "Fred H. Cate published in 1994"

Global Information Policymaking and Domestic Law

Abstract: The global information age presents both opportunities and challenges for U.S. domestic law for two distinct, but related, reasons. First, information is inherently global; it respects neither geographical nor legal boundaries. As a result, it is particularly unsusceptible to ad hoc national regulation. Second, information is at the heart of the U.S. economy. Both the economic importance of the rapidly growing information services sector and the central role of information in almost all political and economic activities, particularly multinational business, necessitate the creation of consistent, multinational legal and technical standards. The United States, however, has not consistently recognized that its own self-interest lies in multinational cooperation and the development of truly global information-related standards. In fact, U.S. policymakers are unmistakably schizophrenic; they negotiate multinational responses with allies and trading partners to some important global information problems, while expressing hostility to other multinational information law regimes. Often, the U.S. position changes over time as U.S. interests shift. For example, U.S. lawmakers delayed for more than a century before according even the most minimal copyright protection to works created by non-U.S. authors, and almost another century before bringing U.S. law into basic compliance with the major multinational copyright order.1 As a result of the delay, U.S. authors suffered at the hands of international pirates and U.S. efforts to protect its intellectual property interests were severely hampered. But as little as the United States could afford to be separated from its allies and trading partners with regard to copyright protection, it can afford even less to go it alone where the full panoply of information products and

A Law Antecedent and Paramount

Abstract: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech or of the press." Whatever else the First Amendment may mean, the Supreme Court has interpreted it to forbid the government from restricting expression because it disagrees with the sentiment expressed;(note 1) restricting expression prior to its utterance or publication;(note 2) and making impermissible distinctions by content,(note 3) compelling speech(note 4) or access to the expressive capacity of another,(note 5) without demonstrating that the abridgement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. These First Amendment principles restrict not merely Congress, but all federal and state govern-mental agencies, and apply to expression that the Court has determined does not independently warrant protection,(note 6) conduct that involves no speech,(note 7) and activities ancillary to expression.(note 8)