There are question being put forward after Shirley Sherrod was fired.

She was wrongfully let go from her job in the Department of Agriculture after an edited version of a speech she gave to the NAACP was posted on the Internet. The edited version twisted the message she was putting forward, and it resulted in her termination.

I was recently watching a clip of CNN Live discussing how Sherrod had been misrepresented on the Internet. The discussion was extremely negative towards the notion that anyone on the Internet can post whatever they want, and can even do so anonymously.

Two CNN anchors took turns bashing anonymity on the Internet, even having someone who wrote a book with a title proclaiming the Internet is killing America cultural talk about the Internet as if it were a sentient being.

“It’s not to say that anonymous blogging doesn’t have its place. If you’re in a place like Iran or North Korea or something like that, anonymous blogging is the only way you could ever get your point of view out … but when it comes to a society like ours, an open society, do there have to be some checks and balances?” said John Roberts, CNN anchor.

Checks and balances to your freedom of speech? The knee jerk reaction of “regulate it” is still around and waiting for a new topic to apply itself to. The idea, “if people hide behind anonymity to slander people or be deliberately misleading then their anonymity should be somehow infringed upon,” has some serious implications.

It puts forward that people in America do not have use for anonymity; that in our country you do not have to fear for your safety, job or public disapproval.

It ignores that people blow whistles on their employers and need to be able to have their identity kept secret. It also ignores that you do not have the right to walk up to someone and demand they tell you who they are.

Those that wanted or needed to be anonymous would be stopped and, in effect, censored.

If someone thinks they have something that needs to be said, and doesn’t want to feel backlash from what they are saying, then they have the right to withhold their identity.

The regulation side of the argument is a fun one to think about. Since you can post whatever you want on the Internet, then places where things could be uploaded onto the Internet would have to be under surveillance. That would include a lot of places, and most definitely your home computer.

With so much of what we do being computer-based and on the Internet, the undertaking would have to be intrusive. Big Brother would, in effect, be established.

It worries me to hear the idea of widespread censorship being tossed about so flippantly on popular media television; especially considering that expanding the powers of government censorship would surely affect the media at some point.

If the option of being anonymous is ever taken away, letters like the following will stop being written.

Dear Opinion Editor,

Although the autopsy is still out on the death of Lucas Farlinger, when I heard the first report that tied Farlinger to child porn, a suicide came to mind.

This event is tragic for the campus but also provides an opportunity for us to step back and examine the culture and potential stigma that led up to this death.

I will be the first one to speak out against child pornography because it is an unspeakable act of violence against a child, but I can’t help but feel the punishment for this and almost all sex crimes pales in comparison to the punishment for other crimes.

For most crimes the timeline of events goes something like this: crime is committed, perpetrator is captured, a jury decides the case, the perpetrator serves his/her sentence and is released back into life among the non-incarcerated because s/he has served his debt to society.

While this is the case for most crimes, the timeline for sex crimes is a little different. When a perpetrator is released s/he is marked for life. In our current system, s/he will never have “fully paid” the debt to society.

Most states maintain a sex offenders registry where the crime is put on display for the rest of the offender’s life for all to see. Depending on the state, sex offenders must also tell neighbors they are moving in and cannot live near schools, and in some extreme cases, sex offenders cannot even own toys, as they might be appealing to children.

While I am not calling for these laws to be rescinded, we must look at our society and ask the question, “Is this the most heinous crime a person can commit?”

If a murderer is released after serving a sentence, s/he has no obligation to tell you anything before moving next door. If a burglar is looking for a place to live, there is no registry to make sure you lock up your valuables.

It comes down to this: Should Lucas Farlinger have had to answer for his alleged crimes? Yes, but to what extent and to what end? When the cultural stigma surrounding the accusation of a sex crime is enough to warrant a death sentence carried by one’s own hand, you have to wonder, does the punishment fit the crime?

Regards,

Anonymous