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A case I am credited for is Roe v. Wade.  I am credited for writing the court’s opinion on the case. The case involved a woman in Texas who wished to have an abortion. However, at the time abortion was illegal in the state of Texas unless it was in order to save the mother’s life. We, as a court, decided that under the Fourteenth Amendment, women had the right to receive an abortion within the first trimester of pregnancy.

After that case I became an advocate of right of abortion and other rights of privacy. The ramifications of AP v. United States  relate to the right of privacy. If it is decided that the AP’s right to privacy is protected, then we have said that we agree with the Fourteenth Amendment and can continue supporting the right to privacy. However, if we decide that the government has a right to invade the privacy of the AP, then we may need to reconsider what the right to privacy actually means.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_18

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supcourt/stories/blackmun030599.htm

http://www.oyez.org/justices/harry_a_blackmun

In the stories we read for this challenge, news reporters were “lied to” by the Internet. However, I don’t believe this is true. In this day and age, ANYONE CAN PUBLISH ON THE INTERNET. I feel like this is common knowledge. It is the job of reporters to fact-check, fact-check, and fact-check again. If the news outlet finds it acceptable to re-publish information from the Internet without making sure that information is actually true, it is the fault of the news outlet. Social media should not be used as the SOLE source of information in any story, but can be used to supplement information determined to be true.

Now that you know a little bit about my life, I’d like to discuss my judicial philosophy, outline the court case and talk about my philosophy on law. At the beginning of my career, I was known to be paired with a conservative, but after time, I became known as a sympathetic liberal. I began as a conservative, and transformed into a liberal, not because I changed, but because the court changed.

Jewel v. National Security Agency. The case includes the government obtaining data from personal  phone calls and text messages of AT&T customers as a result of a threat to national security. Millions of citizens’ communications were collected, through fiber optic cables and the domestic telephone records collection program, by the National Security Agency after being authorized by the government. The case also includes several individuals for creating the illegal program used to obtain all the data. This case is meant to determine if the government was legally right to obtain citizens’ personal information without them being aware of it.

As for my philosophy on law, I remain unsure. On my first day of being a justice, I asked the court a rhetorical question: “What am I doing here?”  I firmly believe in personal liberties, including the Constitution’s right to privacy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supcourt/stories/blackmun030599.htm

https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel

http://www.oyez.org/justices/harry_a_blackmun

I am Justice Harry Blackmun. I was born in Illinois in 1908 and raised in Minnesota. I got a degree in Mathematics from Harvard and also completed my law degree there. After graduating, I clerked for for a federal appeals court judge in Minneapolis and then I started my own legal practice. In 1970, I was appointed justice by President Nixon.

The case I will be writing about is Jewel v. National Security Agency. The case was about  the government obtaining data from personal  phone calls and text messages of AT&T customers as a result of a threat to national security. Millions of citizens’ communications were collected, through fiber optic cables and the domestic telephone records collection program, by the National Security Agency after being authorized by the government

United States v. United States District Court is a similar case that could influence the Jewel case. In that case, the United States charged three individuals with conspiring to destroy government property. It was seen as a threat to national security, so the government used wiretaps to collect information needed for their capture.

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In the Rolling Stone article about the rape at the University of  Virginia, a number of things went wrong. The first thing, and probably the most obvious, is that the reporting was not fact-checked heavily enough by the reporter. Part of this fact-checking had to take into consideration that the victim in the article, Jackie, did not want the reporter to talk to her accused rapists. However, the reporter could certainly have checked to see if there was a fraternity event scheduled at the time and place that the victim specified. After discovering that there wasn’t, the reporter should have known that the victim had at least one discrepancy in her story, hopefully resulting in the reporter doing further research.

I feel as though the fault lies on the Rolling Stone reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely. As I said before, she should have at least checked to see if there was a scheduled event at the fraternity house on the day the victim stated. Also, even though Jackie told Rolling Stone not to contact her accused rapists, Erdely could have used other sources to verify the truth of Jackie’s story. I personally would have questioned Jackie’s motives to tell a popular magazine like Rolling Stone about her rape, but not wanting the magazine to talk to the accused rapists about the rape.

Many journalistic challenges were presented in the reporting and writing of Erdely’s article. When dealing with rape victims, you want to be understanding, but you still have to remain objective. I feel that you should always consider something untrue until you complete thorough research. Another challenge presented was being told not to speak to the accused rapists. The reporter then has to figure out how to get the other side of the story, while still adhering to the victim’s wishes.

Personally, I would have handled the situation differently. After hearing Jackie’s account of the evening, I would have at least checked some of the more basic parts of her story like the time, date, and location of the events she said took place. If I found that there was no event scheduled at that time and place, I would have reconsidered writing the article, or do further research. I also wouldn’t have placed so many graphic details in the printed story, maybe on the online edition (to be able to warn readers of its graphic nature), but not in the printed copy.

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