New technologies should lead us to look more closely at just what values the Constitution seeks to preserve. New technologies should not lead us to react reflexively either way – either by assuming that technologies the framers of the Constitution didn’t know about making their concerns and values obsolete, or by assuming that those new technologies couldn’t possibly provide new ways out of old dilemmas and therefore should be ignored altogether.
Predictor: Tribe, Laurence H.
Prediction, in context:The 1997 book “Computers, Ethics, and Society,” edited by M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams and Michele S. Shauf, carries a reprint of the Sept./Oct. 1991 The Humanist magazine article “The Constitution in Cyberspace” by Laurence H. Tribe. Tribe, a Constitutional scholar, suggests a Constitutional amendment that would clarify the relationship between new technologies and fundamental constitutional protections. He writes: ”When the lines along which our Constitution is drawn warp or vanish, what happens to the Constitution itself? New technologies should lead us to look more closely at just what values the Constitution seeks to preserve. New technologies should not lead us to react reflexively either way – either by assuming that technologies the framers of the Constitution didn’t know about making their concerns and values obsolete, or by assuming that those new technologies couldn’t possibly provide new ways out of old dilemmas and therefore should be ignored altogether.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: Computers, Ethics, and Society (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The Constitution in Cyberspace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 209, 210
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne