It’s true that certain technologies may become socially indispensable – so that equal or at least minimal access to basic computer power, for example, might be as significant a constitutional goal as equal or at least minimal access to the franchise, or to resolution of disputes through the judicial system, or to elementary and secondary education. But all this means (or should mean) is that the Constitution’s constraints on government must at times take the form of imposing affirmative duties to provide access rather than merely enforcing negative prohibitions against designated sorts of invasion or intrusion.
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: ”It’s true that certain technologies may become socially indispensable – so that equal or at least minimal access to basic computer power, for example, might be as significant a constitutional goal as equal or at least minimal access to the franchise, or to resolution of disputes through the judicial system, or to elementary and secondary education. But all this means (or should mean) is that the Constitution’s constraints on government must at times take the form of imposing affirmative duties to provide access rather than merely enforcing negative prohibitions against designated sorts of invasion or intrusion.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Digital Divide
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:
Page 213
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne