ACLU's 'dotRights Campaign' Brings Digital Age Privacy Forum to Nashville Nov. 8

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee will host a forum on Tuesday, November 8, at 6:30 p.m., at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film. exploring whether new government intrusion online is threatening Tennesseans’ privacy and suppressing their free speech.

The program, which is free and open to the public, will include Allie Bohm, National ACLU Policy and Advocacy Strategist, whose expertise is in speech, privacy, and technology, and  Jason Driskill, a local artist whose digital collages typically address the conflict between the body and the notion of faith. Driskill is also the Curator at the Renaissance Center in Dickson, Tennessee, and an instructor at Middle Tennessee State University and at Nashville State Community College.  The session will be moderated by ACLU-TN board member Bruce Barry, a professor of management and professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University.

The discussion will focus on government access to online information, how to protect your privacy in the digital age, and a discussion of laws that impede free speech on the Internet.

One such law specific to Tennessee is the recently enacted “Offensive Images” law, Public Chapter 362, which makes it a crime to post any image online that causes “emotional distress” to any individual. The “offensive images” law was intended to curtail Internet harassment but provides no criteria for determining what is offensive or disturbing. The new law’s overly broad and vague language leaves everyone with an online presence vulnerable to prosecution.

This event is part of ACLU-TN’s larger “dotRights” campaign. The campaign is focused on updating and expanding privacy laws to include new developments in technology, so that the government has the same restrictions on access to Americans’ private, personal information online as they do offline.

Nashville’s “dotRights” forum will be held in Room 503 at Watkins, located at 2298 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard in MetroCenter.  In addition to Nashville, events are taking place in Knoxville and Memphis, check online at www.aclu-tn.org/dotRights.html.

For more information, please call the ACLU-TN office at 615-320-7142 or email [email protected].