Hastings International and Comparative Law Review Volume 36 Article 3 Number 1 Winter 2013 1-1-2013 Information Freedom, a Constitutional Value for the 21st Century Christopher Witteman Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_international_comparative_law_review Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Christopher Witteman, Information Freedom, a Constitutional Value for the 21st Century, 36 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 145 (2013). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_international_comparative_law_review/vol36/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Information Freedom, a Constitutional Value for the 21st Century By CHRISTOPHER WITTEMAN* Table of Contents I. Introduction...................................... 146 II. Constitutions and Communications........ ............. 154 A. The Constitutional Vacuum Around Communications and Communications Law ............ ........... 154 B. Constitutionalizing Communications ............... 164 C. Setting the Stage: the Speech Interests at Issue (a Battle Between Two - or More - Concepts of Liberty)..............167 D. The Problem of Constitutional Comparisons .... ..... 172 III. Defining Information Freedom....................... 177 A. Information Freedom in German Constitutional Law ..... 178 B. Information Freedom in International Treaties and Law. 181 C. Information Freedom in U.S. Policy Statements................ 185 D. Information Freedom in U.S. Law, Legal Thinking, Philosophy, and the Marketplace.................. 188 IV. Situating Information Freedom in German Law.........................189 A. Beyond the Individual Speaker - a System of Communication Essential to Democracy .....