Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal Volume 35 | Number 1 Article 5 1-1-2012 Dropped Calls: The Extent of the Free Speech Guarantee to Wireless Communications Service Candice Shin Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_comm_ent_law_journal Part of the Communications Law Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Candice Shin, Dropped Calls: The Extent of the Free Speech Guarantee to Wireless Communications Service, 35 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 227 (2012). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_comm_ent_law_journal/vol35/iss1/5 This Note 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 Communications and Entertainment Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Dropped Calls: The Extent of the Free Speech Guarantee to Wireless Communications Service by CANDICE SHIH I. INTRODUCTION As President Hosni Mubarak scrambled to hold on to control of Egypt in the face of tens of thousands of protesters in January 2011, he made a most modern decision. “One by one, the lines of communication that connected Egypt to the 21st century shut down. Twitter, Facebook, and eventually all Internet access were cut off; text messaging became impossible, and then millions of mobile phones went silent across the country.”1 As the world knows, it was for naught; Mubarak’s retirement was announced on February 11, 2011.2 Egypt has not been alone in disabling such infrastructure during the Middle East uprisings known as the Arab Spring that began in late 2010.3 As the anti-government protests spread across the region, Libya cut off Internet almost entirely,4 Syria intermittently shut down 1.