The opinion delivered on the Watchtower case incited within me a strong reaction against the position taken by the court because I initially felt that the Court did not focus enough attention on the issue of privacy. I was incensed that Jehovah's Witnesses could so easily disregard the rights to privacy that individuals have within the home of self-regulating whatever speech individuals wanted to receive or participate in. Door-to-door proselytizing violates that privacy by essentially imposing the Jehovah's Witnesses faith to individuals, and it was from this perspective that I at first rejected the Court's decision in overturning Stratton's ordinance. However, after reading the articles on spam regulation and taking into account the discussion on anonymity and free speech from last week's class, I recognize that my reaction to the decision of the Watchtower case has the potential to overly restrict free speech in that having to register for a permit, it is essentially the government who is deciding on which speech can be allowed to be delivered door-to-door rather than the individuals who want to do the speaking. The ordinance issued by Stratton essentially put the Jehovah's Witnesses in a tough spot of having to "inform the government of [their] desire to speak to [their] neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so" and I agree with the Court in saying that no organization should be put under that restriction.

However, I do want to discuss further this boundary between free speech and privacy because I believe it to be an underlying issue that connects door-to-door marketing and spam emailing. The boundary even in the real world it is unclear; I personally do not enjoy Jehovah's Witnesses stepping onto my private property to deliver their free speech nor the idea that I have to opt-into the system that allows me to place a "No Soliciting" sign on my private property. Regardless, if the default for spaces in society was set to "No Soliciting," where would individuals be allowed to solicit and speak their speech? My main question here is whether or not individuals consider their personal email (or potentially their work email) as their own private property. In my opinion, I do not think free speech and private property should ever intersect, though I am able to see the restrictive implications of my choice. I would therefore like to further discuss this issue for it would provide me with some insight in how to further interpret the behavior of Jehovah's Witnesses and spam senders.