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Free Speech Tag

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 06, 2015 27 Comments
Days later and establishment media types are still struggling to define the Garland shooting at Sunday's "draw Muhammad" event. CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, son of late New Governor Mario Cuomo, waded into the free speech pool today. Needless to say the ill-fated soirée was short-lived. Whilst debating the merits of the first amendment, Cuomo fired off this misinformed statement: Well, I've read the Constitution and I'm pretty sure no where in the first amendment or elsewhere is "hate speech" excluded from protection. "Hate speech" of course being the term progressives toss around any time words or phrases offend their delicate sensibilities or confront their requisite acquiescence to what Tom Wolff describes as, radical chic.

Posted by Laurel Conrad on April 27, 2015 33 Comments
When I wrote my previous LI piece about Christina Hoff Sommers lecture at Georgetown, I hoped that the “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” were the end to the attempted censorship of Dr. Sommers’ speech. The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, for which I am the lecture director, sponsored the speech, and recorded it so that others could both hear Dr. Sommers and the people who questioned her. Unfortunately, I was wrong about the controversy being over. [caption id="attachment_125067" align="alignnone" width="556"][Photo Credit: Georgetown U. Republicans] [Image Credit: Georgetown U. Republicans][/caption]Now, Georgetown University itself is putting pressure on the Georgetown College Republicans to make CBLPI edit its video of the lecture. In an email, the assistant director for Georgetown’s Center for Student Engagement told the lecture student organizers that if CBLPI is “unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 20, 2015 31 Comments
We have been covering the "John Doe" investigations of Scott Walker and Wisconsin conservatives since January 2014, when it came on our radar after a state court judge quashed certain subpoenas. Since then, we've had over 25 posts, detailing the depths to which Democratic prosecutors sank in the effort to get Walker and his supporters, as well as related litigation. John Doe No. 1 targeted Walker's time as Milwaukee County Executive. That probe failed to find any misconduct by Walker. John Doe No. 2 targeted alleged illegal coordination during the Recall Election between Walker's campaign and conservative groups. A state court judge already has ruled that even if there was such coordination, it was not illegal; that ruling is on appeal in the state courts. A federal District Court ruled the same way, but was reversed by the federal appeals court primarily on procedural grounds as to whether a federal court should interfere in a state investigation; a request is pending for the U.S. Supreme Court to take that case. In a second federal case, the same District Judge ordered Wisconsin not to enforce its coordination law as relates to issue advocacy. We’ll see if that holds up on appeal. While the legal proceedings are interesting, it is the physical and emotional abuse visited up innocent conservative activists by John Doe investigators that is particularly outrageous. We've focused on the home raids before, including this description by George Will, The nastiest political tactic this year:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 06, 2015 33 Comments
Heads up, people. Late Last month, Project Veritas released undercover footage from an investigation into the student org registration process at Barry University. A Barry student and PV plant named Laura secretly recorded several Barry staff members as they gave her advice on how to create a student group sympathetic to the Islamic State. The reaction to the video was predictable, and Barry fielded considerable bad press because of it. About a week after the video was released, Laura was suspended. Project Veritas set out a press release explaining what happened, and why they believe Laura is being punished for her work with PV:
The vague language used by Barry University in issuing the suspension, coupled with the timing, suggest that Barry does not have an actionable claim against Laura. Rather, it appears that they object to the negative publicity the school has received due to the statements of their administrative and academic staff.

Posted by New Neo on February 16, 2015 11 Comments
So now we know the identity of Copenhagen shooter Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, whose crime has mirrored the recent terrorist attacks in Paris but with a smaller death total and a single perpetrator. More details will no doubt emerge, but already it seems fairly clear what's going on here: a continuation of the assault on the West's freedom of speech, perpetrated by a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist (or one in sympathy with fundamentalist Muslim terrorists). The idea is to silence what they see as blasphemy against Islam, as well as to exert a chilling effect on anyone who would sympathize with or support such freedom of speech. In addition, it is an attack on Jews and those who would protect them. The goal? Non-Muslims should not be free to criticize Islam in ways that the group deems blasphemous; Jews would not be free to practice Judaism; and the penalty for both crimes would be death. The moment when the West should have become aware of the growing seriousness of the threat to Western free speech was the 1989 fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Perhaps some people were able to minimize it at the time by reminding themselves that Rushdie had been born a Muslim in India, which made him an apostate when he renounced the religion. But he was definitely a Westerner, having lived in Britain since the age of fourteen, and his books were written in English and aimed at a Western audience. To refresh your memory:
Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief [for his novel The Satanic Verses] and in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted from Muslim anger over the novel. The Iranian government backed the fatwa against Rushdie until 1998, when the succeeding government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said it no longer supported the killing of Rushdie. However, the fatwa remains in place.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 13, 2015 3 Comments
Canada's equivalent of Fox News shut down early this morning. In a land where the state run Human Rights Commission works tirelessly to squash free speech, Sun News Network will be missed. Sun News' closing leave the network's commentators like Ezra Levant, who've consistently spoken out against Canada's penchant for political correctness are now without network home, and Free Speech, largely without a national voice. Citing difficulty obtaining a buyer, the network was left with no viable way to remain operational. In August of 2013, federal regulators denied Sun News a mandatory cable spot, making it difficult for the network to attract viewers. CBC News reports:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 18, 2015 12 Comments
Bill Maher has been on a free speech tear lately, and if you look back at the last few months it makes perfect sense. In December of 2014 he was booked to speak at UC-Berkeley's commencement; but liberal students who disagreed with his views on Islam and free speech tried to shut him down. Of course, Professor Jacobson predicted all of this. Maher ultimately spoke at Berkeley---and used the opportunity to bash Republicans. Even so, you have to admire Maher's recent strong defense of free speech. Here's a clip from his Friday show where he took liberals to task on political correctness over Islam. He even takes a poke at the "Stop Rush" crowd. (NSFW for language) Josh Feldman of Mediaite does a great job outlining the segment:

Posted by New Neo on January 14, 2015 9 Comments
This seems to be a disturbing development in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings:
France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and those glorifying terrorism... Authorities said 54 people had been arrested for hate speech and defending terrorism since terror attacks killed 20 people in Paris last week, including three gunmen... Like many European countries, France has strong laws against hate speech, especially anti-Semitism in the wake of the Holocaust. The Justice Ministry sent a letter to all French prosecutors and judges urging more aggressive tactics against racist or anti-Semitic speech or acts.
"Speech or acts"---there's a big, big difference between the two. It is easier to justify criminalizing acts rather than speech---although of course it depends on what the speech is. To be legally actionable, the speech had better be the rough equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded auditorium.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 14, 2015 31 Comments
What is wrong with this picture? Neil Munro of The Daily Caller reports that Obama is planning to use his influence as president to run interference in the media on behalf of Jihadists. Naturally, he's doing it for the troops:
White House: Obama Will Fight Media To Stop Anti-Jihad Articles President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defenses forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12. “The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing. The unprecedented reversal of Americans’ civil-military relations, and of the president’s duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration’s opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Here's a video report:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 24, 2014 26 Comments
The first questions one must ask are, When did Florida begin allowing Satanic holiday displays in their capitol at Christmas, and why would Satanists feel the need to celebrate the birth of Christ? While I don't know the answer to the first question, I'll take a guess at the second. Modern Satanists, who desperately want attention, are taking advantage of our politically correct culture. Anyone who has children knows that moment when a child says something like "But you let (insert other child's name here) have one!" Following this logic means that if Christians are allowed to erect a Christmas display in the capitol, then Satanists should also be allowed to do so, even if the core of their belief system is the direct antithesis of everything represented by the Christmas holiday. Like everyone else in America, Satanists are entitled to freedom of speech under the First Amendment; but don't tell me their display was meant to be anything other than a thumb in the eye to Christians. Joel Landau of the New York Daily News describes the display:
The organization set up the holiday display, which featured an angel falling into a pit of fire, as a protest for the state allowing a Nativity scene in the government building.
An unidentified woman has been arrested for the damage.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson is making moves to hold accountable the organizers of this past Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protest at the Mall of America. Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.
Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 02, 2014 6 Comments
Common Core is generating a lot of concerns around the country, and teacher input without fear of retaliation is essential. The reality is, however, that teachers critical of Common Core may be intimidated by school district and state officials into silence. That is what a teacher is alleging in a lawsuit (full Complaint here) filed in Maricopa County Superior Court against the Arizona Superintendent of Education, as described by The Goldwater Institute press release:
Today the Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of Tucson, Ariz. teacher Brad McQueen, who was retaliated against by employees of the Arizona Department of Education for speaking out against the Common Core State Standards. For years, Mr. McQueen was paid to serve on several committees of teachers who advised the state department of education on issues related to standardized testing. When he spoke out against the Common Core and its accompanying standardized test earlier this year in a newspaper article, he was removed from the committees (even those that had nothing to do with the Common Core), notes were made in his file at the department that could impact future employment opportunities, and he was disparaged in official department emails. “The First Amendment guarantees that all Americans have the right to speak out on important issues of the day without fear of being persecuted,” said Kurt Altman, a senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute. “When you exercise your rights and find your livelihood and reputation are threatened, especially by the government, that sends a message to everyone around you to keep their mouths shut.”

Posted by Amy Miller on December 02, 2014 7 Comments
The relationship between the media and Connecticut courts is about to get very, very ugly. The Connecticut Law Tribune has come forward with information showing that New Britain Superior Court Judge Steven Frazzini has enjoined the newspaper from publishing a story based on court documents entered into the public record and published on the Judicial Branch's website. Tribune lawyer Daniel Klau has already filed an appeal, but even Klau himself has been slapped with a court order demanding his silence on the subject. From the Connecticut Law Tribune:
The action before Frazzini was in juvenile court session, where judges have the discretion to limit proceedings to those participants deemed necessary. A writer representing the Law Tribune was not permitted to remain in the courtroom to witness the proceedings, after his presence was objected to by a lawyer for one of the parents in an underlying custody case and by a guardian ad litem. Klau said he was not sure he could talk specifically about who the lawyers were in the case, or even the judge. The lawyer for the mother in the custody case is Stephen Dembo, of West Hartford, who took the unusual step of requesting the injunction to prevent the newspaper's publication of a story about the court filing. The guardian ad litem is Susan Cousineau, a prominent voice in the ranks of guardians ad litem, who also cochaired a legislative task force on GAL reform in the last legislative session. The Department of Children and Families legal director, Barbara J. Claire, wanted to make it clear that her agency was not behind the request for the publication ban, and said in a statement: "The department did not request that a court grant a motion to prevent media coverage in a confidential child protection case." The motion to bar publication was filed on Friday, Nov. 17. The Law Tribune immediately filed an objection to the motion, arguing that any prior restraint on publication is unconstitutional. "Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringements on First Amendment rights," the brief states, quoting the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 02, 2014 5 Comments
Both parties in the high-profile Elonis vs. United States had their day before the Supreme Court yesterday, and lawyers and analysts alike aren't sure what to make of the Court's reaction to oral arguments. Elonis (described in detail here) is shaping up to be a real barn burner because it tackles a question almost all of us have asked ourselves at some point: can you SAY that on Facebook? "That" being, of course, profanity- and violence-saturated rants directed at a particular person or group of people. We don't have a cohesive standard for what constitutes a "true threat" against another person, and the murky waters of social media have added an extra layer into an already complicated case. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter provide a kind of semi-anonymous catharsis for users; you can post a picture, or a song lyric, or random thought, and (barring any run-ins with the platform's TOS) no one can find cause to complain because it's your space on the internet to use as you wish. Enter Elonis' pointed, violent rants. Is it enough to claim catharsis and artistic expression when your content is clearly aimed at another person, and that person feels threatened? Elonis' attorneys are banking on the Nine to accept this argument:
John Elwood, a lawyer for Mr. Elonis, said prosecutors should have to show that someone accused of making threats intended to put the listener in fear. Merely being reckless with comments on Facebook or elsewhere shouldn’t be enough to make someone guilty, he said. “Many of the people who are being prosecuted now are teenagers who are essentially shooting off their mouths or making sort of ill-timed, sarcastic comments which wind up getting them thrown in jail,” Mr. Elwood said. He cited a Texas prosecution of a teenager who made remarks in a videogame chat room about attacking a school. And he suggested the government’s preferred legal approach would allow the prosecution of someone from Ferguson who tweeted a violent message along with a picture of police officers during the riots.
Justices Alito and Ginsburg balked at this argument, with Alito citing concerns that condoning Elonis' conduct could lead to a situation where estranged spouses could post threatening content against their partner and get away with it, and Ginsburg asking how a prosecutor could somehow tease out what was in the perpetrator's mind when he posted the threatening content.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 24, 2014 38 Comments
In the 2003 barnburner Virginia v. Black, the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a statute that in part stated that the act of burning a cross constituted prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate a person or group. Writing for the majority, Justice O'Connor said that "just as a State may regulate only that obscenity which is the most obscene due to its prurient content, so too may a State choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm." Next week, the Supreme Court will be asked to apply this standard to speech in a new and controversial venue: a man's Facebook timeline. Anthony D. Elonis was sentenced to four years in federal prison after a court determined that violent rants posted to his personal Facebook page constituted a "true threat" to his estranged wife, former coworkers, and even a federal agent. The Washington Post has the background:
About a week after Tara Elonis convinced a judge to issue a protective order against her estranged husband, Anthony, her soon-to-be ex had this to say:
“Fold up your PFA [protection-from-abuse order] and put it in your pocket Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?”
... He was fired after co-workers interpreted one of his Facebook postings as a threat to them. He responded: ““Someone once told me that I was a firecracker. Nah, I’m a nuclear bomb and Dorney Park just f----- with the timer.” ... In other postings, Elonis suggested that his son dress as “Matricide” for Halloween, with his wife’s “head on a stick” as a prop. He pondered making a name for himself by shooting up an elementary school and noted that there were so many nearby to choose from — “hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 01, 2014 10 Comments
Last Sunday, we told you about the Democratic Party's attempt to use the Federal Elections Commission to regulate free speech on the internet. Bill Whittle has put perspective on the issue in a new video from Truth Revolt. Here's an excerpt:
This smiling, normal-looking woman is Ann Ravel. She heads the FEC — the Federal Elections Commission. She’s a Democrat in a Democratic administration pursuing the Democratic party’s goal of intimidating, jailing and otherwise harassing their political opponents, who are mean because they don’t like being told what to do, or to think — the way nice people do. So she has been ordered to weaponize the government against unregulated speech — we don’t call it “free speech” any more because that term is archaic and also probably racist. It’s not like she doesn’t want to! As a typical progressive Democrat, Ann Ravel has two overriding psychological needs: First, regulate everything. How on earth with people like Ann Ravel and, for that matter, the President of the United States, ever be able to feel secure when the American people are just running around starting businesses willy-nilly, or irresponsibly making internet videos that don’t conform to the Official Truth, or reading news stories — “news stories!” — on places like Fox or the Drudge Report.
Watch the video: This actually dovetails perfectly with Professor Jacobson's new column at Townhall.com:

Posted by Amy Miller on October 30, 2014 16 Comments
We wrote previously about UC Berkeley students' attempt to block comedian Bill Maher from speaking at the university's commencement ceremonies. Students circulated a petition citing "hateful" statements like the one contained in the tweet below as reasons why Maher should not be allowed to speak at the ceremony. Unfortunately for Berkeley's future community organizers, Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks disagrees with the premise of their petition, and has overturned a student vote blocking Maher from speaking at graduation. Via Inside Higher Ed:
"The UC Berkeley administration cannot and will not accept this decision, which appears to have been based solely on Mr. Maher’s opinions and beliefs, which he conveyed through constitutionally protected speech," said a statement from the university. "For that reason Chancellor Dirks has decided that the invitation will stand, and he looks forward to welcoming Mr. Maher to the Berkeley campus. It should be noted that this decision does not constitute an endorsement of any of Mr. Maher’s prior statements: indeed, the administration’s position on Mr. Maher’s opinions and perspectives is irrelevant in this context, since we fully respect and support his right to express them. More broadly, this university has not in the past and will not in the future shy away from hosting speakers who some deem provocative."
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