Tag: 1st amendment

Not in Our Name

Free speech is not a divisible concept. Either everyone is free to say what they want, no matter how noxious others find it, in order to create and sustain the free market of ideas—or else speech isn’t free.

Institutions that curtail speech—that make people’s social media postings grounds for expulsion, that ban or suppress speakers they disagree with, that penalize dissenting opinions in classrooms and workplaces with bad grades and HR reports—should not be allowed to then turn around and invoke the principles of free speech to defend problematic speech with which they happen to agree, let alone disruptive or illegal behavior.

And yet, recent years have seen the emergence of two different speech regimes, one for alleged oppressors and one for the allegedly oppressed. Huge swaths of often innocent speech by the former is deemed out of bounds, even criminal, whereas any speech coming out of the mouth of someone with a claim to victim status—including speech that actively incites violence—is considered sacrosanct.

As a result, there is now a great deal of confusion about freedom of speech, which is a very basic—and very central—principle of American history and society. For those interested in being de-confused, which we humbly submit should be all thinking American citizens, herewith: a primer.

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Journalism Is Not a Crime, Even When It Offends the Government

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned in London for five years, while Texas journalist Priscilla Villarreal was only briefly detained at the Webb County Jail. But both were arrested for publishing information that government officials wanted to conceal.

Assange and Villarreal argue that criminalizing such conduct violates the First Amendment. In both cases, the merits of that claim have been obscured by the constitutionally irrelevant question of who qualifies as a “real” journalist.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is fighting extradition to the United States based on a federal indictment that charges him with violating the Espionage Act by obtaining and publishing classified documents that former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked in 2010. He has already spent about as much time behind bars as federal prosecutors say he would be likely to serve if convicted.

President Joe Biden says he is “considering” the Australian government’s request to drop the case against Assange. But mollifying a U.S. ally is not the only reason to reconsider this prosecution, which poses a grave threat to freedom of the press by treating common journalistic practices as crimes.

All but one of the 17 charges against Assange relate to obtaining or disclosing “national defense information,” which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Yet all the news organizations that published stories based on the confidential State Department cables and military files that Manning leaked are guilty of the same crimes.

More generally, obtaining and publishing classified information is the bread and butter of reporters who cover national security. John Demers, then head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, implicitly acknowledged that reality in 2019, when he assured reporters they needn’t worry about the precedent set by this case because Assange is “no journalist.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit took a similarly dim view of Villarreal in January, when it dismissed her lawsuit against the Laredo prosecutors and police officers who engineered her 2017 arrest. They claimed she had violated Section 39.06(c) of the Texas Penal Code, an obscure law that makes it a felony to solicit or obtain nonpublic information from a government official with “intent to obtain a benefit.”

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Bipartisan bill would create “antisemitism monitors” at colleges

A pro-Israel House Democrat and Republican plan to introduce legislation creating federally sanctioned “antisemitism monitors” for select college campuses.

Why it matters: It’s the first bill introduced in Congress as a direct response to the pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked Columbia University and other colleges in recent days.

Driving the news: Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) are introducing the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act – or COLUMBIA Act.

  • The bill would allow the Department of Education to send a “third-party antisemitism monitor” to any college that receives federal funding — and to revoke that funding for colleges that don’t comply.
  • The monitor, paid for by the school, would be charged with releasing a public, quarterly report evaluating “the progress that a college or university has made toward combating antisemitism.”
  • The bill was first reported by Jewish Insider.

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Rutherford Institute Threatens First Amendment Lawsuit Over Censorship of Religious Content From High School Valedictorian’s Graduation Speech

The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a Florida high school valedictorian whose graduation speech was censored by school officials to alter and remove religious content.

Lucas Hudson, a valedictorian of the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Fla., was ordered by school officials to remove religious references from his graduation speech in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us. School officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech’s religious content or he would not be speaking at all. In coming to Lucas’ defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warn that the school’s actions violate the rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, Florida law, and the School District’s policy, and could expose the school to a lawsuit.

“If America’s schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “While the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense. People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.”

As valedictorian of the Class of 2024 for the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School, Lucas Hudson was provided the opportunity to give a graduation speech in May 2024. Lucas’s planned speech thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly times goes by, and briefly urged people to use the short amount of time we have to love others and to serve the God who loves us and who sent his son, Jesus, to save us. However, after submitting his speech to the principal, Lucas was told that his speech would not be accepted unless he reduced and changed the religious content. Although Lucas modified his speech, the religious message was still not acceptable to school officials who told Lucas that he needed to “make appropriate adjustments” to his speech by the next day or he would not be speaking at all. Lucas then changed his speech to only include a short sentence about the privilege of knowing the God who saved him.

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FBI Turns Over Nashville, Tennessee Mass Shooter’s Manifesto To The Court

The FBI has turned over Nashville Tennessee Covenant School mass shooter Audrey Hale’s private writing and manifesto to a federal judge who will read them privately and decide how to deal with their release. 

Star News Digital Media Inc., The Tennessee Star’s parent company, sued the FBI in May 2023 after the March 2023 shooting. The news organization had claimed the FBI had violated the First Amendment by rejecting multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for Hale’s manifesto.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta A. Trauger, who has presided over the case agreed with the Tennessee Star over a month ago that it was in the public’s interest to release the documents to determine what the motive of the mass shooting was. 

Hale killed three nine-year old children and three faculty members during her mass shooting spree before she was shot dead by law enforcement on the scene inside the school. 

Trauger will review the documents privately, before deciding whether to share the writings with the plaintiffs.

“Pursuant to this Court’s Order dated March 15, 2024, ECF No. 42, the FBI notifies the Court that today, April 17, 2024, the FBI provided the requested records to the Court for its ex parte, in camera review,” the FBI said in its formal notification.

Trauger previously said that there was “significant public interest” in the shooter’s manifesto, when a few pages were leaked by conservative commentator Steven Crowder last November. 

Those leaked pages revealed anti-white writings. 

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Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion Die in America: Zionism is Now the Only Religion Allowed in the U.S.

Protests against the genocide happening in Gaza have continued to increase across America, with thousands of students in American universities and colleges protesting against the daily mass murders of innocent civilians and children happening in Israel.

Last week, over 100 students were arrested at Columbia University in New York, with many students at other campuses all across the nation joining them in protest this past weekend.

The arrests of over 100 students at Columbia University last week came one day after Columbia University President Nemat Shafik appeared before a U.S. Federal Congressional hearing on “Antisemitism”.

She was specifically asked by Congresswoman Lisa McClain if the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was antisemitic or not.

Dr. Shafik had obviously prepared for this question, because it was an answer to this question that resulted in the resignations of the President of Harvard University and the President of the University of Pennsylvania just a few months earlier.

Perhaps guessing that Dr. Shafik had prepared for this question, Congresswoman McClain added a new twist to the question: “or long live the intifada“, which is a completely different statement.

If Dr. Shafik had been allowed time to fully address both questions, perhaps she would have differentiated between the two, but as you will hear, she had no opportunity to fully answer the question, and was restricted to either a “yes” or “no” response.

(Also, what is that medallion that the Congresswoman is wearing around her neck that she clearly wants to display to everyone??)

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TikTok Measure Passed by House Is Unconstitutional in Multiple Ways

Is TikTok’s time finally up? On Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a measure that would require a change in the app’s ownership or ban it if that doesn’t happen.

Called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, it’s essentially the same divestiture-or-ban bill I wrote about in this newsletter back in March, now tucked into a larger bill (H.R. 8038, the insanely named 21st Century Peace through Strength Act) that deals with everything from fentanyl trafficking to Russian sanctions, Iranian petroleum, Hamas, and boatloads of foreign aid.

The most talked-about part of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act would ban TikTok unless it completely breaks ties with its Chinese parent-company, ByteDance, within 270 days.

But the bill goes far beyond TikTok, and could be used to justify a ban on all sorts of popular apps tied to China, Russia, Iran, or any other country that gets deemed a foreign adversary.

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NPR CEO calls First Amendment the ‘number one challenge’ in American journalism which makes it hard to crack down on ‘bad information’ and ‘influence peddlers

NPR’s new chief executive Katherine Maher called the First Amendment the ‘number one challenge’ in American journalism during a panel discussion.

Maher, 40, noted the First Amendment provides a ‘fairly robust protection of rights,’ making it ‘a little tricky to address some of the real challenges of where bad information comes from.’

These comments were made during an online panel discussion at the 360/Open Summit held by the Atlantic Council in 2021. 

The clip went viral after whistleblower editor Uri Berliner was suspended for speaking out about the outlet’s progressive bias the last week.

Berliner announced his resignation on Wednesday, stating, ‘I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay.’

‘The number one challenge that we see here is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States,’ Maher said at the panel hosted by the Atlantic Council’s research lab, where she served as a nonresident senior fellow. 

According to the organization’s release, she discussed fighting censorship, addressing diversity and building trust based on her experience as the former CEO of Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia. 

The clip has now gone viral on X, with Elon Musk reposting and saying, ‘This keeps getting crazier! The head of NPR hates the Constitution of the USA.’

Maher recently made national headlines after former NPR editor Berliner penned an open essay for The Free Press, where he slammed the outlet for being made up almost entirely of Democrats which he argued ‘lost America’s trust.’ 

Berliner claimed the publicly funded broadcaster became an activist organization obsessed with pushing progressive ideals.   

In response to the 25-year NPR veteran’s article, the network suspended him for five days for violating its policy of working or reporting for another outlet without permission, starting Friday. 

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Fifth-grader, 11, speaks out after school banned her from starting interfaith prayer club due to ‘lack of funding’ just weeks after approving LGBTQ Pride group

A fifth grader from Washington State who wanted to start an interfaith prayer club at school because ‘she felt alone’ is speaking out after her request was denied.

Laura Toney, who is 11 and attends Creekside Elementary School in Sammamish, east of Seattle, had hoped to start the on-campus club to bring together students of different faith backgrounds to ‘serve their community’.

But her pitch to start such a club was rejected despite a Pride Club being approved only weeks earlier.

‘I wanted to start it because I felt kind of alone in the classroom and at school and so I realized I had some friends and I knew some other people that felt the same way and so I talked to them and I was just like you know what it would be a great idea to make a club where people could come together and do good in the community,’ Laura told Fox News.

 The school is now being accused of violating the young student’s First Amendment’s religious freedom protections by denying her request.

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States Keep Passing Unconstitutional Age-Verification Laws for Porn Sites

Last Friday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed a controversial bill requiring age verification for individuals seeking to use pornography websites in the state. While the bill seeks to prevent minors from accessing explicit materials, the law will require a substantial invasion of adults’ privacy.

The newly signed law started as an unrelated bill aimed at tightening penalties for child sexual abuse and other crimes, with the age-verification provision of the bill added as a floor amendment in March.

“Pornography is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors,” the final bill reads. “Pornography may also impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviate sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.”

The bill requires pornography websites to limit access to adults and to verify a user’s age by accessing their government-issued identification or using another “commercially reasonable method of identification that relies on public or private transactional data.” Under the law, sites that violate the law face $10,000 fines for each instance that a minor accesses pornography.

As a result of this law, it’s likely that major porn websites will cease operations in Kentucky rather than develop a complex and invasive age-verification system. PornHub has so far left seven states that have adopted similar laws. 

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