Tag: 1st amendment

23 States and District of Columbia File Amicus Briefs in Favor of Joe Biden and Government Censorship and Regulation of Speech in America – via the MO v. Biden Case

Twenty-three Democrat run states and the District of Columbia, the home of our nation’s capital, filed amicus briefs in support of government censorship and banning of free speech in the United States.

These 23 states and the District of Columbia filed amicus briefs in support of the Biden administration in the SCOTUS case is Murthy, et al v. Missouri, et al, 23-411 (Missouri v. Biden) case.

The states essentially argue that they have an interest in collaborating with tech companies to “encourage” the public to behave themselves and “discourage” the public from believing alleged “disinformation” or engaging in online predatory behavior. The clear message is that they believe that the government has the right to shut down and censor speech.

The list of un-American states that support government censorship include:

New York
Colorado
Arizona
California
Connecticut
Vermont,
Washington,
Washington, D.C.
Wisconsin
New Jersey
New Mexico,
Oregon
Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island,
Delaware,
Hawaii,
Illinois,
Maine,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
Michigan,
Minnesota,
Nevada

HOWEVER, a number of courageous states filed an Amicus Curiae brief in SUPPORT of Gateway Pundit and the Free Speech Respondents. These (16) heroic states include:

Montana,
Alabama,
Alaska,
Florida,
Georgia,
Iowa,
Idaho,
Tennessee,
Kansas,
Nebraska,
Ohio,
South Carolina,
South Dakota,
Utah,
Virginia,
West Virginia,
and the Arizona Legislature

The “most important free speech case in a generation” Missouri v. Biden (Murthy v. Missouri), is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday, March 18th.

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There Is A War On Free Speech, And They Won’t Ever Be Satisfied Until It Is Completely Eradicated

The freedom to say whatever we want is one of the most fundamental rights in a free society.  If we are not free to speak up, it is is just a matter of time before all of our other rights are taken away as well.  So it should deeply alarm all of us that free speech is under attack like never before.  Much of the population has become convinced that “hate speech” is a special class of speech that does not deserve protection.  Of course in practice “hate speech” ends up being whatever forms of expression that the leftist elite hate.  That is why “hate speech” laws are always written so vaguely.  That way they can be used to go after whoever the leftist elite feel like going after at the time.

It is not always easy to have a society where people are allowed to say whatever they want.  People say things all the time that deeply, deeply offend me.  And there are some that have said things about me that are tremendously hateful and untrue.

But if we are going to have a free society, people have got to be free to say whatever they want.  So we should never support freedom of speech being taken away from anyone, because once we start going down that slippery slope it is just a matter of time before they come after our freedom to say what we want.

That is why what is happening in the state of Washington is so alarming.  A new law would allow private individuals to collect up to $2,000 every time they report someone to the new “hate crimes and bias incidents hotline”…

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There Is A War On Free Speech, And They Won’t Ever Be Satisfied Until It Is Completely Eradicated

The freedom to say whatever we want is one of the most fundamental rights in a free society.  If we are not free to speak up, it is is just a matter of time before all of our other rights are taken away as well.  So it should deeply alarm all of us that free speech is under attack like never before.  Much of the population has become convinced that “hate speech” is a special class of speech that does not deserve protection.  Of course in practice “hate speech” ends up being whatever forms of expression that the leftist elite hate.  That is why “hate speech” laws are always written so vaguely.  That way they can be used to go after whoever the leftist elite feel like going after at the time.

It is not always easy to have a society where people are allowed to say whatever they want.  People say things all the time that deeply, deeply offend me.  And there are some that have said things about me that are tremendously hateful and untrue.

But if we are going to have a free society, people have got to be free to say whatever they want.  So we should never support freedom of speech being taken away from anyone, because once we start going down that slippery slope it is just a matter of time before they come after our freedom to say what we want.

That is why what is happening in the state of Washington is so alarming.  A new law would allow private individuals to collect up to $2,000 every time they report someone to the new “hate crimes and bias incidents hotline”…

Senate Bill 5427, after it is signed into law, would allow private individuals (note: this is not limited to American citizens) to report “bias incidents*” (see definition below) to the State Attorney General’s Office, with the possibility of receiving up to $2,000 of taxpayers money for this noncriminal incident. The bill was very clear: this is a non-crime which they will then forward to local law enforcement to investigate. What’s to investigate? No crime, no investigation.

The Progressives & Marxists who sponsored this bill say it is intended to help “victims of hate crimes” before a crime even happens. Say what? In reality, SB 5427 would create a “tattletale hotline,” undermine legitimate criminal investigations, and freeze, not just chill, speech & the press in Washington State. People will stop talking to others and writing to others except very close friends & relatives, for fear a greedy “Karen” will report them to Washington’s version of the Gestapo.

This is crazy.

Do we live in East Germany now?

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MSNBC Legal Analyst Argues for ‘Common Sense’ Speech Restrictions Live on Air

A legal analyst at MSNBC argued earlier this week that there is a need for “common sense” restrictions to the First Amendment to prevent “disinformation” online.

The comments from University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade underscore how many on the far left now view basic American Constitutional rights.

During an interview with network host Rachel Maddow that The New York Post flagged on Thursday, McQuade argued that current restrictions on free speech might not go far enough.

McQuade said previous arguments from the U.S. Supreme Court had set a precedent — that there are some limitations to what people can say if it is intended to create harm — but she added those might not be far-reaching enough.

One such case is 1919’s Schenck v. United States, in which it was ruled that a person could not shout “fire” while in a crowded theater if that person’s rationale for speaking was only to cause public harm.

In the context of American political discourse in the age of social media, McQuade said that the country’s “deep commitment to free speech,” a cornerstone of society, is leaving people vulnerable to being misled.

While hawking a new book she has authored called “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America,” McQuade told MSNBC she hoped to initiate a “national conversation about truth and our commitment to [free speech].”

After Maddow asked if Americans are vulnerable to being misled more than citizens of other countries without First Amendment protections, McQuade agreed.

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Florida Legislature Passes Bill Banning Social Media for Kids Under 16, Raising Free Speech Concerns

The Florida Legislature passed a bill Thursday that would prohibit children under 16 from using social media — a ban free speech advocates say violates the First Amendment.

The bill in question, HB-1, passed the Florida Senate Thursday morning 23-14, on a mostly party-line vote, with 21 Republicans and 2 Democrats voting Yea, and 10 Democrats and 4 Republicans voting Nay, and 3 state senators not voting.

Shortly after 5 pm ET, the bill went back to the Florida House, where it had already passed in a previous form. The House voted to approve it once again, 108-7, with the 7 Nay votes all Democrats.

The text of the bill creates a new section in the Florida Statutes that requires social media platforms to prohibit minors who are younger than 16 years old from creating accounts, to “use reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of each account holder,” and to provide a disclaimer warning about social media being “harmful to mental health” and using “design features that have addictive qualities.” Violations of the law, if passed, would be deemed “an unfair and deceptive trade practice” and the state government can collect a civil penalty of up to $50,000 per violation. If a minor account holder asks for their account to be deleted, or a parent or legal guardian asks for a minor’s account to be deleted, and the platform does not comply with the request within the statutory deadline (5 or 10 days, respectively), it would be liable for $10,000 per violation, plus court costs and attorney fees.

The bill has attracted criticism from the right and left, one of several bills this session that have raised objections from free speech advocates and predictions that they cannot pass constitutional muster.

State Sen. Jason Pizzo (D) told Tampa area NBC affiliate WFLA he sympathized with parents’ concerns about the harmful effects of social media, himself the father of two teenage boys, but ultimately this is something that families, not government, needs to handle.

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SOUTH CAROLINA BAN ON PRISONERS’ MEDIA INTERVIEWS VIOLATES FIRST AMENDMENT, LAWSUIT SAYS

South Carolina violates the First Amendment by forbidding incarcerated people from speaking with the press, according to a lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of South Carolina against the state’s Department of Corrections.

“The South Carolina Department of Corrections (“SCDC”) enforces the nation’s most restrictive policy on media access to prisoners,” the complaint says. The suit alleges that the state “bans interviews by anyone, on any topic, and by any real-time means: in person, by video, or by phone. And although correspondence by mail is allowed, publication of a prisoner’s written speech is similarly prohibited.”

According to a copy of the SCDC’s media policy, the agency prohibits “personal contact interviews with any SCDC inmate, untried county safekeeper, or death row inmate by anyone,” and bans “news and non-news media representatives” from taking photographs, or audio or video recordings of SCDC prisoners.

In a press release last summer, the SCDC said, “Inmates in the custody of the S.C. Department of Corrections are not allowed to do interviews.”

“The department believes that victims of crime should not have to see or hear the person who victimized them or their family member on the news,” the press release said. “Inmates lose the privilege of speaking to the news media when they enter SCDC.”

The press release also included a copy of a letter from an SCDC official to the attorney of Richard Murdaugh, a former lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son. (Murdaugh maintains his innocence.) The letter scolded Murdaugh and his legal team for speaking to the press.

The department’s letter stated that, in violation of the SCDC policy, Murdaugh read excerpts of his journal to his attorney, who recorded Murdaugh’s voice and sent the audio files to the media. Murdaugh received a disciplinary infraction. The letter warned the violation could jeopardize Murdaugh’s access to his attorney.

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Biden Is Overseeing the Silent Death of the First Amendment

In early 2024, a new, grim chapter may be written in the annals of journalistic history. Julian Assange, the publisher of Wikileaks, could board a plane for extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on espionage charges for the crime of publishing newsworthy information.

The persecution of Assange is clear evidence that the Biden administration is overseeing the silent death of the First Amendment—with global consequences.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s exposé during the Watergate scandal is seen as a triumph of truth over power. Their investigative reporting led to the downfall of President Nixon, cementing their status as champions of press freedom. However, what if this tale had taken a dark turn, with the journalists prosecuted for espionage and silenced under the guise of national security? While this is mere fiction, Assange’s plight is all too real.

Assange, the standard-bearer of our era’s investigative journalism, awaits extradition in a British cell in Belmarsh Prison, a fate that could stifle the beacon of transparency he represents. At a time when the world grapples with the erosion of press freedom, with journalists imprisoned and killed, Assange’s case raises profound questions about the consequences of challenging power and unveiling uncomfortable realities.

The legacy of WikiLeaks goes beyond exposing government misconduct; it pierces the veil of secrecy shrouding global affairs. The release of Collateral Murder, the haunting camera footage from a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad showing the murder of several civilians, including two Reuters journalists, shocked the world. As we’ve seen in the past two months, the killing of civilians and journalists in war continues. In the last two months, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed dozens of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. On Thursday, human rights groups determined that Israel had deliberately fired on a Reuters journalist in southern Lebanon—a blatant war crime.

The aim of targeting journalists is to keep information where governments want it—under lock and key. That is why Wikileaks is such a threat—because, since its founding, it has fearlessly worked to wrest that information out of the hands of the powerful and put it in the hands of the people.

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Progressives Are Ditching Free Speech To Fight ‘Disinformation’

In my column last week, I detailed how GOP lawmakers in several Western states have jettisoned their usual concerns about free speech and have passed laws that require cellphone users to disable government-mandated filters before having open access to apps. It’s a foolhardy endeavor done in the name of protecting The Children from obscenity, but at least these measures are narrow in scope (and mostly about posturing).

Meanwhile, progressives are hatching attacks on “disinformation” that threaten the foundations of the Constitution. Republicans share some responsibility, as they’ve backed various proposals targeting Big Tech out of pique about the censorship of conservative views. These ideas included limits on liability protections for posted content and plans to treat social media sites as public utilities.

Conservatives have already shown a willingness to insert government into speech considerations, so they are left flat-footed as leftists hatch plots to rejigger open debate. Whenever the Right plays footsie with big government, the Left then ups the ante—and conservatives end up wondering what happened. What is happening now is an effort to use legitimate concerns about internet distortions to squelch what we read and say.

Traditionally, Americans of all political stripes have accepted that—except for a few strictly limited circumstances—people can say whatever they choose. The nation’s libel laws impose civil penalties on those who have engaged in defamatory speech, but those laws are narrowly tailored so the threat of lawsuits doesn’t halt legitimate speech. This emanates from the First Amendment, which said Congress shall make “no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Such protections were applied to all governments, of course. The courts wrestle with gray areas (commercial and corporate speech, pornography, political advertising), but our nation thankfully has tilted heavily in the direction of upholding the broadest speech rights. This legal framework has been bolstered by a broad consensus among the citizenry that speech rights are sacrosanct. There always have been those people who want to police speech, but they have largely been outliers.

The internet and the information free for all that’s followed have challenged that consensus. When I first got into the journalism business, Americans had limited access to information. We could read the daily newspaper, which didn’t cover many issues and where editors served as gatekeepers. We could watch the network news at 6 p. or subscribe to magazines. There was no internet or cable news. Talk radio was in its infancy. Now anyone can post anything online and traditional news sources are struggling.

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PROTECT Act Could Require Removal of All Existing Porn Online

Is Congress really trying to outlaw all sex work? That’s what some people fear the Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking (PROTECT) Act would mean.

The bill defines “coerced consent” to include consent obtained by leveraging “economic circumstances”—which sure sounds like a good starting point for declaring all sex work “coercive” and all consent to it invalid. (Under that definition, in fact, most jobs could be considered nonconsensual.)

Looking at the bill as a whole, I don’t think this is its intent, nor is it likely be enforced that way. It’s mainly about targeting tech platforms and people who post porn online that they don’t have a right to post.

But should the PROTECT Act become law, its definition of consent could be used in other measures that do seek to target sex work broadly. And even without banning sex work, it could still wreak major havoc on sex workers, tech companies, and free speech and internet freedom more widely.

There are myriad ways it would do this. Let’s start by looking at how it could make all existing online porn against the law.

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Middle schooler kicked out of school for wearing t-shirt saying ‘There are only two genders’ has his day in court: Lawyer blasts school that ‘teaches there are unlimited genders’ for ‘censoring’ youngster

A Massachusetts student who was allegedly kicked out of his school for wearing a t-shirt with words stating that there are only two genders has appeared in court over the ordeal.

Liam Morrison, who is now in the eighth grade, claimed his father had to pick him up from John T. Nichols Jr. Middle School, in March when he refused to change.

His parents filed a federal free speech lawsuit against the town of Middleborough, the previous acting school principal Heather Tucker, the Middleborough School Committee and Middleborough Public Schools superintendent Carolyn J. Lyons.

Morrison appeared at the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston on Thursday wearing the same controversial ‘there are only two genders’ t-shirt.

He claims that by forcing him to change out of the shirt, the school district was stifling his First Amendment right to free speech and said officials ‘took away my ability to have a different opinion’.

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