Tag: 1st amendment

Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Tennessee Man Over Facebook Meme

Last month, Tennessee authorities arrested a man for posting a Facebook meme, a clear violation of his First Amendment rights, and held him on a $2 million bond. This week, prosecutors dropped the case, but that doesn’t negate the weeks he spent in jail on a bogus charge.

As Reason previously reported, police arrested 61-year-old Larry Bushart for posting a meme on Facebook. In a thread about the murder of Charlie Kirk, Bushart posted a meme with a picture of President Donald Trump and the quote “We have to get over it,” which Trump said after a January 2024 shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa.

Sheriff Nick Weems of nearby Perry County said Bushart intentionally posted the meme to make people think he was referring to Perry County High School. “Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems told The Tennesseean.

On September 21, deputies arrested Bushart at his house and booked him on a charge of Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities, a felony that carries at least a year in prison. In body camera footage posted online by Liliana Segura of The Intercept, Bushart is incredulous when presented with the charge. “I don’t think I committed a crime,” he tells the officer, jokingly admitting that “I may have been an asshole.”

“That’s not illegal,” the officer replies as he leads Bushart into a cell.

Unfortunately, it was no laughing matter: A judge imposed a $2 million bond. Getting out on bail would require Bushart to come up with at least $210,000. According to the Perry County Circuit Court website, Bushart had a hearing scheduled for October 9, where he could file a motion for a reduced bond, but a court clerk told Reason that the hearing was “reset” for December 4. As a result, Bushart sat in jail for weeks.

Right away, it should have been clear how flimsy the case was. But the sheriff doubled down.

As Segura reported at The Intercept, Weems personally responded to people on Facebook suggesting Bushart was arrested because authorities misread a picture that briefly referenced a prior news event on the other side of the country. “We were very much aware of the meme being from an Iowa shooting,” Weems wrote. But it “created mass hysteria to parents and teachers…that led the normal person to conclude that he was talking about our Perry County High School.”

“Yet there were no public signs of this hysteria,” Segura notes. “Nor was there much evidence of an investigation—or any efforts to warn county schools.”

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Leftists Are Pushing for Global Speech Censorship

The Democratic Party, and the global Left in general, spent the last five years crying about “mis/disinformation” and the need for more oversight of social media platforms and the Internet in general. It is anathema to the people who think they are our moral and intellectual superiors that we might say, write, or think things with which they disagree.

In moves that would make George Orwell turn over in his grave, the Biden administration tried to force the “Disinformation Governance Board” on America. Turns out that board was born after a 2022 speech given by former President Barack Obama at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center — a speech that pushed for broad censorship of the Internet.

Michael Shellenberger is now sounding the alarm that global censorship is coming unless we stop it.

The entire post is long, but we’ll highlight the most salient (and alarming) points:

But now, foreign governments, including Europe, the UK, Brazil, Australia, and others are demanding censorship, including of the American people. The risk is that US tech companies will find it significantly less expensive to have a single global censorship regime and just go along with foreign censorship requests. Facebook complied with Biden administration demands to censor because it needed Biden’s help in dealing with European censorship officials. And the Brazilian government forced Elon Musk to continue censoring the Brazilian people after it froze Starlink’s assets.

And Public has discovered that the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, which is led by Obama’s former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, is at the heart of a new, secretive, and possibly illegal censorship initiative that appears even more ambitious than the one Obama proposed in 2022.

On September 24, the Cyber Policy Center hosted a secret dinner between its leaders and top censorship officials from Europe, UK, Brazil, California and Australia. The meeting was titled “Compliance and Enforcement in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape.” Frank McCourt, the same person behind the Stanford Internet Observatory, financed the gathering through his “Project Liberty Institute,” (PLI), toward which he gave $500 million to “strengthen democracy” and “foster responsible technology.”

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A D.C. Man Was Arrested for Mocking National Guard Troops with Star Wars’ ‘Imperial March.’ Now He’s Suing.

A Washington, D.C., resident who was handcuffed and detained in September for mocking National Guard soldiers by playing “The Imperial March” from Star Wars on his cellphone is suing the soldiers and police officers for their stormtrooper-like behavior.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of D.C. filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of Sam O’Hara, arguing that his detention violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights by cutting off his peaceful protest.

“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” O’Hara’s lawsuit states. “But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the District’s prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.”

After President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops to D.C., O’Hara began following National Guard soldiers around playing “The Imperial March” on his cell phone as a form of protest. His lawsuit says O’Hara wanted “to encourage the public to view the deployment as a waste of tax dollars, a needless display of force, and a surreal danger.”

According to his lawsuit, on September 11, O’Hara was tailing four Ohio National Guard soldiers and doing his usual bit. 

“Less than two minutes after the protest began,” the lawsuit says, “Sgt. [Devon] Beck turned around and said, ‘Hey man, if you’re going to keep following us, we can contact Metro PD and they can come handle you if that’s what you want to do. Is that what you want to do?'”

O’Hara allegedly did not respond but continued to follow, at which point the Empire decided to strike back. 

Beck called the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of Washington, D.C. The lawsuit claims that shortly after several MPD cars arrived. The MPD officers allegedly accused O’Hara of harassing the soldiers, and they detained and handcuffed him.

When O’Hara argued that he was engaged in protest, one of the MPD officers allegedly responded, “That’s not a protest. You better define protest. This isn’t a protest. You are not protesting.”

However, recording and mocking law enforcement are both firmly protected by the First Amendment, as long as one doesn’t interfere with their duties.

Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote in 1987, in a ruling striking down a Houston ordinance that made it unlawful to oppose or interrupt a police officer, that “the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

To put it another way, if you act like an autocratic villain when someone compares you to an autocratic villain, you just might be an autocratic villain.

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U.K. seeking to censor Americans again

Incredibly, the U.K. wants to enforce its draconian censorship laws in the United States.

According to Data Fidelity, an Australian tech site:

Internal communications now made public by the US House Judiciary Committee shed light on a pattern of escalating pressure by the UK’s “communications regulator,” Ofcom, aimed at pushing US-based tech platforms like Rumble and Reddit into adopting strict speech standards, even in apparent disregard for national boundaries and free speech protections.

The emails expose how Ofcom has been leaning on Rumble to align itself with the UK’s Online Safety Act, a censorship law that vastly expands the state’s oversight of online content under the guise of child protection and harm prevention.

Take to the internet or social media to criticize the LGBTQ community or Islam?

You may be paid a visit by the constabulary.

Criticize the U.K.’s leaders?

You might get to visit Scotland Yard.

Criticize gay, trans, or Muslim U.K. leaders?

God help you. (Not that many people in formerly Jolly Olde England believe in the God of the Bible anymore. Which may explain the current state of affairs in Britain.)

It is utterly preposterous that any nation, let alone one as diminished yet allegedly tolerant as the U.K., would seek to enforce and impose its own anti-speech, anti-freedom agenda on a foreign land.

Talk about digital colonization and cultural imperialism!

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After SCOTUS ignores ‘only two genders’ censorship, appeals court upholds ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ ban

Five months after Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas blasted their colleagues for refusing to review a ruling against a student punished for wearing an “Only Two Genders” shirt to school, a second federal appeals court has blessed another way for schools to clamp down on disfavored messages: the inference of vulgarity.

A divided 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a ban on “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts by Michigan’s Tri County Area Schools, ruling Tuesday that school administrators’ perception that the expression is code for “F— Joe Biden” renders it profane and thus exempt from students’ First Amendment rights in schools.

President Trump-nominated Judge John Nalbandian, who appeared to be the swing vote in oral argument, joined with President Clinton-nominated Judge Karen Nelson Moore to apply the SCOTUS precedent Fraser, which upheld a student’s discipline based on a “school assembly speech that had a rather elaborate sexual metaphor.”

This is despite the duo’s admission that “Let’s Go Brandon” has “a wide range of meanings” going back to its creation, when NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast falsely claimed crude chants against President Biden at a NASCAR race were support for driver Brandon Brown.

“Some saw it as merely a euphemism for what the crowd really said,” the majority said. “Others used it as a shibboleth to express antipathy” toward Biden and his policies, and yet others “used it to question what they perceived as liberal bias in the media—based on the theory that NBC had been trying to hide the anti-Biden sentiment on display at Talladega.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents the anonymous students who wore the sweatshirts, told Just the News it plans to appeal but hasn’t decided yet whether to go straight to SCOTUS or seek a full-court 6th Circuit review.

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UK Speech Regulator Ofcom Claims First Amendment Doesn’t Protect Americans From Its Censorship Law

If you’re going to cross an ocean to tell Americans what speech they can and can’t allow, the least you can do is not trip over your own jurisdictional nonsense on the way in.

Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, which has lately decided to try and become an international speech cop, managed to do exactly that.

But when the regulator began sending enforcement letters to small US platforms under its sweeping online censorship law, the Online Safety Act, it probably didn’t expect to trigger a constitutional ambush.

But that’s exactly what it got.

Preston Byrne, one of attorneys representing 4chan, Kiwi Farms, and two other American companies, said Ofcom had been sending “frankly asinine letters under English law.”

His clients, he explained, “are entirely American. All of their operations are American. All of their infrastructure is American, and they have no connection to the UK whatsoever.”

Despite this, Ofcom threatened the companies with “a £20,000 fine plus £100 daily penalties for 60 days thereafter.”

Byrne responded to Ofcom’s pressure by filing a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C.

The lawsuit was designed not only to challenge Ofcom’s jurisdiction but to force a contradiction into the open.

Byrne said the purpose of the lawsuit was threefold. One, to show the global censors that the resistance in the United States is now prepared to fight back, and they don’t have freedom of action.

Two, to assert hims client’s claims and defenses in a US court, and make the argument in front of a US federal judge.

And the third one was to provoke Ofcom into “doing something stupid, which is exactly what they did.”

After the case was filed, Ofcom sent what Byrne called “a 40-page letter of tremendous length, which is deeply unserious.”

Ofcom’s written response delivered exactly what Byrne says was needed: an explicit admission that Ofcom doesn’t “think US law applies on US soil and that they’re going to use [the argument of] sovereign immunity.”

This was more than a legal contradiction; it was a political one that directly undercuts the British government’s public assurances.

“This rather undermines the British government’s assertions that it’s made time and again, including to the President, to his face, that the British government is not using its sovereign power to censor American citizens,” Byrne said.

In its official notice to 4chan, Ofcom made an extraordinary admission which, in trying to assert its authority, effectively undercut its entire legal position.

The regulator wrote: “We also note 4chan’s claim that it is protected from enforcement action taken by Ofcom because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the First Amendment binds only the US government and not overseas bodies, such as Ofcom, and therefore, it does not affect Ofcom’s powers to enforce the Act in this case.”

This reveals the fundamental flaw in Ofcom’s claim to authority over American companies.

By asserting that the First Amendment “binds only the US government,” Ofcom admits it stands entirely outside the US constitutional order, yet it simultaneously claims the right to enforce UK speech law against US entities operating solely on US soil.

Ofcom cannot have it both ways: it cannot disclaim the reach of US law while insisting that British law somehow extends across the Atlantic.

If the First Amendment has no force on Ofcom’s actions in the United States, then neither does the UK’s censorship law, the Online Safety Act, which has no legal effect beyond the UK.

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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Project Veritas Challenge to State Law Blocking Secret Recording

The Supreme Court has decided against hearing an investigative journalism organization’s First Amendment-based challenge to a decades-old Oregon law prohibiting most secret recordings of oral conversations.

Undercover journalism group Project Veritas had argued that the state’s conversational privacy statute violated the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 9–2 in January that the law did not violate the group’s free speech rights.

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition in Project Veritas v. Vasquez without comment in an unsigned order on Oct. 6. No justices dissented.

The respondents were sued in their official capacities. One is Nathan Vasquez, district attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon; the other is Dan Rayfield, attorney general of Oregon.

In its April 7 petition, Project Veritas described Oregon’s audio recording law as “a national outlier” because it requires that “anyone in almost any conversation [be informed] that their words are being recorded.”

This requirement “severely hampers modern investigative journalism” and undermines the First Amendment “by effectively prohibiting the use of today’s most powerful reporting tools—discreet audio recordings,” the petition states.

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Massachusetts parents lose foster license after refusing to sign gender affirming policy for kids

A devout Christian couple has been stripped of their foster license after refusing to sign a gender-affirming policy they say conflicts with their faith.

Lydia and Heath Marvin, from Woburn, Massachusetts, have looked after eight children under the age of four since 2020, including many infants and toddlers with serious medical needs.

But the couple say social workers pulled their license because they refused to sign a clause requiring foster parents to ‘support, respect, and affirm a foster child’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.’

It put them in a position where they were essentially forced them to choose between their religion and the vulnerable children they had dedicated their lives to helping.

‘We were told you must sign the form as is or you will be delicensed,’ Lydia told WBZ. ‘We will absolutely love and support and care for any child in our home, but we simply can’t agree to go against our Christian faith in this area. 

‘Our Christian faith, it really drives us toward that,’ husband Heath explained. ‘[The Book of James] says that true, undefiled religion is to care for the fatherless.’

The Marvins say they were blindsided by the decision. Their last foster child, a baby with complex medical needs, lived with them for 15 months. 

‘Every night for 15 months, we were up at least three times,’ Lydia said. ‘We certainly thought we would have young children in our home for… we didn’t know how long, but we were not done.’

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Kentucky Man Jailed Over Halloween Decorations That Depicted Local Public Officials Being Hanged

A Kentucky man was arrested over the weekend after placing Halloween decorations in his front yard that depicted fake bodies labeled with titles of local government officials.

According to WKYT-TV, a 58-year-old Powell County man named Stephan Marcum was taken into custody Saturday after being accused of terroristic threatening.

People passing by the man’s home in the community of Stanton saw a Halloween display they found rather haunting.

Commonwealth Attorney Miranda King reported the scene to the Kentucky State Police.

The decorations included body bags marked with the titles of local officials, although no names were on the effigies.

According to an arrest citation, Marcum was taken into custody not long after.

“This is something you just don’t see every day,” Powell County Judge Executive Eddie Barnes, whose title was on one of the bags, told WKYT.

Even though Barnes was not named in the display, he said he was bothered.

“At first I didn’t know what to think about it because I actually drove by and [saw] it in his yard and I’m thinking, you know, ‘Wow, you know, that’s kinda harsh,’” Barnes said.

Barnes said he has known Marcum for decades.

The judge told WKYT he views Marcum as someone who can be “a good person,” and was confused by the Halloween display.

University of Kentucky Political Science Associate Professor Stephen Voss told WKYT that Marcum’s display was not protected by the First Amendment.

“If you’re actively threatening someone in a terrorizing way, that may not be covered by the general right to free expression,” Voss said.

“I think we’re seeing a little bit less tolerance for violent communication or violent imagery because there seems to be a greater risk people will enact it or carry it out,” he added.

WKYT reported that Marcum was held at the Powell County Detention Center on a $5,000 bond.

Police said the Halloween decorations were collected and taken to a nearby Kentucky State Police station.

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California “Hate Speech” Bill Would Crush Dissent

If enacted and it somehow clears legal challenges, California Senate Bill 771 will be the first online censorship law of its kind in America. It would also likely pave a path for other states run by people with no tolerance for dissent.    

On September 22, the California Legislature sent SB 771 to Governor Gavin Newsom. He has until October 13 to sign it. If he doesn’t veto or sign the proposal, it becomes law anyway.

Mainstream media outlets claim that SB 771 “targets social media platforms for the role they could play in aiding and abetting in hate crimes by pushing content that could lead to a hate crime.”

The bill allows people to sue social-media companies for up to $1 million per violation. If the litigant is a minor, the fine could double.

Tucker Carlson’s analysis of the bill is more accurate than the mainstream media’s. Carlson:

That’s a censorship law.… The state of California, under Gavin Newsom, is about to — we think — censor the opinions of Americans, not to protect anybody, but to shield themselves from criticism so they continue to do what they want to do in secret.

Coerced Censorship

The bill uses broad terms that make it easy to justify censorship. It reads:

California law prohibits all persons and entities, including corporations, from engaging in, aiding, abetting, or conspiring to commit acts of violence, intimidation, or coercion based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or other protected characteristics.

Merriam Webster defines “intimidated” as “to make timid or fearful.” Synonyms include “bully” and “frighten.” Fear and intimidation are subjective emotions that have significantly increased among America’s younger and more unstable generations. People are swimming in pools of victimhood and mental illness today. We constantly hear about a spike in anxiety. What happens when we create laws that allow litigation on the basis of largely subjective emotions?

But the more likely primary intent here is to coerce social-media companies into pre-censoring. The senior vice president of social-media company Parler, Elise Pierotti, said of the bill:

SB 771 isn’t about protecting civil rights, it’s California’s brazen attempt to export its one-party censorship regime to every corner of the internet. This bill hands Sacramento the power to bully platforms into preemptively scrubbing dissent on everything from border security to parental rights. We’ve seen Big Tech abuse vague “hate speech” rules to throttle conservatives for years, including shutting down our platform in 2021; now, lawmakers want to make it mandatory with teeth-shattering fines. This must be stopped before it buries the First Amendment.

Shoshana Weissmann, director of digital media at the R Street Institute, also suspects this is the drafter’s main agenda. She told the Daily Caller that “rather than risk liability for showing users content one could argue (even if it doesn’t actually) violate a law, platforms will over-moderate and remove posts in order to stay out of court.”

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