Tag: 1st amendment

Trad Catholic Family Dragged Out of Home at Gunpoint, Locked in Van After FBI ‘Goaded’ Teen to Post Offensive Memes, Dad Says

Atraditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post  “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.

The FBI’s aggressive “investigation” only resulted in a misdemeanor conviction against the boy for breach of peace, but financially devastated the family with substantial legal expenses.

The FBI targeted the boy as part of a sting operation catfishing traditionalist Catholic teenagers with “extreme political content,” Rufini explained in the family’s GiveSendGo crowdfunding site. 

The family’s difficulties began early in 2023 when Rufini’s father became too ill from chemotherapy to work at the family business or care for his 93 year-old grandmother who lives in an in-law apartment at his home.

The home-schooled 15 year-old took on the responsibility of caring for his great grandmother until his father got home from work each day.

“It was a very stressful time, compounded by several unrelated deaths in the family that happened in the same time period,” Rufini explained. The long hours alone with his grandmother led the boy, equipped with a brand new cell phone, to become ensnared in an FBI scheme targeting trad Catholics.

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The Backpage Defendants Never Stood a Chance

Eighty-six counts of criminal activity—that’s what veteran journalist and publisher Michael Lacey faced in the federal case against him, a saga kicked off by federal agents raiding his house and shutting down a website he co-founded in 2004, Backpage. A saga that has stretched on for more than five years, through multiple judges, one mistrial, and the death of Lacey’s longtime business partner James Larkin. A case premised on a moral panic that previewed tactics threatening to all sorts of speech.

One count of international concealment money laundering—that’s the only charge of which a jury found Lacey guilty. Lacey’s offense? Moving money from a U.S. bank to a Hungarian bank in 2017.

Transferring money between bank accounts doesn’t seem like it should be a crime. Then again, neither does most of the underlying activity in this case—consensual hookups between adults; providing a platform for sex-worker speech; letting people pay for services with Bitcoin, and so on.

The Department of Justice claimed this was about “keeping women and children across America safe” from sex trafficking. But behind that bravado, the government’s actual case was clearly something less noble. A performance of protection. A publicity stunt. A massive scapegoating set against the backdrop of a moral panic. And a politicized prosecution against people who engaged in and defended the most dangerous thing to any government: free speech.

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Democrats Ignore The First Amendment With Censorship Demand Letter To X

A group of over 25 Democratic members of Congress have raised allegations against X, once again ignoring the First Amendment and calling for online censorship.

They assert that the company is both allowing and profiting from the dissemination of false and violent content, particularly regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

On Tuesday, these lawmakers, including notable figures such as Reps. Dan Goldman, Jamie Raskin, Jerry Nadler, Bennie Thompson, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff, addressed a letter to Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, and Elon Musk, its owner.

We obtained a copy of the pressure letter for you here.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul Announces Plans to Implement Pre-Crime Surveillance, Target Online “Hate”

In a press conference today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined her administration’s aggressive new strategy for combating online “hate” and implementing pre-crime-esque online surveillance.

As part of this approach, New York’s Threat Assessment and Management Teams (TAM teams), which were established in August 2022 in response to the Buffalo mass shooting, will extend their efforts and start targeting speech surrounding the conflict in the Middle East, with a focus on preventing crimes before they occur. TAM teams will be given an additional $3 million investment for their implementation across New York State college campuses.

“We’re creating strategies, first time ever, to help identify hate at the source and prevent crimes before they occur,” Hochul said.

The TAM teams, primarily focused on tracking and stopping violent acts of hate, work in collaboration with mental health professionals. They establish reporting systems for red flags and provide training to identify early warning signs of radicalization. This initiative, while seemingly noble in its intent to protect New Yorkers, raises significant privacy and First Amendment concerns.

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Backpage: The Monumental Free Speech Case the Media Ignored

After a dozen years of legal tussles, seven years in the crosshairs of ambitious prosecutors, and five-and-a-half years fighting a federal case that saw his business forcibly shuttered, his assets seized, and his longtime partner dead by suicide, alt-weekly newspaper impresario Michael Lacey was found guilty Thursday on just one of the 86 criminal charges levied against him in connection with the online advertising platform Backpage. But the government’s fanatical pursuit of Lacey and his four other Backpage co-defendants is far from over. 

Lacey, an award-winning investigative journalist, was found guilty of international concealment money laundering, which could land him in prison for up to 20 years, and not guilty of international promotional money laundering. But after a week of contentious deliberations, the jury could not come to agreement on the other 84 charges, prompting U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to declare a second mistrial in this case. That means Lacey could face a third federal trial essentially for the crime of running a classified ads site that knowingly enabled and profited from illegal, if consensual, transactions involving sex.

Thanks to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, the speech and conduct of website consumers is considered to be the legal responsibility of the speakers themselves, not the owners of the platform. This has been a thorn in the side of politicians and other would-be censors ever since. In 2013, Kamala Harris and 46 other state attorneys general sent a joint letter to Congress urging a rollback of Section 230; the letter started like this: “Every day, children in the United States are sold for sex. In instance after instance, state and local authorities discover that the vehicles for advertising the victims of the child sex trade to the world are online classified ad services, such as Backpage.com.”

Seven weeks before her election to the U.S. Senate, Harris, along with her Texas counterpart Ken Paxton, brought the first criminal case against Lacey, his partner Jim Larkin, and other executives at Backpage, who were paraded in a Sacramento courtroom cage wearing orange jumpsuits. That case was tossed out by a judge who pointed out: “Congress did not wish to hold liable online publishers for the action of publishing third party speech….It is for Congress, not this court, to revisit.” 

But just three days before leaving the A.G.’s office for the Senate, Harris filed yet another Backpage case, which was yet again thrown out (partially) because of Section 230. Once in Congress, Harris helped push through the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, which does peel back Section 230 to make websites liable for the “facilitation” or “promotion” of prostitution by their users, even though prostitution itself is not a federal crime. 

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Governor Kathy Hochul Says New York Has Started Conducting Special Media “Surveillance Efforts” To Monitor “Hate”

In response to escalating incidents of harassment, particularly against Jewish and Muslim communities, New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul is today intensifying the state’s counterterrorism measures and is boosting the controversial practice of surveilling social media platforms, and therefore the speech of New Yorkers and other American citizens.

This measure follows ongoing tension in Israel and Gaza. Hochul revealed plans for enhancing the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel and assigning an extra $2.5 million to the State Police.

“…we’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts, what’s being said on social media platforms, and we have launched an effort to be able to counter some of the negativity and reach out to people,” Hochul said.

“When we see hate speech being spoken about on online platforms, our media analysis, our social media analysis unit has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence, direct threats to others.

“And all this is in response to our desire, our strong commitment to ensure that not only do New Yorkers be safe, but they also feel safe.”

This isn’t the first time Hochul has stuck her nose into monitoring online speech.

A New York law aimed at regulating “hateful conduct” online was blocked by a judge. This law, signed by Governor Hochul, required social media networks to report and address hateful conduct, broadly defined as actions that vilify or incite violence based on various identity factors.

Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. ruled that the law violated the First Amendment, emphasizing the importance of protecting even hateful speech. The court argued that the law not only restricted the speech of social media users but also compelled social media networks to adopt and endorse the state’s definition of hateful conduct.

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He Was Strip-Searched and Jailed for Criticizing Cops. Now He’s Fighting Back in Court.

In July 2017, Louisiana woman Nanette Krentel was shot in the head and left in a burning house. More than two years passed before anyone was arrested. That person, however, wasn’t alleged to be the murderer. Rather, the sole arrest related to Krentel’s death was that of Jerry Rogers Jr. His crime: criticizing the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office (STPSO) for its slow investigation of the case, which remains unsolved.

Naturally, Rogers sued the department for violating his rights. In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that his lawsuit against Sheriff Randy Smith, Chief Danny Culpeper, and Sgt. Keith Canizaro may proceed, confirming they violated clearly established law when they punished Rogers for his speech.

In 2019, the STPSO caught wind that Rogers had denounced the lead investigator, Detective Daniel Buckner, whom Rogers characterized in an email as “clueless.” To pore over his messages, the police obtained what was likely an illegal search warrant, as it listed the qualifying offense as “14:00000,” which does not exist.

Police then arrested, strip-searched, and detained Rogers. He was ultimately released on bond, and the Louisiana Department of Justice declined to prosecute the case. But the primary goal was likely retaliation by humiliation: Before Rogers was booked, the cops publicized a press release about his arrest. Canizaro testified that this was the only time he could remember the office following that order of operations. They also filed a formal complaint with Rogers’ employer, another action that Canizaro said the STPSO had never taken.

Lawyers with the district attorney’s office told police it would be unconstitutional to use Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute to arrest Rogers; the statutory language protecting public officials from criticism was rendered unconstitutional decades ago. Despite this warning from prosecutors, officers not only forged ahead with the arrest, they also sought qualified immunity when Rogers sued. This required them to attest that no reasonable officer could have known that what they were doing was unconstitutional.

The 5th Circuit rejected their argument, and its ruling buttresses the notion that victims are entitled to recourse when the government retaliates against their speech.

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Yes, Anti-Israel Protests Are Free Speech

Last Friday, a group of college students penned a guest essay in The New York Times arguing that the wave of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine activity on many college campuses isn’tA New legitimate free expression—and that universities have a “moral responsibility” to combat it.

“Free speech, open debate and heterodox views lie at the core of academic life,” wrote Gabriel Diamond, Talia Dror, and Jillian Lederman, students at Yale, Cornell, and Brown respectively. “They are fundamental to educating future leaders to think and act morally. The reality on some college campuses today is the opposite: open intimidation of Jewish students. Mob harassment must not be confused with free speech.”

The authors point out several examples of clearly unprotected speech that have unfolded in recent weeks, such as online posts made by a Cornell student who threatened to “shoot up” a kosher dining hall, as well as several instances of physical violence against Jewish students.

However, many of the other examples the authors single out are blatantly First Amendment–protected expression.

“Masked students have chanted slogans such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ which many view as a call for the destruction of Israel. Others have shouted, ‘There is only one solution, intifada revolution,'” they write. Additionally, Diamond, Dror, and Lederman noted several examples of professors who made offensive statements about the terrorist attack, lamenting that “to the best of our knowledge, none of these professors have received meaningful discipline, much less dismissal.”

Despite their claimed commitments, the authors make a plain-faced call for censorship by invoking university speech codes.

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House Drops Bombshell Report Revealing Much Deeper Fed Collusion With ‘Free Speech Police’ Than Previously Known

In the runup to the 2020 election, cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and Stanford University decided they had discovered a major problem. 

The issue was not compromised voter rolls or corrupted election tallies but a “gap” in the government’s authority to clamp down on what it considered misinformation and disinformation – a gap identified by DHS officials and interns on loan to the agency from the Stanford Internet Observatory. Given what SIO research manager Renee DiResta described as the “unclear legal authorities” and “very real First Amendment questions” regarding this gap, the parties hatched a plan to form a public-private partnership that would provide DHS with an avenue to surreptitiously censor speech. 

The collaboration between DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the Stanford outfit would quickly expand into a robust operation whose full extent is only now becoming clear. RealClearInvestigations has obtained from House investigators records revealing in previously undisclosed detail the nature and mechanics of the operation – the SIO-led Election Integrity Partnership.  

They show at a granular level the thousands of tweets and Facebook posts on topics from mail-in voting to aberrant election results – arguably core protected speech – that the public-private partnership flagged to social media platforms for censorship, much of which the platforms would suppress. 

The evidence shows EIP – sometimes alongside CISA – pressuring platforms to target speech that included statements by then-President Trump; opinions about election integrity rooted in government records and even think-tank white papers; and speculative tweets from statesmen and everyday citizens alike. RCI details notable instances here. 

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Elon Musk’s Free Speech Stance Is “Dangerous”, Columbia Journalism Fellow Warns

A Columbia University journalism fellow said Elon Musk’s support for free speech on X, formerly known as Twitter, is both “immoral” and “dangerous.”

Anika Navaroli used to work on Twitter’s “Trust and Safety Team,” the unit within the company that censored information, oftentimes true. Musk eliminated the team. She now is a senior fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

“What has now become clear is that Musk’s vision of speech on X is one of the greatest dangers to democracy, especially leading into the 2024 elections,” Navaroli (pictured) wrote on Thursday in The Hill.

She praised workers like herself for “thanklessly” working behind the scenes to defend “institutions.”

Navoli and her co-workers, in her telling, “were one of the last defenses to American democracy leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on Congress” which “led ultimately to our deplatforming former President Donald Trump.”

She wrote:

Much like poll workers, social media trust and safety workers toil thanklessly and behind the scenes for years to protect the safety and integrity of our most vital democratic institutions. Rather than invest in that crucial work, Musk took a page out of Trump’s playbook, repeatedly and publicly attacking trust and safety workers. He unleashed the Twitter Files, which revealed the names, images, and contact information of former Twitter trust and safety employees.

The journalism fellow said speech is “evolving,” “complicated,” and “sticky.”

“It requires tradeoffs, flexibility, and tough decisions. It shouldn’t be dictated by an autocratic CEO with absolutist ideologies,” Navoli wrote, repeating prior statements she has made on the subject.

“Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom,” she previously said during a Congressional hearing.

“So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the winds so that people can speak freely.”

She is correct in that our conceptions of speech are complicated – I do not think there is some broad First Amendment right for the authors of pornographic books targeting kids to have their works in libraries.

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