Tag: 1st amendment

Most Important First Amendment Case You’ve Never Heard Of: Biden Regime Tries to Toss a Young Man in Jail for 10 Years for Anti-Hillary Memes

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important.

Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say.

Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny and compelling. Over the summer and fall of 2016, Mackey allegedly went by the nom-de-tweet Ricky Vaughn (after Charlie Sheen’s character in Major League) and collected tens of thousands of followers who found him funny and compelling. Mackey was not single-handedly responsible for getting Donald Trump elected. But the work he allegedly did along with dozens of others is what made Trump’s victory possible. An MIT analysis estimated that Ricky Vaughn was a bigger influence on the 2016 election than NBC News.

But for the regime, the specter of anonymous individuals making the system tremble was too much. And so, for more than two years, the regime has been battling to send Mackey to prison.

You might not know much about Mackey’s case. It’s far less notorious than the January 6 prosecutions, or the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. But in terms of how much the speech matters for American liberty, it is as important as either of those — perhaps more so. 

In January 2021, shortly after the January 6 incident inaugurated a national anti-MAGA crackdown, the Department of Justice charged Mackey with “conspiring … to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.”

Mackey’s offense? Illegal memes.

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Virginia Democrat Introduces Bill to ‘Remove Hate Speech From Public Places’

A Virginia Democrat has introduced a bill to “remove hate speech from public places.”

Del. Suhas Subramanyam introduced the bill in response to “antisemitic incidents” in the state.

If passed, the bill will require the government to remove any graffiti that is deemed to be hateful on the taxpayer’s dime, including on private property, if the owner fails to do so themselves.

“It’s been bad enough that we had to endure these incidents of racist and antisemitic graffiti, but it’s made worse when no one takes responsibility for the clean up and they remain in the public’s eye,” Subramanyam told WUSA9. “This bill would address that. Hate has no place in Virginia, and our diversity and unity is what makes us strong.”

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Dem Rep Lauds Bill To Make It Criminal For White People To Criticise Non White People

Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee suggested Monday that Tucker Carlson could be the first to be prosecuted under legislation she has introduced that would see any white person talking about ‘replacement theory’ be criminalized.

As previously noted, the legislation, known as The Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023, would categorise any speech that is found to have “inspired” a racially motivated crime as a ‘hate crime’.

The draconian law would effectively make an individual responsible for someone else’s crime if prosecutors were able to successfully argue that their political rhetoric was a motivating factor.

The bill also targets speech that “vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-white person or group” on social media.

If such content is “read, heard, or viewed by a person who engaged in the planning, development, preparation or perpetration of a white supremacy inspired hate crime,” even if misinterpreted, the creator of such content is guilty of conspiracy.

Appearing on perpetual race baiter Joy Reid’s show, Jackson Lee was asked “Does this bill allow potential prosecution of people like Tucker Carlson?”

“Because he is one of the people who promotes white supremacist ideology,” Reid further claimed.

“The bill has nothing to do with speech,” Lee asserted, adding “I was thinking about the pledge of allegiance and it says justice and equality for all. and I would offer to say that everyone deserves justice and equality.”

“It seems that the right wing extremists, the violent extremists, don’t want that to happen,” she further suggested.

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When Does an Ugly Facebook Message Qualify as an Illegal ‘True Threat’ of Violence? SCOTUS Will Decide.

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment,” the U.S. Supreme Court said in Texas v Johnson (1989), “it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” What that principle means in practice is that all sorts of vile and despicable speech—including hate speech—are constitutionally protected.

But the Court has also said that the First Amendment has its limits. One of them involves “true threats” of violence, which the Court in Virginia v. Black (2003) defined as “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” The First Amendment, the Court held, “permits” the government “to ban a ‘true threat.'”

Deciding what actually counts as a “true threat” is not such an easy task, however, as the Supreme Court seems to recognize. Last week, the Court agreed to hear arguments in Counterman v. Colorado, which asks, in the question presented to the Court, “whether, to establish that a statement is a ‘true threat’ unprotected by the First Amendment, the government must show that the speaker subjectively knew or intended the threatening nature of the statement, or whether it is enough to show that an objective ‘reasonable person’ would regard the statement as a threat of violence.”

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Democrat Introduces Legislation to Make White People Criticizing Minorities a Federal Crime

It may be MLK Day, but Democrats aren’t here for all that “content of character” stuff.

Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, long in the running for being the vapidest member of Congress (oops, did I just commit a crime?), has introduced legislation that could make political criticism by white people against minorities a federal crime.

In what can only be called a convoluted mess, the bill proposes that a white person who “vilifies” any non-white person and has their words end up on social media, accessible by “persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime,” would themselves be committing a federal crime.

The provision is so broad that you could drive a Mack truck through it. What is a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” under this statute? How is “replacement theory” defined? Because what Democrats call “replacement theory” as a way to silence Republicans is often not replacement theory at all but is just a reiteration of Democrat-admitted aims to use immigration to influence elections.

Further, the use of “or” in section (B) is important because it leaves “vilifies” as a stand-alone qualifier. What is the limiting principle there? If I post on social media that Shelia Jackson Lee is an incredibly ignorant, abusive person who has a long history of treating her staff like dirt, does that mean I’ve “vilified” her under this proposed law? It would certainly seem so.

Then there’s the conspiracy angle to deal with. It does not appear that there’s actually any requirement that the “two or more persons” targeted under this statute have any real connection to one another. If someone commits a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” against a person and I’ve likewise been politically criticizing that same person on social media, even justifiably, I would have now committed a federal crime myself.

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Louisiana’s new law requiring age verification on adult websites is driving uptake of digital ID

Downloads of Louisiana’s state digital ID app have substantially increased because of a new Republican law requiring adult websites to verify the age of visitors with ID.

Since Dec. 31, the day before the law took effect, downloads of LA Wallet increased from a daily average of between 1,200 and 1,500 to over 5,000.

The increase in downloads and site visits coincided with the Jan. 1 implementation of the state law requiring adult websites to verify the age of visitors or be held responsible for distributing harmful content to children.

The law was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Laurie Schlegel, who said that she saw the harm caused by pornographic content while working as a couples therapist and decided that websites should start requiring users to show ID.

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MIT Goes Against the Grain, Releases a Stunning Statement Endorsing Free Speech

Surprise — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology endorses students’ liberty to engage in offensive speech…officially.

In contrast to castigations of “hate speech” and the increasingly common notion that “hate speech isn’t free speech,” MIT is siding with the Constitution.

On December 21st, the Cambridge private land-grant research university released a Free Expression Statement.

From the document:

Free expression is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition of a diverse and inclusive community. We cannot have a truly free community of expression if some perspectives can be heard and others cannot. Learning from a diversity of viewpoints, and from the deliberation, debate, and dissent that accompany them, are essential ingredients of academic excellence.

Free expression promotes creativity by affirming the ability to exchange ideas without constraints. It not only facilitates individual autonomy and self-fulfillment, it provides for participation in collective decision-making and is essential to the search for truth and justice. … Academic freedom promotes scholarly rigor and the testing of ideas by protecting research, publication, and teaching from interference.

That principle means on-campus guests can’t be relegated to a single perspective:

A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.

The school makes clear things such as “direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment” won’t be protected. Furthermore, it expects “a collegial and respectful learning and working environment.”

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You Now Need a Government ID to Access Pornhub in Louisiana

A new law makes porn sites liable for content deemed “harmful to minors” if it doesn’t install age verification technology for anyone accessing them in Louisiana—and it’s already affecting how people in the state access Pornhub. 

The law, which was signed by Louisiana’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards in June, became effective on January 1, 2023. 

The law, passed as Act 440, states: 

“Any commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall be held liable if the entity fails to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.”

A “substantial portion” is 33.3 percent or more material on a site that’s “harmful to minors.” 

Material that’s harmful to minors, according to the act, is defined as appealing to prurient interests, and that consists of “pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or nipple of the female breast; Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals; Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation; flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act,” and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” for someone under 18 years of age. 

It also states that any commercial entity in violation will be liable “to an individual for damages resulting from a minor’s accessing the material.” 

Motherboard confirmed, through a virtual private network, that Pornhub is showing people visiting the site from a Louisiana-based IP address a page that requires identity verification before entering. “Louisiana law now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who connect to our site from Louisiana,” the page says.

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Twitter Files Reveal Politicians, Officials Evading the Constitution’s Restrictions

In recent years, social media firms, financial institutions, and hosting platforms have denied services to disfavored customers, sometimes for political reasons. The response from many quarters (myself included) has been that people have free association rights and can generally do business as they please.

But what if these outfits are private-ish, enacting policy on behalf of politicians to spare them pushback or allow for end-runs around constitutional protections? They do so out of ideological agreement, fear of government retaliation, or a mix of both. That messy scenario is what the Twitter Files reveal of the relationship between the social media giant and federal officials. It’s a glimpse of a bigger problem.

“The United States government pressured Twitter to elevate certain content and suppress other content about COVID-19 and the pandemic,” wrote David Zweig of The Free Press, who joined Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Free Press founder Bari Weiss in revealing Twitter’s collaboration with the state at the request of new owner Elon Musk. “Internal emails that I viewed at Twitter showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s content according to their wishes.”

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also leaned on the platform to suppress what officials considered election-related “misinformation.” The files revealed internal disputes over what crossed the line, with decisions based on judgment calls. The employment of former feds and what The Dispatch‘s David French terms “an ideological monoculture” ensured that such decisions generally deferred to authority, especially after the Biden administration took office.

But Twitter isn’t a special case. In 2021, President Joe Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” by allowing discussion of government-disfavored ideas about COVID-19 response. “White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki singled out a dozen specific anti-vaccine Facebook accounts and called on the platform to ban them,” Reason‘s Robby Soave noted at the time.

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Dem Senator Claims “Hate” is Not Protected by First Amendment, Later Admits He’s Wrong

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin suggested that “hate” is “not protected under the First Amendment” during a hearing, but later had to clarify that he was wrong.

The Maryland lawmaker made the comments while speaking with US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Deborah Lipstadt and American Jewish Committee Director of International Jewish Affairs Rabbi Andrew Baker.

“If you espouse hate, if you espouse violence, you’re not protected under the First Amendment,” Cardin falsely claimed.

“I think we can be more aggressive in the way that we handle that type of use of the internet,” he added, suggesting such content should be censored by Big Tech and the state.

It goes without saying that the term “hate” is completely arbitrary and has been weaponized by the left to chill scrutiny of everything from children being exposed to drag queens to legitimate criticism of public figures.

That’s why “hate” and even “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment.

Cardin was subsequently forced to correct himself on Twitter, writing, “Hate speech is protected under the #FirstAmendment, unless it incites violence.”

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