Tag: free speech

The Internet Dodges Censorship by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today refused to weaken one of the key laws supporting free expression online, and recognized that digital platforms are not usually liable for their users’ illegal acts, ensuring that everyone can continue to use those services to speak and organize.

The decisions in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh are great news for a free and vibrant internet, which inevitably depends on services that host our speech. The court in Gonzalez declined to address the scope of 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”), which generally protects users and online services from lawsuits based on content created by others. Section 230 is an essential part of the legal architecture that enables everyone to connect, share ideas, and advocate for change without needing immense resources or technical expertise. By avoiding addressing Section 230, the Supreme Court avoided weakening it.

In Taamneh, the Supreme Court rejected a legal theory that would have made online services liable under the federal Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act on the theory that members of terrorist organizations or their supporters simply used these services like we all do: to create and share content. The decision is another win for users’ online speech, as it avoids an outcome where providers censor far more content than they do already, or even prohibit certain topics or users entirely when they could later be held liable for aiding or abetting their user’s wrongful acts.

Given the potential for both decisions to have disastrous consequences for users’ free expression, EFF is pleased that the Supreme Court left existing legal protections for online speech legal in place.

But we cannot rest easy. There are pressing threats to users’ online speech as Congress considers legislation to weaken Section 230 and otherwise expand intermediary liability. Users must continue to advocate for their ability to have a free and open internet that everyone can use.

Keep reading

Here Are 7 Major Cases The Supreme Court Has Yet To Decide This Term

Among the dozens of opinions yet to be released by the Supreme Court this term are cases on affirmative action, compelled speech and social media companies’ liability for content posted on their platforms.

To date, the Court has released 18 opinions, issuing rulings that enabled those facing complaints from administrative agencies to press constitutional challenges in federal court and allowed a death row inmate’s request for a DNA test to proceed. But opinions in 40 more cases are expected to be released before the end of June, including some of the most consequential cases on this term’s docket.

Keep reading

St. Petersburg Uhuru members speak for first time since indictment

It’s a matter of free speech, says Omali Yeshitela, the longtime leader of the St. Petersburg-based Uhuru Movement and founder of the African People’s Socialist Party.

Yeshitela was indicted by a federal grand jury in Tampa last month and accused of working with Russian nationals to sow discord in the United States, spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence elections, along with two other members of the Uhuru Movement, Penny Joanne Hess and Jesse Nevel.

On Wednesday, the three Uhuru members spoke to the press for the first time since their indictment.

“I believe in free speech,” Yeshitela said at the news conference. “If I didn’t believe in free speech, I would never have said anything because they kill Black people for talking in this country.”

Yeshitela founded the African People’s Socialist Party in 1972. The Uhuru Movement is the party’s activist branch, started in the 1990s. The group supports reparations for Black people and has protested racism, colonialism and capitalism for decades. Hess and Nevel are the chairpersons of groups for white allies under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement, respectively.

Keep reading

Sen. Rand Paul Warns RESTRICT Act Would Allow Feds to Nullify First Amendment

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been a major critic of the RESTRICT Act, which has been sold to Congress and the public as a ban on TikTok.

He warned that it would authorize the federal government to censor any online communications it deems subversive and would nullify the First Amendment.

The popular social media app, which is controlled by a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, has more than 150 million monthly users in the United States alone and is used mainly by people under 30.

The app has been controversial for years, as concerns over security have led to several statewide bans of the app on government devices.

Legislation Faces More Opposition

Former President Donald Trump failed in his attempt to ban TikTok in the United States during his presidency, but momentum has been building ever since.

In April, President Joe Biden demanded that TikTok’s owners divest their stakes in the company or face a nationwide ban.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) co-sponsored the RESTRICT Act, which now has the support of over 20 senators, to give the Commerce Department the power to impose restrictions—up to and including outright bans—on TikTok and other technologies that may pose a national security risk.

It would mainly apply to foreign apps and software from countries deemed hostile to the United States, like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba.

The legislation also empowers the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally add any other country to the list.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the House would draw up a bill to address the Chinese app, but the timeline is unclear.

On May 5, Paul published a column on conservative news website Townhall, warning that the bill “bestows an astonishing amount of power to the Executive branch in a manner that the Chinese Communist Party would approve of.”

Keep reading

The War on Free Speech Is Really a War on the Right to Criticize the Government

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”— Justice William O. Douglas

Absolutely, there is a war on free speech.

To be more accurate, however, the war on free speech is really a war on the right to criticize the government.

Although the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom, every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.

Indeed, those who run the government don’t take kindly to individuals who speak truth to power.

In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

This is nothing new, nor is it unique to any particular presidential administration.

For instance, as part of its campaign to eradicate so-called “disinformation,” the Biden Administration likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative.

In his first few years in office, President Trump declared the media to be “the enemy of the people,” suggested that protesting should be illegal, and that NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.”

Then again, Trump was not alone in his presidential disregard for the rights of the citizenry, especially as it pertains to the right of the people to criticize those in power.

President Obama signed into law anti-protest legislation that makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest activities (10 years in prison for protesting anywhere in the vicinity of a Secret Service agent). The Obama Administration also waged a war on whistleblowers, which The Washington Post described as “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” and “spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records.”

Part of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush made it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful, lawful activity on behalf of any group designated by the government as a terrorist organization. Under this provision, even filing an amicus brief on behalf of an organization the government has labeled as terrorist would constitute breaking the law.

Keep reading

THE WAR ON FREE SPEECH IS REALLY A WAR ON THE RIGHT TO CRITICIZE THE GOVERNMENT

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”— Justice William O. Douglas

Absolutely, there is a war on free speech.

To be more accurate, however, the war on free speech is really a war on the right to criticize the government.

Although the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom, every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.

Indeed, those who run the government don’t take kindly to individuals who speak truth to power.

In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

This is nothing new, nor is it unique to any particular presidential administration.

Keep reading

Speak Your Truth: Don’t Let the Government Criminalize Free Speech

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington

What the police state wants is a silent, compliant, oblivious citizenry.

What the First Amendment affirms is an engaged citizenry that speaks truth to power using whatever peaceful means are available to us.

Speaking one’s truth doesn’t have to be the same for each person, and that truth doesn’t have to be palatable or pleasant or even factual.

We can be loud.

We can be obnoxious.

We can be politically incorrect.

We can be conspiratorial or mean or offensive.

We can be all these things because the First Amendment takes a broad, classically liberal approach to the free speech rights of the citizenry: in a nutshell, the government may not encroach or limit the citizenry’s right to freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and protest.

This is why the First Amendment is so critical.

It gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of retaliation, arrest or incarceration.

Nowhere in the First Amendment does it permit the government to limit speech in order to avoid causing offense, hurting someone’s feelings, safeguarding government secrets, protecting government officials, discouraging bullying, penalizing hateful ideas and actions, eliminating terrorism, combatting prejudice and intolerance, and the like.

When expressive activity crosses the line into violence, free speech protections end.

Keep reading

Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans For “Weaponized” Free Speech

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says “weaponized” the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ’s press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.

Keep reading

Is Telling Someone To ‘Die’ on Facebook Protected by the First Amendment?

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

But the Court also has said that the First Amendment has its limits. One of them involves “true threats” of violence. In the 2003 case Virginia v. Black, the justices defined that category 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 counts as a “true threat” is no easy task, however. In April, the justices heard oral arguments in Counterman v. Colorado, which asks “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.”

Billy Raymond Counterman was convicted under a Colorado anti-stalking law after sending a musician numerous Facebook messages from various accounts. “Fuck off permanently,” one message said. “You’re not being good for human relations,” said another. “Die. Don’t Need You.”

The state law under which Counterman was convicted makes it a crime to repeatedly make “any form of communication with another person….that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress and does cause that person….to suffer serious emotional distress.” Whether or not Counterman intended to convey a threat was immaterial under that law.

Keep reading