Free Speech

Ben Cardin, Free Speech, And The Art Of The Dodge

September 16, 2017 Kim Jensen, www.mondoweiss.net Resist! Free Speech, Health Care

By Kim Jensen for Mondoweiss - It’s 4:30 pm, and I’m driving from Baltimore down to Rockville, Maryland to join in a protest at Senator Ben Cardin’s Town Hall meeting on healthcare, but also to report on that protest for Mondoweiss. I turn on the radio. NPR is airing a segment on Hunter S. Thompson, which is entirely fitting, because I have already been planning to engage in a little gonzo journalism myself. In other words, I’ll be covering a story that I’m also part of, without the slightest pretense of neutrality. Unlike Hunter S. Thompson’s, my car isn’t stocked with cannabis, booze, and hallucinogens; I have, however, scored some McDonald’s. It’s a bad look, but believe me this is not for recreational use. I’m driving, digging into a pile of fries and guacamole burger on “artisanal bun,” and thinking about the impending encounter with our long-standing AIPAC representative, Senator Cardin, co-sponsor of the dangerous anti-BDS bill snaking its way through both houses of Congress. Under the current terms of the bipartisan Israel Anti-Boycott Act—which the ACLU forcefully opposes—businesses, organizations, and even individuals who join in the international movement to boycott and divest from the state of Israel can potentially face astronomical fines and even jail time. As might be expected, my stomach begins to churn.

In Europe, Hate Speech Laws Used To Suppress Left-Wing Viewpoints

August 31, 2017 Glenn Greenwald, www.theintercept.com Educate! Europe, Free Speech, Left Politics

By Glenn Greenwald for The Intercept - TERRORIST ATTACKS, and the emotions they spawn, almost always prompt calls for fundamental legal rights to be curtailed in the name of preventing future attacks. The formula by now is routine: The victims of the horrific violence are held up as proof that there must be restrictions on advocating whatever ideology motivated the killer to act. In 2006, after a series of attacks carried out by Muslims, Republican Newt Gingrich called for “a serious debate about the First Amendment” so that “those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction, and those who would target civilians are, in fact, subject to a totally different set of rules.” Of Islamic radicals, the former U.S. speaker of the House argued that they do not believe in the Constitution or free speech, and the U.S. should thus “use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people.” In an essay defending his remarks, Gingrich argued that “free speech should not be an acceptable cover for people who are planning to kill other people who have inalienable rights of their own,” adding that “the fact is not all speech is permitted under the Constitution.”

EFF Urges Stronger Oversight Of DOJ’s Digital Search Of J20 Protestor Website

August 28, 2017 Stephanie Lacambra, www.eff.org Resist! DOJ, Free Speech, Inauguration, Investigation

By Stephanie Lacambra for EFF - District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Morin ruled today that DreamHost must comply with federal prosecutors’ narrowed warrant seeking communications and records about an Inauguration Day protest website: disruptj20.org; but they will have to present the court with a “minimization plan” that includes the names of all government investigators who will have access to the data and a list of all the methods that they will be using to search the evidence. This is an important step in ensuring judicial oversight of the government’s digital search. While we are glad to see that the judge is taking steps to oversee the government's “narrowed” search, EFF has long warned against the problems with the two-step approach of overseizure of digital information followed by a search of the information for evidence responsive to the warrant. Because of the vast troves of data that the government has access to in these cases, it risks executing a general search, the very danger that the Fourth Amendment is meant to guard against. As the en banc 9th Circuit warned in 2010:“The process of segregating electronic data that is seizable from that which is not must not become a vehicle for the government to gain access to data which it has no probable cause to collect.”

“Free Speech” Bills Could Chill Campus Activism Nationwide

August 12, 2017 Brad Poling, www.occupy.com Resist! Activism, Free Speech, Higher Education, Legislation

By Brad Poling for Occupy - Universities across the country may be on the precipice of a new era in activism, politics and – in the most basic sense – expression. Motivated in part by recent high-profile protests against controversial speakers, at least 10 states are currently considering some variation of a bill proposed by the conservative Goldwater Institute that would implement punitive measures for students involved in protests on campuses. The bill also curtails public universities' ability to take a stand on “controversial” issues – without providing a lot of guidance about what exactly these controversies may include. The states proposing the bill – California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina – have introduced slight variations of the original into their statehouses. But each bill is marked by gray areas and vague uncertainties that pose a serious threat to the very thing they seek to defend: free speech. For example, take Wisconsin’s bill, the Campus Free Speech Act. Considering how smoothly the legislation progressed through the state’s Republican-dominated Assembly, it has generated a fair amount of confusion as to how exactly the law would work.

Comply Or Die: Police State’s Answer To Free Speech Is Brute Force

July 17, 2017 John W. Whitehead, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Free Speech, Freedom of Speech, Police State, police terror, State Terror, State Violence

By John W. Whitehead for Counter Punch - Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo. This police overkill isn’t just happening in troubled hot spots such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., where police brutality gave rise to civil unrest, which was met with a militarized show of force that caused the whole stew of discontent to bubble over into violence. A decade earlier, the NYPD engaged in mass arrests of peaceful protesters, bystanders, legal observers and journalists who had gathered for the 2004 Republican National Convention. The protesters were subjected to blanket fingerprinting and detained for more than 24 hours at a “filthy, toxic pier that had been a bus depot.” That particular exercise in police intimidation tactics cost New York City taxpayers nearly $18 million for what would become the largest protest settlement in history. Demonstrators, journalists and legal observers who had gathered in North Dakota to peacefully protest the Dakota Access Pipeline reported being pepper sprayed, beaten with batons, and strip searched by police.

ACLU-DC Sues D.C. Police For False Arrests, Free Speech Violations

June 24, 2017 Staff, www.acludc.org Resist! ACLU, Free Speech, Police, Police abuse, Washington DC

By Staff of ACLU - WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia today filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia, Metropolitan Police Department officers, and D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham for making unconstitutional arrests, using excessive force, denying arrested people food, water, and access to toilets, and invasive bodily searches of protesters exercising their First Amendment rights on Inauguration Day. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a legal observer, a photojournalist, and two others arrested that day. While the overwhelming majority of Inauguration Day protesters demonstrated peacefully, a small number caused property damage. In response to the vandalism, MPD officers employed a controversial crowd-control tactic known as “kettling,” where officers corralled more than 200 protesters—including many who had broken no laws—by trapping and detaining them for several hours before formally arresting them. Officers also deployed nonlethal crowd-control devices—including pepper spray, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, concussion grenades, and smoke flares—upon protesters and others both on the street and inside the kettle, without warning or threat of harm to officers or other members of the public.

Take Action To Protect Our Internet!

May 13, 2017 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Petitions and Online Actions FCC, Free Speech, Internet freed, Media, Net Neutrality

By Popular Resistance. Tell Ajit Pai to protect net neutrality. In 2014 the people fought the Giant Telecoms to win reclassification of the Internet as a common carrier under the Obama administration. This success gave us Net Neutrality - everyone can go wherever they want on the Internet. Now, under the Trump administration, the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, is moving quickly to take net neutrality away! He plans to start that process on May 18 unless we stop him. Send him an email now!

Convicted For Protesting Jeff Sessions Is No Laughing Matter

May 7, 2017 Tighe Barry, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Criminal Justice, DOJ, Free Speech, Government

By Tighe Barry. In the recent past, frivolous charges like these would have been thrown out of court. But, Trump and his cronies in the Justice Department are going out of their way to crackdown on dissent, especially in the form of nonviolent protest. Republican officials are jumping on Trump’s bigoted bandwagon to restrict liberties at the local, state and national level. We see laws being passed in over a dozen states to make protesting a crime, while at the same time, North Dakota has passed a law where running over a protester is not a crime. We see state laws being passed to criminalize campaigns that support Palestinian rights. We see that over 200 people who protested Trump's inauguration have been prosecuted and charged with ridiculous offenses, such as felony rioting charges. We should see our Justice Department prosecuting real criminals, like those responsible for war, not convicting people for laughing in Congress. Unless we rise up and demand our first amendment right to dissent, then the joke will be on the American people. And that is no laughing matter.

Library Worker Heroically Defends Patron’s Free Speech

October 1, 2016 Chip Gibbons, www.bordc.org Resist! Free Speech, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Chip Gibbons for BORDC - “For someone to be assaulted and then arrested for asking a question, in a public library of all places, is abhorrent. The library should be a place where people of all points of view can feel safe and welcome,” Steve Woolfolk, director of public programing at the Kansas City Public Library told the Dissent NewsWire. But that is exactly what happened during a question and answer session with former Bush Administration official and current Washington Institute for Near East Policy...

National Tax Watchdog Aims To Protect Free Speech

August 10, 2016 Alejandro Vidal, www.taxrevolution.us Resist! First Amendment, Free Speech, Taxes

By Alejandro Vidal for Tax Revolution Institute - Washington, DC — The free-speech rights of nonprofit organizations, such as advocacy groups, educational institutions, labor unions, and business leagues, are under serious threat, and the clock is ticking. In response, the Tax Revolution Institute (TRI) — a Washington-based nonprofit group that promotes “justice and integrity in the tax system” — has launched the First Amendment Alliance: a non-partisan effort to protect the free-speech rights of nonprofits.

Congress’s Move To Delay IRS Muzzle Rule Another Year Is Not All Good News

June 23, 2016 Adam DeAngeli, www.taxrevolution.us Educate! Free Speech, IRS, Nonprofits

By Adam DeAngeli for Tax Revolution Center - The draft of the House of Representatives’ financial-services appropriations bill contains language very similar to what was passed last year to defund the IRS from implementing the nonprofit muzzle rule. If enforced, the rule would harm the nonprofit community by curtailing their First Amendment right to speech and creating legal exposure for accidentally violating these new draconian limits. It’s well and good that the IRS will be prohibited another year from carrying out this rule, but unfortunately this bill leaves the door open for the IRS to move forward with their mandate the following year.

6 Year Anniversary Of WikiLeaks Collateral Murder

April 6, 2016 Nozomi Hayase, www.commondreams.org Resist! Censorship, Free Speech, Wikileaks

By Nozomi Hayase for Common Dreams - On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks published classified military footage of a July 2007 attack by a US Army helicopter gunship in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. The video titledCollateral Murder depicted the killing of more than a dozen men, including two Reuters staffers. At the time of release, the WikiLeaks website temporarily crashed with a massive influx of visitors, while versions popped up on YouTube, reaching millions.

Crackdowns On Free Speech Rise Across Europe

February 25, 2016 Raphael Minder, www.nytimes.com Resist! Europe, Free Speech

By Raphael Minder for The New York Times - MADRID — A puppet show at an open square in Madrid during Carnival festivities this month featured a policeman who tried to entrap a witch. The puppet officer held up a little sign to falsely accuse her, using a play on words that combined Al Qaeda and ETA, the Basque separatist group. Angry parents complained, and the real police stepped in. They arrested two puppeteers, who could now face as much as seven years in prison on charges of glorifying terrorism and promoting hatred.

Free Speech Doesn’t Kill People

September 17, 2015 Chip Gibbons, www.defendingdissent.org Educate! Free Speech, police brutality

By Chip Gibbons in Defending Dissent - Just days after the killing of both Goforth and another law enforcement officer, Charles Gliniewicz, USA Today published an op-ed by Ron Hasko, President of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, blaming Black Lives Matter for the deaths of both officers, as well as violent crime across the United States. Hasko asks his readers not once, but twice if there is “hard data and empirical evidence” to support his suppositions. Both times he concedes there is not. Yet, Hasko will not let this admitted lack of evidence derail his attempt to smear a social movement for racial justice, as “concluding that both [the deaths of officers and the spike in crime] stem from the anti-cop themes from such protesters, liberal politicians and the mainstream media is hardly counterintuitive.”

‘Gag Mumia Law’ Struck Down For Now

April 30, 2015 Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Criminal Justice, Free Speech, Mumia Abu-Jamal

We won! As of yesterday, we defeated Pennsylvania's "Gag Mumia Law", SB 508. It's hard to rejoice in this victory when Mumia is under medical neglect, riot police are terrorizing Baltimore, and the state violence that killed Freddie Gray and is putting Mumia's life on the line is not unique but ingrained in the U.S.' racist system of policing, surveillance and imprisonment. But we want to take this moment with you to recognize this enormous win, which shut down the Fraternal Order of Police in their tracks and will keep Mumia and all prisoners able to speak to the public. Email us at info@prisonradio.org and we will send you the order. We must be vigilant the FOP has vowed to go back to the legislature and try to silence Mumia again.

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