tagged w/ First Amendment
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Christine O Donnell First Amendment, the latterly ignorant conservative! Rush Limbaugh said “the Christine O Donnell First Amendment story has been written in such a way that forces an ordinary
http://www.05news.com/christine-o-donnell-first-amendment-76521/Christine O Donnell First Amendment, the latterly ignorant conservative! Rush Limbaugh... more
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Christine O Donnell first Amendment, still needs to attend classes, Christine O Donnell, the tea party candidate running for the US senate seat has once again proved herself incompetentChristine O Donnell first Amendment, still needs to attend classes, Christine O... more
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Grass-roots activists have accused Facebook of anti-democratic behavior for disabling key features on corporate boycott pages.
Indeed, the popular social networking site recently locked-down sections of a page that been created to boycott Target until the company ceased funding [allegedly] anti-gay politicians, such as Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.
Jeffrey Henson - who runs the controversial group - told Politico(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42364.html) that FB was banning new discussion threads, preventing members from posting videos and barring administrators from sending updates to boycott members.
"It slices the [virtual] vocal cords," claimed an angry Henson. "Our page [members] are now outraged over the website's actions."
Nicholas Lefevre, an avid promoter of the Target boycott, expressed similar sentiments.
"Facebook is interfering with the function of a page dedicated to individuals organizing in response to corporate action to which they object.
"With the limited avenues for such expression and organization and the importance of the Internet to that ability, anything that threatens that expression is dangerous."
However, a Facebook spokesperson told Politico the pages were restricted because they didn't comply with the site's (stringent) terms of service.
"Facebook Pages enable public figures, organizations, businesses, and brands to share information, interact with interested people, and maintain an engaging presence on Facebook.
"They're...optimized for official entities' needs to communicate, distribute content, engage people and capture new audiences. To protect people from spam and other unwanted content, we restrict Pages that represent ideas or positions - rather than discrete entities - from publishing stories to people's News Feeds."
But Ilyse Hogue of the liberal grassroots group Moveon.org said she believes democracy clearly "works best" when every single citizen's voice is weighed equally.
"[Unfortunately, it seems as if] the whole [FB] system is titled away from those individual voices," added Hogue.Grass-roots activists have accused Facebook of anti-democratic behavior for disabling... more
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When it comes to the First Amendment, I’m a fundamentalist. First, I believe all other constitutional rights flow from the First. Second, for speech to be truly free it has to be unencumbered. There’s nothing in the First Amendment about speech not being stupid and people will say stupid things, but the day we prohibit abhorrent speech is the day we can kiss the rest of your freedoms goodbye.When it comes to the First Amendment, I’m a fundamentalist. First, I believe all... more
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Despite the pleas (and in some cases the demands) of world leaders that the American government stop Jones, they're wasting their breath. The authorities won't stop Jones because his actions are protected by the First Amendment, the freedom of speech.
*** Start full article ***
(For links to external sources, please go to original article: http://talkingskull.com/article/worst-kind-of-free-speech)
The latest media reports indicate that pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida has postponed, but not cancelled, his congregation's planned Qu'ran-burning on the anniversary of September 11th, after a phone call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and condemnation from leaders worldwide.
Unfortunately, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (of "God Hates Fags" infamy) have vowed to carry out the burning if Dove World doesn't do it.
In the meantime, Dove World has had its website taken down by their hosting providers, Interpol has issued a global alert, and some clever folks have created a parody ad mocking Jones and Phelps.
President Obama on Thursday urged Jones to listen to "those better angels", saying that the burning was contrary to American values. But is it really? Even a cursory reading of message boards around the web yields a plethora of angry and hate-filled comments by those supporting the Qu'ran-burning. There seem to be an awful lot of Americans who feel that burning the Qu'ran is revenge for acts of violence carried out by Muslim extremists — that a slap in the face of all Muslims worldwide is a fitting atonement for the acts of a few nutjobs.
Despite the pleas (and in some cases the demands) of world leaders that the American government stop Jones, they're wasting their breath. The authorities won't stop Jones because his actions are protected by the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. In the famous (and incorrectly attributed) words of the French philosopher Voltaire:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This is the basic tenet of American, and indeed Western civilization. It represents everything we stand for, fight for, and strive for. We might find a particular piece of speech detestable, but the right to say it must be defended or the entire system falls apart. Freedom of speech is seen as one of the foundations underpinning an open and fair society, and selective application would undermine the freedom for everyone. It has to be freedom for all speech, no matter how distasteful.
That said, can you think of a more offensive act of free speech than burning another religion's holy book? Go on, I dare you. You won't find one. This is the ultimate and most extreme example of freedom of speech the world has ever seen. And in the end this becomes not so much about free speech as it is about human decency. Yes, we are free to say anything we want. But should we?
http://talkingskull.com/article/worst-kind-of-free-speechDespite the pleas (and in some cases the demands) of world leaders that the American... more
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The Anti-Mosque That Ain’t a Mosque crowd seems to be going all Sharia on America’s ass. You’d think the possibility of building a Muslim community center amongst the strip clubs and bars of Manhattan is worse than knocking the WTC. Now tighty righties are saying ignore the First Amendment for Muslims.The Anti-Mosque That Ain’t a Mosque crowd seems to be going all Sharia on... more
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Lying about military honors is not a crime, a federal appeals court has ruled, tossing out the prosecution of a California public official who falsely claimed to have won the prestigious Medal of Honor.
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 there was inadequate "compelling governmental interest" when Congress passed the Stolen Valor Act in 2006.
Xavier Alvarez had won a seat on the Three Valley Water District Board of Directors in 2007, and at his first open meeting claimed to be a retired Marine who won the Medal of Honor in 1987. The highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government is sometimes mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor. "I got wounded many times by the same guy," Alvarez declared, according to court records. "I'm still around."
While the three-judge panel ruled Alvarez's free speech rights were violated, they showed little sympathy for his actions, calling them "nothing but a series of bizarre lies."
"We have no doubt that society would be better off if Alvarez would stop spreading worthless, ridiculous, and offensive untruths," the panel concluded in its ruling, handed down Tuesday. "But, given our historical skepticism of permitting the government to police the line between truth and falsity, and between valuable speech and drivel, we preemptively protect all speech, including false statements, in order that clearly protected speech may flower in the shelter of the First Amendment."
Alvarez was prosecuted on one count of falsely verbally claiming to have received the medal. He had conditionally pleaded guilty, reserving his right to later appeal on constitutional grounds. He was fined $5,000, given three years' probation, and resigned last fall from the utility board based in Claremont, California.
There was no word whether the Justice Department will appeal the opinion to the Supreme Court.
More @ link
Do you agree or disagree with this ruling?Lying about military honors is not a crime, a federal appeals court has ruled, tossing... more
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http://techdirt.com/images/topic_journalism.gif
A few weeks ago, we noted, with some disappointment, that the politicians who had been pushing for a much needed federal shield law for journalism, Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, were taking the politically expedient route of adding a specific amendment designed to keep Wikileaks out of the bill's protections(http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100804/10343410497.shtml).
Apparently, a bunch of newspaper folks have apparently stepped forward to support this move.
Douglas Lee, at The First Amendment Center has an opinion piece calling those people out for sacrificing their overall principles just to get the shield law approved(http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=23303). The whole thing is a great read, but a few key snippets:
> > It doesn't seem all that long ago that representatives of the newspaper
> > industry would have recoiled from working with Congress to deny legal
> > protection to anyone who leaked confidential or classified documents.
> > Today, however, they seem happy to be doing so.
Lee the goes on to quote various industry reps distancing themselves from Wikileaks and putting it down as "not journalism." He also quotes them admitting that they feel they have to throw Wikileaks under the bus, or the law won't get passed, and then calls them out on the impact of that decision, hinting at the fact that at least some of this might be due to traditional journalists simply not liking new upstarts that are changing the game -- like Wikileaks.
> > As comforting as it might be to "real" journalists to incorporate editorial
> > oversight into a shield law and to use it to distinguish further between the
> > "us" who are entitled to the law's protections and the "them" who are not,
> > at least two dangers exist in that approach.
> > First, does anyone -- including the most mainstream of traditional journalists
> > -- really think it a good idea that Congress and judges define, analyze and
> > evaluate what is appropriate "editorial oversight"? For decades, news
> > organizations have struggled to resist those efforts in libel cases and,
> > so far, those struggles have succeeded. If those same organizations
> > now invite legislators and judges into their newsrooms to see how worthy
> > their reporters are of protection under a shield law, they shouldn't be
> > surprised if the legislators and judges decide to stay.
> > Second, is the free flow of information really served if the act's protections
> > are denied to those who don't have or practice editorial oversight?
> > As Schumer acknowledged in his statement, the act already contains
> > language that would limit or deny protection to those who provide or
> > publish classified military secrets. Specifically exempting WikiLeaks and
> > other organizations that might otherwise qualify for protection under the
> > act in at least some cases seems designed not to enhance the free flow of
> > information but to channel that information to mainstream sources.
It is the nature of politics today to compromise principles to get things through, but this move certainly seems unfortunate -- and one that I imagine many news organizations will regret down the road.http://techdirt.com/images/topic_journalism.gif
A few weeks ago, we noted, with... more
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A very good debate happened on MSNBC last night regarding the utter non-issue of the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Like him or not, Ron Paul exposes the neoconservative motives behind the vitriol against this mosque.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6Hzf0x1vk&feature=player_embedded#!
"Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?"
"It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”"
The statement continues here:
http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-08-20/ron-paul-sunshine-patriots-stop-your-demagogy-about-the-nyc-mosque/A very good debate happened on MSNBC last night regarding the utter non-issue of the... more
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There is only one halfway-decent reason why a mosque should be built two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York. It's called the First Amendment.There is only one halfway-decent reason why a mosque should be built two blocks away... more
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http://open.salon.com/blog/s0ndra/2010/08/23/dr_lauras_do-good_dilemma
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Last week, Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s brain exploded smack in the middle of her radio program, and expelled the N-word 11 times in about three minutes. On Tuesday, she apologized and announced that she will end her program when her contract runs out in December. So now, there are rumblings of free speech – censorship – racism. What she did was inexcusable, but no one is violating her first amendment rights.
Read more . . . . http://www.examiner.com/public-policy-in-pittsburgh/dr-laura-and-the-first-amendmentLast week, Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s brain exploded smack in the middle of her... more
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You know you might be a liberal if you think of your party's Big Tent as a canopy for the reception party after a gay wedding.You know you might be a liberal if you think of your party's Big Tent as a canopy... more
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MORE FREEDOM TO TAKE PHOTOS IN CHINESE OIL SPILL THAN US BRITISH PETROLEUM OIL SPILL. US COAST GUARD BLOCKS FIRST AMENDMENT!
Last week, a CBS TV crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered beach. On Monday, Mother Jones published this firsthand account of one reporter’s repeated attempts to gain access to clean-up operations on oil-soaked beaches, and the telling response of local law enforcement. The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.MORE FREEDOM TO TAKE PHOTOS IN CHINESE OIL SPILL THAN US BRITISH PETROLEUM OIL SPILL.... more
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By Ted Birdis
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – For at least a year, the Homeland Security Department detoured requests for federal records to senior political advisers for highly unusual scrutiny, probing for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive, according to nearly 1,000 pages of internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.
The department abandoned the practice after AP investigated. Inspectors from the department’s Office of Inspector General quietly conducted interviews last week to determine whether political advisers acted improperly.
The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more open, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas.
But in July 2009, Homeland Security introduced a directive requiring a wide range of information to be vetted by political appointees for “awareness purposes,” no matter who requested it.
Career employees were ordered to provide Secretary Janet Napolitano’s political staff with information about the people who asked for records – such as where they lived, whether they were private citizens or reporters – and about the organizations where they worked.
If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican.
This, despite President Barack Obama’s statement that federal workers should “act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation” under FOIA, and Attorney General Eric Holder’s assertion: “Unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles have no place in the new era of open government.”
The special reviews at times delayed the release of information to Congress, watchdog groups and the news media for weeks beyond the usual wait, even though the directive specified the reviews should take no more than three days.
The foot-dragging reached a point that officials worried the department would get sued, one e-mail shows.
“We need to make sure that we flip these ASAP so we can eliminate any lag in getting the responses to the requesters,” the agency’s director of disclosure, Catherine Papoi, wrote to two of Napolitano’s staffers. “Under the statute, the requester now has the right to allege constructive denial and take us to court. Please advise soonest.”
A department spokesman, Sean Smith, says the mandatory reviews by political appointees never blocked disclosure of records that otherwise would have been released. “No information deemed releasable by the FOIA office or general counsel was withheld, and responsive documents were neither abridged nor edited,” said Smith, who was among the political staffers who could review and approve records for release.
E-mails obtained by AP do not show political appointees at Homeland Security stopping records from coming out. Instead they point to acute political sensitivities that slowed the process, a probing curiosity about the people and organizations making the request for records, and considerable confusion.
Political staffers reviewed information requests submitted by reporters and other citizens as a way to anticipate troublesome scrutiny. Days after the nearly catastrophic Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard a Detroit-bound airliner, they asked whether news media or other organizations had filed records requests about the attack.
On another matter, one request sought data on expensive international travel by Homeland Security employees during the Bush administration. “Let’s make sure we don’t have a similar problem,” Napolitano’s chief of staff, Noah Kroloff, wrote in an e-mail in October to colleagues.
When the department released immigration records in September about Obama’s father, Kroloff wrote: “We haven’t released this yet have we? ... I’m hoping this was done in coordination with Sean (Smith), the WH and other relevant and interested parties.”
The answer came from the general counsel’s chief of staff, John Sandweg: “WH was made aware early and said treat it as normal.”
The new review rule was so unclear to career Homeland Security employees that they sometimes weren’t sure exactly which information requests the political staff was demanding to see: “I don’t think they know what they want until they see it,” Papoi confided to a colleague in an e-mail.
Months later, in January, Papoi sent another e-mail that revealed the frustration the rule was causing between political advisers and career employees in the office responsible for enforcing FOIA.
“These people are going to be the death of me,” Papoi wrote to Sandra Hawkins, the administration director in the privacy office. “I know, I know,” Hawkins wrote back.
Political staffers were frustrated, too. “They really hate us,” Jordan Grossman, special assistant to the chief of staff, wrote to his boss, another political appointee.
In one case under the new directive, Papoi reprimanded a Coast Guard employee in November for explaining over the phone to a reporter – without approval by political staffers – that the information requested under FOIA was already available on the Coast Guard’s website.
The White House said it had no role formulating the rule at Homeland Security and requests for records generally were not forwarded there for approval. “They only need to go thru front office awareness review, not wh (White House),” wrote Mary Ellen Callahan, the department’s top chief privacy officer and FOIA official.
Story Continues Here--only an 8000 character limit...
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/worldnation/802126-227/investigation-shows-homeland-security-forced-delays.htmlBy Ted Birdis
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – For at least a year, the... more
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http://www.infowars.com/deleted-obama-deception-movie-restored-after-google-nailed-with-calculated-search-blitz/
In response to having the most watched version of his film The Obama Deception mysteriously deleted from an affiliated YouTube director page, as well as his other film Police State 4: Rise of FEMA, radio host Alex Jones instructed his listeners yesterday to search the term “Obama Deception Censored” as many times as possible in order to push it up to the top spot in Google’s search ranking. Listeners from all over the country (and even other countries I can personally affirm) took part.
In the end it worked.
By late last evening the search term was number one, as the screen print below shows.
his counter-attack did more than send a message to the Internet search giant– who owns YouTube– by showing it the power of Jones’ liberty loving listeners, but as Jones stated in his broadcast, it also made the subject of Google’s censoring the film the focus of many blogs. This is because bloggers watch Google’s search trends and write stories on the top search topics in order to gain traffic. Numerous articles appeared in the searches shortly thereafter, the authors bringing attention to the issue and curiously asking why Google censored the film.
Certainly it wasn’t good publicity for Google or President Obama, whose name is in the title of the censored movie.
Today Jones’ movies were restored to the YouTube channel, which is run and administered by a listener, along with other films that had been mysteriously deleted in the past. Proof that Jones’ team didn’t simply delete the films and then upload them again comes from the fact that their view counts were the same as before they disappeared, whereas a new upload would have set them back to zero.
As of this writing the movie is back up, free to watch (and pasted below).
If deleting Jones’ films was a test balloon sent up by Google to gage what kind of response such an action would invite, it got its answer. Thanks to the mass awakening taking place through the Internet and around the world, not even petty attacks like the hack of Jones’ page can stop corporate machines like Google from backing down when ordinary people take it upon themselves to flex their collective muscle.
No doubt the empire will eventually strike back again, but at least now it knows what resistance awaits it.
“Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.”
–John Quincy Adamshttp://www.infowars.com/deleted-obama-deception-movie-restored-after-google-nailed-with... more
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That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes.
But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore.
In early April, state police officers raided Graber's parents' home in Abingdon, Md. They confiscated his camera, computers and external hard drives. Graber was indicted for allegedly violating state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent.
Related.
Arrests such as Graber's are becoming more common along with the proliferation of portable video cameras and cell-phone recorders. Videos of alleged police misconduct have become hot items on the Internet. YouTube still features Graber's encounter along with numerous other witness videos. "The message is clearly, 'Don't criticize the police,'" said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is part of Graber's defense team. "With these charges, anyone who would even think to record the police is now justifiably in fear that they will also be criminally charged."
Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist who runs the blog "Photography Is Not a Crime," said he has documented about 10 arrests since he started keeping track in 2007. Miller himself has been arrested twice for photographing the police. He won one case on appeal, he said, while the other was thrown out after the officer twice failed to appear in court.
"They're just regular citizens with a cell-phone camera who happen to come upon a situation," Miller said. "If cops are doing their jobs, they shouldn't worry."
The ACLU of Florida filed a First Amendment lawsuit last month on behalf of a model who was arrested February 2009 in Boynton Beach. Fla. Her crime: videotaping an encounter between police officers and her teenage son at a movie theater. Prosecutors refused to file charges against Sharron Tasha Ford and her son.That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda... more
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So much for the First Amendment.
Corporations spending money to influence elections… that’s free speech, protected by the First Amendement, according to our Supreme Court.
But reporters talking to oilfield workers? Or taking pictures of booms? Sorry, that’s a felony.
http://faildrill.com/2010/07/04/bp-bans-media-access-coast-guard-helps/So much for the First Amendment.
Corporations spending money to influence... more
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Felony charges for taking pictures or filming BP oil spill clean up in the Gulf, within 65 feet. See video for details...Felony charges for taking pictures or filming BP oil spill clean up in the Gulf,... more
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