If nothing else, President Trump is putting it in stark, clear terms for us. He is out to destroy the independent press in the United States and replace it with some sort of information system that is subservient to him personally and his version of reality.

Trump continued his deliberate, ongoing assault on the free press Tuesday in yet another early-morning tweet:The Fake News Media has never been so wrong or so dirty. Purposely incorrect stories and phony sources to meet their agenda of hate. Sad!

This nonstop campaign to convince people that the independent press is deliberately making up news puts things to a very simple test. Either:

His assertions that a substantial amount (or the entirety?) of normal, mainstream coverage is somehow deliberately fake is not the utterance of a healthy person. It does not represent a connection to reality and/or it represents an attempt to substitute propaganda for information. He cant make it any plainer. Dont scoff. There is apparently already an audience and appetite for Trumps version of events, whatever that version is on any given day. And Trump is using the presidency of the United States to undermine whats left of a fact-based reality.

Dont think this matters? Then enjoy becoming the subject in the famous Asch Experiment. And heres another test for you: Have you tried recently having a productive conversation with a Trump supporter who is operating off a completely different fact set? How did that go?

When the propaganda model replaces the free press model, you can either go along, or it is you who will be judged insane.

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President Trump hates the First Amendment. He thinks it's sad. - Washington Post

Free speech and its limitations are on Americans' minds. In the past year we've seen Nazis and white supremacists rally in our cities, angry protesters chase provocateurs off of college campuses, a comedian wield a bloody effigy of the president's severed head, and slurs and overt racial animus made a staple of political discourse. Controversial speech has people talking about what restrictions, if any, society can enforce on words we despise.

That inquiry isn't inherently bad. It's good for citizens to want to learn more about the contours of our constitutional rights. The dilemma is that the public debate about free speech relies on useless cliches, not on accurate information about the law.

Here are some of the most popular misleading slogans:

"Not all speech is protected. There are limits to free speech."

This slogan is true, but rarely helpful. The Supreme Court has called the few exceptions to the First Amendment "well-defined and narrowly limited." They include obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, true threats and speech integral to already criminal conduct. First Amendment exceptions are not an open-ended category, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to add to them, especially in the last generation. Merely observing that some exceptions exist does not help anyone determine whether particular speech falls into one of those exceptions. It's a non sequitur.

Imagine you're bitten by a snake on a hike, and you want to know rather urgently whether the snake is venomous. You describe the snake to your doctor. "Well, not all snakes are venomous," your doctor responds. Not very helpful, is it?

"You can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theater."

Almost 100 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr. coined a version of this now-familiar metaphor. Holmes used it to explain why the Supreme Court was upholding the criminal conviction of Charles Schenck, who was jailed merely for distributing materials urging peaceful resistance to the draft in World War I. Fortunately, the Supreme Court often led by Holmes himself retreated from this terrible precedent, eventually ruling that speech can't be punished as "incitement" unless it is intended and likely to provoke imminent lawless action. In other words, this favorite rhetorical apologia for censorship was used in the course of a decision now universally recognized as bad law.

Holmes' usually misquoted slogan (he said that the law allows us to punish someone for falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater) is really just another way to observe that not all speech is protected and there are limits to First Amendment protections. As I said before, that's not in dispute, but invoking the truism does nothing to resolve whether any particular speech falls within the well-defined and narrow exceptions to the First Amendment.

"Hate speech is not free speech."

This popular saying reflects our contempt for bigotry, but it's not a correct statement of law. There is no general First Amendment exception allowing the government to punish "hate speech" that denigrates people based on their identity. Things we call "hate speech" might occasionally fall into an existing First Amendment exception: A racist speech might seek to incite imminent violence against a group, or might be reasonably interpreted as an immediate threat to do harm. But "hate speech," like other ugly types of speech we despise, is broadly protected.

"We must balance free speech and other interests."

Censorship advocates often tell us we need to balance the freedom to speak with the harm that speech does. This is arguable philosophically, but it is wrong legally. American courts don't decide whether to protect speech by balancing its harm against its benefit; they ask only if it falls into a specific First Amendment exception. As the Supreme Court recently put it, "the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs."

"'Fighting words' are not protected under the First Amendment."

Years ago the Supreme Court recognized a very narrow First Amendment exception for "fighting words." If the exception still survives, it's limited to in-person face-to-face insults directed at a particular person and likely to provoke a violent response from that person. It doesn't apply broadly to offensive speech, even though it's often invoked to justify censoring such speech.

"Maybe this speech is protected now, but the law is always changing."

The Supreme Court's approach to constitutional rights can change very quickly. For instance, it took less than a generation for the court to reverse course on whether the government could punish gay sex. But for decades the court has been moving toward more vigorous protection of free speech, not less. Some of the most controversial and unpopular speech to come before the court like videos of animals being tortured, or incendiary Westboro Baptist Church protests at funerals have yielded solid 8-to-1 majorities in favor of protecting speech. There's no sign of a growing appetite for censorship on the court.

Even as a free speech advocate and critic of censorship, I'm happy to see a public debate about the limits of free speech. Any debate that raises consciousness about our rights can be productive. But the free speech debate should proceed based on facts and well-established law, not empty rhetoric. Familiarity with our rights and how they work is a civic obligation.

Ken White is a First Amendment litigator and criminal defense attorney at Brown White & Osborn LLP in Los Angeles. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

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Ken White: Actually, hate speech is protected by First Amendment ... - Allentown Morning Call

Lawyers from Columbia Universitys Knight First Amendment Institute sent a letter last weekarguing that President Trumps blocking users on Twitter runs afoul of the First Amendment.

The presidents account recently blocked the two Twitter users being represented after they posted critical tweets in response to a couple of the presidents tweets.

Their lawyers argument is that the presidents blocking these users from seeing or responding to his tweets on Twitter impinges on their free-speech rights under the First Amendment; the idea is that Trump, in his capacity as a state actor, has violated the Constitution by blocking access to information in what should be considered a public forum.

Yet they fail to consider that (1) these citizens have other means of accessing his tweets, and (2) Trumps account (@real DonaldTrump) is hosted by a private company, which is free to set its own policies for how its users interact.

To the first point, the two people that were blocked can still access these tweets not only from the thousands of retweets they receive from countless other accounts or news publications, but by simply creating another account from which to follow Trump.

Secondly, Trumps Twitter account is not federally owned or operated and therefore should not be treated as a government-created forum obliged to provide access to all comers.

It should be obvious that, though blocking people on Twitter may seem beneath the presidents office or pointless considering the thousands of other tweets that are critical of him from accounts he didnt bother to block, it isnt unconstitutional. Whether a judge might hold otherwise in the current climate is less clear.

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Is It Unconstitutional for Trump to Block Twitter Users? - National Review

CBS Miami

Do You Have A First Amendment Right To Follow President's Twitter Account? CBS Miami But just as seemingly everything Trump does and says sparks controversy, so too is the president's prolific and unpredictable use of Twitter, as one reporter called it, raising a novel question of constitutional law: Is there a First Amendment right ... It doesn't take much for Trump to block you on TwitterCNN First Amendment Group Threatens to Sue Trump for Blocking Twitter TrollsAccuracy In Media (blog) 1st Amendment Lawyers Tell Trump to Un-Block Twitter UsersNBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth AppsforPCdaily -TIME -TIME -Politico all 624 news articles »

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Do You Have A First Amendment Right To Follow President's Twitter Account? - CBS Miami

Last week, Harvard University rescinded the admissions offers of at least ten prospective students upon discovering obscene and explicit memes exchanged by the group in a private Facebook chat. The decision sparked a national debate over such instances involving free speech on college campuses.

Ours is a potentially treacherous age for young people to navigate; the gravity of our online presences and the importance of being a conscientious online citizen are lessons were all still learning. We should conduct ourselves in a way online that we also would in real life, with the added knowledge that nothing on social media is private recalling the old Would you want your grandmother to see this? rule.

The rising ubiquity of social media is coupled with the paradoxical fact that our current culture is often vehement and harsh in its judgment of others based on instances of questionable speech. Outrage and self-righteousness seem to be the name of the game on both sides of the aisle as of late, and college campuses across the country have felt the aftershocks of this polarized political culture.

Though the memes were crude and distasteful, there is the question of giving these students the benefit of the doubt these memes might not be reflective of the students character, but simply of teenagers with transgressive or satirical senses of humor, looking to prove their edgy, comedic sensibilities to each other.

The memes could be argued to be unintended for political or intellectual scrutiny however, the incident is representative of how Harvard feels it is best to deal with instances of offensive speech. Though college campuses, Harvard included, are self-proclaimed institutions in which intellectual challenge and confrontation are to be expected, there is a brand to be maintained, and students are to reflect positively on the culture of the school. It then follows that it is impossible to have a totally free and open forum, knowing that your ideas and tastes may be subject to ferocious indignation, or perhaps even your dismissal from the University.

Ironically, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Fausts address at Harvards 2017 Commencement focused heavily on defending the right to free speech for all, and implored listeners to enable and nurture environments in which honest and complex thought can thrive.

[We] must remember that limiting some speech opens the dangerous possibility that the speech that is ultimately censored may be our own, she said, looking out over a crowd of future leaders, executives, and policy-makers. If some words are to be treated as equivalent to physical violence and silenced or even prosecuted, who is to decide which words?

During such a politically and, by extent, socially divisive time, we will continue to encounter thoughts and opinions that offend us; this should be an invitation to listen to all ideas, including those which are morally repulsive and offensive, so that we can learn how to better challenge them.

Having our perspectives and morals consistently challenged will require a certain level of courage and resilience; we should, when called for, make judgments, question, and oppose the views of others, but when structures of power alone decide what speech is so offensive that it requires extreme punishment or silencing altogether, our right to free speech rests on a very slippery slope.

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Column: Memes, Harvard and the First Amendment - Minnesota Daily

This week, President Donald Trump came under fire for his Twitter activity, including blocking other users and tweeting about a pending case regarding his executive order for a a six-country travel ban [VIDEO]. Although Trump has made headlines [VIDEO] for his #Twitter Account in the past, some of his most recent activity has Twitter users questioning the constitutionality and legal implications of his online behavior.

On Tuesday, the Knights First Amendment Institute at Columbia University wrote a letter to Trump asking him to unblock Twitter users who posted content which disagreed or otherwise critiqued his actions.

The use of the block feature on Twitter is typically used to prevent other users from interacting with them personally. For most users, the use of this feature is not considered a violation of the law or Twitter's user policies. However, on Tuesday, #White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed at a press conference that tweets coming from Trump's Twitter account are also to be considered official White House statements. However, when users, particularly those in the US, are blocked from seeing such statements from public officials like Trump, it can lead to questions of transparency, which will inevitably lead to legal implications.

Furthermore, it is also likely that Trump's staff tweets for him. In such a case, blocking users would generate little to no effect, besides prohibit individuals from voicing concerns to him as an elected official.

The Knights First Amendment Institute also argued that such blocking interferes with First Amendment right because it obstructs freedom of speech in a "designated public forum."

However, it is yet to be determined by legislators whether social media is truly considered a public forum, further complicating the case.

Another argument made was that blocking users on Twitter would not violate the First Amendment, especially since the First Amendment concerns regarding Trump's tweets were directed at his personal Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, not his White House @POTUS account.

Also, this week, a tweet was posted on Trump's Twitter account regarding the petitioned Supreme Court case concerning the issue of his executive order for a six-country travel ban. The revised travel ban, originally including Iraq, now only includes Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia. Although Trump's legal counsel has advised him against referring to his executive order as a travel ban, Trump has continued to do so, as demonstrated by a tweet earlier this week.

That afternoon, the American Civil Liberties Union posted a tweet in response to Trump's post, stating that it might use his post against him in a Supreme Court argument.

Some legal experts predicted that the tweet could negatively impact his pending travel ban case. Others believed that Trump's tweets were not a legal issue.

"As a constitutional matter, as a legal matter, it should make absolutely no difference," said David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer for previous Republican administrations, to the New York Times.

The recent advent of #Social Media Law would make this case an unprecedented challenge for the Supreme Court.

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Top legal implications surrounding Trump's Twitter account - Blasting News

Kudos to my Editorial Board colleague Lynn Wenzel for writing her June 7 Other Voices piece defending Kathy Griffin's First Amendment rights.

I despise Griffin's brand of humor. It was disrespectful to our president and it was a cruel thing to do to his family. That Griffin is now playing the victim after being so vicious is even more disgusting. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to be offensive.

The First Amendment isn't in place to protect "nice" speech but speech that some of us find offensive. Lynn and I disagree on most political subject matter but not on this one.

Protecting free speech is something we should all passionately support regardless of our political philosophy. You don't get to complain about conservative speakers being banned from college campuses then turn about and try to do the same thing to an obnoxious comedian. That's called hypocrisy.

It deeply saddens me that there is a market for Griffin's malicious humor in our community, but that doesn't give me the right to censor it.

Rachel Helm

Nevada County

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Rachel Helm: Right on, on First Amendment rights - The Union of Grass Valley

Photograph by Getty Images

Twitter users block others on the service all the time, in some cases because they are abusive and sometimes just because they're irritating. But is it different if the user doing the blocking happens to be the president of the United States?

The Knight First Amendment Institute says it is different, or at least that it should be. The Institute, a non-profit group associated with Columbia University, has sent a letter to the White House arguing that Trump is breaching the First Amendment rights of those he blocks.

It might seem laughable at first -- and there are some First Amendment experts and supporters who appear to find it so -- but the Institute believes that it has a valid case.

According to the letter, written by Institute director Jameel Jaffer, the president's Twitter account fits the legal definition of a "designated public forum," and as such it can't be closed to public access under the First Amendment.

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In effect, the Institute argues that the law requires Trump make his account available to everyone regardless of whether they criticize him. It has said it is considering pursuing a case against the president on behalf of two users who were blocked by him.

"Though the architects of the Constitution surely didnt contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable," Jaffer said in a statement.

"Having opened this forum to all comers, the President cant exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what theyre saying."

Not everyone is buying this argument, however. Ken White, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who writes legal commentary at Popehat and is a First Amendment expert, said that he found the idea of the Institute's case "ridiculous."

Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center, told the Wall Street Journal that the Institute had a "novel and ambitious argument" that was clearly in the public interest. But he also described it as a "tough sell."

Is the presidents Twitter account "a public forum where interactive free expression is expected or more like a newsletter, where the communication is all one way?" Paulson asked. Municipalities that establish Facebook pages and invite citizen input may be creating public forums, "but Im not sure that Donald Trumps brief bursts of opinion are the same thing."

There a number of problems with determining whether Trump's Twitter account is a public forum or not, and one of them stems from the fact that the law is far from settled on the question of what exactly constitutes a truly public forum.

The other complicating factor is that Twitter is a privately-held company, and the president is just behaving in accordance with its terms of service.

The laws relating to free public access to government property were designed to protect the ability of demonstrators, protesters, etc. to speak their mind in public parks and other areas. The extension of this right to any "public forum" didn't occur until a Supreme Court decision in 1972, and from that point things just got more and more complicated.

As University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lydsky put it in a legal paper on the First Amendment and online forums that was published in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court's public forum and government speech doctrines are "lacking in coherence -- to put it mildly."

In a nutshell, there are several definitions for public forums, based in part on what the government's intentions were in setting them up in the first place. In a fully public forum, opposing views can't be censored. But a "limited public forum," which has a specific purpose, can be restricted in a variety of ways.

To further complicate things, the government and its representatives are protected from First Amendment rules on such matters if what they are doing is defined by the court as "government speech." If so, then feedback or input or access theoretically can be restricted.

So should Donald Trump's Twitter account be considered a public forum, a limited public forum, or a form of protected government speech?

Comments from press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday could be pertinent to such a case, because he said that Trump's tweets are considered to be "official statements by the president." That could support the argument that Trump is engaging in government speech, and therefore opposing viewpoints can be restricted without breaching the First Amendment.

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Trump Blocking Twitter Users Is a First Amendment Issue ...

NorthJersey 6:00 a.m. ET June 11, 2017

In this Sept. 23, 2016, file photo, Muslim worshippers pray during a service at the Bernards Township Community Center in Basking Ridge.(Photo: Julio Cortez/AP)

The right to worship, or not to worship at all, is one of the basic principles that has guided this nation since its founding. That right, though, increasingly, has come under siege lately as communities in New Jersey and across the country have tried to stymie Muslims in their efforts to practice their faith as they see fit.

As Staff Writer Hannan Adely reported, Muslims from New York to Minnesota are fighting what they believe to be an ongoing anti-Muslim campaign by filing lawsuits whenever they feel threatened. One such case recently involved Bernards Township in Somerset County. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Bernards Township will pay $3.25 million to a settle a lawsuit over its denial of a permit to build a mosque.

Part of that settlement requires the township to train, within 180 days, all current and future members of its Planning Board and Township Committee in diversity and inclusion, particularly focusing on Islam and Muslims. It should never have had to come to this, not in diversity-rich New Jersey, and not anywhere in this country where people merely seek a place to pray or worship without feeling threatened.

Now, a new and similar case has surfaced in Bayonne, where a Muslim group filed a federal-discrimination lawsuit in late May after the city rejected its plan to convert an old warehouse on a dead-end street into a mosque. Indeed, as anti-Muslim sentiment has increased including reports of anti-mosque fliers being placed in childrens mailboxes at school Muslim groups have remained undeterred, and more determined than ever to press the issue.

Municipalities around the country should pay close attention to what happened in Bernards Township, said Adeel Abdullah Mangi, an attorney representing Muslim groups in the Bernards and Bayonne lawsuits. The American Muslim community has the legal resources, the allies and the determination to stand up for its constitutional rights in court and will do so.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a report last year, said there had been a sharp increase in the number of its investigations into religious discrimination involving mosques or Islamic schools over the past six years. The same report noted particularly severe discrimination faced by Muslims in land use.

The founders of this nation were not perfect men, but they knew enough to realize the importance of religious liberty, the practical right of individuals to practice their faith without interference from the state. That right is enshrined in the Constitution, and it is going to stay there. Local municipalities around the country opposed to the building of mosques had better get used to the idea.

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Editorial: First Amendment protects all faiths - NorthJersey.com

Friday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin, author of the forthcoming book Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism, read from a Federalist piece by Ben Domenech laying out how Domenech viewed CNNs war on President Donald Trump.

Domenech argued CNN was sacrificing balance and centrism in its quest against Trump.

Levin agreed with Domenechs findings but took it a step further by declaring that CNN was destroying the First Amendment and that Trump was right to say the media are evil in some circumstances and singled out CNNs Jake Tapper.

You can see how CNN has changed its coverage, Levin said. CNN is at war with Trump. CNN is violating CNN is destroying the First Amendment and freedom of the press. And when Jake Tapper says, How dare President [Trump] call us evil? Jake, youre evil. Youre unconscionable. All of you because you know exactly what youre doing. You dont care.

Later in the segment, Levin argued there was more truthful reporting on Russia TV than CNN, adding that he had never watched Russia TV before.

I think you get more truthful reporting on Russia TV, which I have never watched in my life, than you get on CNN, he added. How do I know? Because you dont get truthful reporting on CNN. And you know what youre getting on Russia TV. They call themselves Russia TV. Oh must be about Russia or something, Russia TV. CNN pretends to be something its not an objective news organization. Its not an objective news organization. They got one clown after another, one fool after another, one Democratic appointee after another.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Mark Levin: CNN Is Destroying the First Amendment Jake Tapper Is 'Evil' - Breitbart News

A Las Vegas-based lawyer specializing in free-speech cases is representing the publisher of a leading neo-Nazi website who has been sued for orchestrating an anti-Semitic online trolling campaign against a Montana family.

Marc Randazza told The Associated Press on Friday that his law firm is defending The Daily Stormer's founder, Andrew Anglin, against a federal lawsuit that real estate agent Tanya Gersh filed against him in April.

"Everybody deserves to have their constitutional rights defended," Randazza said. "Nobody needs the First Amendment to protect Mr. Rogers. That's not what it's there for."

Gersh is represented by attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

Gersh's suit claims anonymous internet trolls bombarded her family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin unleashed a "campaign of terror" by publishing their personal information, including her 12-year-old son's Twitter handle and photo.

In a string of posts, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an "extortion racket" against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

The suit accuses Anglin of invading Gersh's privacy, intentionally inflicting "emotional distress" and violating a Montana anti-intimidation law.

Randazza, who said Anglin never directly sent any messages to Gersh, argued the suit's allegations "leave room for disagreement" over whether Anglin did anything wrong.

Randazza's clients have included adult entertainment websites; the 8chan online message board, a popular forum for racist internet trolls; and Mike Cernovich, a right-wing author and attorney who has promoted a conspiracy theory about Democrats running a child-sex slavery ring from a Washington pizza restaurant's basement.

"If it's unpopular and people want to shut it up, then we have represented them," Randazza said.

The Daily Stormer used a crowdfunding website, WeSearchr, to raise more than $152,000 in donations from nearly 2,000 contributors to help pay for its legal expenses.

Anglin uses a mailing address in Worthington, Ohio, for his website, which takes its name from Der Strmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. The site includes sections called "Jewish Problem" and "Race War."

Other targets of The Daily Stormer and its "Troll Army" of readers have included prominent journalists, a British Parliament member and Alex Jones, a radio host and conspiracy theorist whom Anglin derided as a "Zionist Millionaire."

Gersh's lawsuit said she agreed to help Richard Spencer's mother sell commercial property she owns in Whitefish amid talk of a protest outside the building. Sherry Spencer, however, later accused Gersh of threatening and harassing her into agreeing to sell the property.

Anglin's initial Dec. 16 post about Gersh urged readers to "take action" against her and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, posting their telephone numbers, email addresses and Twitter handles.

"And hey if you're in the area, maybe you should stop by and tell her in person what you think of her actions," he added.

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First Amendment lawyer defending neo-Nazi website publisher - San Francisco Chronicle

A First Amendment issue is brewing in federal court over a local Wisconsin ordinancethe nation's firstthat requires publishers of augmented reality mobile games like Pokemon Goand Texas Rope 'Em to get a special use permit if their apps require gamers to play in Milwaukee County parks.

A Southern California company called Candy Lab, the maker of Texas Rope 'Em, is suing the county over the requirement that was adopted in February in the wake of the Pokemon Gocraze that resulted in a Milwaukee county park being overrun bya deluge of players. The permit, which costs as much as $1,000, requires estimates for crowd size and the event dates and times. It also calls for plans about garbage collection, bathroom use, on-site security,and medical services.

Candy Lab says it's impossible to comply with the permit for it fledgling app. Candy Lab can neither realistically answer the permit's questions(PDF) nor afford to pay for the other requirements like on-site security when users of its platform hunt for a winning hand in its augmented realityversion of Texas Hold 'Em. Like Niantic's Pokemon Go, Candy Lab's app is built to be played in designated parks and other areas. These types of mobile apps provide users with an augmented and interactive view of the park.

Candy Lab said the county is free to regulate the park however it sees fit. But what it cannot do is impose a permitting process on a game publisher, the company said. The requirement for a "special event permit"amounts to a prior restraint of speech in violation of the First Amendment, the company claims in its lawsuit. (PDF)

Just like the Constitution protects a book publisher from requiring a permit to release a book, Candy Lab says the same is true for augmented reality games that are played in public spaces."They are tying to shoehorn us into this existing permitting scheme for events that are finite in time," Brian Wassom, Candy Lab's attorney, said in a Friday interview. "They're passing two-dimensional laws in a three-dimensional world."

But the county views it from a different dimension, one where augmented reality games like Texas Rope 'Em are not protected by the First Amendment.

"Texas Rope 'Em is not entitled to First Amendment protection because it does not convey any messages or ideas. Unlike books, movies, music, plays and video gamesmediums of expression that typically enjoy First Amendment protectionTexas Rope 'Em has no plot, no storylines, no characters, and no dialogue. All it conveys is a random display of cards and a map. Absent the communicative features that invoke the First Amendment, Candy Lab has no First Amendment claim," the county said. (PDF)

The county said it was aware of the 2011 Supreme Court ruling against California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. In coming to that conclusion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, (PDF) the justices said that video games amounted to speech protected under the First Amendment.But that doesn't mean the same is true when it comes to augmented reality, according to the county.

"No court has yet determined whether an augmented reality game receives First Amendment protection," the county notes in its response to Candy Labs' federal lawsuit."As explained in Brown, the reason that video games receive First Amendment protection is because they communicate ideas and messages through literary devices or through features distinctive to the medium. ...In other words, video games will be protected under theFirst Amendment if they include sufficient communicative, expressive, or informative elements to fall at least within the outer limits of constitutionally protected speech."

Texas Rope 'Em, the county maintains,"has no storylines, no characters, no plot and no dialogue. The player simply views randomly generated cards and travels to locations to get more. That is not the type of speech that demands First Amendment safeguards."The county also claims the app is an illegal form of gambling not entitled to First Amendment protection.

Wassom, the attorney for Candy Lab, told Ars that the county's argument is "ridiculous."

"Those are features of a particular expression of a game," he said. "That doesnt make it not entertainment and not speech."

Niantic, the maker of Pokemon Go, told Ars that "continued innovation and responsible game play, rather than regulation, is the way that developers, players, and their communities will realize the potential of this technology for civic engagement, creative expression, and health."The company said it is working with Milwaukee to help placate its concerns.

"We have worked with parks departments, in Milwaukee and other communities, to optimize the distribution of gameplay including removing or relocating some gameplay locations while adding new ones in other areas and also by adding the ability to control the hours of operation for game locations to conform with local rules," Niantic said.

Wassom said that Candy Lab would formally respond in court to the county's arguments on Wednesday. US District Judge JP Stadtmueller in the Eastern District of Wisconsin has set an April 2018 trial date if no settlement is reached.

Listing image by Candy Lab

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Augmented reality lawsuit provides augmented view of 1st Amendment - Ars Technica

In what attorneys are calling a victory for state policies against child abuse and a vindication for the First Amendment, Ohio's Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld the trial victory of a former student and former employee of the Chagrin Falls-based English Nanny & Governess School.

The appeals court also found that trial court judge Burt Griffin abused his discretion byreducing the jury's damages and attorneys' fees awards to plaintiffs, and by sanctioning attorney Peter Pattakos for sharing publicly available information about the case with Scene.

"The appeals court's decision represents a great victory for Ms. Cruz [the former student] and Ms. Kaiser [the former employee], and vindicates the First Amendment, the public's right to access court proceedings, and most importantly, Ohio's strong public policy against child abuse," said Pattakos, in a press release. "Christina Cruz and Heidi Kaiser are real heroes, and not just for resisting the efforts of defendantswho were in a position of great power and influence over them and their careersto suppress the child-abuse report."

The original suit, filed by Cruz, alleged thatthe schools owners retaliated against her after she reported that she saw a wealthy client sexually abuse his daughter in 2011.

"Upholding the trial court's decision could have numerous unintended consequences," the appeals court said in its decision. "For example, defendants in criminal cases potentially could ask for sanctions against prosecutors who provide information to the media about criminal cases. On any given day, newspapers show headlines of ongoing trials, recapping the evidence that was presented that day at trial. In fact, on April 3, 2015, around the same time that Scene Magazine printed the article at issue, a former Cuyahoga County Prosecutor issued a public statement that was published on various news media outlets about the trial of a Cleveland police officer that was set to begin in three days. No sanction was levied against the prosecutor's officer for this public statement ... It should not be held that merely urging a media outlet to cover a trial constitutes frivolous conduct."

The full press release, with information about the Appeals court's decision, is available here. The court's opinion can be read in full here.

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Big Win for Plaintiffs in Nanny School Sex Abuse Case, Plus Victory for First Amendment - Cleveland Scene Weekly

Twitter was an invaluable tool for candidate Donald Trump, allowing him to bypass traditional media channels and connect with a passionate base of followers. But as president, Trump's frequent use of Twitter is turning out to be a major liability for him.

President Trump's tweets earlier this week about his controversial "travel ban" executive order may end up undermining that executive order in court. To recap: Back in January, the president signed the original version, which banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, but gave priority to refugee claims made by individuals whose religion "is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality." This meant that the executive order effectively favored non-Muslim refugees over Muslim refugees, which many legal experts saw as a violation of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion specifically the Establishment Clause prohibits the government from favoring some religious groups over others.

On February 9, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out the order. The Trump administration decided to go back to the drawing board and revise it. Among other things, the administration removed the provision giving priority to refugees from minority religious groups in fact, it scrubbed the order of all references to religion. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on May 25 that the revised executive order still violates the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court will likely be deciding if the order is constitutional this fall.

As is his custom, President Trump took to Twitter to vent his frustration: "The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C." This statement hurts the argument that the government will likely make in front of the Supreme Court that the revised executive order is sufficiently different in motive and operation from the original to pass constitutional muster.

It might seem strange that President Trump's social media habits could have an impact on the constitutionality of the travel ban. But that's because when it comes to the Establishment Clause, courts not only consider the letter of the law, but also the spirit of it. A law, or an executive order, cannot be constitutional if its primary purpose is to discriminate on the basis of religion. When judges are determining a law's primary purpose, they're not just limited to looking at the text. They can also look at the "historical context" of the law and the specific sequence of events leading to its passage. The Fourth Circuit considered President Trump's campaign tweets to be a vital part of the executive order's historical context, citing his campaign promises to ban Muslims from the United States as "creating a compelling case that [the revised executive order's] primary purpose is religious." By suggesting that the second order was merely a "watered down" version of the first, with the same purpose, President Trump's recent tweets are only adding to a record that may be used against the executive order when its fate is in the hands of the Supreme Court.

On less serious matters, President Trump is also facing a potential legal challenge from two users on Twitter that the president had recently blocked. These two, with the aid of the Knight First Amendment Institute, sent the White House a letter on June 6 stating that the president had violated their First Amendment rights when he blocked them, purportedly because they were critical of his policies. It seems bizarre that blocking someone on Twitter could potentially violate the Constitution, but this stems from President Trump's role as a government official and his use of Twitter to discuss domestic and foreign policy. One could argue, as the two angry tweeters might, that President Trump has turned his Twitter account into a limited public forum a place where people can express themselves. A similar thing happens when the government allows people to use its meeting spaces, or enables people to leave comments on an online forum. The government can place reasonable regulations on this sort of activity for example, by blocking users who make threats, or censoring profane comments but it can't discriminate against users based on their point of view.

It's unclear whether the challenge to the president's Twitter blocking practices will end up in court. But it's worth watching and interesting to note that Twitter has gotten President Trump embroiled in two different First Amendment legal matters.

Lata Nott is executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute. Contact her via email at lnott@newseum.org, or follow her on Twitter at @LataNott

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INSIDE THE FIRST AMENDMENT: Trump's use of Twitter puts him in constitutional hot water - Meridian Star

WISH-TV

Former employees claim Muncie Community Schools violated First Amendment rights WISH-TV MUNCIE, Ind. (WISH) Former employees of the Muncie Community Schools claim the district violated their first amendment rights. They have filed a lawsuit against the district, school board and superintendent. A former teacher and administrator claim ...

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Former employees claim Muncie Community Schools violated First Amendment rights - WISH-TV

Free speech and its limitations are on Americans minds. In the past year weve seen Nazis and white supremacists rally in our cities, angry protesters chase provocateurs off of college campuses, a comedian wield a bloody effigy of the presidents severed head, and slurs and overt racial animus made a staple of political discourse. Controversial speech has people talking about what restrictions, if any, society can enforce on words we despise.

That inquiry isnt inherently bad. Its good for citizens to want to learn more about the contours of our constitutional rights. The dilemma is that the public debate about free speech relies on useless cliches, not on accurate information about the law.

Here are some of the most popular misleading slogans:

This slogan is true, but rarely helpful. The Supreme Court has called the few exceptions to the 1st Amendment well-defined and narrowly limited. They include obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, true threats and speech integral to already criminal conduct. First Amendment exceptions are not an open-ended category, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to add to them, especially in the last generation. Merely observing that some exceptions exist does not help anyone determine whether particular speech falls into one of those exceptions. Its a non sequitur.

Imagine youre bitten by a snake on a hike, and you want to know rather urgently whether the snake is venomous. You describe the snake to your doctor. Well, not all snakes are venomous, your doctor responds. Not very helpful, it is?

Almost 100 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr. coined a version of this now-familiar metaphor. Holmes used it to explain why the Supreme Court was upholding the criminal conviction of Charles Shenck, who was jailed merely for distributing materials urging peaceful resistance to the draft in World War I. Fortunately, the Supreme Court often led by Holmes himself retreated from this terrible precedent, eventually ruling that speech cant be punished as incitement unless it is intended and likely to provoke imminent lawless action. In other words, this favorite rhetorical apologia for censorship was used in the course of a decision now universally recognized as bad law.

Holmes usually misquoted slogan (he said that the law allows us to punish someone for falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater) is really just another way to observe that not all speech is protected and there are limits to 1st Amendment protections. As I said before thats not in dispute, but invoking the truism does nothing to resolve whether any particular speech falls within the well-defined and narrow exceptions to the 1st Amendment.

This popular saying reflects our contempt for bigotry, but its not a correct statement of law. There is no general 1st Amendment exception allowing the government to punish hate speech that denigrates people based on their identity. Things we call hate speech might occasionally fall into an existing 1st Amendment exception: a racist speech might seek to incite imminent violence against a group, or might be reasonably interpreted as an immediate threat to do harm. But hate speech, like other ugly types of speech we despise, is broadly protected.

Censorship advocates often tell us we need to balance the freedom of speak with the harm that speech does. This is arguable philosophically, but it is wrong legally. American courts dont decide whether to protect speech by balancing its harm against its benefit; they ask only if it falls into a specific 1st Amendment exception. As the Supreme Court recently put it, [t]he First Amendments guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs.

Years ago the Supreme Court recognized a very narrow 1st Amendment exception for fighting words. If the exception still survives, its limited to in-person face-to-face insults directed at a particular person and likely to provoke a violent response from that person. It doesnt apply broadly to offensive speech, even though its often invoked to justify censoring such speech.

The Supreme Courts approach to constitutional rights can change very quickly. For instance, it took less than a generation for the court to reverse course on whether the government could punish gay sex. But for decades the court has been moving towards more vigorous protection of free speech, not less. Some of the most controversial and unpopular speech to come before the court like videos of animals being tortured, or incendiary Westboro Baptist Church protests at funerals have yielded solid 8-to-1 majorities in favor of protecting speech. Theres no sign of a growing appetite for censorship on the court.

Even as a free speech advocate and critic of censorship, Im happy to see a public debate about the limits of free speech. Any debate that raises consciousness about our rights can be productive. But the free speech debate should proceed based on facts and well-established law, not empty rhetoric. Familiarity with our rights and how they work is a civic obligation.

Ken White is a 1st Amendment litigator and criminal defense attorney at Brown White & Osborn LLP in Los Angeles.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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Actually, hate speech is protected speech - LA Times - Los Angeles Times

Forbes

Tuned In To The First Amendment: Court Upholds Satellite Radio's Right To Choose Advertisers Forbes Business entities have endured increasingly strident criticism of their free speech rights in recent years. Thankfully, the US Supreme Court and most lower federal courts have declined to embrace critics' ideologically-driven perspective that the First ...

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Tuned In To The First Amendment: Court Upholds Satellite Radio's Right To Choose Advertisers - Forbes

Hundreds of people commented on Bernard Weisberger's widely shared article on the dangers Donald Trump poses to press freedom.

Your Turn: Red Alert The First [...]

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House on Feb. 16, 2017. Trump berated the media repeatedly, calling CNN, The New York Times and other outlets "dishonest" and "very fake news" for reporting unfavorable stories about him. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In a recent article for BillMoyers.com, Red Alert: The First Amendment Is in Danger, Bernard Weisberger wrote that Donald Trump is threatening freedom of speech in America with his frequent attacks on the press. In Trumps eyes, Weisberger writes, the most villainous persecutors are the mainstream fake news organizations that dare to oppose his actions and expose his lies. Weisberger reminds us that another US president, John Adams, despised criticism and, with the help of Congress, was able to crack down on the press. In the midst of a national emergency in 1798, Adams signed the Sedition Act, a direct violation of the Constitutions guarantee of freedom of speech. A number of journalists were prosecuted and locked up for speech critical of the government. Weisberger says it could happen again.

Hundreds of people wrote on Facebook page in response to the post; a sampling of these lightly edited comments can be seen below, including a response by Weisberger.

BY Bernard Weisberger | June 2, 2017

Excluding the media

Earlier this year at one of Sean Spicers off-camera briefings, The New York Times, CNN and other news sources were excluded. EXCLUDED from an administration-sponsored forum designed to facilitate getting news out! In my mind this is a clear violation of the First Amendment. John Connett

The covfefe heard around the world

Were already experiencing how Trump manipulates the press. For example, when a stupid typo (covfefe) can make the headlines on the first page for a week while shoving the Russian investigation to the back page or not mentioning it at all. Its only one of many examples of how Trump has succeeded Stay focused; we can walk and chew gum at the same time, so prove it and while investigating Trumps numerous missteps and misleads, stop making them the main story for days on end; always keep the Russian investigation on the front burner. Margi Underwood

What about Obama?

How quickly we forgot the Obama administrations war on whistleblowers. Good thing there wasnt any genuine trouble there. Michael Peck [Note: Peck made a number of related comments, which can be viewed in this thread.]

Mr. Peck, you are clutching at straws to make it seem that Obama was no better than Trump is now. Prosecuting those who broke a law against revealing state secrets is not the same as demanding a law that makes it a crime to criticize the president and thereby suppress all political opposition. Bernard Weisberger

One of many threats

The GOP is attacking our Constitution on every front rule of law, free and independent press, free and fair elections, First Amendment guarantee of free speech yet no one seems concerned that America is on the verge of becoming an autocracy! If you havent already, read Timothy Snyders On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century for a reality jolt. Jack Wall

Like Russia or Turkey

Everyone who cares had better contact their senators and representatives because criticism is driving Trump off the cliff. They have already cut off the White House press corps, refuse to answer questions and advocated locking up protestors. How does that make us different from Russia or Turkey or any other authoritarian state? Trump is a baby. He is not strong. He would go to any lengths to shut down the negative press. Beware. It is up to you to protect our Constitution. Trump has never read it. Sheila Karlson

Stifling speech makes us all losers

We have a voice and need to keep using it. Everyone loses when free speech is stifled. Trump and his administration have been trying to undermine and control the media from the beginning of his campaign. We have to continually pull ourselves out of the weeds and not be duped by all the noise. Stay focused and do your research. Dont forget hate begets hate so be careful to not let anger become a distraction. Rhonda Donaldson Combs

Theodore Roosevelt on criticizing the president

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. Theodore Roosevelt quote, shared by Simone Carbone

Enough with Big Data: Knock on Doors and Talk to Voters

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Your Turn: Red Alert The First Amendment Is in Danger - BillMoyers.com

The editorial "Standing tall for sneakiness" (June 4) accused me of distorting the First Amendment beyond anything the Founders ever imagined. Have you read it lately? It says, in part, that government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. And yet the editorial appears to endorse new laws infringing on our right to privacy to join and support groups.

Perhaps you want to limit the right of elected officials, like Eric Greitens, to raise money for advocacy groups. If so, tread carefully. And certainly dont endorse new laws ensnaring groups independent of elected officials from forming and speaking out on public policy while ensuring their members keep their privacy.

In supporting privacy for these groups, the group I run does not stand alone. We stand with the Supreme Court. In NAACP v. Alabama, the court ruled that government cant force nonprofits to turn over their membership lists. The justices warned that such disclosure may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as (other) forms of governmental action.

In Talley v. California, the high court said disclosure requirements would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression ... fear of reprisal might deter peaceful discussions of public matters of importance.

Such privacy rights related to speech also protect an independent media. Some elected officials want new laws to punish the press for publishing leaks or quoting anonymous sources. The media, including the Post-Dispatch, need to realize that the First Amendment gives it no more rights than citizens who form groups. Attacking citizen rights to free speech undermines the medias rights to the same.

David Keating Alexandria, Va.

President, Center for Competitive Politics

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First Amendment gives advocacy groups a right to privacy - STLtoday.com

If you're fed up with President Donald Trump's early morning tweetstorms, you may be compelled to unfollow him or maybe even block his account, and apparently that's the same way he feels about you.

A free speech advocacy group from Columbia University complained on Tuesday that Trump blocks the Twitter accounts of people he doesn't agree with. That blocking constitutes a violation of the First Amendment, the Knight First Amendment Instituteargued, because the government has designated Trump's Twitter account as a public forum.

"Though the architects of the Constitution surely didn't contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable," Knight Institute Executive Director Jameel Jaffer said in astatementon Tuesday. "Having opened this forum to all comers, the President can't exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what they're saying."

Twitter'sblocking featureis meant to be used as "an effective way to handle unwanted interactions from accounts you do not want to engage with," according to the company. A blocked account cannot view tweets, lists of followers, likesor lists of the user who blocked it.

The Knight Institute demanded that Trump unblock the accounts of people whom he blocked because of their views, but it did not threaten legal action. No word on if muting -- which just blocks someone's tweets from appearing on Trump's timeline -- would be acceptable.

Whether or not access to Trump's tweets is protected under the First Amendment, it's clear that the government itselfconsiders his personal tweets to be public recordsunder the Presidential Records Act, which means that they must be preserved. In other words, if Trump doesn't unblock you, you'll eventually be able to visit the National Archives to see his tweets, assuming you still care about his early morning rants by the time they're preserved. (Or you could justlook at his Twitter pagewhile not signed into your account.)

Tom is PCMag's San Francisco-based news reporter.

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Does Trump's Twitter Blocking Violate the First Amendment? - Entrepreneur