By Noah Biesiada | 22 mins ago

Irvine Mayor Christina Shea is being sued for a violation of her constituents First Amendment rights after blocking several residents on her FaceBook page who criticized her posted opinions on the Black Lives Matter movement and defunding the police force last month.

In a since-deleted post, Shea said that she had received emails from members of Black Lives Matter asking to reduce police funding and move the money to help support homeless programs and other community issues, but that she would not support that move.

We have been named one of the Safest Cities in America for 15 years in a row and I will not agree to reduce our public safety funding especially after seeing the violence we have endured as a nation this past week, Shea said.

Later that day, Shea also posted another comment that criticized a peaceful protest outside city hall, saying they were yelling very rude comments, and that a residents car was hit by one of the protestors.

Protesters in the street blocking traffic and we are being asked to lessen public safety? Shea said.

The posts received over 150 comments with a variety of opinions, but Shea blocked several that disagreed with her post.

One of the blocked commenters was Lamar West, an Irvine resident and software designer, who has called attention to the issue from both the Thurgood Marshall Bar Association, Orange Countys only Black bar, and the law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman who are representing him in the suit against Shea.

Like other educated people have mentioned its okay for you to support the movement and not defund the police but you dont want to do either, West said in his comments. I can hear the racist ancestors of yours in this post and its sickening. Enjoy your position while it lasts.

The primary argument in the case is over whether elected officials social media pages function as a public forum, and multiple legal organizations have said that if it is open to the public and used by a politician to discuss policy then it cannot be censored.

One of the cases frequently referenced by legal experts is Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump, a case from 2018 that saw the President sued for attempting to block commenters on his personal Twitter page that he regularly uses to discuss public policy.

The ruling in the case found that Trumps decision to make the page public and use it as an official mouthpiece of his administration meant that commenters were entitled to voice their opinions in the comments.

The Knight First Amendment Institute was also one of the groups who asked Shea to unblock commenters.

Shea declined to comment, saying she had not reviewed the filing yet.

In the past, Shea has repeatedly defended her actions on the page, saying that it is her personal Facebook page and that she has a right to control what content is there, and that many of the accounts she blocked were fake.

My family goes on that page, my grandchildren do and theyre not going to be reading that stuff, Shea said in a phone call with Voice of OC last month. They were calling me racist, using obscenities, they were threatening me, and I took the post down and I was told I have every right to do that on my private page.

Karl Olson, a First Amendment and media lawyer from San Francisco, said that while social media functions as a bit of a grey area, Sheas page does follow the guidelines of a public forum.

Part of its an issue with what you can do with Facebook, and part of its a legal area, and thats why it is a grey area, Olson said. For someone to call her a racist, thats generally opinion. I think if you want to be the mayor of a city that kind of comes with the territory.

Other politicians in Orange County, including congressional candidate Greg Raths, have faced similar criticism from commenters, with renewed calls for open access to their pages.

The case is set to move to court on Aug. 24, with West filing a preliminary injunction against Shea that would force her to unblock him and other constituents for the duration of the case if approved by a judge.

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC Reporting Fellow. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.

Continued here:

Irvine Mayor Sued Over Facebook Blocking And Deleting Of Comments - Voice of OC

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A federal judge ordered that President Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen must be released from prison and sent back to home confinement, saying he believes the government sent him back to prison as retaliation for refusing to agree to not write a book about Trump and, in doing so, violated his First Amendment rights.

Michael Cohen arrives at his New York City Park Avenue apartment on May 21, 2020, after being ... [+] released from prison and moved to home confinement.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on Thursday ordered Cohen released from prison by 2 p.m. on Friday.

Hellerstein found that Cohen was retaliated against when he was sent back to prison for refusing to agree to not publish a tell-all book about Trump as one of the conditions for serving the remainder of his three-year prison term on home confinement.

The Department of Justice denied that the gag order was aimed at stopping Cohen from proceeding with his book, saying they did not know a publication was in the works, and denied that his being returned to prison was retaliation, a statement federal prosecutors echoed at the court hearing but Hellerstein disagreed.

Hellerstein said that in his 21 years as a judge, he has "never seen such a clause," adding, how can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?

Hellerstein also said that probation officials had not given Cohen a warning that he would be sent back to prison for not agreeing to all conditions: Cohen was never given a chance to say, If this is it, I will sign, Hellerstein said.

Cohen sued federal prison officials and Attorney General William Barr on Monday, saying that the government had violated his First Amendment rights.

"I make the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and it's retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish the book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and elsewhere, Hellerstein said during a court hearing on Thursday.

Cohens lawyer and a prosecutor will negotiate restrictions on his movement and employment as well as any restrictions on his public communication, but it is likely that restrictions on speech through a book, the press and social media will be excluded. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

There has been a lot of buzz about Trump in the book world recently Former National Security Advisor John Boltons The Room Where it Happened, Trumps nieces Too Much and Never Enough and Washington Post reporter Mary Jordans The Art of Her Deal about the First Lady were all best-sellers before publication.

ACLU Files Legal Challenge Claiming Michael Cohen Was Sent Back To Prison In Retaliation For His Tell-All Book On Trump (Forbes)

Judge to order Michael Cohen be released from prison, returned to home confinement (The Hill)

Judge orders Michael Cohen to be released from prison (Associated Press)

Report: Trump's Ex-Attorney Michael Cohen To Be Released From Prison On Thursday (Forbes)

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Judge Orders Michael Cohen To Be Released From Prison, Saying His First Amendment Rights Were Violated - Forbes

Many public health professionals and politicians are urging or requiring citizens to wear face masks to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Some Americans have refused, wrongly claiming mask decrees violate the Constitution. An internet search turns up dozens of examples.

Costco Karen, for instance, staged a sit-in in a Costco entrance in Hillsboro, Oregon after she refused to wear a mask, yelling I am an American I have rights.

A group called Health Freedom Idaho organized a protest against a Boise, Idaho, mask mandate. One protester said, Im afraid where this country is headed if we just all roll over and abide by control that goes against our constitutional rights.

As one protester said, The coronavirus doesnt override the Constitution.

Speaking as a constitutional law scholar, these objections are nonsense.

It is not always clear why anti-maskers think government orders requiring face coverings in public spaces or those put in place by private businesses violate their constitutional rights, much less what they think those rights are. But most of the mistaken objections fall into two categories:

Mandatory masks violate the First Amendment right to speech, assembly, and especially association and mandatory masks violate a persons constitutional right to liberty and to make decisions about their own health and bodily integrity.

Theyre not mutually exclusive claims: A lawsuit filed by four Florida residents against Palm Beach County, for example, argues that mask mandates interfere with personal liberty and constitutional rights, such as freedom of speech, right to privacy, due process, and the constitutionally protected right to enjoy and defend life and liberty. The lawsuit asks the court to issue a permanent injunction against the countys mask mandate.

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Responding to a reporter who asked why President Donald Trump appeared unconcerned about the absence of masks and social distancing at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Vice President Mike Pence said: I want to remind you again freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble is in the Constitution of the U.S. Even in a health crisis, the American people dont forfeit our constitutional rights.

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, petition, assembly and religion.

There are two reasons why mask mandates dont violate the First Amendment.

First, a mask doesnt keep you from expressing yourself. At most, it limits where and how you can speak. Constitutional law scholars and judges call these time, place, and manner restrictions. If they do not discriminate on the basis of the content of the speech, such restrictions do not violate the First Amendment. An example of a valid time, place and manner restriction would be a law that limits political campaigning within a certain distance of a voting booth.

Additionally, the First Amendment, like all liberties ensured by the Constitution, is not absolute.

All constitutional rights are subject to the goverments authority to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. This authority is called the police power. The Supreme Court has long held that protecting public health is sufficient reason to institute measures that might otherwise violate the First Amendment or other provisions in the Bill of Rights. In 1944, in the case of Prince v. Massachusetts, for example, the Supreme Court upheld a law that prohibited parents from using their children to distribute religious pamphlets on public streets.

Some anti-maskers object that masks violate the right to liberty.

The right to liberty, including the right to make choices about ones health and body, is essentially a constitutional principle of individual autonomy, neatly summarized as My body, my choice.

The 1905 case of Jacobsen v. Massachusetts shows why mask mandates dont violate any constitutional right to privacy or health or bodily integrity. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld a smallpox vaccination requirement in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The court said that the vaccination requirement did not violate Jacobsens right to liberty or the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seems best.

As the court wrote, There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. In a 1995 New York case, a state court held that an individual with active tuberculosis could be forcibly detained in a hospital for appropriate medical treatment.

Even if you assume that mask mandates infringe upon what the Supreme Court calls fundamental rights, or rights that the court has called the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty, it has consistently ruled states can act if the restrictions advance a compelling state interest and do so in the least restrictive manner.

As the Jacobsen ruling and the doctrine of time, place and manner make clear, the protection of all constitutional liberties rides upon certain necessary but rarely examined assumptions about communal and public life.

One is that constitutional rights whether to liberty, speech, assembly, freedom of movement or autonomy are held on several conditions. The most basic and important of these conditions is that our exercise of rights must not endanger others (and in so doing violate their rights) or the public welfare. This is simply another version of the police power doctrine.

Unfortunately, a global pandemic in which a serious and deadly communicable disease can be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers upsets that background and justifies a wide range of reasonable restrictions on our liberties. Believing otherwise makes the Constitution a suicide pact and not just metaphorically.

The rest is here:

The Constitution doesn't have a problem with mask mandates - The Conversation US

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS) Police are preparing for the weekend after multiple groups have announced plans to protest Saturday in Louisville.

We expect nothing but a peaceful protest this weekend, said Major Aubrey Gregory with LMPD.

LMPD said it will increase visible police presence in the area, and said officers will use bike rack barriers to keep opposing protesters separated on 5th Street.

Both are exercising their First Amendment rights to express those viewpoints, but were going to try and keep them separated on both sides of Fifth Street, Gregory explained.

A Black militia group, Not F***ing Around Coalition, has announced plans to participate in a formation Saturday. They wear all black and are armed with guns.

I welcome them, that dont intimidate me, said Rosie Henderson, who has spent her days at Jefferson Square Park since the start.

Henderson told WHAS11 News she is happy to see this movement continue to get national attention, but as the Black militia comes to town, she wants to make sure they embrace all of those looking for justice in Breonna Taylors death.

Our white allies are going to be right there marching with us. 502 is standing strong, united, together, she explained.

Gregory said hes been in touch with the NFACs leader, John Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay.

Hes told me that its going to be a peaceful protest, that they have no intention of causing damage or being violent, he wants to come to town, he has a message he wants to get out, he wants some answers.

Metro Council President David James said he has been in contact with the groups leader, as well as facilitated a conversation between the leader and Attorney General Daniel Camerons office.

James did say while he fully anticipates the demonstration to be peaceful, he said counter-protesters are a cause for concern.

I just think the potential for something to go wrong is there. I dont care what group it is, he said. My issue with that going wrong isnt necessarily with the group thats protesting at the time. Its with the counter-protesters that causes me more concern.

LMPD said it remains committed to peaceful expression of views under the First Amendment, saying there will not be police intervention as long as there is no threat to public or personal safety.

Henderson said she wont let any outside presence distract from or disrupt the mission protesters at Jefferson Square Park have fought for months.

At the end of the day theyre coming here for a moment, and were here forever, she said.

The Louisville Metro Police Department has also announced it will close multiple roads around Jefferson Square Park.

Starting at 8 a.m. Saturday, LMPD will close down :

Jefferson Street between 4th and 7th streets

Liberty Street between 5th and 7th streets

5th Street between Market Street and Muhammad Ali

6th Street between Market and Liberty streets.

Parking will also be prohibited on streets surrounding Jefferson Square Park.

Louisville police previously shut down roads and created barriers after rumors of an armed group of counter-protesters were coming to the city June 27. LMPD said protests that day remained peaceful after around 30 people gathered in Thurman Hutchins Park for a few hours but never came to downtown Louisville.

Originally posted here:

Louisville police plan for militia group protest this weekend - ABC 36 News - WTVQ

UNCW Professor Mike Adams (Photo courtesy Facebook)

WILMINGTON According to the New Hanover County Sheriffs Office, Mike Adams was found dead at his residence today.

Deputies responded to a wellness check at Adams home address and found him deceased. NHCSO is investigating the death, but has not released any additional information, and could not confirm cause of death or if foul play was suspected.

The longtime professor of criminology and sociology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) was set to retire next week as part of a $500,000 settlement.

The settlement came as Adams was facing growing criticism for his social media posts and UNCW, in particular Chancellor Jose V. Sartarelli, was under increasing pressure to terminate his employment. Several petitions with around 85,000 total signatures called for his termination, and letters from his colleagues and fellow criminologists denounced his actions and called for his firing.

Due to Adams tenured status, and his previous legal victory over UNCW (which cost the UNC system roughly $700,000), the university opted for a negotiated exit.

Adams had supporters as well as detractors, including those who saw his online behavior as an exercise of his first First Amendment rights. Adams classes were also popular with many of his students, earning him generally positive evaluations and several awards for teaching, according to his UNCW curriculum vitae.

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New Hanover Sheriff's Office investigating death of UNCW Professor Mike Adams - Port City Daily