On official U.S. Army and Navy esports Twitch channels, members of the military livestream themselves playing video games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite and League of Legends for an audience of thousands. Its an outreach and recruitment effort and the military service members also chat with viewers about life in the armed forces.

Not everyone is looking to sign up. whats your favorite u.s. w4r cr1me? Jordan Uhl asked in a chat on the Army Twitch channel on July 8, substituting numbers for letters to get around the channels moderation settings.

Mr. Uhl, a 32-year-old activist, then posted a Wikipedia link to a list of war crimes committed by the U.S. military. A video showed him being banned from the chat, and one of the streamers said, have a nice time getting banned, my dude.

Now, facing criticism from First Amendment advocacy groups who say the ban is unconstitutional, the Army said Wednesday it would pause streaming on Twitch to review internal policies and procedures, as well as all platform-specific policies.

In a letter sent to Army and Navy recruiting officers Wednesday, the Knight First Amendment Institute demanded that the military branches channels change their moderation policies and restore access for Mr. Uhl and 300 others who have made similar comments in the past few weeks.

When the government intentionally opens a space to the public at large for expressive activity, it has created a public forum under the First Amendment, and it cannot constitutionally bar speakers from that forum based on viewpoint, the institute wrote in a letter Wednesday to Army and Navy recruiting officers on behalf of Mr. Uhl.

An Army spokeswoman, Kelli Bland, said users were banned because their comments constituted harassment, which would violate the terms of service of Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.

The eSports Team blocked the term war crimes in its Twitch channel after discovering the trend was meant to troll and harass the team, Ms. Bland told The New York Times. Twitch members used creative spelling to continue related posts. Following the guidelines and policies set by Twitch, the U.S. Army eSports Team banned a user from its account due to concern over posted content and website links that were considered harassing and degrading in nature.

The First Amendment Institute disputed that Mr. Uhl and other users remarks were harassment, which Twitch, defines as content that attempts to intimidate, degrade, abuse, or bully others, or creates a hostile environment for others.

Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the First Amendment Institute, said he had not yet received a reply from the Army or Navy, and he was prepared to sue them if they did not change their policies.

A Twitch spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the conflict, but pointed out that Twitchs policy states that channel owners and moderators are free to ban anyone from their channel, regardless of the reason.

The Navy did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. News of the ban and the letter were first reported by Vice.

The governments actions here are plainly unconstitutional, said Naomi Gilens, a legal fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. When a government official or agency creates a forum for speech online and invites the public to participate, it cant censor speech just because it doesnt like the message or viewpoints being expressed.

Because the Army and Navy are using these Twitch channels to recruit young people, this issue is about much more than just esports, Meenakshi Krishnan, a legal fellow at the First Amendment Institute, said in a statement. Participants in these forums have a constitutional right to engage in speech critical of the military. The Army and Navy certainly have no legitimate interest in suppressing speech relating to war crimes.

Courts have previously ruled that government-run social media accounts constitute public forums and that the government cannot block or exclude people based on their comments or views. Last July, a federal appeals court ruled that President Trump could not block people from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.

The Army most recently streamed 13 days ago; the Navy has continued streaming through Tuesday.

Mr. Uhl said that the issue was not simply about him as an individual getting banned. Everyone should be able to criticize the military on their social media channels, he said. Its at the core of free-speech protection.

Mr. Uhl was banned from the Navy Twitch stream on Saturday along with others discussing war crimes and the former Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher.

I hope this helps people understand that youre allowed to criticize the government online, Mr. Uhl said. As we become an increasingly digital society, the laws need updating and we need protections for political speech online. We cant have a system where the government can delete or ban negative comments on a social platform.

On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, announced plans to file a measure to block the military from using video games and esports as recruitment methods.

The bans have renewed criticism of military recruiting tactics. Last week, Twitch also told the Armys esports channel to stop advertising a fake video game controller giveaway that instead directed people to a recruitment form, The Verge reported.

Though the military has a long history of leveraging video games and the gaming community for recruitment, and its esports teams have been around since 2018, it drew increased attention online on June 30 after the official Army Twitter account responded to a tweet from the chat application Discord with UwU, an emoticon that conveys happiness or smugness. For that, the Army was accused of using social media to prey on vulnerable teenagers.

Some branches of the military, like the Marines, have abstained from relying on esports and gaming to recruit. A statement from the Marine Corps Recruiting Command obtained by Military.com reiterates that the militarys national marketing brand strategy does not include future plans to establish esports teams or create branded games.

With the Marine Corps brand, we are very strategic in how we activate that brand and how people interact with it, Capt. Michael Maggitti, a spokesman for the 8th Marine Corps District, told Military.com in May. It could be some peoples first time engaging with the brand, and its a very serious decision to serve, and theres concerns over gamifying what we do and the translation between video games and actual military service.

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Army Pauses Twitch Game Streaming After First Amendment Claim - The New York Times

Mayor Lenny Currys bill will limit protests to a designated "First Amendment Zone."

A just-filed bill setting up plans for the 2020 Republican National Convention next month details how and where protesters and supporters can gather downtown, assuming the convention still happens.

The bill faces its own significant challenges after City Council President Tommy Hazouri announced his opposition Wednesday evening, putting the bills chances of passing at risk.

If that bill does pass, however, it would designate what areas of downtown can be used for the conventions celebration event, where a free-speech zone would be set up and where protesters can receive permits to take to the street.

The Republican National Convention is scheduled to take place downtown at several venues from Aug. 24 through Aug. 27. It was initially scheduled for Charlotte, but President Trump moved it after the North Carolina governor said he couldnt guarantee guests would be able to fill Spectrum Center because of coronavirus concerns.

Some parts of the bill will affect the whole city, like a temporary change allowing more time for alcohol sales, from 6 a.m. to 4 a.m.

The "Convention Celebration Complex would make up nearly 140 acres around TIAA Bank Field and the surrounding parking lots.

A few blocks away, the city would designate a four-acre "First Amendment Zone." The city said it was necessary to "establish specific areas designated for free speech," while limiting speech elsewhere.

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Limiting protests to a specific zone set apart from the convention is necessary, the bill said, to "promote and protect the general safety and welfare of the residents of and visitors to of the City during the Convention while also allowing persons and organizations to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and parade."

The mile-long parade route, a designated area for protesters to take to the streets from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, will be near A. Philip Randolph and the Arlington Expressway, coming off the Mathews Bridge, just blocks away from where Randolph, a labor organizer who orchestrated the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, grew up.

The parade route would require protesters obtain a permit, which would allow them to march for up to one hour and stick to a small area far removed from the conventions venues. Protesters wont be allowed to use bullhorns.

In the convention celebration complex, the city would allow the Republican National Committee to sell liquor with no corkage fees, and the city would waive its open container laws within the convention security zone.

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First Amendment Zone: How to protest (or not) at the RNC in Jacksonville - The Florida Times-Union

By John E. Finn Wesleyan University

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, "I'm 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 doesn't override the Constitution."

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

The objections

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 person's constitutional right to liberty and to make decisions about his or her own health and bodily integrity.

They're 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 county's mask mandate.

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 don't forfeit our constitutional rights."

What the First Amendment

does - and doesn't - do

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

There are two reasons why mask mandates don't violate the First Amendment.

First, a mask doesn't 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 goverment's 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.

The right to liberty

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

The right to liberty, including the right to make choices about one's 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 don't 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 Jacobsen's 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.

Rights are conditional

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 Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

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Constitution doesn't have a problem with mask mandates - Sumter Item