Is Freedom of Expression in Danger? First Amendment Experts … – TheWrap

The grey area between questions of privacy rights and First Amendment rights were central to TheWraps panel discussion in Los Angeles Thursday night, The First Amendment In the Age of Trump and needless to say, there were plenty of issues to debate.

Brian Knappenberger, director of the documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of a Free Press, feels that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiels secretive involvement in the Hulk Hogan/Gawker trial threatened the First Amendment rights of the free press. But the irony is that the First Amendment in part protects Thiels secrecy.

Or consider how universities have been locked in debate over whether figures like Ann Coulter or Milo Yiannopoulos have the right to speak on college campuses. The First Amendment protects their right to speak, but it also protects those fighting back against that speech. Are students exercising their rights or are they suppressing debate?

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Then theres the case of writing on the internet. Fake news, false memes and outright hate speech can be easily proliferated online, all under anonymous internet monikers. Their words have proven dangerous and made people mistrust the media, yet the First Amendment protects their anonymity.

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The talk followed a screening of Knappenbergers Netflix documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press. It charts how Gawkers decision to publish Hulk Hogans sex tape led to a trial that has potentially opened the flood gates for billionaires to make news outlets they dont like disappear.

Im bothered by the secrecy of what happened here. As I understand it, what Peter Thiel did here used to be illegal, Knappenberger said during the panel discussion. Theres this notion that this can be done in secret, that a thumb can be placed on this conversation in a way that is invisible to the participants involved, invisible to the public and invisible to the jury as well. That is troubling to me.

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But Ricardo Cestero, a partner at the law firm Greenberg Glusker, argues that the secrecy of Thiels actions is part of what the First Amendment protects.

Peter Thiel had a First Amendment right to do whatever lawfully he was allowed to do in order to shut down a publication that in his First Amendment belief wasnt worthy of continuing to exist, Cestero said. Its a jury verdict that balanced the privacy of a celebrity against the publications First Amendment right to do what it did. Peter Thiels involvement is part of what the First Amendment allows.

Cestero argues that the real issue is a flaw in our legal system rather than a failure to recognize the First Amendment. Wealthy individuals who dont like what they read or see in the media can file an arguably frivolous lawsuit, and theres no way for media companies to combat it.

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Our legal system has gotten to the point where it is cost prohibitive for anything other than companies that are fully insured or the extraordinarily wealthy people or corporations to really litigate meaningful cases like this one, Cestero said. We as a society should look at ways to solve that problem.

Lanny J. Davis, the co-founder and partner of Davis Goldberg & Galper, reiterated how the Hulk Hogan/Gawker case mainly concerned the balance between privacy rights and First Amendment rights. He said that when we argue about First Amendment rights disappearing, we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that Terry Bollea, i.e. Hogans real name, was entitled to privacy as also protected by the Constitution.

Theres a grey area where First Amendment and privacy rights overlap, and people who are progressive need to have a balance in looking at both sides, Davis said.

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Davis went on to say that these rights extended to Thiels own privacy, but hes ultimately in favor of transparency in litigation. The First Amendment allows anybody to be outed and the person outed to be offended. The principle of the First Amendment is that shouldnt be subject to any penalty. But whats offensive and whats constitutional are different, he added.

David Greene is the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and he said during the panel discussion that theres still an issue with billionaires like Thiel putting their thumbs on the scale. Greene said the verdict in the Gawker case was disproportionate to anything hes seen in a privacy case like this.

What you get when you have someone funding it is you have this concern that youll soon get this disproportion, Greene said. And our system isnt well equipped to handle that disproportion. The system that we rely on breaks just a little bit when you have this type of involvement in the cases.

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So is the First Amendment under attack more now than when Trump took office? Greene feels there may not be a legal solution to the president attacking the media, but we still need to fight back against that language.

The concern I have in the rhetoric I hear now is its engendering distrust in these institutions that are so vital, Greene said. There are media institutions I like and those I dislike, but I want them all to survive, because thats the way the system works. The more people reporting the better.

Davis says all presidents have been irritated or displeased with the media. But Donald Trump is different.

The difference is Donald Trump demonizes people and creates dangerous, violent tendencies in certain extreme minded, and I think fascist oriented people, he said. We have to try and avoid attacking motives and demonizing people we disagree with. We lose the heartland of this country when we do that as opposed to civil disagreement, and keeping with our criticism of the media, which is sometimes deserved, is that we dont personalize our differences. We dont demonize our opposition. Thats what President Trump does, and thats what makes him dangerous.

Check out the whole video from Thursdays panel discussion above, Nobody Speak is available on Netflix now.

On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.

Two years after President Obama released his birth certificate, Trump said it was not believable to some people."You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate," he told ABC in August 2013. "I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows and you don't know either."

Trump said one of thesources "called myoffice."

Trump took care to describe this sourceas "extremely credible."

Trump so oftensources information to "many people" (without naming any of them) that there's a well-worn #manypeoplearesaying hashtag on Twitter.The Washington Post wrote an article about it, which includes the examples on the next three slides.

At a rally in September, a man in Trump's audience said President Obama was a Muslim and not even an American, then asked Trump to get rid of Muslim training camps.

You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there, Trump responded.

In early January, Trump said he had heard from many Republicans worried that his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, was born in Canada.

Id hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport, Trump told thePost.

In May 2016, Trump told the Post what some "people" believe about the death of Vince Foster. I dont bring [Fosters death] up because I dont know enough to really discuss it, Trump said. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I dont do that because I dont think its fair.

Soon after Trump called for an end to anonymous sourcing, The Associated Press noted, "Members of Trump's White House team regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters."

Surprise: Trump berates the news media for doing something hes done himself

On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.

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Is Freedom of Expression in Danger? First Amendment Experts ... - TheWrap