Category Archives: First Amendment

As a resident of Rutland Town, Id like to voice my support for Article 23 on the Rutland Town Ballot, the construction of the Rutland Town Public Safety Building.

The current police department office is 320-square feet inside the Town Hall. There are three desks to be used by the four full-time officers and the records administrator. This alone occupies the majority of the office, but then add in the three filing cabinets, a fax/copier/scanner, air purifier and basic amenities, and you are left with a single path to move around the office.

The current office was remodeled in 2015 and was a temporary (three to four years maximum) fix to the single closet office the police department was in. It is now 2022 and the police department has long since outgrown the office. There is no interview room, processing area and with limited desks, if there is a major incident, an officer will have to wait for a desk to be available to type their report.

The McKinley Avenue Fire Station was built sometime in the 1960s to fit the need of the fire department at the time. The building was constructed with a cinder block foundation and wall, steel-beam roof supports and three bays. A lot has changed since the construction of the building. Modern-day fire departments are required to carry more equipment, meaning the fire trucks are bigger. In order to get the new trucks into the station, the truck must be built to fit under the steel beam roof supports, which limits what equipment can be added to the trucks.

While the trucks not fitting is a concern, the building itself is falling apart. Anybody who has ever had a cinder block foundation or wall, knows cinder blocks crack, deteriorate and require constant fixing to keep their stability. There are cinder blocks at the McKinley Avenue station that have begun to crack and turn to dust. This compromises the structural integrity of the building, and I would rather see the town be proactive in replacing the building, versus the building collapsing and millions of dollars in fire equipment getting destroyed, the town be without multiple fire engines while they are replaced, and at the end of the day, the town would need to put up a new building.

I know there are people who oppose the construction of this building, citing its more than what the town needs, and its too expensive. While I respect these individuals are exercising their First Amendment right, I feel I also should be allowed to voice my First Amendment right.

The planned for public safety building was designed by the fire department and police department. The building has the necessities both entities need to perform their duties. There are no added bonus rooms, or luxury areas, just space needed to perform daily operations. The building was also designed by both agencies with the intent to last for the next 30 to 40 years.

As far as the price tag, yes, the overall building would cost $4 million to build. However, because of capital improvement funds and federal funding, the town has the opportunity to put down $2 million, meaning the overall cost of the building would be $2 million, instead of $4 million.

On March 1, Ill be voting yes on Article 23, and I ask for the support of Rutland Town residents to approve this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Ted Washburn lives in Center Rutland.

Continued here:
Washburn: Rutland Town Article 23 | Commentary | rutlandherald.com - Rutland Herald

The Supreme Courts recent decision, reversing that of a lower federal court, to reinstate Alabamas evidently gerrymandered voting map did more than just make it harder for affected voters to have a meaningful say in the November midterms. To be sure, according to the lower courts three-judge panel (which included two Trump appointees), the new map adversely impacts Black Alabamans in a way that violates the Voting Rights Act. The electoral stakes could hardly be higher, potentially determining whether control of Congress will shift to Republicans, leading to a cascade of implications, such as the termination of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, and possible election trickeryto say nothing of what would come of the normal business of legislating.

But beyond that, the frightening takeaway from Merrill v. Milligan is that a majority of Americas highest court again evinced a disdain for voters and their ability to pick their leaders, intent on cementing a system where this works in reverse, with the entrenched leaders picking their voters in a bid to stay in power indefinitely. By joining the dissent, even Chief Justice John Robertsnot exactly a historical champion of voting rightsseems to think the majority has gone too far, missing the most fundamental message of the U.S. Constitution: no more kings.

Adam Serwer: The lie about the Supreme Court that everyone pretends to believe

The Court neednt have allowed this to happen. Gerrymandering is the practice by which every 10 years, state and local governments carve up and manipulate the geographical boundaries of an electoral district to maximize the power of one political party over the other. Two common techniques are packingthat is, drawing a district in a tortured way that smushes in voters of a certain party, making it all but impossible for others to choose a candidate from a competing party for that district. And crackingtaking a logical geographic boundary that happens to contain a predominant number of voters from a particular party, breaking it up into pieces, and adding those fragments to other districts dominated by the competing party so that those voters voices no longer matter.

With Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress drew a legislative line banning gerrymandering based on race and enabling lawsuits to enforce it. And in Shaw v. Reno, the Supreme Court in 1993 held that gerrymandered boundaries that cannot be explained on grounds other than race violate the Constitutions equal-protection clause, declaring that bizarrely shaped districts strongly indicate racial intent. The Voting Rights Act, combined with the Courts earlier constitutional interpretation, provided it with a solid foundation for protecting voting rights and strengthening American democracy. But thats not what the Courts new conservative majority has chosen to do with its power. Instead, it has made an abject constitutional power grabthe tragic outcome of a judicial assault on voting rights that dates back to when, over a trio of rulings, the Supreme Court unnecessarily struck at the very heart of American democracy, potentially fatally.

The slide away from voting-rights protection began in 2010, in the Courts 54 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that legislative restrictions on independent political spending from corporations violate the First Amendment right to free speech. Meanwhile, donations directly to campaigns and their committeessomething that individuals, but not corporations, can makeare capped. So, for individuals, donating more than $2,900 to a single candidate is illegal, on the rationale that a greater amount could corruptly sway an elected politicians decision making once in public office. However, if an individual or a corporation buys a $1 million Super Bowl ad containing electioneering communications, the majority reasoned, that speech cant be congressionally restricted, so long as the ad isnt coordinated with the candidate. The trick is that only extremely wealthy individuals and corporations can do such a thingleaving them with much more political power than average people. Its a David-versus-Goliath problem caused not by Congress but by the Supreme Court, which all but obliterated the legislatures gains in leveling the playing field on influencing elections through funding.

The Court ruled this way even though corporations are pure legal fictions, and even though Congress determined in legislation dating back more than 100 years that such spending might unduly influence candidates for office, and warrants regulation. It could easily have gone the other way, in accordance with its earlier precedents, as well as a commensurate respect for the U.S. Congress and the commonsense notion that ours is a democracy by the people, not corporations. To be sure, the Framers did not include an affirmative right to vote in the original Constitution, but corporate entities were nascent in 1791 when the First Amendment was ratified. For conservatives who bill themselves as textualists and originalists, it would have been easy to justify a ruling that the First Amendments free-speech protections were intended for individuals who work for corporations, but not for the legal creation of a corporate entity.

Three years later, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, again struck down a key portion of an act of Congressthis time, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 was designed to push back on states outmaneuvering of the Fifteenth Amendments postCivil War prohibition on laws restricting ballot access based on race. To keep Black voters from the polls, states enacted arbitrary hurdles to votingsuch as reciting the Declaration of Independence or counting the bubbles in a bar of soapas a precondition to ballot access. These schemes disproportionately impacted Black voters. Section 5 required states with unsavory histories of imposing such barriers to run proposed laws by the Justice Department before the laws could take effect.

The program was a legislative triumph, and Roberts himself wrote in Shelby County that the Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process. Section 5 was reauthorized multiple times by substantial supermajorities in Congress. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that Section 5 was outdated and sent Congress back to the drawing board. Conceding that voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that, Roberts wrote for the majority that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions. The formula for determining which states needed the DOJs approval to enact new voting lawsa process known as preclearancewas based on decades-old data and eradicated practices, Roberts reasoned, because minority-voter access had made great strides since 1965. The Court thus deemed the formula an unconstitutional infringement on states ability to regulate elections under the Tenth Amendment.

This was a sharp departure from prior precedent, as the Court had already rejected a similar constitutional challenge brought by Texas after Congress reauthorized the law in 2006. According to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that congressional determination was based on exhaustive evidence-gathering and deliberative process. Surely, the Court didnt have to strike it down this time. Ginsburg famously quipped in dissent: Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet. The majoritys maneuver, she noted, was instead about the separation of powers: who decides this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments.

The third nail in the voting-rights coffin came in 2019, with Rucho v. Common Cause. Although the Court had banned racial gerrymandering in Shaw v. Reno, in Rucho, Roberts wrote for a 54 conservative majority that constitutional claims of partisan gerrymandering are political questions that cannot be heard in court. The courthouse doors are thus permanently closed to claims that packing and cracking electoral districts for purposes of entrenching party power are unconstitutional. Voters must go back to gerrymandered politicians for help by asking that they give up the reins of power that gerrymandering provides them with and divide up districts more fairly.

Again, the Court neednt have gone down this path. The political-question doctrine is notoriously squishy and untethered from the constitutional text, and the majority did not deny the broader constitutional implications with political gerrymandering. It just refused to hear them. Justice Elena Kagan bemoaned in dissent: For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities. By 2019, Kagan was heavily outnumbered by five staunch conservatives who exercised their collective discretion to put a boot on the neck of voting rights, rather than championing them.

Read: The Supreme Courts dead hand

Voting-rights activists have grasped at other straws. The pending John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which has been languishing for months because of the threat of a Republican filibuster, was Congresss answer to Shelby County. In addition to working via Congress, voters turned to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act for relief through the courts in the interim. But that strategy, too, was met with the Courts antipathy. In 2021, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, Justice Samuel Alito wrote a 63 majority opinion (with Justice Amy Coney Barrett now on the Court) that effectively inserted a five-part legislative test into the Voting Rights Act as a prerequisite to voters seeking relief from laws inhibiting ballot access, making Section 2 lawsuits much harder.

By the time the Alabama case reached the Court this winter, voting-rights activists faced a panel with six far-right conservative justicesenough that they can lose Roberts to the Courts moderate wing and still have the majority. And thats just what happened.

Following the 2020 census, Alabama redrew its seven seats in the House of Representatives. Although its statewide population is 27 percent Black, only one of the newly drawn districts has a Black majority. All of the remaining six have a majority-white population. The lower court stayed the plan, giving the state legislature two weeks to draw another map that includes two majority-Black districts. Otherwise, the court said, it would hire an outside expert to do it.

In a single paragraph issued on a motion for a stay of the lower courts order, the Supreme Court reversed that decision and issued an injunction effectively putting the contested plan back in place. The Court did this without the benefit of full briefing and argumentanother invocation of its quick-and-dirty shadow docket procedure. (The Court declined to use this power to stay an unlawful ban on abortion in Texas, mind you.) In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized that the stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Courts injunction pending a ruling on the merits. His partial rationale was that the lower courts ruling was in the period close to an election.

Kavanaughs pretense that the injunction was only a technicality elevates form over substance. As with Texass S.B. 8 abortion law, the Court effectively left in place a potentially illegal law pending full briefing. Roberts again shot back: I respectfully dissent from the stays granted in these cases because, in my view, the District Court properly applied existing law in an extensive opinion with no apparent errors for our correction. Justice Kagans dissent, which Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined, was sharper: After considering a massive factual record, developed over seven days of testimony, and reviewing more than 1,000 pages of briefing, a three-judge District Court held that Alabamas redistricting plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Roberts and Kagan underscored the ABCs of how the judicial system works. Unhappy litigants must wait patiently for their bid to come up on appeal. In the meantime, the lower-court rulings stand, absent some egregious immediate harm and a clear error of law.

So there we have it. Congress has in fact passed numerous laws to make elections fairer and ballot access easier. But based on its 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison making it the arbiter of constitutional ambiguity, the Supreme Court has either slapped such legislation down or added material requirements to a statute to make bringing cases harder for voters. For a particularly problematic category of casespolitical gerrymanderingthe Court has barred all constitutional court actions and sided with states for statutory claims, regardless of the merits, on the theory that its better to err on the side of a potential Voting Rights Act violation because elections are around the corner (inevitably every year in some form or another).

This Court is going to continue to make voting more difficult, leaving it up to a Congress that was substantially voted in under those same unfair standards to fix the problem. Good luck with that. In the meantime, the revisionist justices are deep in the business of snatching power from a supposedly co-equal branch of governmentone that, unlike the Court, is accountable to the voters at the ballot box. This is the sleeping dragon, friends. One-party rule will come to federal, state, and local legislatures across the country. But it is already here on the Supreme Court, in the form of four men and one woman in black robes, with jobs for life and nothing to slow them down other than individual conscience.

See the original post here:
How the Court Became a Voting-Rights Foe - The Atlantic

Its the money

Never did such evil institution as money spring up to mortals; it seduces and corrupts the honest mind, turning its virtuous thoughts to deeds of baseness; it has taught men villainy and how to perform all impious works. - Sophocles (d. 406 BC) - ancient Greek writer of tragedies.

The U.S. Supreme Courts 5-4 decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010 struck down restrictions on independent expenditures from corporate treasuries as violations of the First Amendment (money is speech from prior SCOTUS rulings). As Ive heard some political commentators say we have a system of legalized bribery in American politics.

There can be no doubt of this truth.

Anyone who follows the downward trajectory of todays American politics cant escape the fact that money in politics is the root of problems of our sad dysfunctionality, blatant corruption among so many regardless of political party, news media with its purposeful ineptitude and increasing autocratic nation-like propaganda growing. The Koch Brother influence is astounding, with their political organizations; think tanks, etc., having equity in resources to the Republican National Committee. But there are a few wealthy donors for the Democratic Party as well, and the point is lost on blaming one side or the other, in that the root of the problem is the money involved, not the particular grouping of Americans involved.

Do we have any choice from eventual total national ruin of America other than reform of laws allowing floods of money to state its lawful poison, speaking for all 329.5 million of us, that which is not in our own best interest?

Erwin Curry, Missoula

Thank you. Two little words that convey so much.

We want to say thank you to each and every one of the 56 Montana county clerk and recorders and their dedicated staff. These Montana civil servants do their work with honesty and integrity.

We have voted here in Flathead County for every local, state, and federal election for nearly 50 years. It is every American citizens right and responsibility to vote. We have never doubted that every Montana election has been and is honest and true. Every election has been fair and accurate.

So I say again, thank you to each and every one of the 56 county clerk and recorders. We know our elections are safe with you.

However, we believe that there are dishonest elements in Montana that are trying to plant the seeds of doubt as to the fairness and honesty of Montanas elections. We say to all Montanans who live lives of honesty and integrity: Gather reliable information, and push back against these nefarious elements. Stand up against their misinformation and lies.

Montanas elections are fair, honest, accurate and above board. Tell all 56 county clerk and recorders (and staff) thank you.

Christina Granrud, Loraine Measure, Elizabeth Mollica, Jill Mueth, Kim Pinter, Lana Shura and Mary Wellemeyer

If you ever have doubted the integrity of our current president, surely you doubt no more. What could be more racist, predjudist, arrogant, and unlawful than the President declaring that obly black females will be considered for the Supreme Court?

If such a person is the best qualified great! But surely there are people of other genders and races who should be considered as well.

Gerry Hurst, Marion

So here we go with the two likely Republican candidates Zinke and Rosendale.

Lets start with Mr. Zinke, the disgraced former head of the Department of interior under President Trump. Please do recall that he stepped away from that position before the end of his term because of strong scandal headwinds and the likelihood that he would have been indicted for abuse of office. He will have strong oil and gas support because of this attempted rape of public lands on their behalf, so expect a big money intake there. I suppose if you want to further foul Congress and increase the endemic level of corruption in Washington, hes your man,

In the eastern district, we have the ultimate Trump ring kisser in Matt Rosendale. Aside from his statewide schmoozing tours, hes quite content to be a member of the no party. And dont forget, that among his many contentious negative votes in Congress was the vote against the native Afghan war interpreters rescue and sponsorship for U.S. citizenship. As I recall, he was one of very few from his own party to vote against these war heroes, with complete disregard to their very thorough vetting by the U.S. government. And then theres his ongoing legal battle with the dark money charges. Oh wait, this just in: On Feb. 8 he introduced legislation that would block security and military assistance to Ukraine until the U.S. southern border is secured. Does anyone really think that he thought of this all by himself? Nah, it has Trumps and by extension, Putins fingerprints all over it.

I think we can do better than these two bumblers. Just sayin.

Chuck Mollica, Bigfork

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Letters to the editor Feb. 24 | Daily Inter Lake - Daily Inter Lake

The First Amendment has two provisions concerning religion: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The Establishment clause prohibits the government from "establishing" a religion. The precise definition of "establishment" is unclear. Historically, it meant prohibiting state-sponsored churches, such as the Church of England.

Today, what constitutes an "establishment of religion" is often governed under the three-part test set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court inLemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Under the "Lemon" test, government can assist religion only if (1) the primary purpose of the assistance is secular, (2) the assistance must neither promote nor inhibit religion, and (3) there is no excessive entanglement between church and state.

The Free Exercise Clause protects citizens' right to practice their religion as they please, so long as the practice does not run afoul of a "public morals" or a "compelling" governmental interest. For instance, inPrince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), the Supreme Court held that a state could force the inoculation of children whose parents would not allow such action for religious reasons. The Court held that the state had an overriding interest in protecting public health and safety.

Sometimes the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause come into conflict. The federal courts help to resolve such conflicts, with the Supreme Court being the ultimate arbiter.

Check outsimilar casesrelated toEngel v. Vitalethat deal with religion in schools and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Read more here:
First Amendment and Religion - United States Courts

Why the founding fathers protected the right to protest

The First Amendment protects Americans' right to protest and the right to political dissent.Video provided by Newsy

Newslook

The First Amendment is a mere 45words. Butit's still giving lawmakers and judges fits 227 years after its adoption.

The government can'testablish religion,but federal, state and municipal officials can open meetings with a prayer.

The government can't block religious exercise, but it's tryingtoban travelers from majority-Muslim countries in the name of national security.

It can't restrictfree speech not even hate speech or flag-burning or protests ofmilitary funerals. But don't try shouting "Fire!" in a theater or threatening folkson Facebook.

It can't muzzle the media, unless it concerns outright lies made with malicious intent.

And peaceful protests areprotected,but that doesn't mean the Secret Service can't push you around a little in order to protect the president.

Sound confusing?Here's your guide to the First Amendment, circa 2018:

If white nationalists and neo-Nazis can march through the college town of Charlottesville, Va., and win backing from the American Civil Liberties Union, the rights of demonstrators are in safe hands.

What remains in doubt: whether such protests can be accompanied by displays of weapons, even in states that permit firearms to be carried in public. That raises the potential for violence, which public officials have the authority to prevent.

In a series of cases dating back to the 1960s, the Supreme Court has struck down restrictions on so-called "hate speech" unless it specifically incites violence or is intended to do so.

The First Amendment, the justices have said, protected neo-Nazis seeking to march through heavily Jewish Skokie, Ill., in 1977. It protected a U.S. flag burner from Texas in 1989, three cross burners from Virginia in 2003 and homophobic funeral protesters in 2011.

Even symbols of intimidation, such as torches carried by some marchers in Charlottesville, are protected unless they have specific targets. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented inthe cross-burningcase, reasoning that "those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate," but he was on the losing end of an 8-1 vote.

If right-wing demonstratorsare protected by the First Amendment, so too are right-wing speakers. The Supreme Court made that clear in 1969 when itprotected a Ku Klux Klan member decrying Jews and blacks in Ohiobecause he did not pose an imminent threat.

Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who hastraveledthe country on a controversial "alt-right" speaking tour, is but the most recent example. He'sbeen allowed to speak, along with counter-demonstrators aligned with aleft-wing coalition known as Antifa.

Richard Spencer is reportedly banned from over 26 European nations

Poland's state-run news agency reports Polish authorities banned Spencer from the Schengen Area, which is comprised of 26 European countries.Video provided by Newsy

Newslook

Spencer is better off giving sparsely attended speeches and facing opponents in Florida, Michigan and Virginiathan he would be overseas. He's been banned from visiting large portions of Europe and Great Britain by government officials who said his speeches fosterhatred.Under the First Amendment, those banswould not stand.

The American free speech tradition holds unequivocally that hate speech is protected, unless it is intended to and likely to incite imminent violence, says Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Adds Justice Stephen Breyer: "It's there for people whose speech you don't like."

Speech isn't restricted to the spoken or written word. The First Amendment also protects movies and TV, art and music, yard signs and video games, clothing and accessories.

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of video games depicting the slaughter of animals. It has upheld derogatory trademarks,such as those promoting The Slants, an Asian-American rock band. When a Pennsylvania school district tried to stop students from wearing breastcancer awareness bracelets reading "I (Heart) Boobies," the court refused even to hear the case.

But as usual, there are exceptions. When the speaker is the government, the court has allowed for censorship such as when Texas refused to permit specialty license plates displaying the Confederate flag. The justices reasoned that the government, not the motorist, was doing the talking.

The First Amendment gives you the right to speak out as well as the right "to refrain from speaking at all," Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in 1977. That signaled a win for a New Hampshire couple who covered up part of their home state's motto, "Live Free or Die," on license plates.

The doctrine is up for grabs in three major Supreme Court cases this term. It appears likely the justices will rule that an Illinois state employee cannot be compelled to contribute to his local union. They also seem inclined to say that California cannot force anti-abortion pregnancy centers to informclients where they can get an abortion.

The third case is a closer call: Must a deeply religious Colorado baker use his creative skills to bake a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding? Here the court seems split.

"The case isn't about same-sex marriage, ultimately. It isn't about religion, ultimately," says Jeremy Tedesco, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Jack Phillips. "Its about this broader right to free speech, the right to be free of compelled speech.

Baker: Why I won't make wedding cakes for gay couples

Jack Phillips, a suburban Denver cake shop owner, tells USA TODAY's Richard Wolf that he's fighting an order that would compel him to make cakes for the weddings of gay couples because of religious objections.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites can police their own websites to control what's posted. But under the First Amendment, the government has no such right.

Thus did the Supreme Court rule that a North Carolina law criminalizing social media use by sex offenders violated the First Amendment.

The justices also gave a temporary reprieve to an angry, self-styled rapper who rattled his wife, co-workers and others on Facebook. Phrases such as "Hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class" are criminal only if intended as a threat, they ruled, and sent the case back to a lower court, which ruled against him on that basis.

If you want to put free speech rights to work in politics, you're in luck. The Supreme Courtequates campaign spending with speech.

Say you're a wealthy individual, or you run a corporation that wants to spend unlimited amounts in this year's elections. As long as you do not coordinate your spending with a candidate or political committee, you're home free.

And while there are anti-corruption limits on how muchyou can donate directly to a candidate, committee or political party, the court recently ditched restrictionson the total amount you can apportion among those recipients. That means you can give to as many campaigns as you like.

Your First Amendment rightto exercise your religion depends on what other rights it bumps up against. That's why it's a frequent conundrum in court.

When the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby wanted out from Obamacare's requirement that employers offer free coverage of contraceptives, the Supreme Court ruled narrowly in its favor. The corporation's First Amendment right "protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control" it, Justice Samuel Alito said.

Supreme Court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby

Supreme Court says employers with religious objections can refuse to pay for contraception. (June 30)

AP

And when a Lutheran church in Missouri was denied state funds to resurface its playground, the high court said the separation of church and state does not apply to purely secular activities such as swings and slides.

But religious claims are not a slam dunk, as Phillips, the Colorado baker, may discover. At least four justices possibly five are likely to say his speech and religious beliefs must take a back seat topublic accommodations laws requiring that merchants serve all customers.

This is another area where more than two centuries haven't reduced passions on both sides, often leaving courts divided.

Public schools cannot lead children in prayer, a prohibition that has been extended in recent years to graduations and football games. But Congress, state legislatures and local governments can open their sessions with a prayer, provided the audience is not coerced to participate.

The line between what's OK and what's not is even thinner than that. On the same day in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled against displaying the Ten Commandments inside a county courthouse but said it could be memorialized outdoors on statehouse grounds.

Trump: Current Libel Laws a Sham and Disgrace

Addressing his first Cabinet meeting of 2018, President Donald Trump touted his administration's accomplishments and said his White House would address the nation's libel laws, which he called a "sham and a disgrace." (Jan. 10)

AP

President Trump took aim at the press soon after coming into office. Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness, he said.

Since the 1960s, the Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment protects statements made about public officials unless they are false andintended to defame. Only "reckless disregard for the truth" is unprotected.

Furthermore, the media can publish information from classified documents even if the government says it would threaten national security, a conclusion reached in the Pentagon Papers case featured in the recent film, The Post.

This explainer is part of the Trusting News project. Learn more about it here.

For more information on the First Amendment, check out theNational Constitution Center, theNewseum Instituteand theLegal Information Institute.

See the article here:
First Amendment: What rights it protects and where it stops

Graphic: Katie Nishimura | Loyolan

As we enter into our annual First Amendment Week, reflecting on the First Amendment and its necessary freedoms is of vital importance.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ensures the freedoms of speech, press, religion, the right to assemble and the right to petition the government. All five elements of the amendment have been and continue to be critical to the promotion of positive change and equality in the United States.

Freedom of speech insulates political discourse and provides each American citizen with the ability to have a say in the nations political needle. It also ensures that minority communities in America have the ability to play a part in political discourse.

For over 70 years, womens rights activists campaigned for womens suffrage by holding conventions, marching in the streets, pressuring lawmakers and even picketing at the White House. While they did not yet have the power to vote, the strength of unified voices across the country forced Congress to listen; finally, in 1920, they succeeded.

The power of free speech was equally transformative during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. Facing stifling oppression from segregation, voter restriction, police brutality and systemic inequality, Black activists used their voices to demand change. They exercised their First Amendment rights through sit-ins, boycotts, marches and protests, making a visible statement. Their refusal to back down led to groundbreaking legal protections, most notably the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Free speech is the weapon by which oppressed and marginalized groups can ensure their rights as sovereign citizens.

As todays human rights activists fight for the safety and well-being of marginalized communities, freedom of speech is vital. It allows for those with little power to challenge those who have too much, and has the ability to bring about revolutionary change.

Freedom is not a uniform privilege, it is a spectrum. The American government may not always recognize rights that ought to be recognized, and there will continue to be communities who are comparatively unfree, comparatively unequal. Free speech is the weapon by which oppressed and marginalized groups can ensure their rights as sovereign citizens.

The linking of freedoms is an intentional consequence of the First Amendment. Of course, when talking about freedom of expression, it is necessary to draw comparisons to freedom of religion, which is, for many Americans, an ability that unites congregations and cultivates a sense of fulfillment. Americans are often at their most unified when engaged in group worship or by exercising their right to explore spirituality through varied and protected rituals.

As student journalists, the freedom of the press gives us the opportunity to keep the LMU community informed and hold our institution accountable. A free press is fundamental to the existence of a true democracy, and news organizations across the nation bear the responsibility of factual reporting. The Loyolan is built on the pillars of accuracy, relevancy and responsibility these are standards that we hold ourselves to in each and every article we publish. The LMU community has the right to be informed about what is happening on campus, so it is our responsibility to report the facts.

Here at LMU, First Amendment Week has been an amazing opportunity for all of us at the Loyolan to connect with the rest of the community. We hosted our first Wellness Wednesday table and had students and staff share something that they love, in honor of freedom of speech (and Valentines Day, which conveniently fell in that same week). We also hosted a screening of senior computer science, history, and applied mathematics triple major Veronica Backer-Peral's documentary, Promise and Peril, and will be sponsoring an event with L.A. Times Executive Editor Kevin Merida next week.

The First Amendment is not only still relevant, it is also critical to the health and safety of all American citizens. On a local, state and national scale, those five necessary freedoms are as fundamental to our nation as they were nearly 250 years ago.

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Board Ed: Why the First Amendment still matters - Los Angeles Loyolan

In Justin Trudeau's mind, he's always the victim.

Trudeau, the boyish, blackface-wearing prime minister of Canada, views himself as part of an oppressed underclass. His oppressors are Canadian truckers working people with concerns about his vaccine mandates and his long-standing border lockdown. He believes that by staging a protest in his capital city of Ottawa, the truckers are committing treason or something very close to it.

For parking their trucks outside Parliament, making noise, and engaging in civil disobedience, these truckers have been accused by Trudeau and his fellow Liberal Party comrades of "insurrection." He has accused them of attempting to overturn an election. He has threatened violent crackdowns and treated them as if their protest is not a protected activity. He has sent the police out to steal their fuel in hopes that the Canadian winter will do the rest and cause them to pick up and leave.

Trudeau's government is invoking emergency powers that, in the past, have only been used in times of war and against terrorists. Canadians expressing support for the truckers on Facebook are even receiving visits from the provincial police at their homes the People's Republic of Canuckistan is apparently more than just a jokey name.

Some left-wing American journalists and commentators have been even worse, openly urging violence and property destruction as retribution for the truckers' act of civil disobedience against Trudeau's regime. Nothing makes leftists angrier than when their own tactics are used against them.

In American terms, the Left's hypocrisy on this trucker protest can be illustrated through comparisons to the Occupy Wall Street protests of more than a decade ago. Love them or hate them, most decent people did not want to see the police march into the parks and beat the occupiers silly with billy clubs. The media even nauseatingly insisted on taking them seriously even though it was too much for most normal people to be lectured about inequality and economic hardship by a gaggle of privileged, white college kids who had never experienced either.

From a Canadian perspective, however, there is a much more apt comparison than Occupy for what Trudeau is doing now. Most Americans might not remember or know about this, but credit the New York Times editors, of all people, for bringing it up. Specifically, in November 2020, Trudeau spoke out in favor of a farmers' protest in India that had fouled up New Delhi highways for a year. When Indian authorities cracked down, Trudeau was happy to get up on his high horse, volunteering Indians and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to suffer the consequences of road-blocking civil disobedience with the equanimity that a free society requires.

"Canada will always be there to defend the right of peaceful protest," Trudeau even said. Wow, that quotation is really a howler now, isn't it? Peaceful protest is great just don't try it inside Canada, and you'll stay on Comrade Trudeau's good side.

One need not agree with the truckers' cause to understand the danger that Trudeau's dictatorial behavior poses to the rights of free speech and assembly. Clearly, like their southern neighbors, Canadians made a mistake in their last election.

And unfortunately, they do not have the First Amendment to protect them from power-hungry tyrants like Trudeau. They could really use one.

This incident stands as yet another reminder of how important and crucial to a free society the First Amendment really is with its near-absolute support for free speech and free discourse. Those who would weaken such protections, whether in the name of preventing hate speech or limiting campaign contributions, are just little tyrants waiting to show themselves just like Justin Trudeau.

Read more:
Only the First Amendment stands between the US and little dictators like Justin Trudeau - Washington Examiner

The freedom of speech, however, is a natural right. It comes from within each of us. Its essence is that individuals have a natural right to think as we wish and say what we think and listen to whomever we choose, and we dont need the approval of the government or a consensus of the loudest.

To those who want to silence Rogan, just imagine what this mess of a country would be like if the loudest voices could silence all others. Freedom thrives on the clash and free flow of ideas. Since 1969, we have succeeded in keeping the government out of the business of censoring and punishing speech; now we must keep the mob out.

Do the Rogan haters really want those bad old days to return? I ask this because the folks who hate and fear Rogans ideas really hate and fear his freedom and their next step will be to use the government to silence him. It is short steps from hatred to silencing to punishing speech.

Read more at LewRockwell.com

A former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Andrew P. Napolitanois the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent isSuicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty.

Read this article:
OPINION: Andrew Napolitano - Joe Rogan and the First Amendment - HNN Huntingtonnews.net

February 21, 2022

Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, we wanted to give our listeners an update on the lawsuits that Strong Towns is involved in.

For those new to Strong Towns, here is a brief overview: Charles Marohn, president of Strong Towns, is an engineer and maintains his license even though he stopped doing engineering work in 2012. Briefly in 2018, his license lapsed. Once he realized this, Marohn promptly renewed it, however, the Minnesota Board of Licensure is claiming that he misrepresented himself to the public during the time when his license had expired. They are now demanding that Marohn sign a stipulation order stating that he deceived the public.

In turn, on May 18, 2021, Strong Towns filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Licensure. The complaint holds that the Board and its individual members have violated the First Amendment free speech rights of Charles Marohn and Strong Towns.

The threatened action by the Board of Licensure is about one thing: using the power of the state to discredit Strong Towns, a reform movement. To silence speech. To retaliate against an individual who challenges the power and financial advantages enjoyed by a certain class of licensed professionals.

This has become even clearer with some new documentation that casts a disturbing light on the situation. Marohn discusses this in detail in the podcast, and you can download the accompanying PDF here. The original article referenced in the documentation can be read here.

See more here:
The Latest Update on the Strong Towns Lawsuit - Strong Towns

The EARN IT Act, recently cleared for floor consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, remains a contentious bill, primarily over concerns that it might dissuade tech providers from using encryption. But amid ongoing debate about Section 230 and the role of tech platforms in our public discourse, legislation like EARN IT could, if paired with carefully crafted procedural protections, offer a model for how Congress can address bipartisan concerns about child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other illegal content online.

Debates about Section 230 and the liability shield it grants to digital platforms typically center either on how to make platforms remove hate speech, misinformation and other disfavored content, or how to prevent them from censoring certain political speech, particularly that of conservatives. But such discussions fundamentally misunderstand what Section 230 was meant to do: define how best to assign liability for content-moderation decisions in order to achieve the ideal balance of expression and potentially harmful content.

No moderation system will ever be perfect. Some harmful content will always exist. But there is no reason to presume that the status quo, rooted in assumptions about the online environment from more than two decades ago, necessarily strike that balance in a way that makes sense today.

To the extent that the law currently allows harms that exceed the benefits of expression, it should be adjusted to deter those harms if doing so can be achieved at sufficiently low cost. Nearly everyone would agree that harmful content should be removed if it can be done without any effect on lawful expression. Thus, the question is finding the right tradeoff: one that would deter harms but not impose such massive legal liability as to drive online platforms out of business. This can be done, but it requires thoughtful consideration.

The EARN IT Act traces the edges of the problem but, without a truly holistic approach, it could do more harm than good. While Section 230 is largely beneficial, its grant of near-total immunity prevents the legal system from adapting to new developments. To be sure, as platforms discover new forms of harm, there are pressures that guide their behavior, such as concerns about image and the ability to grow and maintain a user base. But without legal consequences for making unreasonably bad decisions, such pressures may not provide enough incentive to find optimal solutions.

Rather than a blanket grant of legal immunity, Section 230s protections should be conditioned on platforms demonstrating reasonable behavior. That is to say, an online service provider should have a duty of care to reasonably moderate illegal content. Implicit in the idea of reasonable moderation is the understanding that platforms will not be able to deal with all bad content.

It could be the case that platforms already operate as reasonably as would bepossible, within the bounds of economic efficiency. But determining that should involve at least some oversight from a neutral court.

Analyzing whether a platform has behaved reasonably could include examining its use of encryption, as the EARN IT Act contemplates. Given that many malicious actors seek to steal user data, it may be completely reasonable to encrypt communications. But there may also be marginal cases where a platform unreasonably allowed encryption to be used to hide what it had good reason to believe was criminal behavior. Flexible standards of reasonableness, informed by well-developed industry best practices, can grapple with either of these situations.

Because courts largely have not had the opportunity to weigh these issues through a gradual and iterative process over the quarter-century that Section 230 has been in effect, it would be ill-advised simply to throw all the questions surrounding online moderation to the judicial process in one fell swoop. This would invite a torrent of litigation that threatens to do more harm than good.

To make the transition less chaotic, there should be procedural limitations, such as heightened pleading standards and an explicit safe harbor to cut litigation short at the pleading stages. These reforms also should incorporate industry standards and best practices, and a judicial review mechanism that can provide feedback to the process.

There are legitimate concerns when it comes to federal legislators tinkering with Section 230. Many lawmakers public statements suggest they want regulations that are totally inconsistent with the First Amendment. But there is more that can be done, within the bounds of the Constitution, to address the very real problem of harmful and illegal content online. The EARN IT Act is not perfect, but it sketches a framework that could be developed into a more balanced reform of Section 230.

Kristian Stout is director of Innovation Policy with the International Center for Law & Economics and co-author of the working paper Who Moderates the Moderators?: A Law and Economics Approach to Holding Online Platforms Accountable Without Destroying the Internet.

Excerpt from:
EARN IT could offer framework for better platform moderation | TheHill - The Hill