Category Archives: First Amendment

I am at least as upset as anyone by the atrocities of January 6, and feel the time has come to reexamine the First Amendment. It should be modified to permit freedom of expression and assembly only in a non-threatening manner. Inflammatory speech and writing, whether in the news media or online, must be outlawed. Assembly must be conducted in a peaceful manner, outlawing violence of any type.

There have been threats of further violence surrounding the inauguration, both in DC and at state capitals around the country. Accordingly, military troops have been called up to maintain peace. Should members of the crowd who oppose the inauguration choose to become violent, then in my opinion, the military should be given shoot-to-kill orders if required. Sound too much like Tiananmen Square? So be it. Its time for neo-Nazi, racist, homophobic and other extremist organizations to accept and abide by our laws, or find another country in which to live.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

More here:
Letter: Inauguration, and the First Amendment | Letters to the Editor | tucson.com - Arizona Daily Star

Say that a state creates a law that protects speech more than the First Amendment does; for instance, say that the state law protects speakers against retaliation or exclusion by

And say that Congress preempts that state law, for instance allowing the private entities to restrict speech on their property (or by their employees or students).

Could that federal law potentially violate the First Amendment, even though it doesn't actually forbid speech, but simply empowers private entities to do so?

Vivek Ramaswamy's and Jed Rubenfeld's Jan. 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed suggests the answer is yes; and on reflection, I think there is a good argument for a version of that position, though I'm not sure whether I'm persuaded by it myself. I'd therefore like to lay out in this post what I think is the best argument inspired by their claims, though not one that necessarily agrees with them in all details.

[1.] Let us begin with a precedent. (Remember, "law is the only discipline in which 'that's an original idea' is a pejorative.") In 1943, Nebraska enacted a state constitutional provision that provided that employers and unions can't require employees to join unions. In the Railway Labor Act of 1951, Congress preempted such state statutes, allowing (but not requiring) railroad employers and railroad unions to demand union membership as a condition of employment. Employees sued a railroad and a union under the Nebraska state provision for imposing such a "closed shop" contract. The defendants raised the federal Act as a defense, arguing that it preempted the state provision.

The U.S. Supreme Court (Railway Employes v. Hanson (1956)) concluded that the Railway Labor Act's preemption of state law needed to be evaluated under the First Amendment:

The union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act is only permissive. Congress has not compelled nor required carriers and employees to enter into union shop agreements. [But we agree with] the view that justiciable questions under the First and Fifth Amendments were presented since Congress, by the union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act, sought to strike down inconsistent laws in 17 States. [We agree that] "Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of every union shop contract entered into on the railroads as far as these 17 States are concerned for without it such contracts could not be enforced therein."

If private rights [presumably rights secured by the Nebraska no-closed-shop provision] are being invaded, it is by force of an agreement made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded. In other words, the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed. The enactment of the federal statute authorizing union shop agreements is the governmental action on which the Constitution operates, though it takes a private agreement to invoke the federal sanction.

The Court concluded that the Act was substantively consistent with the First Amendment, because mere "compulsory membership" in a union does not necessarily "impair freedom of expression," in part because "Congress endeavored to safeguard against that possibility by making explicit that no conditions to membership may be imposed except as respects [the payment of union dues] . If other conditions are in fact imposed, or if the exaction of dues is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case." And in Machinists v. Street (1961), the Court did suggest that the First Amendment would bar spending compulsory union dues collected under the Act "for political causes which [the coerced employee] opposes," though the Court avoided that constitutional problem by reading the statute to prohibit such exactions of dues for political purposes.

Now Will Baude and I (and others) have argued that in fact the First Amendment inquiry here was substantively misplaced, and coercive contributions that are used for political causes are generally not unconstitutional. But this specific detail (on which the Court has disagreed with us) isn't important here. Rather, I think this case sets forth a more general principle:

Questions under the First Amendment are presented when Congress preempts state law that protects speech against private action, because the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed.

This does not necessarily mean that the private actor (employer and the union) somehow becomes a "state actor" (or, more precisely, a "government actor") fully bound by the First Amendment. The government action is Congress's preemption of the state law protection. That government action must be judged under the First Amendment. And if the First Amendment blocks that preemption, that simply means that state law springs back into force and continues to restrain the private actors.

The splintered decision in Denver Area Ed. Telecomm. Consortum, Inc. v. FCC (1996) seems to reinforce this principle: A majority of the Justices concluded there that a federal statute that allowed (but didn't require) cable operators to block indecent material, and preempted contrary common-carrier-like rules or local control rules, was subject to First Amendment scrutiny and was indeed partly invalid. (See Part IV of the opinion and Part II of Justice Stevens's concurrence for more details.)

[2.] OK, now let's see how this principle might play out in three hypothetical contexts, before we turn to 230. My own state of California has three state law rules that protect speech against private entities (one of them is based on the state constitution and the other two on state statutes, but that distinction doesn't matter for First Amendment purposes):

Let's say that Congress enacted a Private Shopping Mall Discretion Act, a Private Employer Discretion Act, and a Private Educational Institution Discretion Act, which allowed (but didn't require) all privately owned shopping centers, employers, and educational institutions to exclude whatever speech they liked.

I think that, under Hanson and Denver Area, those statutes could be challenged under the First Amendment. Again, the statutes wouldn't make the mall owners, employers, and educational institutions into state actors bound by the First Amendment. But the Hanson/Denver Area principle would allow visitors, employees, and students to sue under the state laws, and then try to use the First Amendment to invalidate any federal statutory defense that the defendants interpose.

This seems especially apt if the hypothetical Private Discretion Acts were viewpoint-based, e.g., "a private college shall have the power to discipline a student for the student's speech, notwithstanding any contrary state law, if the speech constitutes 'hate speech'"or, if you prefer, "a private college shall have the power to discipline a student for the student's speech, notwithstanding any contrary state law, unless the speech expresses support for federal government policies." Such selective continued protection for some speech, or selective enabling of private suppression of other speech, should at least be subject to substantive First Amendment scrutiny (whether or not you think it might sometimes pass such scrutiny).

But under Hanson and under the logic of Denver Area, I think even a content-neutral statute preempting such speech protections would be subject to First Amendment scrutinyto be sure, the more forgiving intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral speech restrictions.

[3.] Now, if you're with me so far, let's see how this would play out as to 230, and in particular 230(c)(2)(A),

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

Imagine that a state enacts a Social Media Common Carrier Act, which provides something like this:

Just as phone companies are common carriers, which may not deny service based on their users' viewpoints or other attributes, so social media networks may not terminate a user account or delete content supplied by a user based on the ideological viewpoint or factual assertions expressed by that user.

(Assume that the law is somehow largely limited to speech posted and viewed by users within the state, and therefore avoids Commerce Clause problems. Assume also that such an Act wouldn't itself violate the social media network's First Amendment rights, perhaps because a court would conclude that such a mandate is consistent with Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, and Rumsfeld v. FAIR, all of which upheld some requirements that private entities open up their property to outside speakers. Both are complex questions, but questions for another day. Finally, note that the hypothetical rule isn't quite a traditional common-carrier rule, but there are many different ways to craft such nondiscrimination mandates.)

Users sue Twitter under this state law for banning them based on viewpoints that they have expressed. Twitter says the federal 230(c)(2)(A) preempts the state law. But the users respond that 230(c)(2)(A) is itself a speech restriction that must be evaluated under the First Amendment; adapting Hanson, they argue:

Section 230(c)(2)(A) is only permissive. Congress has not compelled nor required social media networks to restrict user speech.

Nevertheless, justiciable questions under the First Amendment are presented since Congress, by 230(c)(2)(A), sought to strike down inconsistent laws protecting user speech against the social media companies. Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of Twitter's editing decisions as far as this state is concerned for without it such banning could not be done within this state.

If private rights secured by the state law are being invaded, it is by force of a Twitter policy made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded. In other words, the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed.

The enactment of the federal statute authorizing social media networks to impose such speech restrictions is the governmental action on which the Constitution operates, though it takes a private decision to invoke the federal sanction.

I think this is at least a credible argument, which a court could use to evaluate 230(c)(2)(A) as a speech restriction that triggers the First Amendment. Perhaps 230(c)(2)(A) passes First Amendment scrutiny, but given Hanson and Denver Area, there's a serious basis for a court to apply such scrutiny.

[4.] Finally, let's turn to perhaps the most ambitious theory, focused on 230(c)(1). Recall that 230(c)(2)(A), which I quoted above, actually has little practical effect right now: It preempts state laws that would limit service provider editing discretion, but so far there are in practice virtually no such laws, and no general common carrier statutes / viewpoint discrimination bans of the sort I hypothesized (though some such bans are being contemplated by some state legislatures).

The important provision of 230 is 230(c)(1), which protects social media networks from libel liability (and other state-law liability) for those user posts that they don't edit out. Section 230(c)(1) is used all the time to block such lawsuits.

But wait: Sections 230(c)(1) and (c)(2) were deliberately designed to preempt a specific rule that emerged out of two trial court cases applying New York state law, Cubby v. Compuserve, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 1991) and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. (N.Y. trial ct. 1995). That rule, to oversimplify, was:

This rule (to be sure, one that was in its infancy at the time 230(c)(1) preempted it) isn't a categorical protection like the hypothetical Social Media Common Carrier Act. But it is still a form of speech protection against private restriction: It encourages private platforms not to restrict speech, by offering them immunity if they provide unrestricted posting rights, but threatening them with some degree of liability if they restrict user speech. And it's clear that 230 (including (c)(1)) was indeed intended to encourage service providers to feel free to restrict speech; the title of 230, after all, is "Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material."

If this analysis is right, then the constantly invoked 230(c)(1), and not just the rarely applicable 230(c)(2)(A), itself constitutes Congressional preemption of state law that protects speech against private action. And as a result, the 230(c)(1)/(2)(A) combo, and not just 230(c)(2)(A), would need to be evaluated under the First Amendment. (Recall the principle we gleaned from Hanson and Denver Area: "Questions under the First Amendment are presented when Congress preempts state law that protects speech against private action.")

Again, 230 might be seen as constitutionally permissible, perhaps on the theory that its preemption of this state law protection for private speakers passes muster under the intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral laws. But at least courts would consider the question whether 230, by enabling and indeed promoting private restriction of speech, notwithstanding contrary state law rules aimed at protecting speech, themselves violate the First Amendment.

[5.] As I mentioned at the outset, I'm not sure that this analysis is right. Perhaps Hanson and Denver Area (discussed in item 1) are themselves mistaken in applying First Amendment scrutiny here. Or perhaps other precedents that I've missed pull sufficiently in the opposite direction. Or perhaps somewhere in the path from item 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 the analogies go off the rails. And I stress again that this analysis is not identical to the Ramaswamy & Rubenfeld position, though it is inspired by that position.

But I thought I'd set forth what I thought was the strongest argument in support of that view, and see what others have to say about it. I'd love to hear people's reactions, and to adapt my own thinking in light of them.

Excerpt from:
Might Federal Preemption of Speech-Protective State Laws Violate the First Amendment? - Reason

Jan 28, 2021

Columbus, OH On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute filed a complaint on behalf of Barbara Kolkowski, who objects to being forced to accept union representation and decisions made by union arbitrators in a contract dispute particularly given that she is not a member of said union. This case was filed in the Ashtabula County Court of Common Pleas.

Even though Ms. Kolkowski is not a member of the union, she is being forced to have a union representative speak for her. This unlawful arrangement contravenes the well-established First Amendment rights of public-sector employees and plainly violates Ohio statute, said Jay Carson, senior litigator with The Buckeye Institutes Legal Center and Ms. Kolkowskis lawyer. Ohios collective bargaining statute guarantees certain rights to all public-sector employees, among which is the right to present grievances and to have them adjusted without the intervention of the union.

Barbara Kolkowski is a high school guidance counselor in Ashtabula, Ohio. When a dispute arose regarding payment under a supplemental contract, Ms. Kolkowski pursued remedies through the contractual grievance process, andas required by her districts collective bargaining agreementrequested that the union submit her grievance to arbitration. Because she is not a member of the union, Ms. Kolkowski also requested that she be able to hire her own private attorney at her own expense in order to pursue her claim in the arbitration proceedings, rather than relying upon a representative chosen by the union of which she is not a member. The union refused her request and denied Ms. Kolkowski her right to associate with and speak through her own counsel.

# # #

Read more here:
The Buckeye Institute Files First Amendment Case on Behalf of Ohio Guidance Counselor - Buckeye Institute

Donald Trump is the only American president to be impeached twice. This time, he stands accused in a single article of impeachment of "incitement of insurrection" for delivering an incendiaryspeechon January 6 to an angry mob of supporters, sparking them to storm the U.S. Capitol building to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Trump will now be tried in the Senate. There, he will be given the opportunity to defend his shameless rhetoric and behavior. Among other claims, he willlikely mount a defense under the First Amendment, and argue that his speech was constitutionally protected by the Supreme Court's landmark 1969 decision inBrandenburg v. Ohio.

The Senate can be expected to consider Trump's position carefully and fully. But at the end of the proceeding, no matter who leads his legal team, any impeachment defense based onBrandenburgand the First Amendment will beto put it in the vernacularcomplete and utter garbage.

Clarence Brandenburgwas a small-time bigot who owned a television repair shop in theVillage of Arlington Heights, a tiny hamlet roughly 11 miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio. He was also a Ku Klux Klan leader.

OnJune 28, 1964,at Brandenburg's invitation, a reporter and a cameraperson from a Cincinnati TV station attended a Klan rally held on a nearby farm. Footage from the rally showed 12 hooded figures gathered around a burning cross,shoutingvarious epithets, including: "This is what we are going to do to the niggers," "Send the Jews back to Israel," "Save America," "Bury the niggers," "Give us our state [sic] rights," and "Freedom for the whites."

Brandenburg was also filmed,saying:

"The Klan has more members in the State of Ohio than does any other organization. We're not a revengent [sic] organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues [sic] to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it's possible that there might have to be some revengeance [sic] taken."

"We are marching on Congress July the Fourth, four hundred thousand strong. From there, we are dividing into two groups, one group to march on St. Augustine, Florida, the other group to march into Mississippi. Thank you."

Brandenburg was subsequently arrested and convicted of violating Ohio's criminal syndicalism law, which made it a crime to advocate violence as a means of achieving political reform. He was fined and sentenced to prison.

Five years later, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. In its decision, the court articulated a new test for determining the constitutionality of subversive speech, holding that the First Amendment protects advocating the use of force or lawbreaking "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

As should be obvious to anyone this side of Rudy Giuliani, Brandenburg's prosecution was entirely different from the incitement case against Trump, both on the facts and the law.

Unlike Trump, Brandenburg never threatened imminent action of any kind. His diatribes were racist and repugnant, but also the stuff of addlebrained, semi-grammatical fantasy. Brandenburg had no minions at his command, let alone the 400,000 he had conjured in his speech. He posed no immediate danger to anyone.

Trump, by contrast, has millions of dedicated supporters at his disposal. In thefirst presidential debatein September, he told the Proud Boys to "stand back, and stand by."Starting in December, he began to urge his supporters to come to Washington on January 6, tweeting on December 19 that there would be a "[b]ig protest," and inviting them to "Be there, will be wild!" Referring to the protest again at a rally in Georgia on January 4, he pledged, "We're going to take what they did to us on November 3. We're going to take it back."

The MAGA zealots, white nationalists, and neofascists who showed up to hear Trump on January 6 were ready, willing and able to do his bidding. They were treated to arambling speech filled with violent imagery, as the sitting president of the United States urged his supporters to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol and to "fight like hell" to "stop the steal" of the election. He even falsely promised to march alongside them, proclaiming, "I'll be there with you."

While Trump never mentioned specific acts of violence and only once, in a single brief mention, did he tell his supporters "to peacefully make your voices heard," the speech as a whole was a call to imminent lawless action, as many in the mob construed it. Boththe Washington Postandthe New York Timeshave reported that some of the Capitol marauders actually thought they were acting on direct orders from Trump.

In inciting the mob, Trump arguably violated two federal statutes that prohibitinsurrection and rebellion against the United Statesas well asseditious conspiracy.

Whether or not Trump is ever criminally prosecuted, he without question committed an impeachable offense. Thehistory of American impeachmentclearly establishes that such offenses may encompass both criminal and noncriminal conduct. According to theHouse of Representatives' procedural practice manual, "Less than one-third of all the articles [of impeachment] the House has adopted have explicitly charged the violation of a criminal statute or used the word 'criminal' or 'crime' to describe the conduct alleged."

InFederalist Paper No. 65, Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as "those which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself." [emphasis in original]

The First Amendment cannot be invoked to save Trump from an abuse of power so egregious and deadly. To do so would be to turn the amendment on its head. As Joshua Matz and Norm Eisen argued in aJanuary 13 op-ed in Politico, "the Free Speech Clause exists to protect private citizens from the government, not to protect government officials from accountability for their own abusive statements."

It's now up to the Senate to sit in judgment on Trump's defilement of the Constitution. To borrow a line from the Broadway musicalHamilton, each and every senator should know, "History has its eyes on you."

Follow this link:
The First Amendment won't save Trump - Salon

Do you need a social media policy or are the legal obstacles just too much? Now more than ever, people are exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, which, not surprisingly, can cause heartburn at the workplace. In times of contention, stress, and uncertainty, speech often multiplies, and, in an era where someones speech is accessible to the world with just a few clicks, an employees online speech is often cast as the speech or opinions of the employer. Additionally, the National Labor Rights Act (NLRA) presents another hurdle, as it protects employees rights to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment. What can and should a responsible employer do?

Many employers implement social media policies, addressing employees actions on social media to enforce their policies and protect their brand. Although important, an employees right to free speech or NLRA protection is not without limits. How do you balance the First Amendment and employees NLRA protections on the one hand and your business interests on the other? Below are some considerations to keep in mind.

The First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech. Then came the 14th Amendment, which applied the First Amendment to state governments and their divisions. All of that to say, the First Amendment prohibits public entities, and therefore public employers, from infringing on their employees constitutionally protected rights to free speech. However, even public employers have some ability to control employee speech, such as when the speech is illegal, riot-inducing, or made as part of their official duties. For example, in Garcetti v. Ceballos, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the City of Los Angeles did not violate a public officials First Amendment rights by taking action against him for a speech made in his official duties, even though it addressed a matter of public concern. Speech not made as part of an official duty and that addresses a matter of public concern is protected by the First Amendment. For example, in Marquardt v. Carlton, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the city may have violated an employees First Amendment rights when it terminated him for social media posts of his opinions on a recent police shooting, because it was a matter of public concern.

While private employers do not have to navigate First Amendment issues, they are not totally off the hook. The NLRA protects employees rights to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of . . . mutual aid or protection. Importantly, this has been interpreted to mean that employees have a right to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment, such as pay rates. For example, in Quicken Loans, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the NLRB and affirmed that an employers policy forbidding employees from discussing non-public employment information infringed on their rights to discuss terms and conditions of employment.

Even though the NLRA is typically associated with unionized workers, employees have this right whether they are unionized or not. Thus, private employers beware: Although the First Amendment may not keep you from controlling employee speech, the NLRA does . . . but only to an extent.

The NLRA protects an employees right to engage in concerted activity by discussing the terms and conditions of his or her employment. These are commonly referred to as Section 7 rights. Lets unpack this:

Social media policies generally restrict, or attempt to control, what employees say online. When do these policies go too far and restrict employees Section 7 rights? The NLRB has published some reports summarizing its decisions on what social media policies and practices infringe on employees Section 7 rights to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment.

The NLRBs guiding rule: A social media policy is unlawful if a reasonable employee would interpret it as prohibiting the exercise of Section 7 rights. This almost always depends on the context surrounding the provisions. However, heres a list of some common provisions that the NLRB deemed overly broad:

Often, if a social media policys provision includes examples of prohibited behavior, which do not implicate Section 7 rights, or if it limits prohibited conduct to certain circumstances, such as speaking with the press, the NLRA will deem that an employee could not reasonably interpret it as infringing on their Section 7 rights.

It is important to note that, in some instances, the NLRB has held that, even though the social media policy was overbroad, the employer nonetheless lawfully disciplined an employee for his or her actions on social media (e.g., the employees speech was unrelated to employment, not concerted with other employees, or harassing). Thus, keep in mind that an overbroad policy alone is not the determinant of whether an action against an employee violated the NLRA; what is important is whether the action taken was because of or restricted a conversation between employees about the terms and conditions of their employment.

If you want to implement a social media policy, consider the First Amendment and the NLRA. Policies are good ideas and can give your employees some valuable guidance about what they should or shouldnt do. However, remember that the First Amendment applies if you are a public employer. If you are a private employer and want to discipline an employee pursuant to a social media policy, take a deep breath and think about NLRA Section 7 rights (and maybe call your legal counsel).

The rest is here:
Absolute Freedom to Tweet? Employers (and the NLRA) May Have Something to Say About It - JD Supra

Twitters banning of Trump an action also taken by other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat has opened a fierce debate about freedom of expression and who, if anyone, should control it in the United States.

Ive written and taught about this fundamental issue for decades. Im a staunch proponent of the First Amendment.

Yet Im perfectly OK with Trumps ban, for reasons legal, philosophical and moral.

To begin, its important to point out what kind of freedom of expression the First Amendment and its extension to local government via the Fourteenth Amendment protect. The Supreme Court, through various decisions, has ruled that the government cannot restrict speech, the press and other forms of communications media, whether its on the internet or in newspapers.

Twitter and other social media platforms are not the government. Therefore, their actions are not violations of the First Amendment.

But if were champions of freedom of expression, shouldnt we nonetheless be distressed by any restriction on communication, be it via a government agency or a corporation?

I certainly am. Ive called nongovernmental suppressions of speech to be violations of the spirit of the First Amendment.

Every time CBS bleeps a performance of a hip-hop artist on the Grammys, the network is, in my view, engaging in censorship that violates the spirit of the First Amendment. The same is true whenever a private university forbids a peaceful student demonstration.

These forms of censorship may be legal, but the government often lurks behind the actions of these private entities. For example, when the Grammys are involved, the censorship is taking place out of fear of governmental reprisal via the Federal Communications Commission.

So, why, then, am I OK with the fact that Twitter and other social media platforms took down Trumps account? And, while were at it, why am I fine with Amazon Web Services removing the Trump-friendly social media outlet Parler?

First, a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment is never as serious as a violation of the First Amendment itself.

When the government gets in the way of our right to freely communicate, Americans only recourse is the U.S. Supreme Court, which all too often has supported the government wrongly, in my view.

The courts 1919 clear and present danger and 1978 seven dirty words decisions are among the most egregious examples of such flouting of the First Amendment. The 1919 decision qualified the crystal-clear language of the First Amendment Congress shall make no law with the vague exception that government could, in fact, ban speech in the face of a clear and present danger. The 1978 decision defined broadcast language meriting censorship with the even vaguer indecency.

And a government ban on any kind of communication, ratified by the Supreme Court, applies to any and all activity in the United States period until the court overturns the original decision.

In contrast, social media users can take their patronage elsewhere if they dont approve of a decision made by a social media company. Amazon Web Services, though massive, is not the only app host available. Parler may have already found a new home on the far-right hosting service Epik, though Epik disputes this.

The point is that a corporate violation of the spirit of the First Amendment is, in principle, remediable, whereas a government violation of the First Amendment is not at least not immediately.

Second, the First Amendment, let alone the spirit of the First Amendment, doesnt protect communication that amounts to a conspiracy to commit a crime, and certainly not murder.

I would argue that its plainly apparent that Trumps communication whether it was suggesting the injection of disinfectant to counteract COVID-19 or urging his supporters to fight to overturn the election repeatedly endangered human life.

Given that Trump was still president albeit with just a few weeks left in office when Twitter banned him, that ban was, indeed, a big deal.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, appreciated both the need and perils of such a ban, tweeting, This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.

In other words, a company that violates the spirit of the First Amendment can feel much the same to the public as government actually violating the First Amendment.

To be sure, I think its concerning that a powerful cohort of social media executives can deplatform anyone they want. But the alternative could be far worse.

Back in 1998, many were worried about the seeming monopolistic power of Microsoft. Although the U.S. government won a limited antitrust suit, it declined to pursue further efforts to break up Microsoft. At the time, I argued that problems of corporate predominance tend to take care of themselves and are less powerful than the forces of a free marketplace.

Sure enough, the preeminent position of Microsoft was soon contested and replaced by the resurgence of Apple and the rise of Amazon.

Summoning the U.S. government to counter these social media behemoths is the proverbial slippery slope. Keep in mind that the U.S. government already controls a sprawling security apparatus. Its easy to envision an administration with the ability to regulate social media not wielding that power to protect the freedoms of users but instead using it to insulate themselves from criticism and protect their own power.

We may grouse about the immense power of social media companies. But keeping them free from the far more immense power of the government may be crucial to maintaining our freedom.

Excerpt from:
I'm a First Amendment scholar and I think Big Tech should be left alone - The Conversation US

The start to 2021 has not been any good indicator that this year will be anything more than an even more terrible sequel to 2020. Both sides of the aisle are fighting back, and actions are ever more favored than words. Large media corporations silence anyone who disagrees with them, and many politicians say one thing to earn votes and then do the opposite once they are in office. It does in fact feel as though we have lost our outlet to express ourselves in a meaningful and constructive way. We see provocative news stories of impending doom and violent outbursts. We are inundated with despair and shock at what is happening to our country, regardless of what our political beliefs happen to be.

The Founding Fathers issued the First Amendment not only as a law to be upheld by our government but also as a standard to guide every American throughout their lives. Speak out, and allow others to speak. Hold true to your beliefs, and permit others to hold theirs. This right is our first, and in my honest opinion, our strongest defense against tyranny and injustice.

Thankfully, it has not been and truly never can be stolen away from the masses. Though you may not be a Shakespeare or Seuss, you still possess the ability to write out your thoughts effectively and persuasively. Speak out online, in newspapers and in public. Engage with your state and local politicians: your senators, representatives, governor, mayor whoever is willing to listen. Let them know what you want from them and the actions you believe they should take. It is politicians duty to listen to their constituents, and it is our civic duty to speak when we perceive any form of injustice.

Tanner Engles is a junior majoring in computer science.

More:
Letter to the editor: Put the First Amendment first - Daily Mississippian

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints that the British government infringed upon the freedom of speech.

In those days, public speech was as acerbic as it is today. If words were aimed at Parliament, all words were lawful. If they were aimed directly and personally at the king as Jeffersons were in the Declaration they constituted treason.

Needless to say, Jefferson and the 55 others who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed.

Of course, the colonists won the war, and, six years afterward, the 13 states ratified the Constitution. Two years after ratification, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights. The first ratified amendment prohibited Congress from doing what the colonists never seriously complained about the British government doing infringing upon the freedom of speech.

James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, insisted upon referring to speech as the freedom of speech to emphasize that it preexisted the government. If you could have asked Madison where he believed the freedom of speech came from, hed have said it was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration.

Stated differently, each of the signatories of the Declaration and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights manifested in writing their unambiguous belief that the freedom of speech is a natural right personal to every human. It does not come from the government. It comes from within and cannot be taken away by legislation or executive command.

Yet, a mere seven years later, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.

So, how could the same generation in some cases the same human beings that prohibited congressional infringement upon speech have enacted a statute that punished speech?

To some of the framers the Federalists who wanted a big government as we have today infringing upon the freedom of speech meant silencing it before it was uttered. Today, this is called prior restraint, and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it.

To the antifederalists or Democratic-Republicans, as they called themselves the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing any speech.

Adams Department of Justice indicted, prosecuted and convicted antifederalists for their public speech critical of the government.

When Jefferson won the presidency and the antifederalists won control of Congress, the Federalists repealed the speech suppression parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control, lest it be used against them.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North who were critical of his war efforts. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson whom my alma mater, Princeton University, is trying to erase from its memory arrested folks for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud and singing German beer hall songs.

Lincoln argued that preserving the Union was more important than preserving the First Amendment, and Wilson argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Both arguments have since been rejected by the courts.

In the 1950s, the feds successfully prosecuted Cold War dissenters on the theory that their speech was dangerous and might have a tendency to violence. Some of the victims of this torturous rationale died in prison.

The governments respect for speech has waxed and waned. It is at its lowest ebb during wartime. Of course, dissent during wartime which challenges the governments use of force to kill is often the most important speech.

The speech we love needs no protection. The speech we hate does. The government has no authority to evaluate speech. As the framers understood, all people have a natural right to think as we wish and to say and publish whatever we think. Even hateful, hurtful and harmful speech is protected speech.

Yet, in perilous times, such as the present, we have seen efforts to use the courts to block the publication of unflattering books. We have seen state governors use the police to protect gatherings of protesters with whose message they agreed and to disburse critical protesters. We have seen mobs silence speakers while the police did nothing.

And in perilous times, such as the present, we have seen Big Tech companies silencing their opponents. I hate when they do that, but they have every right to do so. They own the bulletin board. Twitter and Facebook can ban any speech they want because they are not the government. And the First Amendment only restrains the government. In the constitutional sense, free speech means only one thing free from government interference.

Punishing speech is the most dangerous business because there will be no end. The remedy for hateful or threatening speech is not silence or punishments; it is more speech speech that challenges the speaker.

Why do government officials want to silence their opponents? They fear an undermining of their power. The dissenters might make more appealing arguments than they do. St. Augustine taught that nearly all in government want to tell others how to live.

How about we all say whatever we want and the government leaves us alone?

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Napolitano: Does the First Amendment restrain Big Tech? - Daily Herald

The Ohio Supreme Court just granted review inM.R. v. Niesen, on the question whether "when a lower court imposes a prior restraint on expression, immediate appellate review is required." (The underlying case involves a Cincinnati policeman who sued for libel over a post that accused him "of possibly being associated with white supremacy or of being racist after spotting a video and picture of him allegedly flashing the 'ok' sign at a City Council meeting held to address concerns by those in the Black Lives Matter Movement." The judge responded by issuing apreliminary injunction ordering the defendants not to "publiciz[e], through social media or other channels, Plaintiff's personal identifying information," which apparently includes the policeman's name.)

I think the answer is yes, given the National Socialist Party of Am. v. Village of Skokiecase. With the indispensable help of our excellent pro bono counsel Jeffrey M. Nye (Stagnaro, Saba & Patterson), the UCLA First Amendment Clinic had filed an amicus brief supporting that position and arguing that the court should hear the case, on behalf of Profs. Jonathan Entin, David F. Forte, Andrew Geronimo, Raymond Ku, Stephen Lazarus, Kevin Francis O'Neill, Margaret Christine Tarkington, Aaron H. Caplan; the National Writers Union, the Society of Professional Journalists, the NewsGuild-CWA, Euclid Media Group; and me. Here's the heart of our argument (which I expect we'll also resubmit as a merits-stage brief to the court, now that it has agreed to consider the merits):

{The plaintiff, a police officer, sued the defendants, Ohio citizens who criticized his on-duty conduct providing security at a City Council meeting at Cincinnati City Hall. The complaint raised a defamation claim and other similar tort claims. Less than two days after filing the complaint, after a hearing at which the defendant-appellants were present and at which the plaintiff presented no testimony, the court issued an order that "enjoined" the appellants "from publicizing, through social media or other channels, Plaintiff's personal identifying information." The order did not define "personal identifying information," but the only statute that defines the phrase, R.C. 2913.49(A), defines it to include a person's "name."}

Within 48 hours of filing his complaint, [plaintiff] sought and received a sweeping prior restraint: an order forbidding two Ohio citizens from publishing information about a public official arising out the performance of his official duties. That order, like all prior restraints, is presumptively unconstitutional. But when those citizens, Julie Niesen and Terhas White, appealed that order to the First District, the appellate court dismissed the appeal, concluding that there was no final order.

That dismissal was wrong, and there are at least four reasons why this case presents substantial constitutional questions and issues of public or great general interest.

[A.] The order is a prior restraint of the appellants' free-speech rights.

"The term 'prior restraint' is used to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur." Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25(some quotation marks omitted). "Temporary restraining orders and permanent injunctionsi.e., court orders that actually forbid speech activitiesare classic examples of prior restraints." Id.(quotation marks omitted). "It is inescapable that a regulation of speech 'about' a specific person . . . is a regulation of the content of that speech and must therefore be analyzed as a content-based regulation." Bey at 33.

"[B]efore a court may enjoin the future publication of allegedly defamatory statements based on their content, there must first be a judicial determination that the subject statements were in fact defamatory." Bey at 44(citing O'Brien v. Univ. Community Tenants Union, Inc., 42 Ohio St.2d 242, 246, 327 N.E.2d 753 (1975)). Likewise, a court may enjoin speech that falls within some other exception only after "there has been" a "judicial determination that future postings" by the plaintiffs will fit within that exception (in Bey, this was the "speech integral to criminal conduct" exception). Id. at 45, 47.

The court below forbade Ms. Niesen and Ms. White from mentioning the name of a public official (police officer "M.R.") in any forum or medium, and it thus is a content-based order. This was a decision made by one judge, without the opportunity for a full trial or even comprehensive briefing, less than 48 hours after the complaint was filed, and it thus was not made after judicial determination that the statements were in fact defamatory. Nor is the order limited to forbidding libelous speech, speech that constitutes true threats, or speech that falls into any other First Amendment exception, such as the exception for intentional incitement of imminent and likely criminal conduct, see Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). It thus does not satisfy the requirement of falling outside the protection of the First Amendment.

The order prohibits speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment and by Art. I, 11 of the Ohio Constitution. It has no expiration date. The order is a prior restraint of the appellants' speech. And "Prior restraints on First Amendment expression are presumptively unconstitutional." Bey at 60. Cases seeking review of presumptively unconstitutional orders restraining speech are the epitome of cases raising substantial constitutional questions.

[B.] The prior restraint impinges upon the public's rights.

The First Amendment protects not only the rights of speakers, but also the rights of listeners. See Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 609 (1976)(Brennan, J., concurring) ("[I]t is the hypothesis of the First Amendment that injury is inflicted on our society when we stifle the immediacy of speech.") (emphasis added); McCarthy v. Fuller, 810 F.3d 456, 461 (7th Cir. 2015) (anti-libel injunction has "the potential to harm nonparties to the litigation because enjoining speech harms listeners as well as speakers.").

Prior restraints always interfere with the public's constitutional right to listen, but this particular prior restraint also interferes with the public's constitutional right to accessincluding to listen to accounts ofcourt proceedings. That right is well-established. See In re T.R. (1990), 52 Ohio St.3d 6, 16 n.9 (adult civil and criminal proceedings are "presumptively open to the public"); State ex rel. The Repository v. Unger (1986), 28 Ohio St. 3d 418, 421 (both pre-trial and trial proceedings are open to the public); Sup.R. 45(A) (case documents are open to the public). This order interferes with that constitutional right because it prohibits the defendants from discussing the plaintiff by name when talking about this litigation.

The public also has a right (and indeed, a duty) to supervise and scrutinize public officials regarding the performance of their official duties. That is true generally, but this Court has said that it is particularly true when the public official is a police officer and when the conduct being discussed is his participation in court proceedings. See Soke v. Plain Dealer (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 395, 397.

The order in this case thus represents a constitutional quadruple-whammy: by allowing the public official here to surreptitiously use the Ohio courts to immunize himself from such public scrutiny, the order has interfered with the appellants' speech rights generally; interfered with the public's right to listen to speech on matters of public interest; interfered with the public's right and duty to supervise the proceedings of the state court system that dispenses justice in their name; and interfered with the public's right and obligation to supervise public officials' performance of their official duties. The First Amendment does not permit this type of speech restriction.

[C.] The dismissal order elevates state civil procedure rules over the First Amendment and form over substance.

Because of all the foregoing constitutional problems, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that prior restraints must be subject to immediate appellate review. National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). But the Court of Appeals refused to follow this precedent, explaining its decision to disregard the U.S. Supreme Court's command by saying that it viewed the order as just a "temporary restraining order," and not a preliminary injunction.

That refusal raises yet another substantial constitutional issue. Constitutional rights, including the First Amendment precedents requiring immediate appellate review of prior restraints, apply regardless of state-law distinctions between TROs and preliminary injunctions. Holding otherwise would permit state law (or, more precisely, state court rules) to dictate the applicability of federal constitutional law. That would wrongly elevate state-law form over federal substance, turning the Supremacy Clause on its head. See U.S. Const., art. IV, cl. 2 (federal Constitution and laws "shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding"). Federal law controls over state procedure; not the other way around.

Moreover, the First District's reliance on the supposed status of the prior restraint as a TRO was an inaccurate elevation of form over substance. This Court recently (and unanimously) recognized that TROs can be "classic examples of prior restraints." Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25. The immediate appealability of the order therefore does not depend at all on whether the order was a TRO, a preliminary injunction, or anything else.

{And, though it does not matter to the constitutional issue, the appellate court's conclusion that the order was a TRO and not a preliminary injunction is likely incorrect. The order is properly seen as a preliminary injunction because it was not granted ex parte, cf. Civ.R. 65(A) ("A temporary restraining order may be granted without written or oral notice... ."), and, as the Court of Appeals observed at 10, the duration of the order "extended . . . past the expiration of the period set forth in Civ.R. 65 for a temporary restraining order." See id. (limiting TRO to 14 days plus one like extension for good cause; the order here was journalized in July and apparently was intended by the common pleas court to remain in effect at least until September 1).}

[D.] The dismissal order created a split between appellate districts.

Even if the First District's dismissal order had no constitutional implications, it would warrant review and correction by this Court because it created a district split. The First District below held that the First Amendment offers no right to immediate appellate review of an ostensible temporary restraining order. M.R. v. Niesen, 1st Dist. No. C-200302 at 1 (Sept. 9, 2020).

But the Second District has held that "Because the right of free speech must be protected against the chilling effect resulting from even its temporary infringement, the United States Supreme Court held in [Nat'l Socialist Party] that: 'If a State seeks to impose a restraint of this kind, it must provide strict procedural safeguards, including immediate appellate review. . . .'" Int'l Diamond Exch. Jewelers, Inc. v. U.S. Diamond & Gold Jewelers, Inc., 70 Ohio App. 3d 667, 671, 591 N.E.2d 881, 884 (2d Dist. 1991) (citations and some internal markup omitted; emphasis in original). And "Given that an immediate appellate forum for review of an order that imposes a prior restraint upon the exercise of free speech is necessitated by the federal Constitution," an appellant need not "wait until the case has been concluded in the trial court before he may challenge the order." Id. See also Connor Group v. Raney, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 26653, 2016-Ohio-2959, at 1 ("Although the issuance of a preliminary injunction by a trial court generally is not viewed as a final appealable order, . . . a preliminary injunction that constitutes a prior restraint on speech requires immediate appellate review.").

The Eleventh District agrees: "[W]here an injunction seeks to 'impose a restraint [on First Amendment rights],' there must be strict procedural safeguards, including immediate appellate review." Puruczky v. Corsi, 11th Dist. Geauga No. 2017-G-0110, 2018-Ohio-1335, 15 (paraphrasing Nat'l Socialist Party; some internal markup omitted). "Since Corsi alleges that the injunction substantially impacts his rights and constitutes a prior restraint on his speech, we will proceed to a review of the merits of his appeal." Id.

Unlike the First District's decision below, the holdings of those districts offer no loophole for temporary restraining orders, and those courts exercised their jurisdiction and reviewed (and reversed) the prior restraints. And both Puruczky and Connor Group were libel cases, like this one.

And the Second and Eleventh Districts' approach is correct: As the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, even temporary restraints on speech can create a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech. See Int'l Diamond, 70 Ohio App. 3d at 671. This Court should also exercise its discretion to review this case and resolve this split of authority on this important constitutional issue that affects fundamental rights. Unless and until it does, the rights of defendants to speak and of the public to listen and supervise their courts and their public officials, will depend on which of the State's appellate districts they reside in.

Proposition of Law no. 1: An order that imposes a prior restraint on speech must be subject to immediate appellate review.

"[I]mmediate appellate review" of prior restraints is constitutionally required. National Socialist Party, 432 U.S. at 44. See also Puruczky; Connor Group; Int'l Diamond, supra.

This principle is fully applicable here. Puruczky and Connor Group involved injunctions entered in response to libel lawsuits, just as this case does. National Socialist Party famously involved Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois. Nat'l Socialist Party, 432 U.S. at 4344; see also Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197, 1199 (7th Cir. 1978). If Nazis who want to march in a neighborhood populated with thousands of Holocaust survivors are entitled to immediate appellate review of an injunction against their speech, then citizens criticizing a police officer must be entitled to the same.

This constitutional requirement flows naturally from courts' recognition of the dangers of prior restraints. "A prior restraint...has an immediate and irreversible sanction" that is unlike any other remedy a court may impose, including "a judgment in a defamation case" or even "[a] criminal penalty," because all other sanctions are "subject to the whole panoply of protections afforded by deferring the impact of the judgment until all avenues of appellate review have been exhausted. Only after judgment has become final, correct or otherwise, does the law's sanction become fully operative" for other remedies. Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 559 (1976).

That "panoply of protections" does not exist for a prior restraint, which is why "prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights." Id.Prior restraints "fall on speech with a brutality and finality all their own." Id. at 609(Brennan, J., concurring in reversal of prior restraint).

More broadly, every day that a prior restraint remains in place is a First Amendment violation, and "[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury." Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976). "'Where . . . a direct prior restraint is imposed upon the reporting of news by the media, each passing day may constitute a separate and cognizable infringement of the First Amendment.'" CBS, Inc. v. Davis, 510 U.S. 1315, 1317 (1994)(Blackmun, J., in chambers) (citation omitted); Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 126 (2d Cir. 2006)(endorsing this principle as requiring "expeditious[]" decisionmaking as to restraints on First Amendment rights, there the right of access to court records); Doe v. Pub. Citizen, 749 F.3d 246, 27273 (4th Cir. 2014)(same); Grove Fresh Distributors, Inc. v. Everfresh Juice Co., 24 F.3d 893, 897 (7th Cir. 1994)(same), superseded on other grounds, as stated in Bond v. Utreras, 585 F.3d 1061, 1068 n.4 (7th Cir. 2009). And of course this principle applies beyond the mainstream media, and covers social media users as well.

{Art. I, 11 of the Ohio Constitution "guarantees to '[e]very citizen' the right to publish freely his or her sentiments on all subjects, regardless of that citizen's association or nonassociation with the press." Wampler v. Higgins, 93 Ohio St. 3d 111, 121 (2001). "We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers." Citizens United v. United States, 558 U.S. 310, 352 (2010)(internal quotation marks omitted). "The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. . . . The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion." Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938); see also Chevaldina v. R.K./FL Mgmt., Inc., 133 So. 3d 1086, 1092 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014)("Angry social media postings are now common....But analytically, and legally, these rants are essentially the electronic successors of the pre-blog, solo complainant holding a poster on a public sidewalk," and are just as fully protected by the First Amendment).}

The injury inflicted by prior restraints is thus not remediable by vacatur or reversal of a prior restraint at a distant future date after final judgment, especially where (as here) the prior restraint relates to a public official and his conduct in official and court proceedings. The parties and the public have a right to speak contemporaneously, not merely retrospectively, both about public officials and about court proceedings. See Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 268 (1941)("[P]ublic interest is much more likely to be kindled by a controversial event of the day than by a generalization, however penetrating, of the historian or scientist."); Doe v. Pub. Citizen, 749 F.3d 246, 272 (4th Cir. 2014)(acknowledging the harms of "delayed disclosure" with respect to court proceedings). Immediate appellate review is thus critical to make sure that the injunction does not cause such a loss of First Amendment freedoms.

The logic of these cases turns on the commands imposed by the First Amendmentcommands that override any contrary state procedural distinctions that would limit immediate appellate review. And of course both this Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have recognized that "Temporary restraining orders," no less than "permanent injunctions," "are classic examples of prior restraints" that are fully subject to First Amendment constraints. Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25; Alexander v. United States, 509 U.S. 544, 550 (1993).

Yet the First District took a sharply different approach; it concluded that neither the U.S. Supreme Court's Skokie decision nor the Second and Eleventh Districts' decisions applied here, simply because this case involved a temporary restraining order. M.R., 1st Dist. No. C-200302 at 9. The First District did not acknowledge this Court's or the U.S. Supreme Court's treatment of temporary restraining orders as prior restraints, nor did it explain why the First Amendment rule of immediate appellate review of prior restraints would be limited by the TRO/preliminary injunction distinction.

This Court's review is necessary to set forth a uniform rule on when immediate appellate review of prior restraints is necessary.

Conclusion

Prior restraints on speech are rarely constitutional; and to make sure that unconstitutional prior restraints suppress speech for as short a time as possible, both the U.S. Supreme Court and Ohio courts have required that such restraints be subject to immediate appellate review. The injunction in this case is a prior restraint, and thus subject to immediate appellate review; indeed, it is a content-based prior restraint, and one that is not limited to libelous speech or to speech that falls within a First Amendment exception. This Court should step in to correct the serious First Amendment violation in this case, and resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on whether the normal First Amendment rules apply to temporary restraining orders.

Here is the original post:
Do Critics of Police Have the First Amendment Procedural Protections That Nazis Get? - Reason

Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law, discusses the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The First Amendment Law Clinic is the only program in the country solely dedicated to the protection of student speech and press rights.

In simple terms, what is the First Amendment and what does it do?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to petition. The First Amendment is one of the most important amendments for the protection of democracy.

Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law.

When was it created?

The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights. To protect individual rights, the framers of the U.S. Constitution added 10 amendments to the document in 1791, four years after the Constitution was ratified.

What does the First Amendment say about freedom of speech?

Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in limited circumstances.

President Donald Trump recently was suspended from a number of social media platforms. Is this a violation of his First Amendment rights?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any similar social media platform can censor any persons speech because they are private companies. Censorship is when an entity punishes individuals for their speech or prevents the speech from being expressed. Free speech is the ability to express ones thoughts and opinions without fear of being punished by the government.

The First Amendment protects against the government from censoring speech. None of these social media platforms are part of the government, so President Trump cannot claim his First Amendment rights have been violated.

President Trump was impeached a second time for incitement of insurrection. What is incitement speech?

Incitement speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Incitement speech is when someone encourages lawless action, and that lawless action is imminent and likely. It could be argued that Trump incited the mob violence on Jan. 6 in his summoning and assembling of supporters at the White House rally, his repeated claims that he won the election and his exhorting the crowd to go to the Capitol. Among other things, the president told the crowd, If you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Not long after Trumps speech, members of the crowd converged on the U.S. Capitol, broke through doors and windows, invaded the Senate and House chambers and private offices, and had violent clashes with police resulting in deaths.

What types of speech are not protected under the First Amendment?Types of speech that arent protected include:

Does the First Amendment only protect U.S. citizens?

Theres no citizenship requirement for First Amendment protection. If you are a resident of the United States, you have freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition.

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Ask the expert: The First Amendment and free speech - MSUToday