Category Archives: Free Speech

Campus police said they had very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event, according to court documents.

The university proposed an alternate date for the Coulter event, but the College Republicans noted it was during Dead Week when few students would be on campus, and that Coulter had only signed onto the initial plan. They said UC Berkeley had canceled the event, violating their free speech rights and discriminating against conservatives.

In the new response, UC Berkeley begged to differ: Plaintiffs First Amendment free speech claim fails because the relevant venues were limited public forums and the alleged restrictions were reasonable and viewpoint neutral.

The university also laid out the process it plans to follow to create a new campus event policy. The administration will seek extensive input from the public and student groups, the response said.

On Thursday, Young Americas Foundation released a statement on UC Berkeleys response, calling it bizarre.

Berkeleys response laughably alleges that its actions welcoming prominent liberals, including Maria Echaveste, a top aide to President Bill Clinton and Vicente Fox Quesada the former president of Mexico, while simultaneously denying equal access for students attempting to host David Horowitz and Ann Coulterare viewpoint neutral,' the statement said.

The organization also criticized Cals plan to develop an event policy with input from the public.

The very idea that a free speech policy is open to discussion or negotiation is absurd. UC-Berkeley administrators should base any policies protecting students constitutional rights on the Constitution itself, the statement said.

The conservative groups, represented by attorneyHarmeet K. Dhillon, filed their suit against UC President Janet Napolitano, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, UCPD Captain Alex Yao and other Cal officials in U.S. District Court in Northern California in April. The groups are asking fora jury trial, an injunction stopping UC Berkeley from restricting the exercise of political expression on the UC Berkeley campus, and damages for attorney fees.A court date is set for August 25.

Amid the tension between the conservative groups and Cal officials, Coulter threatened to come to Berkeley anyway on the initially proposed date, April 27, implying she would speak outdoors. She did not end up coming, saying the students who had supported her had failed to guarantee her safety.

UC Berkeley set up barricades around Sproul Plaza that day, and UCPD turned out in force. Little action ended up occurring on campus, but members of the far-right, including many who came from out of town, held a free speech rally in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. The event was peaceful, in large part because counter-demonstrators did not show up to confront the protesters, except for a brief interaction between anti-fascists and the far-right at the end of the day.

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UC Berkeley says free speech lawsuit is unfounded - Berkeleyside

The Supreme Court of Canada issued an order to Google Wednesday: Stop showing search results for a company accused of fraud, not just in Canada, but throughout the world. Yes, that includes everybody reading this in America.

But the courts ruling that the Alphabet. Inc., (GOOG, GOOGL) search subsidiary de-index the companycould also invite other courts including those in countries not as nice as Canada to issue their own global takedown demands for other sites, whichcan easily lead to free speech beingsquashed.

And U.S. companies that want to do business in those other nations will have little choice but to comply. Too bad, eh?

This story started with a lawsuit filed by Barnaby, British Columbia-based Industrial-networking vendor Equustek Solutions Inc., alleging that a competitor, Datalink Technologies Gateways Inc., had started selling its technology as its own.

A lower court told Datalink to knock it off, but thefirm then fled the province to an unknown location while continuing to hawk its wares online.

Equustek asked Google to stop sending people to Datalinks sales pages, and Google complied. But as Datalink kept moving the offending sales pitch from one page to another, Equustek asked Google to stop pointing people to Datalinks site entirely and to do the same around the world.

An appeals court granted that request, and Canadas Supreme Court upheld that while rejecting free-speech arguments in a 7-2 ruling.

This is not an order to remove speech that, on its face, engages freedom of expression values, it is an order to de-index websites that are in violation of several court orders, Justice Rosalie Abella wrote. We have not, to date, accepted that freedom of expression requires the facilitation of the unlawful sale of goods.

Googles press office released a statement in response: We are carefully reviewing the Courts findings and evaluating our next steps.

The traditional view of trying to keep something off the internet, as Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmorepoints out is,The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

But multinational corporations, unlike internet packets, operate in fixed locations. They have employees that can be arrested, assets that can be seizedand bank accounts that can be hit with fines.

Having any one country tell a company doing business there that it must take something offline within that country has always been a risk, and sometimes tech firms have opted not to run accept such demands Googles decision to pull out ofthe booming Chinese marketover government censorshipis a perfect example of this.

But Canadas Supreme Court has flipped this script with its globally-binding ruling. Daphne Keller, a director of Stanford Universitys Center for Internet and Society, called it much more far reaching than most in an email.

And the underlying offense here, an intellectual-property violation, is far from being something everybody can agree on as being beyond the pale worldwide. Said Keller: I am in tons of discussions about this, and the one point of consensus is global removal of child pornography.

Further, this isnt just any rogue judicial body engaging in global grandstanding. The Canadian Supreme Court is well respected around the world, and this ruling will carry some weight elsewhere, emailed Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

Geist, who had earlier urged the court to adopt a narrower remedy, said the judges should have limited their ruling to Googles google.ca Canadian site.

The courts ruling is a mess all around. It wont actually solve the problem of people finding undesirable content online for the same reasons that the European Unions right to be forgotten doctrine cant.

Like the EUs RtbF, Canadas ruling doesnt encompass every search engine and says nothing about social media, with its proven ability to send massive amounts of people to a site. Nor can it stop individual people or sites from pointing to offending pages something that can become more likely after a dose of publicity.

The problem looms much larger for everybody else online. Canadian judges may be a reasonable lot, but if they see fit to assert global jurisdiction, so can any other countrys judges.

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In France, privacy regulators have fined Google a token amount for not honoring a right-to-be-forgotten request worldwide. (Memo to French president Emmanuel Macron: This is not a good look for will not help your startup nation ambitions.)

Libel laws are far friendlier to plaintiffs in the United Kingdom; imagine British courts deciding that their rulings must now apply worldwide?

And on Monday, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan got a court order demanding that Twitter (TWTR) close the account of American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin. What if he forced Google to stop linking to attacks on him?

Whats hate speech in France is free speech in the U.S., explained Pamela Samuelson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Whats fair use in the U.S. may be infringing in Spain. Whats defamation in Australia or the UK may be protected speech in the U.S.

In every case, the result will be courts overseas deciding what we as Americans can find online. And then maybe U.S. courts will return the favor, and the internet as a whole can get meeker and shallower, one ruling at a time.

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.

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A ruling against Google in Canada could affect free speech around the world - Yahoo Finance

RALEIGH North Carolina lawmakers have given the green light to a bill protecting free speech at public universities.

In a 34-11 vote, House Bill 527, Restore/Preserve Free Speech, passed the Senate on Wednesday.

The House, which passed H.B. 527 in April, on Thursday voted 76-35 to concur with the Senates revised version of the bill.

H.B. 527 requires the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to adopt a uniform speech policy for all campuses in the UNC system. It also directs the board to form a Committee on Free Expression. That body would enforce the speech policy across all UNC campuses.

The bill is headed to Gov. Roy Coopers desk.

Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Kentucky, and Tennessee have passed bills protecting campus speech, said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonpartisan research and litigation organization.

FIRE helped Lt. Gov. Dan Forest the main backer of the project write the bill.

The General Assemblys passage of this bill is a great step toward restoring and preserving free speech on our university campuses, Forest told Carolina Journal. Our public universities should be places where free expression occurs, and this bill makes it clear that the marketplace of ideas is back open on campus.

H.B. 527 is a solution in search of a problem, but free speech always should be a priority for public universities, said Sarah Gillooly, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

In the rare circumstances where there is an issue with the stifling of free speech on campus, appropriate remedies exist and are working, Gillooly told CJ.

We will continue to monitor the implementation of H.B. 527 to ensure it protects the speech of all students, including counter protesters. In a country that protects and values the right to free speech, the answer to speech we dont like is more speech not censorship.

North Carolina is now a leader in the fight to protect campus free speech, FIRE spokesman Daniel Burnett said.

FIRE divides public and private universities into three rankings: red light, yellow light, and green light. Red-light schools are the worst offenders of free speech. Green-light schools are the best at upholding First Amendment rights.

North Carolina takes top billing nationally for the number of universities with First Amendment protections. UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Greensboro, N.C. Central University, UNC-Charlotte, and East Carolina University are ranked as green-light schools. Duke University, a private institution, also has a green-light rating.

As of last year, only one UNC school UNC-Chapel Hill was rated as a green-light campus.

The U.S. has 32 green-light schools, 28 of them public.

Free speech legislation similar to North Carolinas H.B. 527 is pending in Michigan and Wisconsin, Cohn said.

California, New York, and Washington also are considering First Amendment protections for state campuses.

Evergreen State College, a public liberal-arts university in Washington, became a hotspot for controversy in May after Bret Weinstein, a progressive biology professor, protested the colleges suggestion that white students and faculty leave campus for a day.

Outrage ensued.

Students gathered outside Weinsteins office and shouted vulgarities. Some occupied the office of the colleges president, George Bridges, even going so far as to escort him to the bathroom.

Other on-campus protests turned violent.

During a June 15 demonstration by Patriot Prayer, an alt-right group of nationalists and populists, its leader Joey Gibson was struck in the head and pepper-sprayed by a group of 200 Evergreen students dressed as ninjas.

Evergreen is ranked as a red-light school. Washington has no green-light campuses.

FIRE is ready to work with any college or university that wants to follow North Carolinas example and protect First Amendment rights, said Laura Beltz, the organizations policy reform program officer.

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Bladen Journal | Campus free speech bill heads to governor - Elizabethtown Bladen Journal

L. B. Sullivan, an elected commissioner in Montgomery who supervised the police department, sued The Times for defamation, even though he was not named in the advertisement. He sought $500,000 in damages, an amount equivalent to about $4 million today.

The lawsuit arose, his lawyers said, because of a wilful, deliberate and reckless attempt to portray in a full-page newspaper advertisement, for which the Times charged and was paid almost $5,000, rampant, vicious, terroristic and criminal police action in Montgomery, Alabama, to a nationwide public of 650,000.

Mr. Sullivan won his case in the Alabama courts but the matter wound up at the Supreme Court, where The Times and the free press generally won a stunning victory in 1964.

We consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wideopen, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials, the liberal Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for the majority, which included Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection, he continued. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent.

Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth, whether administered by judges, juries or administrative officials and especially not one that puts the burden of providing truth on the speaker.

Justice Brennan noted that there is evidence that The Times published the advertisement without checking its accuracy against the news stories in The Timess own files.

But he went on to say, We think the evidence against The Times supports at most a finding of negligence in failing to discover the misstatements, and is constitutionally insufficient to show the recklessness that is required for a finding of actual malice.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher of The Times, welcomed the decision. The opinion of the Court makes freedom of the press more secure than ever before, he said.

He might well have said so. Heed Their Rising Voices may have paid greater dividends than any advertisement The Times has ever run.

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1964 | A Libel Suit Yields a Vigorous Defense of Free Speech - New York Times

Kansas City Star

Do we still believe in free speech? Only until we disagree Kansas City Star After a century of building free speech rights into our laws and culture, Americans are backing away from one of the country's defining principles. Set off by the nation's increasingly short fuse, students, politicians, teachers and parents are not ...

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Do we still believe in free speech? Only until we disagree - Kansas City Star

From the July/August COMMENTARY symposium.

The following is an excerpt from COMMENTARYs symposium on the threat to free speech:

Were living in the midst of a troubling paradox. At the exact same time that First Amendment jurisprudence has arguably never been stronger and more protective of free expression, millions of Americans feel they simply cant speak freely. Indeed, talk to Americans living and working in the deep-blue confines of the academy, Hollywood, and the tech sector, and youll get a sense of palpable fear. Theyll explain that they cant say what they think and keep their jobs, their friends, and sometimes even their families.

The government isnt cracking down or censoring; instead, Americans are using free speech to destroy free speech. For example, a social-media shaming campaign is an act of free speech. So is an economic boycott. So is turning ones back on a public speaker. So is a private corporation firing a dissenting employee for purely political reasons. Each of these actions is largely protected from government interference, and each one represents an expression of the speakers ideas and values.

The problem, however, is obvious. The goal of each of these kinds of actions isnt to persuade; its to intimidate. The goal isnt to foster dialogue but to coerce conformity. The result is a marketplace of ideas that has been emptied of all but the approved ideological vendorsat least in those communities that are dominated by online thugs and corporate bullies. Indeed, this mindset has become so prevalent that in places such as Portland, Berkeley, Middlebury, and elsewhere, the bullies and thugs have crossed the line from protectedalbeit abusivespeech into outright shout-downs and mob violence.

But theres something else going on, something thats insidious in its own way. While politically correct shaming still has great power in deep-blue America, its effect in the rest of the country is to trigger a furious backlash, one characterized less by a desire for dialogue and discourse than by its own rage and scorn. So were moving toward two Americasone that ruthlessly (and occasionally illegally) suppresses dissenting speech and the other that is dangerously close to believing that the opposite of political correctness isnt a fearless expression of truth but rather the fearless expression of ideas best calculated to enrage your opponents.

The result is a partisan feedback loop where right-wing rage spurs left-wing censorship, which spurs even more right-wing rage. For one side, a true free-speech culture is a threat to feelings, sensitivities, and social justice. The other side waves high the banner of free speech to sometimes elevate the worst voices to the highest platformsnot so much to protect the First Amendment as to infuriate the hated snowflakes and trigger the most hysterical overreactions.

The culturally sustainable argument for free speech is something else entirely. It reminds the cultural left of its own debt to free speech while reminding the political right that a movement allegedly centered around constitutional values cant abandon the concept of ordered liberty. The culture of free speech thrives when all sides remember their moral responsibilitiesto both protect the right of dissent and to engage in ideological combat with a measure of grace and humility.

Read the entire symposium on the threat to free speech in the July/August issue of COMMENTARY here.

The War of the Poses.

Recently, the White House has adopted a habit that seems designed to maximize the frustration of the reporters who cover it. Occasionally, the administration flirts with doing away with the daily press briefing altogether or forcing reporters to submit written questions in advance. When reporters complain, the press briefing returns, but with no cameras allowed.

If the administration is feeling kind, it will allow the audio of the briefing to be recorded. Occasionally, reporters are permitted a still picture or two. This gesture is, however, only offered so as to not be so withholding that the targets of their psychological abuse lose interest in the game. Only when they truly want to hammer home a message will the White House appear to relent to journalists complaints and revert to the standard briefing format. Even then, its often only to castigate the reporters in attendance.

At Tuesdays on-camera briefing, there was only one truly pressing subject. No, not the health care reform bill that is stalled in the Senate and could scuttle the presidents legislative agenda if it fails. Media bias was the topic du jour, as it is almost every jour.

Last week, CNN reported that Trump campaign advisor Anthony Scaramucci had ties to a state-run investment fund in Moscow. That story was based on false information and was retracted in its entirety. In a moment of rare professional penance, CNN accepted the resignations of three high-profile reporters and editors.

This display of loose journalistic ethics has become typical of reporting on Trump-Russian connections. The subjects of this smear, both those libeled directly and tangentially, have every right to be frustrated. CNN behaved admirably in facing its failure head-on. Both the president and his spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, took the opportunity to be graceless.

Donald Trump responded to the reporters dismissal by seeking to maximize his political advantage and declaring all stories related to his campaigns interactions with Russian officials fake news! When she was asked why CNNs response to their employees unprofessional conduct wasnt good enough for the president, Huckabee Sanders attacked CNN for its serial inaccuracy. She then advised the American public to avail themselves of a video circulating now from James OKeefes Project Veritas that purports to show a CNN producer objecting to his networks ratings-driven obsession with the investigations into Russia and Trump. Whether its accurate or not, I dont know, Huckabee Sanders added.

At this point, Sentinel Newspapers Brian Karemhad had enough. What you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say, see, once again, the presidents right and everybody else out here is fake media, Karem averred, and everybody in this room is only trying to do their job. The video of his remarks went viral, reporters and conservative pundits flew to their respective corners, and the familiar ritual of public posturing had begun.

Rarely has a perfectly symbiotic relationship been so antagonistic. Or, at least, rarely has that contrivance been so irritating.

Members of this administration might feel legitimately transgressed against when they are accused of conspiring to undermine American sovereigntyparticularly if they believe those allegations to be false. And after spending the last 150 plus days being lectured about their corrupt and dishonest employers, friends, and colleagues, members of the press might sometimes put aside professional courtesies and become a little passionate. Those traits are honest and forgivable. Less defensible is the affectation of grievance.

Does this feel like America? barked the increasingly hysterical CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Where the White House takes [questions] from conservatives, then openly trashes the news media in the briefing room? Adopting the language of the over-caffeinated partisans who make up The Resistance has become a feature of Acostas rhetoric since the White House began to draw the curtain over the daily press briefing.

In fact, this is what a traditionally adversarial relationship between reporter and political institution looks like. It is a testament to how compromising the Obama years were for both the press and political professionals that this dynamic is so alien neither side appears to recognize it.

A doctrine is taking shape.

With all of Washington consumed by the effort to craft and pass health-care legislation, the Trump White House appeared to catch the countrys political establishment off guard when it announced that the crisis in Syria was again reaching a crescendo.

In a prepared statement, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer revealed that the Bashar al-Assad regime was engaged in potential preparations to execute another chemical attack on civilians. [If] Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price, the statement read.

Hours later, the Pentagon expounded upon the nature of the threat. We have seen activity at Shayrat Airfield, said Captain Jeff Davis, associated with chemical weapons. The Shayrat Air Base outside the city of Homs is the same airfield that was targeted in April with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

For all the frustration over the Trump administrations failure to craft a coherent strategy to guide American engagement in the Syrian theater, the White House has communicated to the Assad regime a set of clear parameters in which it is expected to operate. That is a marked improvement over the approach taken by Barack Obamas administration.

When American forces in Syria or those under the American defense umbrella are threatened by the Assad regime or its proxies, American forces will take action. On several occasions, U.S. forces have made kinetic defensive strikes on pro-government militias, and that policy recently expanded to include Syrian regular forces. On June 18, a Syrian Su-22 fighter-bomber was destroyed when it struck American-backed fighters laying siege to the ISIS-held city of Raqqa.

The Trump administration has also telegraphed to Damascus the limited conditions that would lead to offensive operations against regime targets. At the risk of contradicting his campaign-trail promise to scale back American commitments abroad, President Trump was convinced at the urging of his closest advisors and family members following the April 4 chemical attacks to execute strikes on the Assad regime. His administration was quick to communicate that this was a one-time punitive measure, not a campaign. There would be no follow-on action.

That directive may no longer be operative. With the release of this latest statement warning Damascus against renewed chemical strikes on rebel targets, the triggers that led to strikes on regime targets in April are hardening into a doctrine. The United States will act aggressively to maintain a global prohibition on the use of weapons of mass destruction. There is enough consistency and clarity to Trumps approach that it might amount to deterrence. Even if the Assad regime is not deterred, onlookers may yet be.

This is a doctrine that Barack Obama flirted with, but declined only at the last minute to adopt. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas, and using them, Obama explained to the nation in a primetime address on September 10, 2013. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons, and to use them to attack civilians.

This was and remains a prophetic warning. ISIS militants have already deployed chemical munitions against Iraqi troops and their American and Australian advisors. An inauspicious future typified by despots unafraid to unleash indiscriminate and unconventional weapons on the battlefield would surely have come to fruition had the West not eventually made good on Obamas threats.

Obama framed his about-face as an odd species of consistency. He deferred to Congress in a way he hadnt before and wouldnt after while simultaneously empowering Moscow to mediate the conflict. This laid the groundwork for Russian armed intervention in Syria just two years later. In contrast, Donald Trump eschewed the rote dance of coalition-building and public diplomacy. Instead, he ordered the unilateral, punitive strike on a rogue for behaving roguishly. And hes willing to do it again if need be.

That approach will prove refreshing to Americas Sunni allies who, by the end of the last administration, were entirely disillusioned with the Obama presidency. Obamas waltz back from his red line undermined the Gulf States and shattered hopes in Syria that the West was prepared to enforce the proscription on mass civilian slaughter. In the week of war drums leading up to the anti-climax of September 10, 2013, a wave of defections from the Syrian Army suggested that a post-Assad future was possible. Today, few think such a prospect is conceivable. And because the insurgency against Assads regime will not end with Assad in power, an equal number cannot foresee a stop to the Syrian civil war anytime soon.

These circumstances have led some to criticize the Trump administration. Perhaps the behaviors theyve resolved to punish are too narrowly defined. Maybe the White House should rethink regime change? It is, after all, not so much a civil war anymore but a great power conflict. American troopsto say nothing of Russian, Turkish, British, French, and a host of othersare already on the ground in Syria in numbers and at cross purposes. Still others contend that even this level of engagement in the Levant is irresponsible. They argue the Syrian quagmire is to be avoided at all costs.

These are all legitimate criticisms, but only now can there be a rational debate over a concrete Syria policy.

For more than three years, Barack Obama tried to have his cake and eat it, too. He presented himself as sagaciously unmoved by the political pressuring of Washingtons pro-war establishment, which salivates over the prospect of lucrative strikes on an alien nation. At the same time, the Obama White House cast itself as a reluctant defender of civilization in the Middle East and elsewhereperhaps even too quick to deploy men and ordnance. This was only nonsense retrofitted onto Barack Obamas pursuit of a face-saving way to retreat from his self-set red line.

The Trump administrations policy in Syria is an improvement over Obamas if only because it deserves to be called a policy. Love it or dont, at least Americans are no longer being gaslighted into debating the merits of phantasms invented by political strategists in Washington talk shops.

This isn't about politics.

On June 23, the Washington Post ran a comprehensive article reviewing the Russian interference in last years presidential election, which involved stealing emails from Democratic Party accounts and releasing them via Wikileaks. The outstanding work of reporters Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Adam Entous shows that there was a bipartisan, cascading failure to respond adequately to this attack on our democracy. That attack began under President Obama and is continuing under President Trump.

The Post revealed that the CIA had sourcing deep inside the Russian government showing that Vladimir Putin had personally tasked his intelligence agencies with audacious objectivesdefeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

Obama was informed of this while the election was underway, but he did little.

the Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia, including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could crater the Russian economy.

But in the end, in late December,Obama approveda modest package combining measures that had been drawn up to punish Russia for other issues expulsions of 35 diplomats and the closure of two Russian compounds with economic sanctions so narrowly targeted that even those who helped design them describe their impact as largely symbolic.

The article went on to quote a former senior Obama administration official involved in White House deliberations on Russia who said: It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend. I feel like we sort of choked.

In fairness to Obama, he tried to seek bipartisan support to expose Russias machinations and found no interest among the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, who were plainly more worried about losing an election than about this Russian attack on our democracy. Obama knew that if he had spoken out more forcefully, Trump and his Republican supporters would have hammered him for allegedly trying to rig the election for Crooked Hillary.

That doesnt excuse Obamas failure of leadership. He was the commander-in-chief; it was his responsibility. It does make clear, however, that he was worried not just about the possibility of worsening relations with Russia but also about being charged with a partisan interference in the election.

The failure to react more strongly to the Russian hack extends now into the Trump administration. Trumps reaction to the Post story is indicative of his troubling mindset. The day before the Post story came out, Trump claimed on Twitter that reports of Russian interferenceas unanimously attested to by his own intelligence agenciesare all a big Dem HOAX! Following the publication of the Posts story, he tweeted: Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?

Given that the Obama administration had publicly called out Russian interference in October, its hard to imagine why this would be news to Trump now.

The benefit of the doubt ends there. Trumps next reaction was purely cynical. Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T! So when Trump is accused of collusion with the Russians or other wrong-doing, he claims that the entire Russian operation is a hoax. But when he wants to accuse Obama of wrongdoing, then he stipulates that the hacking was real.

For Trump, this is a purely partisan issue. The Democrats are out to get to him, to de-legitimize his election victory, and he will say or do anything to stop themeven if that means denying the reality of the Russian operation one moment and admitting it the next. There is no indication that he has treated this attack with the gravity it deserves, which makes it more likely that the Russians will be up to their old tricks in future elections, just as they have been doing recently in Europe.

Trump is right to castigate Obama for not doing more, but the same criticism now applies to him.

How the West was dug.

Next Tuesday marks the beginning of the 242nd year of the independence of the United States, and the day will be justly celebrated with parades,picnics, and fireworks from Hawaii to Maine.

But next Tuesday will also mark another anniversary of surpassing historicalimportance to this country. For it was on July 4th, 1817, 200 years ago,that the first shovelful of dirt was dug and the construction of the ErieCanal began. Finished eight years later (ahead of schedule and under budget)it united the east coast with the fast-growing trans-Appalachian west.

It was a monumental undertaking. At 363 miles, the canal was more than twiceas long as any earlier canal. (The Canal du Midi in southern France was 140miles in length.) Thomas Jefferson thought the project little short ofmadness. But Governor Dewitt Clinton saw the possibilities and went ahead,artfully handling the very considerable political opposition and arrangedthe financing (much of the money was raised in London).

Clinton was quickly proved right and the Erie Canal can claim to be the most consequential public works project in American history. Before the canal,bulk goods such as grain could reach the east coast population centers onlyby going down the Mississippi River and out through the port of New Orleans.With the canal, it could travel via the Great Lakes and the canal to theport of New York. Before the canal, it had taken six weeks to move a barrelof flour from Buffalo to New York City, at the cost of $100. With the canal,it took six days and cost $6.00. The result was an economic revolution.

Within a few years, New York City had become, in the words of Oliver WendellHolmes (the doctor and poet, not his son the Supreme Court justice), thattongue that is licking up the cream of commerce of a continent. The cityexploded in size, expanding northwards at the rate of about two blocks ayear. That may not seem like much, but Manhattan is about two miles wide,and thus the city was adding about ten miles of street front every year, apace that continued for decades.

The cost of the canal was paid off in only eight years and thereafter becamea cash cow for the state. This allowed it to weather the crash of 1837 andthe following depression, which bankrupted the state of Pennsylvania andcrippled Philadelphias banks. New York quickly became the countrysundisputed financial center, which it has been ever since.

And while goods were moving eastwards, people were moving westward throughthe canal as farmers deserted the thin, stony soils of New England for therich, deep loams of Ohio and Indiana. This New England diaspora moved thepolitical center of the country westwards.

The canal era in this country was a brief one as railroads, beginning in the1830s, began to spread. But the Erie Canal continued to function as anartery of commerce until the 1970s and is still used today for things that,usually for reasons of size, cannot be moved by highway or railroad. And itremains a popular avenue for recreational boating.

So Americans should remember Dewitt Clinton next week just as we rememberWashington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin. For New Yorkers, that goesdouble. For it was the Erie Canal that put the empire in the Empire State.

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David French: The Threat To Free Speech | commentary - Commentary Magazine

News & Observer

ECU, UNC-Charlotte free speech policy improved FIRE says | News ... News & Observer The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave new 'green light' ratings after policy changes at East Carolina and UNC-Charlotte. ECU gives the 'green light' to free speech - WITNWITN The best state for campus free speech is ... North Carolina? - The ...The College Fix all 4 news articles »

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ECU, UNC-Charlotte free speech policy improved FIRE says | News ... - News & Observer

Pacific Standard

Why Can't 'Free Speech' Advocates Ever Defend Adjunct Professors and People of Color? Pacific Standard In contrast to other free speech-related controversies on college campuses, there has been almost no media coverage of Durden's ouster. That omission is part of a pattern: When wealthy, right-wing speakers and politicians encounter protest, the ... How the Right Stifles Speech With Threats and ViolenceNew Republic Black NJ Professor Fired After FOX News Appearance (VIDEOS)Patch.com Professor fired after defending blacks-only event to Fox News. 'I was publicly lynched,' she says.Washington Post Essex County College -Fox News Insider all 105 news articles »

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Why Can't 'Free Speech' Advocates Ever Defend Adjunct Professors and People of Color? - Pacific Standard

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that even hate speech qualifies for constitutional free speech protection, a welcome ruling in an age when the left is using political correctness to go after anyone who doesnt share its ideology.

In a firm 8-0 decision, justices slapped down the Patent and Trademark Office for denying a band called The Slants federal trademark registration because the name is a derogatory term for Asian-Americans.

Band leader Simon Tam argued that TheSlants was Asian-American and sought to reclaim and take ownership of negative stereotypes.

The litigation centered on a provision of federal trademark law from 1946 referred to as the disparagement clause.

The clause is interpreted by an examiner who determines whether or not the mark would be found disparaging by a substantial composite, although not necessarily a majority, of the referenced group.

In classic safe-space reasoning, the trademark office determined that the name The Slants could offend a segment of the population, which the court utterly rejected, deeming free speech rights vital to a free society and inviolate in the U.S. Constitution.

Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethniticity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar grounds is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedoom to express the thought that we hate, wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

Justices determined that basing a trademark prohibition on the presumed reactions of an offended group is simply government hostility and intervention in a different guise.

If affixing the commercial label permits the suppression of any speech that may lead to political or social volatility, free speech would be endangered, wrote Alito.

A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Cato Institute and a Basket of Deplorable People and Organizations urged the court to make the jobs of employees (at the trademark office) much easier by putting an end to the disparagement clause.

The brief argued that government officials cannot be trusted to neutrally identify speech that disparages. After all, the trademark office had approved rocks bands named the Dying Fetus and Sex Pistols and Niggaz Wit Attitude. So were entities with names such as Take Yo Panties Off and Capitalism Sucks Donkey Balls.

In 2014, the trademark office denied protection to the name of the Washington Redskins, despite a Washington Post poll showing that 90 percent of Native Americans were not offended by the name and only 18 percent of nonwhite football fans favored changing it.

Bureaucrats should not be given power to regulate speech based upon their own prejudices or political agenda. Especially with the frightening trend underway to target and shut down conservative Christian viewpoints.

Earlier this year, Merriam-Webster released a collegiate dictionary that was lauded by social justice activists for joining the fight to make it impossible to use any word or grammar that has not been approved as multi-culturally sensitive, nonsexist, inoffensive, nondiscriminatory, non-racist, diplomatic, gender-free or non-biased.

Merriam added 1,000 new words that included safe-space and micro-aggression. These words have been used on college campuses to stop conservative speakers from delivering offending messages.

Nothing like having a different point of view expressed to interfere with educational indoctrination.

Ending the free-exchange of thoughts, ideas and intellectual challenge sets the stage for persecution of minority voices. If this relentless assault on free speech succeeds, those who resist conformity will be silenced and no one will be safe from the tyrants who rule us.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court set back that agenda with its ruling. Even when speech offends, it must be tolerated in a free society.

RaeLynn Ricarte

Members of the Asian-American rock band The Slants have the right to call themselves by a disparaging name, the Supreme Court says, in a ruling that could have broad impact on how the Frist Amendment is applied in other trademark cases.

The case centered on the 1946 Lanham Act, which in part prohibits registration of a trademark that may disparagepersons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.

Although the act evenhandedly prohibits trademarks that insult any group, the law was deemed unconstitutional because it violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

The band said it wanted to reclaim what is often seen as a slur. With the trademark, they have the right to restrict use of The Slants name.

The decision will likely impact another active case involving the Redskins, which is defending its use of a trademark some believe disparaging to Native Americans, living and dead alike. Which it is.

While I agree the government should have no role in legislating speech and morality, the decision does raise a simple question, one not easily answered: How do we, as Americans, address speech that is disparaging, hateful, expressing contempt or otherwise offensive?

An Asian-American rock band calling itself The Slants strikes some as being acceptable, much in the way many find the N-word (a word which I would never use or print) acceptable provided those using the word are black.

Words are powerful, and if it is not the role of government to legislate the use of offensive language which it isnt how do we as Americans guard against offensive and derogatory language being used against our fellow Americans?

Here in Oregon, we have even greater protections of free speech than is provided at the federal level. Article 1, Section 8 of the Oregon Constitution says, ''No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion or restricting the right to speak, write or print freely on any subject whatsoever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right.''

Oregons unrestrained freedom of expression has been challenged and interpreted in many ways. In 1982 an appeal of one count each of possessing obscene material to disseminate and of disseminating obscene material was upheld, the court ruling that ''In this state any person can write, print, read, say, show or sell anything to a consenting adult even though that expression may be generally or universally 'obscene.' ''

That ruling opened the door to a great deal of obscene material being made available in the state, and when applied to nudity inspired a great many strip clubs and bars as well.

In fact, Portland, Oregon is #1 in a ranking of strip clubs per capita in the United States, according to a report on priceonomics.com.

Where we accept the rights of a business to aim to tease, the proliferation of such clubs has also created in Oregon a sort of meat market, with an illegal underbelly of prostitution, drugs and sex trafficking.

With both verbal and body language protected by the Oregon constitution, and boundaries regarding both being constantly pushed and stretched, its worth noting the final line of the Oregon Constitution quoted above, which reads, but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right.

We are each of us responsible for our words and actions, and have both the right and responsibility to speak against abuse of those rights.

Take the trademark Redskins. Native American individuals, tribes and organizations have been questioning the use of the name and image for decades.

Legal? Maybe. But legal doesnt make it right, and such ethnic stereotyping is harmful and its time the team (following the lead of The Dalles High School) retires this divisive logo.

Mark Gibson

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Crosstalk: Boundaries on free speech? - Dalles Chronicle

Theres a tension so deep in how we think about free expression, it should rightly be called a paradox.

On the one hand, regardless of ideology, artists and writers almost unanimously insist that they do what they do to change minds. But the same artistes, auteurs and opiners recoil in horror when anyone suggests that they might be responsible for inspiring bad deeds.

Hollywood, the music industry, journalism, political ideologies, even the Confederate flag: Each takes its turn in the dock when some madman or fool does something terrible.

The arguments against free speech are stacked and waiting for these moments like weapons in a gladiatorial armory. Theres no philosophical consistency to when they get picked up and deployed, beyond the unimpeachable consistency of opportunism.

Hollywood activists blame the toxic rhetoric of right-wing talk radio or the tea party for this crime, the National Rifle Association blames Hollywood for that atrocity. Liberals decry the toxic rhetoric of the right, conservatives blame the toxic rhetoric of the left.

When attacked again heedless of ideology or consistency the gladiators instantly trade weapons. The finger-pointers of five minutes ago suddenly wax righteous in their indignation that mere expression rather, their expression should be blamed. Many of the same liberals who pounded soapboxes into pulp at the very thought of labeling record albums with violent-lyrics warnings instantly insisted that Sarah Palin had Rep. Gabby Giffords blood on her hands. Many of the conservatives who spewed hot fire at the suggestion that they had any culpability in an abortion clinic bombing, gleefully insisted that Sen. Bernie Sanders is partially to blame for Rep. Steve Scalises fight with death.

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And this is where the paradox starts to come into view: Everyone has a point.

The blame for violent acts lies with the people who commit them, and with those who explicitly and seriously call for violence, Dan McLaughlin, my National Review colleague, wrote recently. People who just use overheated political rhetoric, or who happen to share the gunmans opinions, should be nowhere on the list.

As a matter of law, I agree with this entirely. But as a matter of culture, its more complicated.

I have always thought it absurd to claim that expression cannot lead people to do bad things, precisely because it is so obvious that expression can lead people to do good things. According to legend, Abraham Lincoln told Harriet Beecher Stowe, So youre the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war. Should we mock Lincoln for saying something ridiculous?

As Irving Kristol once put it, If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book. You have to believe, in other words, that art is morally trivial and that education is morally irrelevant.

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If words dont matter, then democracy is a joke, because democracy depends entirely on making arguments not for killing, but for voting. Only a fool would argue that words can move people to vote but not to kill.

Ironically, free speech was born in an attempt to stop killing. It has its roots in freedom of conscience. Before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the common practice was that the rulers religion determined their subjects faith too. Religious dissent was not only heresy but a kind of treason. After Westphalia, exhaustion with religion-motivated bloodshed created space for toleration. As the historian C.V. Wedgwood put it, the West had begun to understand the essential futility of putting the beliefs of the mind to the judgment of the sword.

This didnt mean that Protestants instantly stopped hating Catholics or vice versa. Nor did it mean that the more ecumenical hatred of Jews vanished. What it did mean is that it was no longer acceptable to kill people simply for what they believed or said.

Words matter. Art moves people. And the law is not the full and final measure of morality. Hence the paradox: In a free society, people have a moral responsibility for what they say, while at the same time a free society requires legal responsibility only for what they actually do.

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Jonah Goldberg: Free speech not always a tool of virtue - MyDaytonDailyNews