Category Archives: Free Speech

Free Speech TV is a national, independent news network committed to advancing progressive social change. As the alternative to television networks owned by billionaires, governments and corporations, our network amplifies underrepresented voices and those working on the front lines of social, economic and environmental justice.

Reaching over 40 million US television households, we bring our viewers an array of daily news programs, independent documentaries and special events coverage.

Daily News Programs:Our daily programs, including Democracy Now!, The Thom Hartmann Program and The Stephanie Miller Show, tackle the critical issues facing our communities and our democracy, giving you the news as it happens.

Independent Documentaries:Free Speech TV airs numerous award-winning documentaries covering issues ranging from economic injustice and marriage equality to climate change and the real cost of war.

Weekly Programs and Special Events:Free Speech TV viewers gain exclusive access to programs like #ABlackShow with Elon James White and Mike Papantonios Ring of Fire.

Free Speech TV is one of the last standing national independent news channels. As a nonprofit with freedom from corporate control and government pressure, we are uniquely positioned to elevate perspectives that often dont break through the corporate media filter. We believe a more just and democratic world is possible when media empowers people with the information they need to fight for what matters.

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Free Speech TV is owned and operated by Public Communicators, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization, founded in 1974. FSTV is supported primarily by its viewers and philanthropic foundations. FSTV television broadcasts are commercial-free. Free Speech TV is based in Denver, CO.

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About Us | Free Speech TV

Defending this fundamental right of free expression is a central theme of The Rutherford Institutes work because we believe that all other liberties spring forth from this right.

The First Amendment guarantees all Americans the opportunity to freely express themselves. This fundamental freedom includes the right to distribute literature and discuss a multitude of viewseven views distasteful to most people. It also protects the right of the people to engage in lawful picketing and the right to peaceably assemble. It is critical that a free society value and honor a free marketplace of ideas, a diversity of opinion, and free expression. Without free expression, no democratic society would be possible.

It is for these reasons that The Rutherford Institute is dedicated to preserving these fundamental rights for all Americans. The Institute responds to hundreds of complaints of free speech violations each year. From environmental activists peaceably protesting on public property to preachers relaying their message in a public forum, The Rutherford Institute believes that all people, regardless of their personal beliefs, are entitled to speak freely.

Free Speech Double Standard: Rutherford Institute Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Declare Unconstitutional Its Own Ban on Expressive Activity on Plaza

First Amendment Victory: Appeals Court Rejects Government Attempt to Deny Trademarks for Names That Might Cause Offense, e.g., 'The Slants'

Rutherford Responds: City Officials, Police Ask Federal Court to Dismiss First Amendment Lawsuit Over Violation of Street Preachers Free Speech Rights

'Government Cannot Discriminate Against Offensive Speech': Rutherford Institute Argues for First Amendment Protection for Redskins' Name

Federal Appeals Court Refuses to Reconsider Decision Upholding 60-Year-Old Ban on Expressive Activity on U.S. Supreme Court Plaza

The Rutherford Institutes petition for review in Clary v. Virginia DMV

Rutherford Institute Challenges Virginia Over Its Cancellation, Revocation and Recall of License Plates Displaying the Confederate Flag

The Right to Tell the Government to Go to Hell: Free Speech in an Age of Government Bullies, Corporate Censors and Compliant Citizens

Fear of the Walking Dead: The American Police State Takes Aim

Sheep Led to the Slaughter: The Muzzling of Free Speech in America

The Emergence of Orwellian Newspeak and the Death of Free Speech

Free Speech, Facebook and the NSA: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

An Unbearable and Choking Hell: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11

Free Speech, RIP: A Relic of the American Past

Voter ID Laws: Silencing the American People

Criminalizing Free Speech: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

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The Rutherford Institute :: Free Speech

The digital revolution has produced the most diverse, participatory, and amplified communications medium humans have ever had: the Internet. The ACLU believes in an uncensored Internet, a vast free-speech zone deserving at least as much First Amendment protection as that afforded to traditional media such as books, newspapers, and magazines.

The ACLU has been at the forefront of protecting online freedom of expression in its myriad forms. We brought the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared speech on the Internet equally worthy of the First Amendments historical protections. In that case, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court held that the government can no more restrict a persons access to words or images on the Internet than it can snatch a book out of someones hands or cover up a nude statue in a museum.

But that principle has not prevented constant new threats to Internet free speech. The ACLU remains vigilant against laws or policies that create new decency restrictions for online content, limit minors access to information, or allow the unmasking of anonymous speakers without careful court scrutiny.

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Internet Free Speech - American Civil Liberties Union

On June 14, 2012, Free Speech filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming challenging the constitutionality of the Commissions regulations, policies and practices regarding the determination of when a communication constitutes express advocacy, whether a communication is a solicitation, and whether a group is a political committee. The group sought injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment that the rules are unconstitutional, on their face and as applied.

Free Speech is a Wyoming-based, unincorporated association with a stated purpose of promoting and protecting free speech, limited government, and constitutional accountability." The political organization plans to use individual donations to finance $10,000 in Internet, newspaper, TV, and radio ads during the months leading up to the 2012 election. Free Speech states that it will not coordinate any of its advertising expenditures and will not accept donations from foreign nationals and federal contractors. Nor will it contribute to federal candidates, political parties, or political committees.

The lawsuit follows the Commissions May 8, 2012, response to the groups advisory opinion request. In AO 2012-11, the Commission concluded that two of the 11 ads Free Speech planned to run expressly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate under the Act; four of the proposed advertisements do not; and two of the four proposed donation requests are not solicitations. The Commission could not approve a response by the required four votes with respect to the five remaining ads and the two remaining donation requests, nor could it approve a response as to whether Free Speech would have to register and report as a political committee. 11 CFR 100.22 and 100.5(a).

Free Speechs suit focuses primarily on the regulatory definition of express advocacy at 11 CFR 100.22(b). The suit argues that this regulation and related FEC rules, policies and practices abridge Free Speechs First Amendment freedoms. It also questions the Commissions interpretation and enforcement process regarding political committee status, solicitation tests, the major purpose test, and express advocacy determinations. See 2 U.S.C. 431(4), 431(8), 441d; 11 CFR 100.5(a), 100.52(a), 110.11(a).

The groups main argument consists of three parts. First, it states that the Commissions definition of express advocacy is put forth in unclear terms leaving those who guess wrong [to be] subject to criminal or civil penalties. Secondly, it argues the Commissions political committee registration and reporting requirements are burdensome for all groups whose expenditures aggregate more than $1,000 in a calendar year. See 2 U.S.C. 431; 11 CFR 100.5. Lastly, Free Speech disputes whether independent expenditures must include disclaimers and be reported to the Commission. See 2 U.S.C. 434; 11 CFR 104.4.

On March 19, 2013, the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming dismissed Free Speech's case. The court denied the plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction in a telephonic ruling on October 3, 2012.

Express Advocacy

Commission regulations define express advocacy communications as those that: (a) use explicit words of advocacy; or (b) in context, can only be interpreted by a reasonable person as advocating a candidates election or defeat. 11 CFR 100.22(a) and (b). Communications that meet either of the regulatory definitions and are not coordinated with a candidate or party are independent expenditures and must be disclosed. See 2 U.S.C. 434(c) and 11 CFR 109.10.

Free Speech argued that the Commissions interpretation of express advocacy at 11 CFR 100.22(b) is vague and offers no clear guidelines for speakers to tailor their constitutionally protected conduct and speech, and that the regulation fails to limit its application to expenditures for communications that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate (i.e., through use of the so-called magic words such as vote for, elect, support, etc.).

The district court noted that the Supreme Court has ruled in several cases that the definition of express advocacy may also include, in addition to use of the magic words, communications that are the functional equivalent of express advocacy. See McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. at 193 (2003) and FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL), 551 U.S. 449 (2007).

In WRTL, the Supreme Court stated that other courts should find that a communication is the functional equivalent of express advocacy only if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate. WRTL, 551 U.S. at 460-470. The district court noted that the functional equivalent test is closely correlated to the Commissions regulation at 100.22(b), which provides that a communication is express advocacy if it could only be interpreted by a reasonable person as containing advocacy of the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidate(s).

The Supreme Court also addressed the issue of express advocacy in Citizens United v. FEC (2010). The court found that a communication at issue in that case was the functional equivalent of express advocacy and further upheld the disclosure requirements as they applied to all electioneering communications.

As a result, the district court held that the Supreme Courts ruling in Citizens United directly contradicts the plaintiffs argument that the definition of 100.22(b) is overly broad with respect to disclosure requirements: if mandatory disclosure requirements are permissible when applied to ads that merely mention a federal candidate, then applying the same burden to ads that go further and are the functional equivalent of express advocacy cannot automatically be impermissible.

Solicitation Standard

Commission regulations require any person who solicits a contribution through any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mailing or any other type of general public political advertising to include an explicit disclaimer on the solicitation. 2 U.S.C. 441d(a).

The Commission determines whether a request for funds amounts to a solicitation based on whether the request indicates that the contributions will be targeted to the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate. See FEC v. Survival Education Fund, Inc., 65 F.3d 285, 293 (2d Cir. 1995). The plaintiff challenged this approach, arguing that it is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.

The court disagreed with the plaintiff and noted that the plaintiff is free to spend unlimited funds on its solicitations and to solicit unlimited funds for its express advocacy activities. Communications that amount to solicitations merely trigger disclosure requirements; they do not prevent the plaintiff from speaking. Since disclosure serves an important governmental interest in insuring that the voters are fully informed about the person or the group who is speaking, the court held that the plaintiff had failed to establish any constitutional deficiency in the Commissions approach to determining whether a communication is a solicitation for contributions.

Political Committee Status

The plaintiff also challenged the Commissions method of determining when an organization meets the definition of political committee. The Act and Commission regulations define a political committee as any committee, club, association or other group of persons that makes more than $1,000 in expenditures or receives more than $1,000 in
contributions during a calendar year. 2 U.S.C. 431(4)(A). In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court concluded that defining a political committee only in terms of contributions and expenditures could be interpreted to reach groups engaged purely in issue discussion. As such, the Court limited application of the Commissions political committee requirement to organizations either controlled by a candidate or those groups whose major purpose is the nomination or election of candidates.

The Commission has adopted a case-by-case analysis of an organizations conduct and activities for evaluating whether an organizations major purpose is the nomination or election of federal candidates. See Political Committee Status, 72 Fed. Reg. 5595, 5601 (Feb. 7, 2007).

The district court held that the Commissions method of determining political committee status is a permissible approach that is consistent with Supreme Court precedent and does not unlawfully hinder protected speech. The district court granted the Commissions motion to dismiss. On March 25, 2013, Free Speech appealed the district courts dismissal of the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

On June 25, 2013, the Court of Appeals affirmed the district courts dismissal, holding that the district court correctly resolved each of Free Speechs constitutional challenges. The Court of Appeals adopted the district courts opinion in its entirety.

On May 19, 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear Free Speechs constitutional challenge to the FECs process for determining whether an organization qualifies as a "political committee." The Courts denial of certiorari lets stand the June 2013 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to affirm the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyomings dismissal of the suit.

Source: FEC Record -- June 2014; August 2013; April 2013; August 2012

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Free Speech v. - Federal Election Commission

Social networking websites allow groups to grow from a dozen friends, to a hundred hobbyists, to a huge organization that transcends national borders. Meanwhile, a new generation of citizen journalists have taken to (micro)blogging and video live-streaming to expose the world to stories that would otherwise go unheard. Websites like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive contribute to a new open-source model of sharing and preserving information.

In countless ways the Internet is radically enhancing our access to information and empowering us to share ideas and connect with the entire world. Speech thrives online freed of limitations inherent in traditional print or broadcast media that are created by corporate gatekeepers.

Preserving the Internet's open architecture is critical to sustaining free speech. But this technological capacity means little without sufficient legal protections. If laws can censor us to limit our access to certain information, or restrict use of communication tools, then the Internet's incredible potential will go unrealized.

Governmental organizations have time and again tried to do just that. Censorship laws often aim at speech that would also be restricted offline, but they can also erect new barriers to free expression on the Internet in order to privilege established stakeholders. When old laws are not properly adapted to this medium, it's all too easy for governments and companies to undermine your rights.

EFF defends the Internet as a platform for free speech, and believes that when you go online, your rights should come with you. Learn more below and consider supporting our efforts.

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Free Speech | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Dear liberal pundit,

You and I didnt like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubbyas slogan: either you are with free speech . . . or you are against it. Either vous tes Charlie Hebdo . . . or youre a freedom-hating fanatic.

Im writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think youre defying the terrorists when, in reality, youre playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonising. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it a war declared on civilisation. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted about a clash of civilisations and referred to Europes belief in freedom of expression.

In the midst of all the post-Paris grief, hypocrisy and hyperbole abounds. Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a bid to assassinate free speech (ITVs Mark Austin), to desecrate our ideas of free thought (Stephen Fry)? It was a crime not an act of war perpetrated by disaffected young men; radicalised not by drawings of the Prophet in Europe in 2006 or 2011, as it turns out, but by images of US torture in Iraq in 2004.

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didnt think so (and I am glad it hasnt). Consider also the thought experiment offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the unity rally in Paris on 11 January wearing a badge that said Je suis Chrif the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. How would the crowd have reacted? . . . Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended? Do you disagree with Klugs conclusion that the man would have been lucky to get away with his life?

Lets be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

When you say Je suis Charlie, is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdos depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who is black, drawn as a monkey? Of crude caricatures of bulbous-nosed Arabs that must make Edward Said turn in his grave?

Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic. Also, as the former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on "members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power".

It's for these reasons that I can't "be", dont want to be", Charlie if anything, we should want to be Ahmed, the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazines right to exist. As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, It is possible to defend the right to obscene . . . speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech.

And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would provoke an outcry and proudly declared it would in no circumstances . . . publish Holocaust cartoons?

Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent (have you visited Germany lately?) and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life especially in France. You ask Muslims to denounce a handful of extremists as an existential threat to free speech while turning a blind eye to the much bigger threat to it posed by our elected leaders.

Does it not bother you to see Barack Obama who demanded that Yemen keep the anti-drone journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye behind bars, after he was convicted on terrorism-related charges in a kangaroo court jump on the free speech ban wagon? Werent you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the unity rally in Paris? Bibi was joined by Angela Merkel, chancellor of a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, and David Cameron, who wants to ban non-violent extremists committed to the overthrow of democracy from appearing on television.

Then there are your readers. Will you have a word with them, please? According to a 2011 YouGov poll, 82 per cent of voters backed the prosecution of protesters who set fire to poppies.

Apparently, it isnt just Muslims who get offended.

Yours faithfully,

Mehdi.

Mehdi Hasan is a New Statesman contributing writer and the political director of the Huffington Post UK, where this column is crossposted

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free speech fundamentalists - New Statesman

David Edmonds: This is Ethics Bites, with me David Edmonds.

Nigel Warburton: And me Nigel Warburton.

David: Ethics Bites is a series of interviews on applied ethics, produced in association with The Open University.

Nigel: For more information about Ethics Bites, and about the Open University, go to open2.net.

David: For John Stuart Mill the limit of freedom of speech in a civilized society was roughly the point where a speaker was inciting violence. But perhaps it isn't as simple as that. For free speech, in the well-known example, doesnt entitle us to shout "Fire! in a crowded theatre. Where then should we draw the line, and why? Tim Scanlon, Professor in Harvard Universitys philosophy department, has spent much of his career reflecting about issues of toleration and free speech. His initial writings on the topic stressed that the value of free speech lay in autonomy in particular, the right of individuals to have access to information so as to be able to think for themselves. Now he has a more nuanced view which takes into account the interests of both speaker and listener, and empirical considerations about the danger of granting powers of regulation to the state.

Nigel: Tim Scanlon, welcome to Ethics Bites.

Tim Scanlon: Im glad to be here. Thank you very much.

Nigel: Now the topic were focusing on today is free speech. Presumably youre an advocate of free speech at some level, but lets start by getting clear what do we mean by free speech?

Tim: By free speech I mean the need for restrictions on the way in which governments can regulate speech. Whether speech is free in a further sense, that is whether people have opportunities, is a very important thing, but its not the issue of free speech.

Nigel: Thats really interesting, because you immediately began by talking about regulation and controlling what can be said.

Tim: Well certainly speaking is not without costs: what people can say can cause injury, can disclose private information, can disclose harmful public information. Its not a free zone where you can do anything because nothing matters. Speech matters. But because it matters its very important that governments who want to regulate speech, for example to prevent things that would be embarrassing to politicians, or otherwise upset the government, its important that that power should be restricted.

Nigel: The word speech seems to imply something spoken, but clearly speech stands for expression here, its not just speech is it?

Tim: No, its not just speech. In one respect, what defines our thinking about free speech is not the particular acts that constitute speech, but rather the reasons one has for wanting other people to notice for wanting to make some kind of communication with others. Speech is just one way of doing it. How you dress, how you act in public. All those things can signal to other people your values, what kind of life you favour, and the fact that the way you act, as well as the way you speak, can signal those things provide reasons for other people to want to prevent you from doing those things - because they dont want those signals to be out there in the public space. The question of free speech is the question of how that impulse to regulate what can be out there in the public space need itself be controlled.

Nigel: Ok, well lets think about the justifications for controlling free speech. Youve devoted quite a lot of your life to thinking philosophically about the limits of toleration. Whats the philosophical underpinning of your position?

Tim: Well one philosophical underpinning in driving any of this has to be understanding the reasons why people should care about having these opportunities that might be restricted. I began by talking about how free speech has to do with limitations on government power. But of course the value thats at stake is affected by things other than what the government does, its also affected by how corporations can control access to television and other important media. So here we have two sides. On the one hand, philosophically one of the first things you want to do in understanding free speech is to understand what are the values that are at stake, why should we care about it? Thats much broader than the question of government regulation. On the other hand, if you think mainly in terms of constitutional provisions, restrictions on the law, there were talking particularly about government.

Nigel: Often people talk about free speech as arising from individual autonomy. We should have a freedom to be who we are and to express ourselves in the way that we wish to. Its a basic right of humans to express themselves...

Tim: I dont know if I want to say its a basic right. I want to say that people have reasons, all kinds of reasons, to want to be able to express themselves. Although when were talking about the permissible limits on speech we need to focus not only on the interests that people have in wanting to get their own ideas out there, but also the interests that people have as potential audience members to have access to what other people want to say. Philosophical discussions of the topic divide, to some extent, as to whether they focus mainly on speaker values or audience values, and I think its important to take both into account.

Nigel: OK, well with speaker values the justification tends to be in terms of autonomy; but with audience values we start talking about the consequences for the audience. The classic case there is with John Stuart Mill talking about the limits of free speech being set at the point where you harm another individual.

Tim: Thats true although, in a way, autonomy based views on the whole tend to focus on audience values - because its the audience who wants to have access to information to make up their minds. In so far as autonomy refers to the interests we have in being able to form our own opinions about how to live, what to do, how to vote, an autonomy based view tends to focus on audience values. By and large we think of speakers as already knowing what they want and what they value, and wanting to express it. Thats a kind of freedom: but it may not be helpful to call it autonomy. In general, its a case of once burnt twice shy. That is, having originally in my first publication given a theory of free speech that focused on autonomy, Ive since come to think that its a word thats probably a good idea to avoid. Because it can mean so many different things. On the one hand it can mean freedom, that is the ability to do things, on the other hand it can be a particular value, or in Kants case a particular inner power. Its a misused word so I like to avoid it.

Nigel: Perhaps it would be easier to focus on a particular case to bring out the sort of considerations that are relevant here. If we take the case of people expressing contempt for a particular racial group - some people might argue that is a consequence of free speech that people should be allowed to say offensive things. How would you approach that case.

Tim: Well there seems to be a divide on this across different countries. That is, in the United States the law and much of academic opinion is much more in favour of the idea that free speech is incompatible with having laws that ban speech simply because theyre offensive - laws for incitement against racial hatred or expressing contempt for other groups are by and large held to be unconstitutional in the United States whereas in Britain, France, Canada, laws are quite different.

Now Im in this sense typical of my country. Im inclined to be rather suspicious of laws that restrict speech on the grounds that it gives offence to a particular group. Not that I favour speech that does that, I think its terrible; the question is whether you want to have a law that restricts it. And the natural question is why on earth shouldnt you? After all it does harm people. Immigrant groups, racial minorities, are in a vulnerable position vulnerable because they suffer from status harm. Widespread opinion that they are in some way inferior, ought not to be associated with, ineligible for various jobs, and so on.

So why shouldnt speech that supports and perpetuates those attitudes be restricted? The problem is that there are so many ways in which speech can be offensive to different people, that if we start allowing offence to be a ground for restriction its very easy to generalise it, and the restrictions on speech, particularly on political speech, become too tight in my opinion.

Now theres an empirical question here, and I think the jury is out. Canada has laws against speech that foments racial hatred, and Britain does, and so on. So against the free speech advocates of my sort you can say, well they have these laws, the sky hasnt fallen. Political speech continues. On the other hand race relations havent improved much either. So the jury is to some degree out. And with respect to the UK I think its fair to say that a somewhat greater tolerance for restrictions on expression hasnt served the political culture well. Theres also much more tolerance of restrictions on disclosures of official secrets and so on and I think these havent helped political discussion in the UK. So I think the US has benefited to some degree to what might seem to some people an overly rigorous protection of free speech.

Nigel: That strikes me as a slippery slope argument: the idea that you cant take one step down the slope without ending up at the bottom. So you cant take one step by restricting certain sorts of hateful speech because the consequence will be that all kinds of other sorts of speech will be restricted.

Tim: Well in the first instance its not a slippery slope argument. It is a question about what would be the effect of having that particular restriction. So I think the case turns on that. I then move to saying if you look more generally, the more permissive attitude towards restrictions on speech hasnt been a good thing. The view of free speech that Ive come to does give a heavy weight to calculations of that kind. The question is, is a particular regulatory power, the power to restrict speech on certain grounds, is that a power we can give to government without placing important speaker and audience interests unacceptably at risk? Thats the question. And the view that there is a right to speak in certain ways comes down to the claim that if the government were allowed to prevent speech of that kind that would be a dangerous power, that we shouldnt allow, because the values of being able to speak and the values of being able to have access wouldnt be adequately served; and thats an empirical question which powers are dangerous, but thats my view.

Nigel: And the danger that youre speaking of, is that the danger that effective government wont be possible because there wont be sufficient airing of different views?

Tim: Thats one value. That is preserving the kind of opportunity to speak and influence people, and the kind of opportunity on the part of voters to be informed that we need to have a functioning democracy. Thats certainly one value. But there are also more personal values. People have good reason outside of politics to want to be able to influence the development of their society culturally, to express their attitudes about sex about art about how to live. Audiences benefit from having access to these expressions. We want to hear a diversity of views.

On the other hand people want to protect what the dominant attitudes in society are. They dont want people to express permissive attitudes towards sex or attitudes about religion that they disagree with, because that may cause the culture to evolve in ways in which they would prefer it didnt evolve. We all have feelings of that kind; I dont think its just these awful intolerant people. I feel that my society places a greater emphasis on sex, sexual attractiveness and so on than would be desirable. I dont like living in a society thats saturated with these feelings; but thats the price of living in a free society.

I also think religion is growing in its influence and so the sense that one ought to be religious or pay deference to religion is growing in strength in the United States, from my point of view that doesnt make it a society more like the one I would like to live in. But thats the price of living in a free society. There are these ebbs and flows of cultural opinion and if you want to live on terms of freedom with other people you have to be willing to accept the society that results from everybody having access to a public space you just have to accept it.

Nigel: I can see how censoring somebodys political opinions might be dangerous to good government. But censoring somebodys freedom to print pornographic images for instance, how can that harm good government?

Tim: My point in my answer to your last question was that providing the conditions necessary for good government isnt the only thing thats at stake in free speech. People who have views about, say, particular sexual relations, want to be able to express this not only as a matter of self expression, but they want to be in contact with other people who have similar views. And when regulation of that kind of expression is allowed the first thing thats likely to happen is that the minority views of this are the most likely to get restricted, and I think thats a cost. I dont like living in a society where there's lots of pornography and people very interested in that, but, youve got to live with it.

Nigel: Another area where its difficult to see where to draw the line is with factual information that could be used in terrorist activity. So for instance if somebody wants to publish the details of how to make a certain kind of bomb on the internet, is it appropriate to censor them?

Tim: I think it is. I dont think we dont have an interest in access to information about how to manufacture bombs which is parallel to our interest to wanting to have information about what the government is actually doing, or to be able to communicate with others about sexual, moral or religious matters. So I dont think theres a similar threat to our interests as potential speakers or to our interests as audiences who want to be able to form our opinion about things if technical information about armaments and explosives is restricted.

The main worry there seems to me to be at the margin; whether some kinds of information about technical questions about military armaments become important political things that we need to know about. Like we need to know whether a missile defence system would actually work! Now theres a fair amount of distance between having a recipe for making nerve gas at home and having some information about how well the governments attempt to build a missile defence system have actually worked. But in between, there might be a worry. But on the whole Im relatively comfortable with the idea that technical information about the production of armaments is something that its permissible to regulate.

Nigel: Weve talked quite a lot about the differences between the law in the States and the UK, Im intrigued to know whether you think that the kinds of principles that you come up with in your philosophy are universalizable across societies and countries, or whether they are restricted to the particular circumstances of particular countries at particular times?

Tim: On the whole I come down on the universal side. I once had an experience speaking to a seminar that involved people from 27 different countries, academics and non academics. And theyd asked for a presentation on free speech. So I said the question of free speech is the question of whether the power to regulate speech in a certain way is the power that its too dangerous for governments to have. And thats a question of whether, if they had that power, the interests of speakers or audiences would be unduly restricted. And those who believe in free speech also have to believe that we should forbid governments from having this power at acceptable cost. And in the discussion, people all objected; they said your discussion entirely focused on things in the United States. It maybe alright in the United States to prevent the government from restricting speech, but that wouldnt work in India, someone said. Because in India if you allowed people to say certain things, then some people would riot. And a Turkish man said, a man in our law school thinks that bourgeois rights are nonsense, and obviously he cant be allowed to say that kind of thing; but you dont have that problem in the United States. The effect of this discussion was to reinforce my universalist tendencies and to think that things arent that different all over. Because, of course, exactly those questions come up in almost any society.

Now of course societies vary; the risks may be greater in some societies than in others. But on the whole theres a lot of commonality there. As far as the question of riots is concerned, this is whats known in the United States legal arguments as the hecklers veto. If you allow the threat of a riot to be a reason to prevent somebody from speaking all a group has to do to stop somebody from speaking is to threaten to riot. So the first response of the State has to be to stop the riot or put the speech in a venue where it can be protected; those are things the state can do.

Places where people dont believe in free speech, I think they dont believe in free speech largely for the reasons Ive just mentioned, they may think, well in a stable society its ok, but for us the risks are too great. Its possible that sometimes theyre right about that, but on the whole I think its a matter of not having enough faith in your fellow citizens and being too worried about what the consequences will be. Of course its in the interests of governments to encourage these fears, because its in the interests of governments to be able to regulate speech. Not because theyre evil, but just because theyre people who have their objectives and they want to be able to pursue those objectives in what seems to be the most effective way. Governments everywhere have reason to want to restrict speech; so everywhere we need laws to prevent them from doing that.

Nigel: Free speech is one of those ideas that people are prepared to die for. How would you place free speech relative to other important rights or ideas that animate people in political situations?

Tim: Well free speech first has a particular instrumental value, because its very important as a way of preventing other kinds of rights violations. People can be imprisoned in secret and one of the best ways of trying to stop that kind of thing is to try to bring it into the public sphere where political opposition can be mobilised. So freedom of speech has an important instrumental role in protecting other rights. There are cases where freedom of speech can seem to conflict with other rights. For example the right to a fair trial. In order to have a fair trial we need to prevent people from being convicted in advance in the press, so the jury cant be convened that won't already have made up its mind about guilt. That is a clash.

When there is a clash of values of that kind one has to try to work out a strategy to deal with it. I think on the whole, by sequestering juries, by allowing defence attorneys to examine juries in advance and to ask them about their prejudices, on the whole I think one can protect the right to a fair trial, without placing many restrictions on what can be said. I dont want to say there is never a conflict, there can be, but I think on the whole its possible to work them out.

Nigel: Tim Scanlon, thank you very much.

Tim: Thank you, its been a pleasure talking with you.

David: Ethics Bites was produced in association with The Open University. You can listen to more Ethics Bites on Open2.net, where youll also find supporting material, or you can visit http://www.philosophybites.com to hear more philosophy podcasts.

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Free speech - OpenLearn - Open University

Tell Congress to support the Free Speech about Science Act of 2011 4/13/2011 - Last year, the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), a nonprofit organization that works very hard to promote and protect freedom of health speech, came up with a very important piece of legislation called the Free Speech about Science Act (FSAS) that is designed to lift the restrictions on health speech... Support the Free Speech About Science Act and restore freedom of health speech 5/27/2010 - The Alliance for Natural Health, a nonprofit organization committed to protecting access to natural and integrative medicine, has recently come up with a Congressional bill designed to stop government censorship of truthful, scientific health claims about natural foods and herbs, and restore free speech... NaturalNews to launch Free Speech video network 5/4/2010 - On the heels of increasing video censorship committed by YouTube against natural health videos, NaturalNews is announcing the upcoming launch of its worldwide, multilingual video network called NaturalNews.TV. The service goes live in late June and is designed to offer a Free Speech platform for videos... Ron Paul Introduces Three New Bills Designed to Restore Free Speech to Health 8/10/2009 - In recent years, numerous companies have been targeted, raided, and even shut down by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for making health claims about the products they sell. These federal agencies operate outside the realm of constitutional legitimacy and thus... FDA tyranny and the censorship of cherry health facts (opinion) 5/2/2006 - In the past, I jokingly said that broccoli might someday be banned as soon as the public begins to learn about the potent anti-cancer chemicals found in the vegetable. Thats because, as I jested, the FDA wouldnt want people treating their own cancer with the anti-cancer medicines found in cruciferous... Counterthink roundup: Free Speech, Google News, and Big Brother (satire) 1/31/2006 - New provisions in the Patriot Act, which are about to become law, will make it a felony crime for protestors to step foot outside official "protest zones" designated by the U.S. Secret Service. This is how President Bush expands the freedom of Americans -- by giving them all the freedom they want, as... See all 56 free speech feature articles. Police: People: Bush: Speech: President: Free: The internet: Internet: Government: Information: Society: World: Media: California: Victory: Financial: Most Popular Stories TED aligns with Monsanto, halting any talks about GMOs, 'food as medicine' or natural healing 10 other companies that use the same Subway yoga mat chemical in their buns Warning: Enrolling in Obamacare allows government to link your IP address with your name, social security number, bank accounts and web surfing habits High-dose vitamin C injections shown to annihilate cancer USDA to allow U.S. to be overrun with contaminated chicken from China Vaccine fraud exposed: Measles and mumps making a huge comeback because vaccines are designed to fail, say Merck virologists New USDA rule allows hidden feces, pus, bacteria and bleach in conventional poultry Battle for humanity nearly lost: global food supply deliberately engineered to end life, not nourish it Harvard research links fluoridated water to ADHD, mental disorders 10 outrageous (but true) facts about vaccines the CDC and the vaccine industry don't want you to know EBT card food stamp recipients ransack Wal-Mart stores, stealing carts full of food during federal computer glitch Cannabis kicks Lyme disease to the curb TV.NaturalNews.com is a free video website featuring thousands of videos on holistic health, nutrition, fitness, recipes, natural remedies and much more.

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Free speech news, articles and information: - NaturalNews

In a Nutshell

The courts have been largely responsible for protecting and extending this right of speech. Over the past two centuries they have explored the protection owed all sorts of expression, including sedition, "fighting words," "dangerous" speech, and obscenity, and all sorts of persons, including political radicals, Ku Klux Klansmen, and even students. But in doing so, the courts have also operated under the premise that a portion of the British legacy was correct: the right to speech is not absolute. As a result, the legal history of the First Amendment could be summarized as a balancing actan attempt to protect and extend free speech guarantees but also define the limits of this right in a manner consistent with the equally compelling rights of the community.

Freedom of speech would be easy if words did not have power. Guaranteeing people the right to say and print whatever they wanted would be easy if we believed that words had no real effect.

But Americans tend to believe that words do have powerthat they can anger and inspire, cause people to rise up and act out. Americans celebrate speakers like James Otis, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose words inspired people to fight for independence, advance the American experiment in republican government, and dream of a more just society.

Freedom of speech would be easy if all people could be trusted to be rational discerners of truthif everyone could be trusted to sort out good ideas from bad ideas and recognize the ideologies and policies that were truly aimed at the best interests of the community.

But history has proven that people do not always recognize and reject bad ideas. The past is filled with examples of peoples and nations swayed by destructive ideas.

Freedom of speech would be easy if we just said that the right was absolute, that there were no limitations on what a person could say or print and no legal consequences for any expression no matter how false, slanderous, libelous, or obscene.

But as a nation, we have always held that there are limits to the right of speech, that certain forms of expression are not protected by the First Amendment.

The bottom line: freedom of speech is not easy. Words are powerful, which means that they can be dangerous. Humans are fallible, which means that they can make bad choices. And the right of speech is not absolute, which means that the boundaries of protected speech have to be constantly assessed.

All of these facts complicate America's commitment to free speech, but they also make this commitment courageous. In addition, they leave the legal system with a difficult challenge. On the one hand, the courts are entrusted with protecting this right to free expression, which is so central to our national experience. On the other hand, they are charged with identifying the often blurry edges of this freedom.

Read on, and see if the courts have appropriately met both of these responsibilities.

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Free Speech - Shmoop

Questions to Consider

Where did the Free Speech Movement start?

Who were the leaders of the movement?

What did they want?

These images show UC Berkeley's Free Speech Movement as it happened. Photographs record the standoff and the aftermath.

The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a college campus phenomenon inspired first by the struggle for civil rights and later fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War. The Free Speech Movement began in 1964, when students at the University of California, Berkeley protested a ban on on-campus political activities. The protest was led by several students, who also demanded their right to free speech and academic freedom. The FSM sparked an unprecedented wave of student activism and involvement.

Many images in this group make it clear that the center of the activity on the UC Berkeley campus was in Sproul Plaza. One photograph shows students occupying the balconies of Sproul Hall, a campus administration building, holding FSM banners and an American flag. Another photograph shows student leader Mario Savio leading a group of students through Sather Gate toward a meeting of the UC Regents.

In defiance of the ban on on-campus political activities, graduate student Jack Weinberg set up a table with political information and was arrested. But a group of approximately 3,000 students surrounded the police car in which he was held, preventing it from moving for 36 hours. Photographs show Weinberg in the car, both Mario Savio and Jack Weinberg on top of the surrounded car speaking to the crowd, and the car encircled by protesters and police.

Other photographs that portray key people and events of the Free Speech Movement include the eight students (including Mario Savio) suspended for operating a table on campus without a permit and raising money for unauthorized purposes; Mario Savio speaking to a crowd; students signing a pledge; and students sleeping on the steps of Sproul Plaza. Photographs of students being arrested, holding a mass sit-in, and picketing in support of the student-faculty strike as they protest demonstrators' arrests reflect other aspects of the Free Speech Movement.

Singer Joan Baez supported the FSM, and a photograph shows her singing to the demonstrators. Bettina Aptheker, who later became a professor of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, also supported the FSM. A photograph shows her speaking in front of Sproul Hall. Other photographs in this topic demonstrate that groups such as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the International Workers of the World (IWW) showed solidarity and supported the FSM. Other images in this group include UC President Clark Kerr speaking at the UC Berkeley Greek Theater, and CORE co-founder James Farmer at a CORE rally.

Learn more, visit these UC Berkeley sites: Free Speech Movement Digital Archives Social Activism Sound Recording Project

1.0 Writing Strategies: Research and Technology

2.0 Writing Applications 2.4 Write historical investigation reports.

2.0 Speaking Applications 2.2 Deliver oral reports on historical investigations. 2.4 Delivery multimedia presentations.

3.0 Historical and Cultural Context Understanding the Historical Contributions and Cultural Dimensions of the Visual Arts. Students analyze the role and development of the visual arts in past and present cultures throughout the world, noting human diversity as it relates to the visual arts and artists.

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Calisphere - The Free Speech Movement