Category Archives: Free Speech

Free Speech on the Web - Now Owned by Corporations!
A federal appeals court gutted key net neutrality provisions this week- the long and short of it being that ISPs can now block and throttle certain content a...

By: NerdAlert

Continue reading here:
Free Speech on the Web - Now Owned by Corporations! - Video

Free Speech vs. Free Speech
I discuss the issue of using free speech and how criticizing beliefs isn #39;t a violation of the first amendment. Godless Engineering Group ====================...

By: Godless Engineer

View original post here:
Free Speech vs. Free Speech - Video

Origins of Free Speech
http://www.AmericanINSIGHT.org American INSIGHT.

By: AmericanINSIGHT

See the rest here:
Origins of Free Speech - Video

Free Speech Jan 15th Deadline (04)
http://FreeSpeechFilmFestival.org.

By: AmericanINSIGHT

Read this article:
Free Speech Jan 15th Deadline (04) - Video

15 hours ago Jan. 19, 2014 - 8:03 AM PST

When Montana blogger Crystal Cox lost her defamation case in 2011, the decision was greeted by a chorus of cheers from journalists, who were quick to argue that Cox wasnt a journalist in any real sense of the word, and therefore didnt deserve any protection from the First Amendment. An appeals court for the Ninth Circuit has disagreed, however: on Friday, a panel of judges overturned the original decision and said that Cox was in fact entitled to protection.

The implications of this ruling go beyond just a single defamation case. Its another link in a chain of decisions that are gradually helping to extend the principle of free-speech protection beyond professional journalism to anyone who is publishing information with public value and as such, it helps shift the focus away from trying to define who is a journalist and puts it where it should be: on protecting the practice of journalism, broadly defined.

Legislators who have been trying to design a shield law for journalists have been doing their best to specify who should be protected from government interference, but as journalism professor Jay Rosen and others have argued, it is the content itself that requires protecting, not some specific group of professional journalists who are able to fill in the correct checkboxes.

The First Amendment question was crucial to Coxs case because under U.S. law, journalists are held to a higher standard when it comes to defamation, in the sense that an accuser has to show negligence in other words, that the accused deliberately printed something they knew was false and also has to prove damages. The original trial judge decided that Cox wasnt entitled to this higher standard of protection because she didnt meet his test for who qualifies as a professional journalist. As he described it:

The record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law.

The appeals court rejected this interpretation, however, and took a considerable amount of space in their decision (PDF link) to point out that the free-speech clause of the constitution is intended to cover *anyone* who happens to be saying something of public concern (as defense attorney Eugene Volokh argued in a paper he wrote about the history of the First Amendment), regardless of whether they fit some arbitrary picture of who should qualify as a professional journalist.

The Ninth Circuit ruling said that while the Supreme Court has never explicitly said whether a higher standard of proof should be available to anyone beyond the professional media, it has repeatedly refused to give greater First Amendment protection to members of the institutional press. As the higher court put it in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers. The appeals court added:

The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others writings, or tried to get both sides of a story. As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable.

Read this article:
On free speech and blogging: The First Amendment applies to everyone, not just journalists

WarMongerers Lieberman ect. Goin 4 the Free Speech. They r Over Reaching.
Im almost shocked at wat i saw earlier 2day. More Jon Kerry type warmongering and they want our speech now. These people (kerry, lieberman, ect )just dont get it. That much is becoming very...

By: maxmann521

View original post here:
WarMongerers Lieberman ect. Goin 4 the Free Speech. They r Over Reaching. - Video

Free Speech TV Ring of Fire featuring Howard Nations: 20 Years of Job Killing Trade Deals
In this segment on Free Speech TV #39;s "Ring of Fire" program, Howard L. Nations, a nationally renowned trial lawyer, discusses how the NAFTA trade deal has bee...

By: HowardNations

Read the original:
Free Speech TV Ring of Fire featuring Howard Nations: 20 Years of Job Killing Trade Deals - Video

Free Speech Nov 15th Deadline (02)
http://FreeSpeechFilmFestival.org.

By: AmericanINSIGHT

More:
Free Speech Nov 15th Deadline (02) - Video

Youtubes new "Free Speech" filter for comments, if you can see it.
The reason why WE ALL should STOP USING YOUTUBE. Left Side, how youtube comments appear when I am logged off. Right Side, how youtube comments appear when I ...

By: ladefreakndah

Original post:
Youtubes new "Free Speech" filter for comments, if you can see it. - Video

Cops in crisis: what seems to be the matter officer?
Traditionally, the role of the police was to protect individuals from crime and disorder. Today, they not only stand accused of restricting free speech and f...

By: worldwrite

Go here to see the original:
Cops in crisis: what seems to be the matter officer? - Video