Category Archives: Free Speech

Published January 15, 2014

FoxNews.com

FILE: Jan. 15, 2014: Alan Hoyle, of Lincolnton, N.C., outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.AP

The Supreme Court appears likely to strike down a Massachusetts law requiring a 35-foot protest-free zone outside abortion clinics, after hearing arguments Wednesday.

Both liberal and conservative justices on the high court questioned the size of the zone and whether the state could find less restrictive ways to ensure patient access and safety.

The court needs at least five votes to strike down the law, which seemed possible after Justice Elena Kagan said she was "hung up" over the size of the zone.

Nobody has been prosecuted under the 2007 law, which Massachusetts officials and clinic employees have said has resulted in less congestion outside the clinics.

The court last considered abortion clinic protest zones in 2000, when it upheld a Colorado law.

But it was hard to tell whether the court might also upend its 2000 ruling in support of the Colorado zone, which has been criticized by free speech advocates for unfairly restricting protesters' rights.

That's because Chief Justice John Roberts, normally an active questioner, did not ask a single question of any of the three lawyers who argued the case.

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ABORTION FIGHT Top Court doubtful on clinics' protest-free zones

By attorney Donna Ballman, Special to THELAW.TV

Did you hear about the gun columnist who was fired for writing that the Second Amendment has limits? Oh, the irony. But what, you ask, about the First Amendment? Isn't he protected by the right to free speech? Can't he express his opinions without fear of being fired?

I've said it in my book and I'll say it again: there is no free speech in corporate America. The First Amendment protects us from government action, not the actions of private companies. That means you can be fired because your private employer doesn't like what you said, with very few exceptions. Even government employees have very little free speech protection.

Indeed, there's been a rash of firings and disciplines for expressing opinions, in and out of work. Justine Sacco, PR executive for Daily Beast owner IAC, was fired for posting, on a flight to South Africa, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" The company was embarrassed when the tweet went viral. Business Insider forced their Chief Technology Officer Pax Dickinson to resign after he tweeted, "feminism in tech remains my champion topic for my block list. my finger is getting tired." And who can forget "Duck Dynastys" Phil Robertson, suspended (and then quickly reinstated) after making racist and homophobic comments in an Esquire interview. The First Amendment didn't limit what any of these employers could do.

Still, not all speech is unprotected. Here are some circumstances where your speech might have some legal protection:

Concerted activity: The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) says in Section 7: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, . . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection . . . ."That means if you get together with coworkers, or take action on behalf of at least one other coworker (not just on your own behalf), to protest or try to change working conditions, your speech may be protected.

Objecting to discrimination: If you speak out against workplace discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, pregnancy, age, or some other protected status, you are protected against retaliation by Title VII, the federal law prohibiting discrimination, and possibly your state anti-discrimination laws.

Political affiliation: Some states, counties, and cities have laws prohibiting discrimination based on political affiliation.

Objecting to illegal activity: If your speech was objecting to an illegal activity of your employer, you might be a protected whistleblower.

Activity outside work: Some states and localities prohibit employers for firing or disciplining employees for legal activities outside work. However, even those laws have exceptions for activity that affects the employer's reputation or the ability of the employee to do their job.

Read more from the original source:
Think you have free speech at work? Think again

I enjoyed Leonard Pitts' article in The News-Gazette about freedom of speech on Jan. 8.

I remind my kids, there is no such thing as freedom of speech in a civil society, without consequences, depending on the situation. For example, you cannot call your teacher a "blank" at Parkland College and then say it's your freedom of speech. Whatever one says has parameters everywhere.

I will never understand how people throw the words "freedom of speech" around as if were a blanket ability to say whatever they want to whomever they want.

I am glad that my rights are not in second place to be called names, as a person walks by my yard and I am outside and they feel like saying something to that effect.

Everywhere one goes school, work, a theater there are rules that keep others safe from the verbal assault of an other.

The actual intention of one's right to verbalize freely was intended to allow people to voice their opinions of mature content against or for their government, religion and the like, without being carted off to jail. It was not intended for idiots to say whatever they want and hide behind the "I can say what I want" card.

I also appreciate Mr. Pitts bringing up the "Duck Dynasty" remarks by Phil Robertson about encouraging men to take a bride of 15 or 16 years of age. Comments like that make me embarrassed to say that I may be in the same racial category as Mr. Robertson, and I can say that.

CYNTHIA HARMON

Champaign

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Free speech doesn't trump others' rights

How to Win $10,000 with Free Speech - HD
With an imperious hatred for the Bill of Rights, both the NSA and the TSA are moving quickly to destroy our republic and our country. It is time for you to reassert your right to free speech...

By: AlexJonesInfoHD

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How to Win $10,000 with Free Speech - HD - Video

Segment from Free Speech TV: Consequences of Austerity
In this segment on Free Speech TV #39;s "Ring of Fire" program, Howard L. Nations, a nationally renowned trial lawyer, criticizes our government #39;s spending habits favoring money grabbing special...

By: HowardNations

Excerpt from:
Segment from Free Speech TV: Consequences of Austerity - Video

Posted Tue, January 14th, 2014 5:35 pm by Amy Howe

Tomorrow, the Court will hear the case of Eleanor McCullen, a seventy-six-year-old Massachusetts grandmother who has spent over fifty thousand dollars of her own money to help pregnant women who decide not to get an abortion. All McCullen wants, she tells the Court, is to stand on a public sidewalk to provide information and offer help to women entering an abortion clinic, but a state law prohibits her from doing so. Based on the Courts past track record on First Amendment cases, she may well soon get that chance. Lets talk about McCullen v. Coakley in Plain English.

Federal laws provide some protection for women seeking access to abortion clinics. But some states have gone farther and enacted their own laws intended to provide women with additional protection. In 2000, in a case called Hill v. Colorado, the Court upheld a Colorado law which drew a line one hundred feet around health care facilities and made it illegal for anti-abortion protesters to go within eight feet of anyone within that buffer zone to counsel, educate, or protest.

The law, the Court reasoned, struck the right balance between protecting the clinics patients from unwanted attention and the need to allow protesters to protest.

At the oral argument tomorrow, the Court will be considering a challenge by McCullen and other anti-abortion protesters to a Massachusetts law that makes it a crime to enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk within thirty-five feet of the entrance, exit, or driveway of an abortion clinic. The law carves out an exception, however, for employees of the clinic. McCullen argues that, by creating such an exception, the Massachusetts law unlike the law at issue in Hill discriminates based on the views of the person who is speaking: employees of the clinic can go into the buffer zone and say anything related to their jobs, but protesters cannot. In fact, McCullen emphasizes, the law even applies even to conduct that is entirely peaceful, like prayer or holding an anti-abortion sign. Another problem, McCullen points out, is that she and her fellow protesters dont have any real alternatives to get their message across at some clinics. Shouting at women within the buffer zone from thirty-five feet away doesnt work, but on the other hand it is difficult for her to talk to women outside the buffer zone because its hard to tell who is going to the clinic and who is just walking down the sidewalk. Finally, she suggests, if the Court were to uphold the Massachusetts law based on its ruling in Hill, the Court should simply overrule that decision.

Massachusetts paints a very different picture in its brief, which it begins by listing examples of conduct by (mostly) anti-abortion protesters that led the Massachusetts legislature to first pass a law modeled on the one upheld by the Court in Hill. But, the state explains, that law ultimately proved both ineffective at maintaining safe access to the clinics and difficult for police to enforce prompting the legislature to adopt the law at issue in this case. The new law, the state continues, is intended to keep clinic entrances open and clear of all but essential foot traffic, in light of more than two decades of compromised facility access and public safety. With this goal in mind, the law doesnt directly regulate speech and instead only targets conduct. Moreover, the state argues, the legislature didnt adopt the law because it disagreed with any underlying message; it notes that not all of the protesters whose actions it is trying to regulate opposed abortion.

Addressing some of McCullens other arguments, the state contends that it doesnt matter that the law only applies to abortion clinics, because those were the only places where the problems occurred. Nor does it matter that the law doesnt apply to clinic employees: the law needed to have some kind of exemption for the people who were going in and out of the clinics, because otherwise they too would violate the law whenever they set foot in the buffer zone. And the law still limits the conduct of clinic employees, allowing them to get on with their jobs but nothing more. Finally, the state emphasizes that the thirty-five-foot buffer zone was a solution that it reached after extensive trial and error, and that it was the only solution that would provide safe access to clinics while still allowing protesters to express their views.

How is this going to play out tomorrow? The Court decided Hill by a vote of six to three, but that was over thirteen years ago, and its now a very different Court. The only Justices left on the Court from the Hill majority are Justices Ginsburg and Breyer; two of the others Sandra Day OConnor and the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist have been replaced by the more conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, respectively. By contrast, all three of the dissenting Justices from Hill (Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy) remain on the Court, and we have no reason to think that their views have changed. So even if you assume that Justices Sotomayor and Kagan will vote to uphold the law, the state would still need a fifth Justice to prevail, and that vote could be hard to find. Throw in that the Roberts Court has yet to meet any controversial speech that it isnt willing to allow whether you are talking about movies showing animal cruelty, selling violent video games to children, protests at the funeral of a fallen soldier, or lying about receiving the Medal of Honor and the Massachusetts law could be in jeopardy. Stay tuned . . . .we will be back to report on the oral argument in Plain English as well.

Posted in McCullen v. Coakley, Featured, Merits Cases, Plain English / Cases Made Simple

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Free speech and abortion rights collide: In Plain English

In a decision that may "serve as a sorry memorial to the corporate abrogation of free speech," a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday struck down the Federal Communications Commissions rules on "net neutrality."

Image: Free Press Net neutrality means that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must treat all content the same. Internet freedom group Free Press explains that with net neutrality, ISPs "may not discriminate between different kinds of online content and apps. It guarantees a level playing field for all websites and Internet technologies."

Reuters reports that during oral argument in the lawsuit brought by Verizon Communications Inc,

Verizon's lawyer said the regulations violated the company's right to free speech and stripped control of what its networks transmit and how.

Ahead of the ruling Josh Levy of Free Press warned that "If Verizon gets its way, the FCCs rules protecting Internet users from corporate abuse will disappear."

Tuesday's ruling siding with Verizon "is a game-changer," business and technology site Gigaom reports,

because it upsets the FCCs current practice of requiring broadband internet providers to act akin to common carriers. In plain English, this means that they have had to behave in a similar way to phone companies and not give special preference to one type of call (or traffic) over another, even though the FCCs authority to regulate the broadband providers was not clear cut.

Net neutrality advocates are calling Tuesday's ruling "disappointing," and are warning that big telecommunications companies will be able to turn what was a move towards an open Internet into "something that looks like cable TV."

The ruling "is poised to end the free, open, and uncensored Internet that we have come to rely on," former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, special adviser to advocacy group Common Causes Media and Democracy Initiative, said in a statement.

Craig Aaron, President and CEO of Free Press, issued a statement saying that ruling means that Internet users will be pitted against the biggest phone and cable companiesand in the absence of any oversight, these companies can now block and discriminate against their customers communications at will."

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Federal Court Sides With Telecom, Deals Blow to Open Internet

Mr Obama Makes Free Speech A Felony
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By: News

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Mr Obama Makes Free Speech A Felony - Video

ZoNATION: Since When Does Free Speech Need a License?
Zo wants to remind some folks that free religious exercise is protected, before free speech in the 1st amendment. It helps to be formally trained on the topi...

By: PJ Media

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ZoNATION: Since When Does Free Speech Need a License? - Video

Free Speech 2013
Short promo for American INSIGHT #39;s 2013 Free Speech Film Festival Award Ceremony.

By: FreeSpeechFestival

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Free Speech 2013 - Video