Category Archives: Free Speech

Doss_High_School_Football_FieldLyle Denniston examines a recent case of Texas public high school cheerleaders who claim free speech allows them to use religious statements at football games.

It is the individual speech of the cheerleaders and not in fact the government speakingThat is their individual choices that are being portrayed on the banner.

David Starnes, a Beaumont, Texas, attorney, in a statement on October 18 defending the public school cheerleading squad in Kountze, Texas, whom he represents in a lawsuit over their right to display banners containing religious messages at the Kountze High Schools football games.

If the temporary injunction is not issued, the [high schools] unlawful policy prohibiting private religious expression will remain in effect and the [students] will be prohibited from exercising their constitutional and statutory rights at all football games and other school sporting events.

Hardin County, Texas, District Judge Steven Thomas, in an order October 18 temporarily forbidding Kountze High School administrators from banning the display of cheerleaders banners bearing religious messages at school football games. The judge set a trial date of next June 24.

checkThe First Amendment both guarantees religious freedom and forbids official government endorsement or promotion of a particular faith. Separating the two, though, has long been a problem for the courts as they confront religious expression in the public sphere. There is no more disputed arena in which this constitutional drama plays out than the public school. What is happening now in the small eastern Texas town of Kountze is a perfect illustration.

There, the high school cheerleading team for years has prepared banners that are unfurled at the start of home football games, with the Kountze players bursting through the streamers, measuring 30 feet by 10 feet. They are meant to inspire the team, and encourage the crowd. They used to be taunts of the visiting team, but this year the cheerleaders decided to engage in what their lawyer calls positive encouragement. And, for these students and followers of the Christian faith, that has meant banners with religious messages, such as Thanks be to God, which gives us victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

School officials banned the practice this semester, after a protest from a private advocacy group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which promotes separation of church and state. The cheerleaders and their parents sued in Hardin County District Court and, so far, they are winning, with the school ban now on hold by Judge Steven Thomass order until a trial can occur, now set for next June.

The wording of Judge Thomas order and, in fact, the description of the banner activity in the text of the cheerleaders lawsuit both treat the expression on the banners as purely that of the students. That was decisive for the judge, and it was the strategic choice of the students attorney, because the Supreme Court has made clear that government has less power to restrict the private speech of students even while they are at school than it does to curtail student expression that seems to speak for the school, making the school the endorser of the students message.

When the message is religious, and is attributed to the school system, that violates the First Amendments separation doctrine, the Court has said.

Read the rest here:
Constitution Check: Do students speak for themselves, or for the school?

The race for Clackamas County Commission chair is really turning into a mud fight. Instead of debating the issues, giving logical answers that will help the people of Clackamas County, the supporters and/or the fringe groups of the current county commissioners are engaging in tried-and-true Chicago-style politics: 1) campaign sign destruction; 2) unknown websites calling candidates names.

We have all heard the stories of conservative signs disappearing throughout the county, most recently in the Oak Grove-Milwaukie area. Radio talk show hosts have been highlighting the double standard of the liberal and conservative perspectives on the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.

Liberals most often believe freedom of speech applies when it supports their viewpoint but if it supports a conservative, there is a backlash against them. President Obama said back in 2008 "if you don't have a record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from." That is exactly what is happening in the race for Clackamas County chair. Scoundrels or vandals have been lurking around the area looking to do damage to conservative campaign signs. Some people are creating websites trying to scare voters away from conservatives and their positions by name-calling and or other disruptive behavior.

Recently, while traveling around the county and talking with candidates on the issues, people have approached me about the new "John Ludlow is a Bully" signs with a website that are popping up all around the county. I typed in the website and wanted to learn more about these comments. Upon reading through the website, it is full of name calling and unfounded claims against Mr. Ludlow. The most telling part of the site was at the end -- it does not accept comments to refute any of the claims made by the unknown author.

We are Americans and take our First Amendment very seriously and I stand up for it, but if you create an opinion site, you should take responsibility and be accountable for your words. I created my own blog to highlight and discuss the issues in the news from the federal, state and local levels; however, my blog is an opinion forum. I welcome comments and discussion if I get something wrong or misspeak; I will not hide behind a curtain and call candidates names. I will give reasons why I believe their policies are wrong.

We are better than this and that's why I support a change in course. I will not stand for reckless denial of free speech just because someone has a different point of view from you. Campaign-sign destruction cannot stand and I call for candidates to come out and stand on principles and denounce this type of behavior. We are not Chicago, we are Oregon, we reject partisan rhetoric and welcome discussion on the issues. We believe in the voice of the people and the freedom of speech of our citizens. Kevin Moss lives in Sandy and is vice chair of the 3rd Congressional District for the Oregon Republican Party.

Originally posted here:
Commentary: Free speech denied in race for Clackamas County chair

Rumors are swirling that the federal government is about to sue Google over claims that the company rigs its search results. Google has responded by invoking its right to free speech but not everyone is buying this.

Tim Wu, a prominent law professor at Columbia, is not convinced that Google is invoking its First Amendment rights in good faith. He suggests that Google and other big companies are cynically invoking constitutional freedoms as part of a corporate deregulation agenda.

Were living in a golden age of First Amendment opportunism, said Wu, speaking Friday at a Penn Law School conference titled The Evolving Internet.

In Wus view, search results are not really speech in the first space. Instead, he argues, Googles algorithms are closer to other automated communication tools like navigation devices or even car alarms.

Google, of course, doesnt share this view. The company prefers to be compared to a newspaper editor whose choice of what to put in the paper is an undisputed free speech right. In practical terms, this means Google should be able to favor its own restaurant reviews over competing services like Yelp.

So who is right? Most of us would agree with Wu that Googles search results fall somewhere in the middle of a communication continuum where the editor is on one end and the car alarm is on the other. The hard question is whether Google is far enough along the line to qualify for the First Amendment.

More broadly, this dilemma doesnt apply just to Google. In the age of the algorithm, other companies may also rush to protect computer-based communication. Should Amazon, for instance, be allowed to argue that its product recommendation are a form of free speech?

The point here is that the choice of whether or not to sue Google is part of a larger process in which the country must decide where free speech stops and legitimate regulation begins.

(Image bykentohvia Shutterstock)

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Originally posted here:
Is Google a free speech opportunist?

LONDON Americans often cite free speech when controversial statements offend certain groups of people, but what if you went to jail for making an ill-humored joke on Facebook? That's what happened to one British man recently, over his status update. But the case raises questions about free speech laws in the U.K.

Matthew Woods, 20, became one of the most hated people in the U.K. after posting an offensive status update on Facebook about an abducted 5-year-old girl. Woods "offensive" comments included sexually aggressive and suggestive references, which attracted a number of supportive and equally derogatory replies.

Woods was charged by British police under section 127 of the U.K. Communications Act 2003, which found that his message was "grossly offensive" or "of an indecent, obscene or menacing character." He was arrested "for his own safety," reports The Guardian, following the comments posted on Facebook about 5-year-old April Jones, who was abducted close to her home in Machynlleth, Wales early this month.

The British media capitalized upon the conviction: Was Woods' comment truly "criminal?"

Free speech and social media's delicate dance

Despite being the closest ally to the United States on political, economic and defense matters, by comparison the U.K.'s free speech principles feel archaic and its laws stagnant in the digital age.

It was the same law that found Paul Chambers, 28, of Northern Ireland, guilty of unlawfully sending a message that was also deemed "grossly offensive" or "of an indecent, obscene or menacing character," in 2010, after he tweeted that he would "[blow] the airport sky high!" after his flight was cancelled following poor weather at Robin Hood Airport, U.K.

Chambers' conviction was subsequently quashed on a second appeal at the U.K. High Court in London earlier this year. The judge in the Chambers' case noted in his ruling:

"Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humor, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by [the Communications Act]."

While U.S. prosecutors could have charged Chambers with terrorism offenses, U.K. prosecutors instead opted to charge him by the contents of his tweet, despite being arrested initially by British anti-terror police.

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U.K. man jailed over Facebook status raises questions over free speech

Courts College says misunderstanding led to religious groups getting affiliate status.

An evangelical Christian club claims Snow College is unfairly giving "second tier" status to student groups that have a religious affiliation, constitutionally infringing on free speech and free association rights.

In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court, the Solid Rock Christian Club alleges the designation deprives such groups from being able to reserve campus facilities without charge, to advertise events on campus and to receive funding from student fees. That allows the college to favor "the speech of popular groups and exclude unpopular ones," the club alleges.

The lawsuit names the college, top school officials, the schools board of trustees and the state Board of Regents as defendants.

Scott Wyatt, president of Snow College, said Tuesday the lawsuit may be a result of a misunderstanding. He said that after realizing the impact of the affiliate status on religious clubs, "we undid this." Wyatt, who said he just received a copy of the lawsuit and had not yet read it, said it is possible none of the clubs were aware of that course correction.

"The Solid Rock ministry is a very important organization for us," Wyatt said. "They serve a number of students and we value them highly and want to continue to be a support in every way we can of their mission and their goals. I think this lawsuit is largely a misunderstanding and am confident we will work it out in a good manner and everyone will be satisfied. I am just very confident in working through all this.

Solid Rock has operated on the Snow campus, located in Ephraim, for eight years. The complaint describes the club as committed to "exalting and glorifying Jesus Christ on campus" and encouraging students and faculty to believe in Jesus Christ. The club is associated with Tri Grace Ministries, which according to their web site, also is committed to "challenging the heretical doctrines of Mormonism and ... leading as many Mormons as possible into a personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ."

With a brief exception during the 2010 school year, the club was able to use facilities without paying a community rental rate, the lawsuit states. It freely advertised activities and received student fee funding. During the 2010 school year, the college designated Solid Rock an "organization," with fewer privileges, but relented after student leaders of the group protested.

The club, one of about 32 at the college, now alleges that over the summer, college officials changed its policies regarding student groups and gave Solid Rock an "affiliate" rather than "club" status that deprived it of those benefits.

According to the current handbook, clubs must not be affiliated with any commercial or for-profit organization or religious institution. An official told the clubs advisor that "due to an internal audit, funding will not be allowed for religious organizations."

Read this article:
Christian club sues Snow College over alleged free speech issues

Conservative MP Dominic Raab talks to Mike Harris about civil liberties, free speech and how he wouldnt lose any sleep if the UKs communications data bill were canned

This is the first of a new Index Interviews series

LONDON, 16/10/2012 (INDEX). Dominic Raabs father fled Czechoslovakia just before the Second World War. The Conservative politician cites the fall of the Berlin Wall as one of his biggest political influences and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn as the writer whose life he most admires. In many ways, his style is from another generation of politicians; he shoots from the hip describing Vladimir Putin as a very Machiavellian, ruthless politician, he is unaccompanied by an aide, and, rarer still, he doesnt check his BlackBerry every five minutes.

Index is meeting Raab in a side room off Portcullis House, Parliaments new office block for members of Parliament (MPs) and their staff. On the agenda are free speech issues both in the UK and abroad from the Leveson Inquiry to the Kremlins suppression of Russian NGOs.

Lets start with an easy question: Does he believe the culture of offence has got worse? He does.

There is certainly much more legal restriction on what you can say. Weve seen it with the incitement to religious hatred debate, he says, the glorification of terrorism debate and the ASBOs (Antisocial Behaviour Orders) that originated under the last government. His concern is that these limitations are making society less open: Were narrowing the space where free speech and open debate takes place.

Raab defends preacher Philip Howard, who was banned from street preaching by Westminster Council in 2006:

I used to walk past him on Oxford Street with his microphone. The eccentricities of British life thrive on there being an open space where free expression can take place, and I dont think most people thought he was such a nuisance that he ought to have been banned from preaching. Were seeing the salami slicing of free speech.

The law I draw is the very clear one that John Stuart Mill drew, that you shouldnt be saying things which incite violence or disorder, or cause tangible concrete harm to other people. Mere offence or insults dont satisfy that test.

Raab is clear he thinks the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has over-prosecuted free speech cases in the past citing the Paul Chambers Twitter joke trial case: Aside from the free speech issue, what a waste of money!

Go here to see the original:
Index Interview: The salami slicing of free speech

Everyone has a right to free speech -- and that even extends to creeps.

49-year-old computer programmer Michael Brutsch was the main moderator for Reddits Creepshot forum, which sparked outrage last month for encouraging users to post covert photos they had taken of women in public, typically close-ups of body parts for voyeuristic sexual thrills.

Brutsch was publicly exposed by Gawker writer Adrian Chen last weekend, leading his real-world employer to fire him and many Reddit administrators to ban links to Gawker websites as a show of solidarity with head creep Brutsch.

Please dont do that, said Yishan Wong, CEO of the massive social news site.

We stand for free speech, Wong wrote in a private post on the site obtained by Chen. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Not because thats the law in the United States but because we believe in that ideal independently.

Besides, banning any links from Reddit to Gawker just looks bad, he wrote.

Lets be honest, this ban on links from the Gawker network is not making Reddit look so good, Wong wrote.

Wong began his post -- titled we seem to be in a bit of a pickle -- by laying down the law: Reddit is all in favor of the freedom of legal speech, even if that speech is as clearly offensive as Brutschs Creepshots was.

The majority of Wongs posting dealt not with free speech or whether Reddit ought to host forums such as Creepshots -- a revolting collection of images so widely denounced that it was ultimately removed from the site -- but Chens investigative journalism and ultimate decision to reveal the identity of the forum moderator.

Moderators were enraged by Violentacrez's "doxxing" (hacker slang for outing) and decided to censor Gawker links in protest, Chen explained.

Read more:
Reddit CEO defends free speech -- even for creeps like Violentacrez

Note: This posta response to Reddit's free speech argument in the wake of Gawker's Violentacrez storywas originally published on writer John Scalzi's personal blog, and is republished here with permission. You can find the original here.

I've been watching with some interest the drama surrounding Gawker writer Adrian Chen revealing Reddit user/celeb/moderator/troll Violentacrez's real life identity (Michael Brutsch), which among other things resulted in Brutsch losing his job, presumably because Brutsch's employer was not 100% comfortable employing someone who spent his days moderating online forums with titles like "Chokeabitch" and bragged about the time he performed oral sex on his 19-year-old stepdaughter. It also resulted in Reddit globally banning links from Gawker (since rescinded, although forum moderators ("subredditors") can choose to block links within their forums - and do), and various bannings due to discussion of the drama.

Wrapped up in all of this are various chest beatings about free speech and whether someone's online anonymity is sacred, even if he is a creep, the culture of Reddit in particular and the Internet in general, and in a larger sense where the rights of one individual - say, a creepy middle-aged dude - begin to impinge on others - say, young women who don't believe that merely being in public is an invitation to be sexually degraded. This is all interesting stuff, to be sure, and naturally I have a few thoughts on these topics. In no particular order:

1. The "free speech" aspect of this is largely nonsense. Reddit is not a public utility or a public square; it's a privately owned space on the Internet. From a legal and (United States) constitutional point of view, people who post on Reddit have no "free speech" privileges; they have what speech privileges Reddit itself chooses to provide them, and to tolerate. Reddit chooses to tolerate creepiness and general obnoxiousness for reasons of its own, in other words, and not because there's a legal or constitutional reason for it.

Personally speaking, when everything is boiled down to the marrow, I think the reason Reddit tolerates the creepy forums has to do with money more than anything else. Reddit allows all those creepy subreddits because its business model is built on memberships and visits, and the dudes who visit these subreddits are almost certainly enthusiastic members and visitors. This is a perfectly valid reason, in the sense of "valid" meaning "allowing people to be creepy isn't inherently illegal, and we make money because of it, so we'll let it happen." But while it makes sense that the folks at Reddit are either actively or passively allowing "we're making money allowing creeps to get their creep on" to be muddled with "we're standing up for the principles of free speech," it doesn't mean anyone else needs be confused by this.

If someone bleats to you about any of this being a "free speech" issue, you can safely mark them as either ignorant or pernicious - probably ignorant, as the understanding of what "free speech" means in a constitutional sense here in the US is, shall we say, highly constrained in the general population. Additionally and independently, the sort of person who who says "free speech" when they mean "I like doing creepy things to other people without their consent and you can't stop me so fuck you ha ha ha ha" is pretty clearly a mouth-breathing asshole who in the larger moral landscape deserves a bat across the bridge of the nose and probably knows it. Which is why - unsurprisingly - so many of them choose to be anonymous and/or use pseudonyms on Reddit while they get their creep on.

On the subject of anonymity:

2. Anonymity/pseudonymity is not inherently evil or wrong. Astute observers will note that on this very site I allow both anonymous and pseudonymous postings, because sometimes you want to say something you wouldn't normally say with your name attached and/or because you have personal/business reasons to want not to have a trail of comments lead back to you. Perfectly reasonable and perfectly acceptable, and as I moderate this site pretty attentively, anyone who decides to use the cloak of anonymity to be an assbag will get their words malleted into oblivion in any event.

It's not anonymity or pseudonymity that's the issue. The issue is people being assholes while anonymous because they don't believe it's ever going to get back to them. This is a separate issue from anonymity/pseudonymity. Someone who is anonymous shouldn't be assumed to be an assbag, any more than someone who uses their real name should be assumed to be a kind and decent human being. In both cases, it's what they say that should be the guide.

However:

Continued here:
Why the Violentacrez Story Isn't About Free Speech [Reddit]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the freeexercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of thepeople peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

From the pages rolling off our printing presses in downtown Winona, this newspaper is the First Amendment in action.

We tell you the news, our focus often on local government.

We invite you to assemble by printing your own calls for action.

We post religious gatherings, from churches that planted stones more than 150 years ago to the newest places to worship in new ways.

We celebrate your stories on these pages. You offer your opinions, your convictions, and your intimate knowledge of our region.

Together we share this mission: creating a narrative without a reaching arm of government that censors, one that limits the dialogue fundamental to democracy.

As a newspaper, we take this job very seriously.

Next week is Free Speech Week, a time to reflect on what the First Amendment really means. In the coming editions, the Winona Post will explore the rights granted by the First Amendment with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. First in the series is a look at the role of newspapers in both defining, and continually upholding, the right to free speech in America.

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Free speech: what it means

Reddit leadership has clarified the official rules when it comes to creeps-on-Reddit, standing up for free speech on the site, said CEO Yishan Wong in a leaked memo via Gawker's Adrian Chen. "We stand for free speech," wrote Wong. "This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it," he said, alluding to the recent uproar over Creep Shots and the various spin-offs that act as forums for photos of unsuspecting women in tight or revealing clothing. The site still can't get away from contradictions, however, as that "free speech" still does not include "doxxing posts," meaning anything attempting to reveal personal information, "because it incites violence and harassment against specific individuals." Or posts that link to sites that do that, like Predditors.

RELATED: Reddit Is Taking Down Its Creeps

As for elsewhere, however, Reddit admitted that it can't control the type of information the rest of the Internet circulates, as it tried to do by banning links to the entire Gawker Media network, Predditors, and anything that linked to Predditors. "We will not ban things which are legitimate investigative journalism," Wong continued. "Free speech is expressed most powerful through the press, and many times throughout history a bad actor has been exposed by an enterprising (even muckraking) journalist, and it has been to the benefit of society," he continued. Reddit had banned Chen's article about Violentacrez, the man behind a lot of the not safe for work content on the site. But Wong has since recognized that is inconsistent with their free speech mantra: "We chose to recognize that opponents have the right to criticize us, to expose us, to tell a story about useven if we don't like that story or we feel it's wrong. So we reversed the site-level ban on Chen's Gawker piece." Plus, it's not really sustainable to ban all posts that link to things which Reddit doesn't approve.

RELATED: The Internet War Over Creeps on Reddit

We'd say this is a compromise, at best, for creeps on Reddit. Sure, they get to post all the photos of women's cleavage they want. But they still have the rest of the Internet to answer to. If a website like Jezebel, for example, writes about Predditors, Reddit won't take it down. And, of course, the rest of the Internet doesn't have to play by the site's pseudo free speech rules.

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Reddit Defines What Free Speech Means on Reddit