Category Archives: Free Speech

05-09-2012 09:44 Get involved online to have your say on debt: Free Speech Debt Special - Tuesday 11th September - 8pm - BBC Three More about this programme:

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'I'm in this much debt...' - Free Speech - BBC Three - Video

A protester stepping on a picture of Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang trampling on the pictures of the three assemblymen in 2009

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng stepping over the pictures of the three assemblymen

THE primitively ugly jungle dance where a bunch of badly raised youngsters trampled on and showed their backsides to portraits of the prime minister, his wife and the Election Commission chief on Merdeka Day eve at Dataran Merdeka might be considered a form of free speech, a democratic act similar to pro-testers' torching flags and effigies.

Portrait trampling and stomping, and effigy and flag burning are the etiquette of defiance, especially against the United States' flag and the effigy of any sitting American president.

Americans may squirm at this fury but the natives' right to morph into a "rage monster" -- to borrow Tony Stark/Ironman's dry quip describing David Banner's Hulk -- is still an indispensable right.

The Americans should know: they pioneered the cantankerously radical forms of free speech -- flag burning is constitutional, Occupy Wall Street fashionable, and long before these were the norm, legions of past Americans staged popular demonstrations, from the town crying/pamphleteering of Thomas Paine to the furious chants against the Vietnam War and Iraqi invasions.

Americans have accepted being targets of hot-blooded derision as the side-effect of their quarrelsome foreign policy. They too have no right to mind the reaction because that is the costly price Government leaders (and their families, friends and associates) pay to rule in a democracy.

Nevertheless, the police think differently: a student from a private Cheras college has been hauled up for the portrait trampling on Penal Code charges of causing public nuisance and intentionally causing insult to provoke peace.

Government critics, especially the opposition party kind, will of course chide the police for going into overdrive but extend their rants to char the PM, their customary target of contempt for anything and everything that goes wrong for them whether real or imaginary.

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Would you trample on your parents' portraits?

/ 09.05.2012 02:15PM

NRB to Lay Out Internet 'Free Speech' Charter

Group seeks cooperation of Facebook, Google and Apple

The group plans to release a Free Speech Charter for the Internet in the coming days, Sept. 12. It cites recent incidents such as the Chick-fil-A protests, wherein NRB feels that certain positions were discriminated against by some Internet media companies.

NRB has been critical of policies of many such companies regarding types of content allowed on their platforms; an NRB official wrote late last year, These new media giants have declared that they possess both the right and the will to use standard-less, arbitrary power to shut down ideas they simply do not like. Considering how a handful of these giant technology companies rule entire fields of Web-based communications, the threat to freedom of discourse is breathtaking.

The NRB also acknowledges that the issue is not clear-cut, with conflicting positions between traditional public free speech and the rights of media property owners to police their content. The new program is associated with the NRBs John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech.

Related: New Media Have a Free Speech Problem (NRB Commentary, Nov. 2011)

Tuesday 12:00AM Court Upholds ivi.tv Shutdown

iivis actions harm plaintiffs retransmissions and advertising revenues by substantially diminishing the value of their copyrighted programming." ~US Court of Appeals

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NRB to Lay Out Internet 'Free Speech' Charter

By NBC News staff and wire reports

An international rights group called Monday for Tunisian prosecutors to drop charges against two sculptors for artworks deemed harmful to public order and good morals, a legal action seen as part of a clampdown on free speech in the country where the Arab Spring began.

Human Rights Watch said that the prosecution of artists Nadia Jelassi and Mohamed Ben Salem in Tunisia, the country whose protests against its longtime dictator helped set off similar uprisings across the Arab world, violated the right to freedom of expression because the works did not incite or discriminate.

"Time and again, prosecutors are using criminal legislation to stifle critical or artistic expression," Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"Bloggers, journalists and now artists are being prosecuted for exercising their right to free speech," he added.

Protests The works by Jelassi and Ben Salem were exhibited in a show in La Marsa in June, according to Human Rights Watch. The two, whose mixed-media work provoked protests during the exhibition, face up to five years in prison if convicted, the rights group said.

La Marsa is a coastal town north of the capital Tunis.

Jelassi's contribution was a work titled "Celui qui n'a pas " ("He who hasn't "). It includes sculptures of veiled women amid a pile of stones. Ben Salems work showed ants coming out of a child's schoolbag to spell the word "Allah," or God, according to Human Rights Watch.

Mother of Tunisian fruit vendor who sparked Arab Spring is arrested

In addition to protests outside the center, several works of art in the exhibition reportedly were damaged.

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Tight rein on speech in Tunisia

San Francisco:Alexander Macgillivray, Twitter's chief lawyer, says that fighting for free speech is more than a good idea. He thinks it is a competitive advantage for his company.

That conviction explains why he spends so much of Twitter's time and money going toe to toe with officers and apparatchiks both here and abroad. Last week, his legal team was fighting a court order to extract an Occupy Wall Street protester's Twitter posts. The week before, the team wrestled with Indian government officials seeking to take down missives they considered inflammatory. Last year, Mr. Macgillivray challenged the Justice Department in its hunt for WikiLeaks supporters who used Twitter to communicate.

"We value the reputation we have for defending and respecting the user's voice," Mr. Macgillivray said in an interview here at Twitter headquarters. "We think it's important to our company and the way users think about whether to use Twitter, as compared to other services."

It doesn't always work. And it sometimes collides awkwardly with another imperative Twitter faces: to turn its fire hose of public opinion into a profitable business. That imperative will become far more acute if the company goes public, and Twitter confronts pressures to make money fast and play nice with the governments of countries in which it operates; most Twitter users live outside the United States and the company is already opening offices overseas.

That transformation makes his job all the more delicate. At a time when Internet companies control so much of what we can say and do online, can Twitter stand up for privacy, free expression and profitability all at the same time?

"They are going to have to monetize the data that they have and they can't rock the boat maybe," said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington. "I don't predict Twitter is going to lose its way, but it's a moment to watch."

Jonathan Zittrain, one of his former professors at Harvard Law School, called it both a challenge and opportunity for Mr. Macgillivray, widely known as @amac, his handle on Twitter, and one that could influence the Internet industry at large.

"If @amac can help find a path through it, it may serve as a model for corporate responsibility for an Internet where more and more code and content is governed by corporate gatekeepers," Mr. Zittrain said via e-mail.

He added that the challenge for Mr. Macgillivray "is not only to pioneer a wise way through this thicket, but to implement it as Twitter's use continues to explode: it's complex maintenance on a jet engine while the plane is in flight."

Twitter hit some turbulence this summer, when it seemed to forget its principles.

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Twitter's free speech defender

31-08-2012 09:38 James Taranto, author of the Wall Street Journal's 'Best of the Web Today' column, describes how being suspended from college for having written a column defending free speech led him to become a conservative. Get the rest of the story at NewsBusters:

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James Taranto: Liberal Opposition To Free Speech Solidified Me As A Conservative - Video

Court Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

A group attempting to get an employee-verification measure on Utahs Nov. 6 ballot lost its lawsuit Friday after a judge ruled that new state requirements for qualifying an initiative doesnt infringe upon free speech rights.

"The laws do not limit the ability of citizens to raise issues and initiate political discussions," 3rd District Court Judge Randall Skanchy wrote in his ruling.

The case centered around former Republican Congressman Merrill Cooks attempt to qualify a ballot measure for November that would require the state to adopt a tough E-Verify law in an attempt to halt the hiring of illegal immigrants for work in Utah.

Utah currently has an E-Verify law on the books, but it has no penalties. Cooks measure is similar to Arizonas E-Verify law, where business licenses could be revoked if employers are caught hiring people not authorized to work in the United States.

Cook argued in court that a law signed by Gov. Gary Herbert in 2011 restricts free speech because it significantly curbed the ability of volunteers to gather enough signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.

To get a measure on the ballot under the new law, signatures must be gathered within 316 days and their number must equal at least 10 percent of the votes cast for president. Before, it was 10 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election and the time frame to collect signatures could extend out to as long as three years.

Cook said the new law, SB165, was a "cynical ploy" by the Legislature to quash ballot initiatives especially E-Verify. The Legislature had a tough E-Verify bill introduced in the past session, but it died in committee.

In response to Skanchys ruling, Cook said the judge didnt understand the relationship between the petition process and free speech.

"Hes accepted a very narrow definition of free speech," said Cook, who contends that free speech on an issue means being able to sign a petition and vote on it, not just talk about it.

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Court » Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

Court Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

A group attempting to get an employee-verification measure on Utahs Nov. 6 ballot lost its lawsuit Friday after a judge ruled that new state requirements for qualifying an initiative doesnt infringe upon free speech rights.

"The laws do not limit the ability of citizens to raise issues and initiate political discussions," 3rd District Court Judge Randall Skanchy wrote in his ruling.

The case centered around former Republican Congressman Merrill Cooks attempt to qualify a ballot measure for November that would require the state to adopt a tough E-Verify law in an attempt to halt the hiring of illegal immigrants for work in Utah.

Utah currently has an E-Verify law on the books, but it has no penalties. Cooks measure is similar to Arizonas E-Verify law, where business licenses could be revoked if employers are caught hiring people not authorized to work in the United States.

Cook argued in court that a law signed by Gov. Gary Herbert in 2011 restricts free speech because it significantly curbed the ability of volunteers to gather enough signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.

To get a measure on the ballot under the new law, signatures must be gathered within 316 days and their number must equal at least 10 percent of the votes cast for president. Before, it was 10 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election and the time frame to collect signatures could extend out to as long as three years.

Cook said the new law, SB165, was a "cynical ploy" by the Legislature to quash ballot initiatives especially E-Verify. The Legislature had a tough E-Verify bill introduced in the past session, but it died in committee.

In response to Skanchys ruling, Cook said the judge didnt understand the relationship between the petition process and free speech.

"Hes accepted a very narrow definition of free speech," said Cook, who contends that free speech on an issue means being able to sign a petition and vote on it, not just talk about it.

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Judge rules against foes of Utah’s initiative law

Secularists, Christians and a gay rights campaigner have struck up an unlikely alliance in support of free speech.

Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was joined outside the Houses of Parliament this morning by The Christian Institute's Simon Calvert and Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society.

They were calling for reform of Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act, which outlaws "insulting words or behaviour".

The campaigners argue that Section 5 dangerously restricts freedom of speech and want to see the word "insulting" removed.

Tatchell was arrested under Section 5 whilst protesting against Iran's treatment of homosexuals.

The campaigners carried placards saying "do you know your horse is --- " in reference to an Oxford student who was arrested under Section 5 when he said to a policeman, "Excuse me, do you know your horse is gay?" Police accused the student of homophobia but he was later released after prosecutors abandoned the case.

Christians have also been affected by Section 5. Police officers warned Jamie Murray that the display of passages from the New Testament in his Christian cafe could be in breach of Section 5.

Christian hotel owners, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, were charged under Section 5 after a row with a Muslim guest over breakfast. Their case was eventually thrown out by a district judge but the high profile court case had a "devastating" impact on their business, which subsequently suffered an 80 per cent drop in income.

The campaign has gained cross-party support and is being led in Parliament by David Davis MP.

The Home Office is due to report on its consultation into Section 5.

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Christians join free speech protest

Senate President Juan Ponce Enriles proposal for a law on blogging in the Philippines may curtail free speech in the country, a congressman representing the youth sector in the House of the Representatives said Thursday.

Kabataan party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino described as alarming Enriles suggestion to enact a law that will regulate Filipino bloggers and specify their rights.

Blogs have been one of the freest avenues for opinions and discussion, and we fear that we might lose this freedom if a law is passed to regulate it, Palatino said in a statement.

He added that a bill on blogging may run counter to Article III Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution which states that, No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

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Enrile's proposal for blogging law may curtail free speech - youth solon