Category Archives: Free Speech

Americas defining obsessions with fast food and free speech collided in caloric heaven Wednesday as hundreds, if not thousands, of people waited in long lines for up to two hours to have lunch at the Chick-fil-A on Sports Arena Boulevard in San Diego.

Like me, youd probably forgotten there even was a Chick-fil-A on Sports Arena. The last time this place had long lines, it was a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, and the year was 2002. Times sure have changed.

Wednesday, Americas increased appetite for chicken sandwiches came as part of a national effort by Christians, conservatives and everyday people to show support for Chick-fil-As embattled president and chief operating officer, Dan Cathy. His comments last month against same-sex marriage got people on the right and left of the political spectrum running around like, well, chickens with their heads cut off.

I think we are inviting Gods judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage, Cathy said on a radio show. I pray Gods mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.

Mayors in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco expressed outrage, and the remarks incensed the gay community, whose leaders quickly moved to make it an issue in a year when President Barack Obama has come out in support of same-sex marriage.

Gay-rights advocates planned a national Same-Sex Kiss Day at all Chick-fil-As this Friday, and conservatives countered by ordering an eat-in two days earlier in the name of Christian values.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee dubbed it Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day and explained his goal on Facebook: Lets affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse.

If you dont know, and I didnt, the Cathy family, which entered the restaurant business in 1946 and opened the first of 1,600 franchised Chick-fil-As in Atlanta in 1967, doesnt open on Sundays.

Its even more overtly Christian than Californias In-N-Out Burger, which references Bible passages on its packaging but not God in its corporate purpose, as Chick-fil-A does.

Maybe because of that, the people who endured warm weather and long lines in San Diego Wednesday did so happily, with the grace and good nature they might have displayed if they were waiting to enter church.

Originally posted here:
Hall: San Diegans feast on free speech at Chick-fil-A

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst visited a Chick-fil-A in Austin, Texas, as he began campaigning on the day before the runoff election. Dewhurst also met with his supporters and spoke with local media before heading to the airport on Monday, morning July 30, 2012.

Austin American-Statesman, Ricardo Brazziell, Associated Press

Enlarge photo

Free speech has consequences. The First Amendment guarantees that governmental retaliation will not be one of them.

Some seem to miss this particular distinction. For instance, there may be a consequence when a television personality says something inappropriate or out of line with an employer's policy. In such situations, a stupid statement could result in the loss of a private job. Sometimes in these instances, there will be a chorus of critics complaining that constitutional rights have been violated.

That's nonsense.

Individuals may have the right to say what they want, but they don't have the right to make anyone listen. And they certainly don't have the right to force a private individual or company to provide them with a platform.

Similarly, if a person or company is saying something people don't like, people are well within their rights to repudiate or ignore them.

Serious problems arise, however, when public officials express their personal disapproval for speech by wielding the power of the state.

Statements by Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy in favor of traditional marriage have met with widespread criticism in recent days by those who favor same-sex marriage. Those who disagree with Cathy are well-within their rights to criticize his viewpoint. They may choose to stay away from his company's restaurants as a powerful way to voice their criticism.

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In our opinion: Fast food chain well within First Amendment rights with anti-gay marriage statement

In a welcome about-face Tuesday morning, Twitter restored the account of journalist Guy Adams, who posted a series of critical comments about NBC's handling of the Olympics.

"Oh," Adams wrote in his first tweet since his account was suspended Sunday. "My Twitter account appears to have been un-suspended. Did I miss much while I was away?"

Adams followed up by saying that Twitter informed him via e-mail that NBC had retracted its original complaint.

While it's encouraging to hear NBC backed away - even if it required an enormous online backlash - it remains disturbing that Twitter revoked the account in the first place.

Let's be perfectly clear: Twitter suspended a user for committing an act of journalism.

The mind-boggling move undermines the San Francisco startup's credibility as a supposed advocate of open communications, and whittles away the goodwill of professional and citizen journalists who are the lifeblood of the service.

In a series of tweets in recent days, Adams colorfully assailed, among other things, NBC's ridiculous decision to force West Coast viewers to watch the Olympics on a time delay, presumably so the network could charge prime-time advertising rates.

It's been an infuriating experience for fans who can't duck the spoilers blasting at them from all quarters of the Internet. Adams, a correspondent for London's Independent newspaper, simply supplied them an appropriate outlet for those frustrations in the tweet that supposedly got his account deactivated.

"The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com"

Twitter told Adams that tweet violated their terms of service by posting private information, specifically NBC Olympics President Zenkel's e-mail address. But that flimsy explanation falls down under the lightest scrutiny.

Link:
Twitter undermines free speech

Chilling free speech in the name of brands, rights and commercialisation is not what promoting the Olympic spirit is about, says Kirsty Hughes

This piece was originally published on Huffington Post UK

Fridays opening of the Olympic Games, with the extraordinary spectacle created by Danny Boyle, ranging from the industrial revolution to the digital age, from childrens literature to the National Health Service, has received plaudits and praise along with some bemusement and criticism. It may be just as well though that it didnt celebrate another British icon, the BBC.

The impact of the commercialisation of the Games, with lucrative sponsorship and rights deals, means another British virtue freedom of speech is rather less free than normal for the duration of London 2012. A particularly disturbing example of this is the BBC which has said that due to rights restrictions various radio programmes, ranging from the prestigious Radio 4 Today news programme to the lighter Radio 2 Chris Evans Breakfast Show and Radio 5 Live, whether live or on iPlayer, may not be available to audiences abroad for the duration of the Games.

While the BBC World Service has a proud history of broadcasting into authoritarian regimes, faced with its lucrative rights deal for UK broadcasting of the Games, the BBC is blocking its own output from being available internationally. It has a helpfully succinct explanation of this on its own news site where it says: The BBCs agreement with the International Olympic Committee means we are not allowed to broadcast anything online outside the UK from the Olympic Park or Olympic venues. As a result this programme may need to be blanked for International listeners due to rights issues surrounding Olympic content in programmes.

Perhaps conscious of quite how ludicrous this is, and damaging to the BBCs own image and values, by Sunday the BBC had apparently carried out some damage-limitation negotiations with the International Olympic Committee so at least the Today programme could be restored to international listeners though the announcement of this appears to be confined to a small blog update which states:

After discussion, the IOC and the BBC have agreed that there is no need to block our international streams of Radio 4 programmes with a wide news agenda. Radio 5 Live (apart from the news programme Up All Night) and 5 Live Olympics Extra will remain available only in the UK.

We knew that the Olympic commercial brands deals had put money ahead of free speech Locog published months ago two lists of words that must not be combined at risk of legal action for breaching the brand/copyright rules. These include not combining the words games, 2012 or twenty twelve with, for example, gold, silver medals, sponsor or summer. But more examples keep coming in of the censorship effects, and the chilling of the right to peaceful protest.

Unauthorised YouTube videos of the Games are reportedly being taken down with alacrity. Meanwhile, a group of cyclists has been banned from cycling in Newham for the duration of the Games.

The Olympic charter celebrates a number of human rights, declaring that: The practice of sport is a human right Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement. The charter makes no commitment to that other key and universal human right freedom of expression. But chilling and censoring free speech in the name of brands, rights and general commercialisation is surely not quite what promoting the Olympic spirit is all about.

See the original post here:
Censorship, self-censorship and the Olympic spirit: Confusion over blocking of BBC content as Olympic rules kick in

Free speech is an intersection with multiple roads traveling in myriad directions. People tend to forget that.

Take the cause du jour at the moment chicken sandwich, waffle fries and lemonade making fast food operator Chick-Fil-A and its strong biblically based stand against same-sex marriage stated in no uncertain terms by company president Dan Cathy. He is free to have and state his opinion and say it on behalf of his business. In return, people are free to offer theirs in return even boycott the business if they choose to do so. People on the opposing side of the argument have done so to other businesses over the past decade.

Thats how free speech works.

So, too, are the Muppets well within their rights to shun Chick-fil-A. Theyre private, um, puppets.

But public officials have a responsibility to carry out their ministerial tasks fairly and evenhandedly and to uphold the principle of free speech whether or not they like a business executives social or political stances. While we disagree with Cathy, we are far more troubled by the reaction of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who vowed to block Chick-fil-As effort to open an outlet in that city.

Cathys recent pronouncements on marriage provoked a storm of protest as well as support. Jim Henson Co. announced it would sign no more deals to feature its toys at the chicken restaurant. There were threats to boycott the companys food. Others swore to boycott the Muppets.

Boycotts are a time-honored way for consumers and groups to express their views through their spending power, though its worth noting that just as Americans have split along more divisive lines politically, so have their shopping habits. Some people wont travel to Utah because of Mormon support for Proposition 8; others wont step foot in a J.C. Penney because of its ads featuring same-sex couples. As both a private citizen and a prominent public figure, Menino is welcome to abstain from fried chicken sandwiches and urge others to do likewise.

Its a different matter if he attempts to trample the free speech rights of others by using the power of his office to fight against a business license for Chick-fil-A. Menino suggested that it would be appropriate to block the chain from opening in Boston because Cathys views amount to discrimination. That would rightly apply if Chick-fil-A were to refuse service to gay customers; the city has a right and an obligation to prevent discriminatory actions against its residents and visitors. But theres no evidence that any such thing has occurred.

Menino referred derisively to Chick-fil-As possible plans to open a restaurant along the citys Freedom Trail, considering Cathys stand on marriage freedom. That too misreads law and history. It was the freedom to express politically unpopular views and to oppose such views that the Founding Fathers fought to establish. Boston used to be known as the prudish place most likely to ban anything outside of a set of strait-laced moral beliefs. Without freedom to express once unpopular viewpoints in this case, full civil rights for gay and lesbian couples Massachusetts wouldnt have become the first state to recognize same-sex marriage.

See the rest here:
Free speech, Chick-Fil-A and government

John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 7/30/2012 1:24:57 PM

Bob Pittman, CEO of Clear Channel, has been named to head a new Free Speech Week advisory council. Free Speech Week --Oct. 22-28, 2012 -- was launched in 2005 by the Media Institute in 2005 to spotlight democracy's ?most basic right." The goal is to raise the profile of the free speech initiative. ""Raising awareness of freedom of speech is a worthy and important initiative," said Pittman in a statement, "and I am happy to join with The Media Institute to increase national awareness of Free Speech Week and its role as the country's premier annual celebration of free speech." Pittman helped create MTV and has run or operated MTV Networks, America Online, Six Flags, Quantum Media, Century 21, and AOL Time Warner. "Bob Pittman and his colleagues on the FSW Advisory Council promise to take Free Speech Week to a whole new level of public awareness and participation," said Media Institute President Patrick Maines on the creation of the council. The Institute has yet to identify the other members of the council, but said they would be announced "shortly."

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Pittman To Promote Media Institute's Free Speech Week

Clayton Hardiman's column, "Free speech isn't free of consequences," about the Olympian booted from the Greek team, stirred some debate.

Hardiman wrote:

Papachristou was kicked off the Greek womens track team for posting a -- racist? tasteless? insensitive? -- joke on Twitter about the growing number of African immigrants in her country. With so many Africans in Greece ... at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food!!! she tweeted, along with comments of her support for the countrys extreme far-right Golden Dawn political party.

OK. Spectacularly unfunny. But should an unfunny joke -- even a horribly tasteless joke -- be enough to end ones lifelong dreams of Olympic participation? What about freedom of speech? Shouldnt Papachristou have the freedom to voice her opinion?

Well, of course she should. And she exercised that freedom. But often the people who shout the loudest about freedom of speech are the quickest to confuse it with freedom from consequences.

michprogressive supports allowing people to say really dumb things:

Freedom of speech is that, freedom to say what you feel, regardless of if it's really stupid. Conservative talk radio has been pushing that envelope for a very long time. But free speech has it's limits. If your speech causes physical harm to someone (yelling fire in a theater) or if are libelous then you can be held accountable. Sports, entertainment figures and politicians will continue to speak their minds and sometimes stick their feet in their mouths. It just proves that they are human like the rest of us.

I believe brainless is the problem. Whether I admire the person for other talents, brainless will always be what I remember about them.

Original post:
Readers discuss Clayton Hardiman's point: Free speech isn't free of consequences

27-07-2012 10:11 "You can get in trouble for saying almost anything these days on a college campus," says Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Lukianoff's latest book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, discusses 11 years of free speech restrictions and the how college bureaucrats have hampered open debate and encouraged a culture of uncritical thinking. Reason correspondent Kennedy sat down with Lukianoff at FreedomFest to discuss the book, his work at FIRE, and what students can do to fight back. Held each July in Las Vegas, FreedomFest is attended by over 2000 limited-government enthusiasts and libertarians a year. ReasonTV spoke with over two dozen speakers and attendees and will be releasing interviews over the coming weeks. About 4 minutes. Shot by Tracy Oppenhiemer and Alex Manning. Edited by Joshua Swain. Go to for downloadable versions and subscribe to our YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.

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Greg Lukianoff: How Colleges Fight Free Speech - Video

On Wednesday, YouTube became one of the first video sites to allow users to blur faces in footage, helping to protect anonymity with the click of a button.

It's a technology solution to a challenge that technology has exacerbated: With the growing ubiquity of cameras, citizens and activists around the world routinely upload images of rallies, riots and war zones, sometimes revealing troubling glimpses of police or military violence. But those same images can also put participants themselves at risk of arrest, torture or worse if their identities can be ascertained from the footage.

"We're at a point where a citizen can become a citizen witness very quickly and can rapidly endanger others," said Sam Gregory, program director at Witness, a nonprofit that uses video to highlight human rights abuses and has called on technology companies to provide features like the one YouTube introduced. "The blurring tool represents a thinking-through of the implications for images that can be seen by millions."

But YouTube videos are only one example where technology can be a double-edged sword for free expression. It amplifies voices of dissent, as we've seen with the Arab Spring and Occupy movements, but it can also put the identity of speakers at risk.

While the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right to anonymous speech, the tools of 21st century communications often make anonymity difficult to guarantee. Most e-mails, blog posts and video uploads can be traced back to an IP address that, in turn, can be linked to an account holder.

"Generally speaking, when we act online, we leave digital footprints and traces of our activity in all sorts of places," said Chris Conley, technology and civil liberties policy attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.

Protecting identities thus falls to mobile carriers, Internet service providers and online sites that don't always have their users' best interests at heart, or are sometimes compelled by judges or officials to turn over sensitive information.

Reporters Without Borders has linked the arrest and jailing of several dissidents and journalists in China to user information that Yahoo turned over to authorities. The Sunnyvale Internet giant later apologized before Congress and settled a lawsuit brought by the families of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, both of whom were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Subjects of anonymous attacks in the United States have also sought to unmask their online critics, with varying results.

In 2010, then-Pennsylvania Attorney General (now governor) Tom Corbett asked a grand jury to issue a subpoena forcing Twitter to reveal the identities behind two accounts critical of his campaign.

See the article here:
Web a double-edged sword for free speech

20-07-2012 02:00 President Obama promised "change". But did he deliver? The war on Internet freedom was declared on his watch. Download the song and video at Follow me This song was produced by Kim Dotcom, Printz Board and Sleep Deez. With lyrics and vocals by Kim Dotcom and friends. The lyrics: The war for the Internet has begun. Hollywood is in control of politics. The Government is killing innovation. Don't let them get away with that. I have a dream, like Dr. King, this is the time to stand up and fight. By any means, if we dont do anything, they will just blame it on the copyright. Keep this movement going. Keep this movement tweeting. Keep this movement moving. The pursuit of happiness. Happiness. Happiness. Happiness. The pursuit of happiness. Let's get together, lets all unite, or they will do whatever they like. Let's get together, lets all unite, or they will do whatever they like. What about free speech, Mr. President? What happened to change, Mr. President? Are you pleading the fifth, Mr. President? Are you going to fix this, Mr. President? We must oppose, don't vote for those, who want to take us back in time. We must expose, the people who chose, to turn innovation into crime. Let's get together, lets all unite, or they will do whatever they like. Let's get together, lets all unite, or they will do whatever they like. What about free speech, Mr. President? What happened to change, Mr. President? Are you pleading the fifth, Mr. President? Are you going ...

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Kim Dotcom - Mr President - Video