Category Archives: Free Speech

As someone who makes his living by challenging ideas through humor, social commentary and, if warranted, ridicule, I care deeply about free speech. And there is a growing movement across our college campuses to shut down free speech of teachers, students and invited guests. This should scare the hell out of all us all.

Ive been doing talk radio for more than three decades and I host a daily podcast. This means I constantly have guests on who disagree with me on many subjects. Challenging their ideas and points of views while they do the same to me is an important part of the public discourse. One thing Ive learned about Americans from talking with them for more than 30 years is that we like to argue and debate, even among friends and were damn good at it.

But seriously, America has been that safe space where truth can be spoken to power. Where We the People can challenge a king and a corrupt idea like a monarchy. This right has been reaffirmed through our history. Its been fought for, and people have died for it. We must understand that we have the right to free expression, not the right to not be offended. This fundamental difference is being lost on todays college campuses.

We should not be teaching students to retreat from debate, but to charge intellectually into it. This is one of the most valuable and profound gifts given to us in the founding of America.

When we enter into robust debate, the best ideas will most often rise. Its when ideas and points of view are censored that our country loses, because we may miss new ideas or other ones may not have been properly examined.

I used to love to play colleges as a comedian. College campuses were a fantastic place to perform, but today the negatively-charged environment where everyone is offended has made it toxic. Its so bad that some of the top comedians, including Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher and Chris Rock not exactly a right-wing cabal have noted that performing on a college campus is no longer a real option due to the labyrinth of speech codes and hurt feelings.

As comedians, we find subjects, which often includes stereotypes. Then, we make social commentary or a joke about it. String enough of those together and you have a routine. And heres a window into my business: Offending people is the foundation of what comedians do. Finding a moment, person, group or idea and holding it up for ridicule has been a part of comedy since the very first joke ever told.

Someone will almost always be offended; its risky, but if youre a good comedian the joke will reveal a truth we can all recognize. Without this, were all just sitting in a dark theater buying two overpriced drinks. Comedians are the modern-day court jesters holding the mirror of truth back up to society.

I also know that what happens at college does not stay at college. Given this generations impulse to post every moment of life online, nothing they do will stay in college. In fact, it will haunt them from job interview to job interview. There seems to be a growing movement to shut down differing points of view that are not politically correct or fit neatly into todays speech codes, which are nothing short of thought-regulation.

The centrifuge of this movement is ironically the college campus the place that has traditionally been the center of the free exchange of ideas. Instead, colleges now have places known as safe spaces where students who feel threatened by concepts, ideas, differing views, other ethnicities or different economic or geographical backgrounds may retreat.

We currently have more than 20 million people attending colleges or degree-granting programs. This is up from 17.8 million in 2006.Thats a lot of trigger warnings and play-doh and puppy crap to pick up from safe spaces if we continue down the coddling road. But I digress.

Ive also seen how speakers have faced being shut down, intimidated from speaking and even physically assaulted on campus. I recently faced being shut down when nationally-syndicated radio host Dennis Prager and I planned to hold an event at Cal State Northridge in California. The producers of the event confirmed the rental of the facilities, and then, suddenly, two weeks prior to the event, were told the school did not want to have controversial speakers such as Dennis and myself on campus.

Me, I can understand the offense, but Dennis, hes just really tall and really smart. This was later deemed a scheduling conflict not a content conflict. Eventually, after lawyers jumped in, the scheduling conflict was resolved, and the event was held. It also produced a No. 1 iTunes comedy album. But it showed me up close what is happening on campus. To be candid, it shocked me, because our colleges should be an important place that embraces free speech, intellectual diversity and challenging ideas.

What is provided in these safe spaces, and why is it a problem? Instead of fostering the development of young adults, colleges are providingcoloring books, play-doh, puppies and stuffed animals.Its basically your four-year-old daughters bedroom where one can shut out the challenges, facts and outside world. Providing this bubble-wrapped type of education does not prepare the next generation for the challenges of life. It prepares them for failure.

Can you imagine a student like this getting a job in customer service for an IT company where millions of dollars are on the line, and rather than being able to address or fix a problem, they will need play-do and puppies to get through the day?

We also hear a cry for diversity on college campuses, which is total boloney. Diversity by definition doesnt just mean differing races, genders or ethnicities coexisting. True diversity is intellectual diversity, where differing points of view and ideas can be discussed, even the ones we vehemently disagree with. True diversity requires points of view we disagree with, otherwise it wont be diverse, only self re-affirming.

But this definition of diversity does not seem to fit within the current college campus. The definition being pushed is not one of true diversity, but reaffirming already approved thoughts. Its basically like were dressing ideological uniformity in a cheap supermarket costume but calling it diversity. We all know the real kid behind the mask, but students and teachers are forced to go along with the charade.

This point couldnt be made any clearer than by Sol Stern, one of the co-founders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. Stern, looking back 50 years later on what he saw as the failure of the original Free Speech Movementobserved, Because the claim that the FSM was fighting for free speech for all (i.e., the First Amendment) was always a charade. Within weeks of FSMs founding, it became clear to the leadership that the struggle was really about clearing barriers to using the campus as a base for radical political activity. Our movement ignored Orwells warning that political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.

Orwell was right, and 50 years later, the climate on college campuses is growing worse. The stated goal of diversity has been one of inclusion, but the recent growth of identity politics has reversed this to ultimately promote exclusion, nearly indiscernible from Jim Crow laws of the 1940s.

While our national motto is E Pluribus Unum, or out of many, one, identity politics creates a divisive power play on the pattern of basing ones identity on characterizations like race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion and on down the line in as many divided categories of oppression as one can imagine.

Ultimately this movement against challenging ideas is a disservice to students, as theyre not being prepared for the world outside their safe spaces. Instead, their diplomas some of which cost in the mid-six figures will have actually set them back. I think the only thing worse than being uneducated is being mis-educated.

Adam Carolla is a comedian, television host, actor, podcaster, author and director. He hosts "The Adam Carolla Show," which set the Guinness World record in 2011 for "most downloaded podcast." He and Dennis Prager are currently filming a documentary, "No Safe Spaces," which explores political correctness on college campuses.

Th views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

View post:
OPINION | Carolla: 'Safe spaces' harm free speech, stunt students ... - The Hill (blog)

(New York Magazine) While there is no set precedent for the issue, more and more courts are encountering a new type of lawsuit related to social-media blocking. The Knight Foundation, for instance, is suing the U.S. government on behalf of Twitter users blocked by President Donald Trump, whose Twitter account has become alarmingly vital when it comes to understanding his presidency.

This week, a federal court in Virginia tackled the issue when it ruled on behalf of a plaintiff blocked by a local county politician. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brian Davison sued the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who temporarily banned him from her Facebook page after he posted criticism of local officials last year. Judge James Cacheris found that she had violated Davisons First Amendment rights by blocking him from leaving comment, because, in his judgment, the chairwoman, Phyllis Randall, was using her Facebook page in a public capacity. Though it was a personal account, she used it to solicit comments from constituents.

Link:
Court: Politicians blocking followers violates free speech - WND.com

The White House. (photo credit:REUTERS)

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this month, one of America's largest civil liberties organizations announced opposition to a congressional bill that would target international efforts to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, setting up an uncomfortable fight between US-based Israel lobbies and free speech advocates.

The ACLU a union at the forefront of several battles against the Trump administration over the rights of immigrants, refugees and minority groups facing systemic discrimination said the bill would make worse a 1970s-era law that had already stymied the ability of individuals and companies to exercise their constitutional right to boycott.

But the Israel Anti-Boycott Act was jointly introduced in March by a Senate Democrat and a House Republican, with cosponsors from both sides of the aisle a rare moment of bipartisanship in 2017, as several other legislative items on Israel have wrought division.

In recent years, efforts to legislate against the BDS movement have largely taken place at the state and local level. That tactic has proven successful on paper: The nation's largest states, including California, Texas, Florida and New York, have all passed harsh measures that effectively prevent their states from aiding businesses that partake in boycotts of Israel.

But this new bill takes a different approach, reacting to new global efforts beyond the reach of any one state. It was drafted in reaction to a decision from the United Nations Human Rights Council last spring to compile a "blacklist" of companies operating in the Palestinian territories, defined by them as anywhere beyond the pre-1967 war Green Line.

The anti-boycott act would amend the Export Administration Act of 1979 originally written to protect US companies from Arab League sanctions on Israel to protect Israel and Israeli businesses from international boycotts of virtually any kind. Specifically, the bill would criminally penalize any US person seeking to collect information on another party's relationship with Israel in pursuance of a boycott.

The ACLU has been joined in recent days by several other civil liberties advocates warning that the law would encroach on free speech: One's right to join a boycott called for by an organization such as the United Nations. They claim that the law as it is currently written is blatantly unconstitutional in this regard.

But the language of the bill offers a clever counterargument: That enforcement of the US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2014, which compels the US to deepen strategic, security and economic ties as much as possible, definitionally requires Washington to rebut the BDS effort. And it simply expands on the sturdy parameters of 1979 export regulations that prohibit the boycott of friendly countries.

Supporters of the argue that the ACLU's argument against the legislation is, in fact, an argument against the Export Administration Act a basis for international sanctions levied against governments worldwide in the name of national security. The ACLU, on the other hand, argues that its problem with the bill is that is targets specific companies choosing whether to enter into business with other specific companies, such as one operating a factory in West Bank settlements.

Authors of the bill note their legislation takes no position on Israel's settlement activity.

"The ACLU has long supported laws prohibiting discrimination, but this bill cannot fairly be characterized as an anti-discrimination measure, as some would argue," the organization said in a July 17 letter to lawmakers. "For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prevents businesses from discriminating against customers based on race, color, religion, and national origin."

"This bill, on the other hand, aims to punish people who support international boycotts that are meant to protest Israeli government policies, while leaving those who agree with Israeli government policies free from the threat of sanctions for engaging in the exact same behavior," the group continues. "Whatever their merits, such boycotts rightly enjoy First Amendment protection."

Share on facebook

Read more from the original source:
US bill on Israel boycotts sets up free speech battle - The Jerusalem Post

An attitude has grown up among some Americans that free speech is only for opinions we agree with. Gone is the once liberal view that although I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it. That attitude is now seen as folly, though it actually comes from confidence and strength.

This new view of no free speech for fascists was expressed at a Charlottesville City Council meeting (Activists demand answers from city, The Daily Progress, July 18) when one of the protesters against Ku Klux Klan and alt-right demonstrations said, This brainless defense of free speech is killing us. If your speech is being used to promote that other human beings dont deserve rights, thats not a form of speech we have any obligation to defend or protect, at all. (The old view was that it is precisely the opinion that nobody likes that needs to be protected in order to protect everyones rights.)

A liberal from the 1970s might wonder how this change in attitude came about, but Peter Breggin, back in 1979, put his finger on it when he suggested that the reason why the American Civil Liberties Union famously defended Nazis was because the Nazis had no power and were regarded as underdogs. If the ACLU had thought the Nazis had real power, he opined, they would not have defended them.

By any objective analysis, the alt-right and KKK have no real power today. They are fringe groups that represent un-American ideologies. But they are not seen that way by self-identified resistance groups who fear an existential threat from people with different opinions.

Even mildly different opinions are seen as threats through this lens of insecurity. This need to defend against threats both real and imagined has become justification for disorderly conduct or, in some cities, even violence.

As the attitude becomes No free speech for fascists and well tell you who the fascists are, the danger is that it will be too late by the time people with this attitude look into the mirror and see their enemy looking back at them.

Miles N. Fowler, Albemarle County

See the original post:
Opinion/Letter: Free speech must apply to everyone - The Daily Progress

To the editor: As the father of two 2017 graduates of both Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School this past May, I was heartened to read that College President Hiram Chodosh followed through with his commitment to discipline the hooligans who disrupted the appearance of speaker Heather MacDonald. ( Re College suspends 5 over protest, July 24)

The intent of a liberal arts education is to present all views to its students so they may acquire the ability to process diverse opinions and formulate their own conclusions. When divergent viewpoints and those who deliver them are shouted down, denied a forum or threatened with physical violence the entire system breaks down.

Incidents at UC Berkeley and other institutions formally known as bastions of free speech have demonstrated the need for swift discipline to preserve our 1st Amendment rights. I applaud Chodosh and his team and hope this restores to our higher education system some measure of balance.

Rick Wilson, Pasadena

To the editor: Hooray for Chodosh for teaching students that might makes right.

Heather MacDonalds support of police actions shooting unarmed citizens of color absolutely needs protection.

Ignore students free speech rights because students are considered the bottom of the stack, without rights of any kind.

Please fill in your full name, mailing address, city of residence, phone number and e-mail address below. Submissions that do not include this information cannot be published. This information is seen only by the letters editors and is not used for any commercial purpose. We generally do not publish...

Please fill in your full name, mailing address, city of residence, phone number and e-mail address below. Submissions that do not include this information cannot be published. This information is seen only by the letters editors and is not used for any commercial purpose. We generally do not publish...

President Chodoshs fearless brave actions in suspending outraged students and doling out stiff disciplinary actions should be applauded. Incendiary speakers invited to a campus setting are expected to raise protests. Wasnt that why Chodosh allowed MacDonald to speak in the first place?

Most college presidents handle these situations differently.

Marcy Bregman, Agoura Hills

To the editor: It's about time that finally the president of Claremont McKenna College stood up for our basic right of free speech.

Hopefully, more universities will remember that it is they who are in control of enforcing school regulations, not the students. Too many situations arise when it is the students who seem to make the rules as to what "they" consider is free speech.

Prohibiting speakers they disagree with by shouting them down, inhibiting free access, and causing property damage and violence are the direct opposite of free individual thought. Colleges and universities are places where all aspects of ideas should be expressed.

Kudos to the Claremont McKenna president for standing up for the majority of the student body.

John Golden, Thousand Oaks

To the editor: The actions seem disproportionately harsh, and are resulting in a devastating disruption of the educations and job quests of the students being disciplined.

At a time when media professionals and the rest of us in the community are struggling to formulate an articulate response to the Trump administration and its complete lack of veracity, moral discipline and intellectual integrity, these actions are only causing more confusion for students trying to discern how to stand up for their convictions and for the rights of their brothers and sisters to be free of rhetorical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, legal and physical violence against them.

Any laws broken by the students during their protest could not possibly be proportionate to the violence suffered by members of our community when ignorant, morally repugnant, and bigoted viewpoints are given disproportionate space in the public commons at the Claremont Colleges and elsewhere.

Brian Prestwich, Los Angeles

To the editor: I was at Claremont McKenna College when a number of students, displaying a great deal of artificial bravery, blocked my visibly elderly and visibly handicapped person from entering the building at which Heather Mac Donald was to speak.

As a child of the 1960s, when protests took place about much more important things, I wondered whether any of them had ever even bothered to vote. Shouting their almost-unintelligible slogans in my face, these wannabe revolutionaries refused to hear my explanations that I was there to attend a special event which was completely unrelated to their blockade.

By their anti-democratic behavior, the protesters made MacDonald, whom I frankly despise, look better than she deserves.

Don Fisher, Claremont

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

Read the original post:
Free speech or college crackdown? - Los Angeles Times

While there is no set precedent for the issue, more and more courts are encountering a new type of lawsuit related to social-media blocking. The Knight Foundation, for instance, is suing the U.S. government on behalf of Twitter users blocked by President Donald Trump, whose Twitter account has become alarmingly vital when it comes to understanding his presidency.

This week, a federal court in Virginia tackled the issue when it ruled on behalf of a plaintiff blocked by a local county politician. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brian Davison sued the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who temporarily banned him from her Facebook page after he posted criticism of local officials last year. Judge James Cacheris found that she had violated Davisons First Amendment rights by blocking him from leaving comment, because, in his judgment, the chairwoman, Phyllis Randall, was using her Facebook page in a public capacity. Though it was a personal account, she used it to solicit comments from constituents.

The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards, the judge stated in his ruling. Cacheris did emphasize that his ruling should not prohibit officials from moderating comments to protect against harassment. Davison was only banned for 12 hours, and Randall faces no penalties. Still, the ruling is one of the first in a growing, thorny legal issue surrounding social media that has already reached the White house.

Donald Trump might want to reconsider.

Video editors are on the lookout.

Amazon casts a long shadow.

Be careful what you hashtag.

The anonymous blog post was traced back to Brandon Katayama Hills home IP address.

It took Canadian police three months to find her.

With Apple discontinuing the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano, the day is soon approaching when the iPod will disappear altogether.

The draw? Drama. Drama. And more drama.

Jeff Bezos has become the worlds richest man, as well as the worlds richest person who looks like a jacked J.K. Simmons.

BuzzFeeds Tasty, creator of insanely shareable recipe videos, is rolling out a $150 inductive cooktop. Will its fans flock to it?

A nine-minute gap in tweets put the Pentagon on edge.

One of the webs biggest and most beloved repositories of Flash games and animations prepares for the death of the plug-in.

Because Twitter wasnt unbearable enough already.

After a tweet about how nobody attended a young womans shower went viral, money and gifts started pouring in.

Nathan Myhrvold said he was making just that in 2010. Were still waiting.

Zo Quinn spent much of her life playing and designing games. Then she found herself inside one a vicious, multiplayer real-time harassment bonanza.

The star was recently let go from his role on the Disney Channel after news broke that hes terrorizing his L.A. neighborhood.

Read the rest here:
Court Rules That Politicians Blocking Followers Violates Free Speech - New York Magazine

That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

Former UCLA professorKeith Fink, who taught a class on free speech opened up about his firing from the school, saying there is "no doubt" he would still have a job if his views were liberal.

Fink, who filed a formal complaint with his unionpointed to the new Chair of the Department of Communication Studies, Kerri Johnson, whom he says has "great disdain for conservative views"as the driving force behind his ousting.

It was "preordained from the day she came in that the school was intent on getting rid of me," he told "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

"Mr. Keith Fink's teaching does not meet that standard of excellence," the school said in a statement, which Fink called a "french farce."

After the school slashed his class enrollment, students protested Fink's treatment saying they were prevented from enrolling in his classes.

Fink, who is also an attorney was known at UCLA for defending students if the school tried to "steamroll" their rights. In the last couple of years he acted as an advisor in cases involving Title lX for students who had done "absolutely nothing" but whose futures were threatened by school disciplinary action.

Fink added that he is the most vocal conservative there, and could count the outwardly conservative professors on one hand.

The professor concluded saying that he is saddest because he loves teaching.

"There's no amount of money that equals the joy I get out of steering someone in the right direction or teaching them a new thought or exposing them to a Bob Dylan song."

Long Island Sheriff Cites Gang Eradication Progress Under Trump

Hannity: GOP - The 'Party of Zero Identity' - Is Failing the American People

That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

Excerpt from:
Popular UCLA Prof Who Taught Free Speech Says He Was Fired ... - Fox News Insider

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is a minor updating of a venerable statute that has been at the center of the U.S. consensus on Israel policy the laws designed to counteract Arab states boycott of Israel by barring Americansfrom joining such boycotts.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union has dropped a bomb:It says the proposed act unconstitutionally abridges free speech.Although the ACLU is only lobbying against the current bill, its argument is against the entire system of federal anti-boycott law, including the anti-boycott provisions of the 1977 Export Administration Act, a consequence that the groupseems unwilling to admit (see Eugene Volokhspost). Indeed, the ACLUs position would make many U.S. sanctions against foreign countries (Iran, Russia, Cuba, etc.) unconstitutional.

The ACLUs claims are as weak as they are dramatic. I should note that I have been involved with state-level anti-BDS (boycott, sanctions and divestment) legislation and have advised on some of the federal bills. Althoughwell-crafted measures avoid First Amendment problems, there are ways such laws can get it wrong, and I have been open in calling out measures that go too far. (For example, the application of such laws to prevent a Roger Waters concert is quite problematic.)

Current law prohibits U.S. entities from participating in or cooperating with international boycotts organized by foreign countries. These measures, first adopted in 1977, were explicitly aimed at the Arab states boycott of Israel, but its language is far broader, not mentioning any particular countries.

Since then, these laws and the many detailed regulations pursuant to them, have been the basis for a large number of investigations and prosecutions of companies for boycott activity. The laws are administered by a special unit of the Commerce Department, theOffice of Antiboycott Compliance.

The existing laws cover not just participation in a boycott, but also facilitating the boycott by answering questions or furnishing information, when done in furtherance of the boycott. For example, telling a Saudi company, You know, we dont happen to do business with the Zionist entity would be prohibited. It is no defense for one who participates in the Arab League boycott to argue that they happen to hate Israel anyway. Nor is it a defense to argue that one loves Israel and is simply being pressured by Arab businesses. It is the conduct that matters, not the ideology.

That is why the law has been upheld against First Amendment challenges in the years after its passage and has not raised any constitutional concerns in nearly four decades since. Refusing to do business is not an inherently expressive activity, as the Supreme Court held in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. It can be motivated by many concerns. It is only the boycotters explanation of the action that sends a message, not the actual business conduct. Those expressions of views are protected, but they do not immunize the underlying economic conduct from regulation.

This distinction between the expression and the commercial conduct is crucial to the constitutionality of civil rights acts. In the United States, hate speech is constitutionally protected. However, if a KKK member places his constitutionally protected expression of racial hatred within the context of a commercial transaction for example, by publishing a For Sale notice that saysthat he will not sell his house to Jews or African Americans it loses its constitutional protection. The Fair Housing Act forbids publishing such discriminatory notices, and few doubt the constitutionality of the Fair Housing Act.

If the anti-boycott measures are unconstitutional, as the ACLU argues, it would mean that mostforeign sanctions lawsare unconstitutional. If refusing to do business with a country is protected speech because it couldsend a message of opposition to that countrys policies, doing business would also be protected speech. Thus, anyone barred from doing business with Iran, Cuba or Sudan would be free to do so if they saidit wasa message of support for the revolution, or opposition to U.S. policy, or whatever.

It is little wonder, then, that opponents of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act feel the need to exaggerate what the act does. Itonly makes clear that the old and existing anti-boycott law applies not just to the Arab League boycott, but also to the new foreign anti-Israel boycotts, such as those being organized by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The best example of a criticism based on exaggeration is a claim that the bill would forbid anti-Israel activists from even expressing support for boycotts. There is nothing in the bill to sustain such a criticism. The old law already forbids support for foreign state boycotts of Israel, and the many regulations enacted pursuant to the law already define support to be limited to certain specified actions that go well beyond merely speech support. See 15 C.F.R. 760.1(e)(1). Those actions, enumerated in detail in 15 C.F.R. 760.2, allow for none of the free-speech-scare scenarios conjured by the ACLU. The new bill does not change or alter the meaning of support. It simply clarifies the list of foreign boycotts covered by the law.

The current laws ban on support of the Arab League boycott has never been used to punish opponents of Israel simply for expression. The expansion of the list of covered boycotts in the new bill wouldnot make it any easier to go after boycott activists. Anti-Israel divestment campaigns unlinked to foreign boycotts clearly support the Arab League boycott in the sense of promoting the same views and seeking the same goals. But they have never fallen within the scope of the existing prohibition, and they would not under the new bill.

It is easy to invent absurdly broad readings of statutes that would make them unconstitutional. The real question is if the statute would ever be applied and interpreted in that way. With the current bill, one need not wonder how it wouldbe enforced: There are decades of administrative regulations and enforcement policies under the existing law that wouldapply to the new one. These all confine the prohibition to commercial conduct.

Such updating of the 1977 anti-boycott measures could not be more timely. Several United Nations agencies have initiated secondary boycotts of Israel that is, boycotting non-Israeli companies because of their connectionto the Jewish state. In support of such secondary boycotts, the U.N.Human Rights Council is preparing a blacklist of Israeli-linked companies (using such a broad definition of supporting settlements that the blacklist couldsweep in any Israeli-linked firm).

The UNHRCs blacklist of Israeli companies is unprecedented the organization has never made lists of private companies or entities for any purpose. Indeed, as has been shown in a recent report I authored, the Human Rights Council clearly does not regard businesses supporting settlements to be a human rights issue except when Israel is involved.

The blacklist is not a mere research project. It will serve as the basis for economic action against the listed firms. Indeed, the UNHRC has not been coy about its motives; a year after passing the resolution calling for the database, it passed a resolution that in effect calls for a partial boycott against Israel. (Existing federal boycott regulations make clear that a regulated boycott call need not be explicit.) It is quite likely that U.N. agencies will begin avoiding business with companies because of those companies business with Israel.

Given the timing of the legislative process, starting a bill now that responds to things that have begun to happen and will materialize at the end of the year is not prophylactic; it is merely timely. Moreover, given the United Nations extraordinary obsession relating to Israel, it is quite proper for Congress to take what measures it can to forcefully check and deter the increasingly severe manifestations of this bias.

In short, the proposed statute is a timely action to expand the list of prohibited foreign boycotts with which it is forbidden to comply. The legislation does nothing to restrict anti-Israel expressions or even local BDS activity. Anyone who wishes to express their opposition to Israel through boycotts isentirely free to do so. The real question is why the ACLU is now attacking the basic constitutional understandings that underpin decades of American foreign policy and civil rights regulation but confining itsnew First Amendment standard to laws relating to Israel.

See original here:
Israel anti-boycott bill does not violate free speech - Washington Post

Google will face "irreparable harm" unless a judge blocks the enforcement of a Canadian takedown order, the company argues in new court papers.

"Google has been forbidden by a Canadian court from exercising its First Amendment rights," the company says in papers filed Thursday. The company adds that in the U.S., a deprivation of free speech rights amounts to "irreparable injury."

Google makes the argument in a motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California to issue an injunction against enforcing a ruling issued last month by Canada's Supreme Court.

The move marks the latest twist in a legal battle dating to 2012, when technology company Equustek asked a judge in British Columbia to order Google to remove search results for Datalink Technologies -- which allegedly stole trade secrets from Equustek and engaged in counterfeiting.

advertisement

advertisement

The Canadian court issued a worldwide injunction prohibiting Google from displaying search results for Datalink. That order was upheld last month by Canada's Supreme Court.

Earlier in the week, Google sought a declaratory judgment invalidating the order, arguing that it goes against free speech principles.

In its newest court papers, Google says it is entitled to a preliminary injunction because the order subjects the company to irreparable harm, and because an injunction is in the public interest. "Given the fundamental constitutional issues at stake, Google is irreparably harmed by the Canadian orders prior restraint on protected speech, which prohibits Google from truthfully displaying information in the United States about publicly available websites," Google argues.

Google adds that the order unfairly burdens internet companies that were not parties to the initial dispute, and also "threatens what information U.S. internet users can access."

The order "compels Google to suppress truthful speech," the company writes. "Even where Datalink websites are otherwise relevant and responsive to a users query, Google cannot report in its U.S. search results the existence of sites that are readily available to the public."

See the original post here:
Canadian Takedown Order Threatens Free Speech, Google Argues - MediaPost Communications

Two pro-life students have won a free speech battle against a man who harassed them and attempted to halt their protesting by intimidation, media outlets reported Thursday.

The teens, Connor and Lauren Haines, were protesting on a public sidewalk outside their school when Zach Ruff, the Vice Principal of Academics and Student Life at the Downingtown STEM Academy, came up to them and berated them with foul language and vulgar slurs. The conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)announcedthe victory in a Thursdaystatement,detailing the settlement between the Pennsylvania school district and the teens.

No government employee especially someone with authority over students should harass or threaten anyone for exercising their First Amendment protected freedoms in public, ADF senior counsel Kevin Theriot said, according to The Blaze.

The students reported the assault and both they and the ADF condemned the affront, but it wasnt until Thursday that the district released itsJuly 7letterwhich acknowledged that he had violated the protesters rights.

You had every right under our constitutions First Amendment to speak and display signs like you did, and that right was violated by Dr. Ruff, the school district superintendent said. Rest assured that Dr. Ruffs actions do not represent the policy of the School District.

The district said it will train employees to not violate free speech rights going forward.

WATCH:

The school put Ruff on paid administrative leave, and he has since resigned from his teaching post. The teens did not file a lawsuit against the district and that neither of the studentsattended the school outside of which they were protesting.

Follow Graceon Twitter.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [emailprotected].

See the article here:
Pro-Life Teens Win Free Speech Battle | The Daily Caller - The Daily Caller