Free speech – Page 5 – The Burning Platform

New Jersey Judge Orders Newspaper to Take Down Article; Newspaper Refuses

Here’s a very interesting case in which Bergen County Superior Court Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca issued an order directing the Bergen Dispatch to remove a news article. The newspaper refused the demand. Techdirt reports:

This seems to happen all too often, but a local judge has forgotten about the whole 1st Amendment thing. Last week, Bergen County Superior Court Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca ordered the Bergen Dispatch to take down a news article. The article was about a specific family court case, involving custody of a child. It’s not surprising that there might be some concern over privacy rights in such cases, but even so, that does not allow a judge to flat out order a newspaper to take down an article — even more so when the order came out of a closed hearing where no one from the newspaper was even present. In response, the Bergen Dispatch posted a fairly snarky article that reiterates some of the details from the case, and concludes with this wonderful paragraph:

While the Bergen Dispatch reviews its options we have confirmed that Bergen County does currently remain part of the State of New Jersey and that currently New Jersey is still part of the Union of states that is governed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As such, Bergen County citizens continue to enjoy the right to freedom of speech and the right to a free press.

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Informed of this little tidbit of information, the judge has since vacated the original order, but it’s still astounding that it had to go that far in the first place.

The key takeaway here is a very important one: Know Your Rights. The status quo depends on a mass of ignorant serfs in order to get away with much of what it does. See:

Know Your Rights – How to Respond When Police Tell You to Stop Filming

Innocent Army Veteran Framed by Louisiana Police and Prosectors Barely Escapes Jail Due to Cellphone Video

Video of the Day – Understanding the 5th Amendment and Why a Law Professor Says “Don’t Talk to Police”

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

CNN Anchor Says Constitution Doesn’t Protect Hate Speech, Try Reading It. Okay, Let’s Do That.

Guest Post by Robby Soave

Spoiler: Hate speech actually is protected.

Chris Cuomo is co-host of CNN’s morning show. He’s also a former law and justice correspondent for ABC News. He has a law degree from Fordham University and is a licensed attorney. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is his brother.

In other words, this is somebody you’d expect would know what he’s talking about on the subject of basic constitutional facts. And yet:

Cuomo Twitter

This was in response to the shooting outside Pamela Geller’s “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest event in Garland, Texas. According to Cuomo, Geller and her ilk might not have a First Amendment right to express anti-Muslim speech deemed hateful—it says so, right there in the Constitution, if we would bother to read it.

Continue reading “CNN Anchor Says Constitution Doesn’t Protect Hate Speech, Try Reading It. Okay, Let’s Do That.”

FRENCH INTERPRETATION OF FREE SPEECH

That’s funny. European politicians joined together in solidarity to rejoice in the beauty of free speech. I guess their interpretation of free is different than mine. If you agree with their government approved speech, than it’s OK. If not, they arrest you.

The French are going to use this incident as the reason to create their own Patriot Act. Rather than supporting the right to free speech, they will take away more liberties and freedoms from their citizens. It was so predictable. And the sheep will stand idly by while they are led to slaughter.

PARIS — France’s prime minister announced he would seek tighter surveillance of convicted extremists Tuesday and reports emerged that the weapons used by a terror cell to kill 17 people around Paris came from outside the country.

In a rousing, indignant speech, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “serious and very high risks remain” and warned the French not to let down their guard. He called for new surveillance of imprisoned radicals and told the interior minister to come up with new security proposals shortly.

In a sign that French judicial authorities were using laws against defending terrorism to their fullest extent, a man who had praised the terror attacks in a drunken rant to police was swiftly sentenced Monday to four years in prison.

French Comedian Arrested Over Sympathizing With Charlie Hebdo Killer

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/14/2015 15:26 -0500

Yesterday we discussed the crackdown on ‘extremism’ around the world (and its potential implications for freedom). Today, as The Guardian reports, notorious French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala is now intimately aware of the implications, having been arrested for being an “apologist for terrorism” after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathised with one of the Paris gunmen.

As The Independent reports, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls attacked Dieudonné, calling him a “peddler of hate and said there should be no confusion between the ‘impertinent’ satire of Charlie Hebdo and ‘anti-semitism, racism and negationism’.”

In an open letter, the comedian claimed on Tuesday that he had been misunderstood.

The comedian made international headlines in 2013 when French footballer Nicolas Anelka was banned for five matches by English football authorities for using a gesture created by Dieudonné that many consider to echo the Nazi salute.

His original statement on his Facebook page was as follows:

“After this historic, no legendary, march, a magic moment equal to the Big Bang which created the Universe, or in a smaller (more local) way comparable to the crowning of the (ancient Gaullish king) Vercingétorix, I am going home. Let me say that this evening, as far as I am concerned, I feel I am Charlie Coulibaly.”

What he had meant to say on Facebook, he said, was that “I am considered like another Amedy Coulibaly when in fact I am no different from Charlie.”

* * *
Be careful what you say – or think!!

I THOUGHT THE WHOLE COUNTRY WAS A “FREE SPEECH ZONE”

No wonder Obama loves Hawaii so much. We need to ban the entire Constitution as soon as we get done banning guns, banning free speech, and making sure the government knows everything you are saying, doing, texting, and thinking.

Guest Post by Mike Krieger

Statists Declare War on Free Speech – College Students Banned from Handing Out Constitutions in Hawaii

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Michael Krieger

There appears to be a growing war against free speech on college campuses across America, and it is a battle we as a society and culture simply cannot lose. If you recall, last fall I highlighted a case in which a student at Modesto Junior College in California was prevented from handing out Constitutions to fellow students on Constitution Day. I suggest you go back and take a read and watch the very troubling video: California Student Banned from Handing Out Constitutions on Campus.

Well it appears that the Constitution is also considered contraband in the state of Hawaii. According to the Daily Caller:

Students Merritt Burch and Anthony Vizzone, members of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at UH-Hilo, were prevented from handing out copies of the Constitution at a recruitment event in January. A week later, they were again informed by a censorship-minded administrator that their First Amendment-protected activities were in violation of school policy.

Young Americans for Liberty is a great organization by the way.

The students were told that they could only distribute literature from within UH-Hilo’s “free speech zone,” a small, muddy, frequently-flooded area on the edge of campus.

Administrators further clarified their level of respect for students’ free speech rights, making comments like, “This isn’t really the ’60s anymore,” and “people can’t really protest like that anymore,” according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Administrators also maintained that university policy took precedent over Constitutional rights, according to the complaint.

“It’s not about your rights in this case, it’s about the University policy that you can’t approach people,” said Ellen Kusano, director of Student Affairs, according to the complaint.

While the above is absolutely ridiculous, and more representative of a totalitarian state than anything remotely resembling freedom, there is some good news. The same law firm that sued on behalf of the Modesto student I mentioned earlier (who won a $50,000 settlement), is suing on behalf of the University of Hawaii student.

Fox News reports that:

Two students at the University of Hawaii at Hilo are suing the school over alleged First Amendment violations after they were told by a campus official that they couldn’t approach fellow students to hand out copies of the Constitution.

The students are being represented by Davis Wright Tremaine, the law firm that recently helped a student who was blocked last year from handing out copies of the Constitution win a $50,000 settlement against Modesto Junior College in California.

According to the complaint, an administrator told Burch and Vizzone that if they wanted to protest the school’s policy, they could do so in the college’s “free speech zone,” described by FIRE as a one-third acre area on the edge of campus.

The “free speech zone” at UH Hilo represents less than one percent of the college’s total area and is muddy and prone to flooding, according to a FIRE news release.

“The First Amendment is not optional at public colleges—it’s the law. Enforcing restrictive ‘free speech zone’ policies that prevent students from passing out copies of the Constitution is impossible to justify,” Lukianoff said in a statement.

So the good news is these kids know their rights and they are fighting back. We should also applaud the efforts of the folks representing these kids at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

One important takeaway, which I am sure you noticed, is this ridiculous concept of “free speech zones” that the statists are attempting to use everywhere in an effort to stifle free speech. This was one of the things I most strong objected to in the BLM’s raid on the Bundy Ranch. I articulated this in my article: Why the Standoff at the Bundy Ranch is a Very Big Deal.

Let us never forget: The whole United States is a “free speech zone,” from sea to shining sea. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

As a reminder this is what the so-called “free speech area” looked like at Modesto Junior College (the orange circle):

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

Free Speech – a threatened commodity….

“Free speech”, such a simple two word phrase.. What is it? Do we really have it? Can we keep it?

Does free speech mean anything exactly? The ability to offend anyone we please, any time we please? The opportunity to spread religious dogma to any and all that will listen? Do we have the ability to force others to listen despite their wishes? Do we have the “right” to do that? What is a “right”?

Let’s look at the last, first.

A “right” is something we feel entitled to (like the FSA – they have a perceived “right” to their free shit). We have a right to this or that, be it a land title, a copyright, a car we “own” or something called “free speech”. We own these things because a whole lot of men, women and children have died in the defense of or earning and keeping that “right”. A lot of the women and children were peripheral casualties thereof but the cost to them was the same as for the men and women who fought the wars and died in battle.

There is an old saw that says, “Freedom is not free” and that includes free speech. It must be defended or earned as the case may be and it is also very easily lost if taken for granted. (for those interested in trivia, it was coined by Colonel Walter Hitchcock (USAF Retired)).

Unfortunately, here in the “Land of the Free”, our Federal Government is dallying with the idea of limiting free speech in the interest of something called “International respect of religion” whatever in hell that means. How is it so dallying?

The idiot who made the recent bad (from quality and taste) video “Innocence of Muslims”, posted it on YouTube is a good example of Federal knee jerk in the direction of not-so-free-speech. They made the attempt to get Google to remove it from YouTube.. Epic Fail. This led to riots in Egypt and Pakistan and the eventual death of a US Ambassador and three other Americans in our Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Did we, as a country, react any better this time to the murder of our citizens and destruction of internationally recognized American territory than Peanut Jimmy did in Iran so many years ago? No, we did not and more significant American “face” not to mention international legal “rights” were trashed. The incident has since been blamed on, of course, Al Quida who is a convient whipping boy for any attack anywhere these days, whether they did it or not.

[As an aside, Al Quida is now defunct as an organization except in NE Pakistan. Al Quida is an idea and a vicious cause, connecting many small, totally independent groups, acting mostly on their own, under one fearful name. At least our Federal Government wants Al Quida to be fearful as they are the “enemy” now in our perpetual war against “terror”. I personally call BULLSHIT on the whole idea of a war on terror. Instead, we should be laughing at their pitiful efforts because since 9/11/2001, they have not accomplished diddly here in this country and are only as effective as an occasional snake bite elsewhere. Almost every arrest for “terrorism” made in this country sind 9/11 has been made by a “sting” operation of the Feds planting agents among fools and facilitating some “act of terror” which is a sorry anti-real terrorism tactic. I’d be in more danger walking about naked in a severe Florida thunderstorm with a lightning rod raised above my head and a ground wire trailing from my poor old ass than I am from “Al Quida” !]

The real terrorist here is Islam. Echos of history abound as the Crusades and Inquisition come to mind – which were terroristic as any Al Quida operation, just operating with lesser tools and scope. Same old Shit… My religion is the only true religion and if you don’t believe in it and do as I say, I’ll kill you to make sure you do.

Idiocy.

Islam is a religion of poverty, ignorance, savagery, subjugation of women and death itself. There is no life itself here on Earth for it is all in paradise, promised to those who serve Islam and die doing it. Such crap.

Islam’s goal is world dominance of their religion and behavior, including their blasphemy and Sharia laws. Islams’ behavior does not include free speech and our current kiss-ass Federal Government is leaning ever more so backwards to accommodate this view by sniffing about the possibility of censoring publication of anything calculated (by them) to offend any religion, organization or peoples anywhere on the face of the globe. This is a very bad idea and worse policy on the part of the U.S. Federal Government.

They should, of course, be doing the exact opposite. Instead of sending a high ranking military group to attempt to silence the Florida backwoods preacher who wanted to burn the Koran (I’d have lit the match), they should toss a few extras on the fire and say in no uncertain terms the following:

“Free speech is the bed rock of our country, our way of life and our prosperity. The free and unfettered exchange of ideas and opinions has resulted in what became the most prosperous and power Nation the world has ever known. It could not have happened without free speech.”

That’s why is Free Speech is protected as the very first item in the Bill of Rights. Why was it first? I suspect because our founding fathers found that without the ability to freely communicate, everything from productive ideas and gossip to insults and ridicule, none of the other nine items were worth the parchment they were written on. That’s the way I feel too, in spades.

So the next time you hear Hillary Clinton try and pacify the United Nations or anyone else by blathering about “offensive language against religions everywhere” do us all a favor and write her a letter (with a cc: to Obummer) and tell her to stuff her attempts to limit our Free Speech up her not so tiny little butt. Anyone, anytime, at any level of Government from local thru State to Federal that tries to muzzle or limit free speech needs to be slapped down very quickly and very thoroughly and my multitudes of freedom loving Americans.

Free speech is America and America is the best “keeper of the light” as far as free speech and we should not risk losing even a shaving from it..