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As legal cases go, Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Trump is slightly complex. As politics goes, the Department of Justices (DOJ) involvement makes it even more so.

Reporter John Gizzi alluded to this case in a question to Sarah Sanders at a White House press briefing last week. Gizzi asked if President Trump was aware of the complaints surrounding religious freedom issues. Sanders replied she wasnt sure. Regardless, freedom of religious expression for religious leaders could be at stake in an important legal battle pitting three parties against one another.

When President Trump issued an executive order about the Johnson Amendment, limiting it from extending the Internal Revenue Services power to challenge churches tax exemption based on their teachings, the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit. It wants the IRS to enforce regulations to fine churches based on bureaucrats judgments of sermons.

There are three facets to this case: legal, political, and one blending both. At stake are religious expression and the separation of church and state.

First, the legal portion: Since 1954, many churches have operated in trepidation of the Johnson Amendment, a provision in the U.S. tax code that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The IRS has interpreted the Johnson Amendment aggressively, threatening consequences if churches get too political, even though its unclear whether the laws authors intended to target churches, instead of non-religious nonprofits, with its provisions.

The Federalists David Harsanyi has covered this particularly egregious amendment thoroughly. Sure, the IRS rule violates the First Amendment, but that hasnt stopped organizations from pushing the IRS to enforce it more, or at all. That includes FFR, a devout atheist organization that has sued over this amendment before.

Enter President Trump, the political portion of this legal battle. In May, Trump issued an executive order stating that the IRS should not enforce its interpretation of the Johnson Amendment on churches. Their speech should not be censored out of fear of the government. To wit:

In particular, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that the Department of the Treasury does not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization on the basis that such individual or organization speaks or has spoken about moral or political issues from a religious perspective, where speech of similar character has, consistent with law, not ordinarily been treated as participation or intervention in a political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) a candidate for public office by the Department of the Treasury.

In response to Trumps Executive Order, FFRF filed a lawsuit in a Wisconsin district court demanding that the IRS enforce the pulpit speech restrictions. Essentially FFRF is asking the court to enforce regulations that would threaten churches tax-exempt status, involve the IRS in churches finances, and levy fines against both the churches and their individual leaders. FFRF has tried to enforce the Johnson Amendment in a similar way three years ago but retracted their suit after Becket, a religious liberty law firm, got involved.

Finally, the political angle as it relates to these lawsuits. Several religious leaders in Wisconsin were concerned if FFRF won this suit the government would begin to censor their worship services. So they, with the help of Becket, filed suit to intervene. Becket filed a motion asking the court to reject FFRFs suit outright as a violation of the separation of church and state.

This case gets even more interestingand complicatedin the way DOJ responded to Beckets intervention on behalf of the Wisconsin pastors. Again, the pastors wish to actively oppose a suit that, if it succeeds, could harm their religious expression. They are essentially wishing to join the case in support of the executive branchs decision, and the Department of Justices job is to defend executive branch decisions in court.

Yet the same day the DOJ filed suit asking the court to reject FFRFs claims, it told the court in a separation motion two key facts: 1) that President Trumps May promise was meaningless and 2) the religious leaders Becket represented had no business intervening in this case. This means they argued if the court reached the motion to intervene, intervention should still be denied.

While the proposed intervenors desire to be heard in this litigation is understandable, and they offer a unique perspective that could be valuable to the Court, they do not meet the requirements for intervention, and it would be more appropriate for them to advance their arguments through participation as amici curiae. The proposed intervenors do not meet the requirements for intervention of right, because they do not have an interest in the outcome of the action that would meet the requirements of Rule 24(a)(2) (emphasis mine).

I asked Daniel Blomberg, legal counsel on this case at Becket, why he thought the DOJ would believe churches had no vested interest in legally protecting themselves by intervening in this lawsuit. If were talking about the IRS getting involved in the internal affairs of churches, surely churches have an interest in protecting themselves against that, he said. The real people who are going to be harmed if FFRF wins its lawsuit are the churches, so of course they should be allowed to speak up for themselves.

Blomberg added that whats even more strange is that FFRF didnt oppose the church leaders intervening in this case against Trump, even though they lost the last time Becket intervened, but for some reason Trumps own Department of Justice did. It looks weird when DOJ is opposing the churches and FFRF isnt.

Blomberg thinks people who care about religious expression need to start asking a few questions, namely, Why is the DOJ saying Trumps executive order is meaningless and How does it makes sense for DOJ to tell church leaders to stay out of this case?

Of course some would argue the Department of Justice is merely a band of civil servants, dedicated to doing work many of us never hear about much less can be grateful for, particularly during a tumultuous and unpredictable one-of-a-kind presidency. Others say this could be yet another exhibit of an administrative state rebellion against the presidents authority. Because this case is still ongoing, and the court has not responded to any of these motions filed last week, its difficult to conjecture.

The legal and political facets of this case are not only unique and complex but compelling, especially to those with a vested interest in the Constitutions Free Exercise and Establishment clauses. While its typical for an atheist organization to attempt to pressure government to censor religious speech, its more eyebrow-raising when the Department of Justice, which ostensibly works to accomplish the presidents goals, tries to invalidate the presidents attempts to encourage religious liberty, and actively works against religious leaders fighting censorship.

Excerpt from:
Why Is The Justice Department Telling Churches They Can't Defend Themselves Against Censorship? - The Federalist

China is cracking down on censorship once again, but this time things are a touch more serious. According to new rules published by Chinas main internet censor last Friday, netizens who want to post comments online will now have to register with their real names. They can still use pseudonyms, but those names are tied to their real identities. These new rules come ahead of the communist partys 19th National Congress, which convenes this autumn and is usually a time when the regime tightens the ship.

Half of this is nothing new; the Chinese regime has always ordered people to register with their real names and has made attempts to enforce this on various levels over the past three years. This time, however, the difference is that internet companies and service providers are being made responsible for ensuring users stay fully identified. Companies and service providers are also required to report any illegal content they see on any platform to the government.

Despite Chinas many attempts to control the internet, users have always found ways to skirt the rules and hide in a degree of anonymity in Weibo (a Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter) chats and other platforms. And the use of VPNs to bypass Chinas firewall has been prevalent there and in other totalitarian countries like Iran and Russia. But even the VPNs are beginning to fall under the relentless pressure of Chinese censorship. As of early August, Apple removed several VPN apps from the iTunes store in China, citing local law.

Now, China plans to do away with netizens last semblance of privacy by shifting the responsibility onto companies and service providers. So when a netizen adopts a username, they might call themselves by a different name on the web, but they cant hide their true name from the Chinese regime.

Go here to see the original:
China is forcing internet companies to end online anonymity - The Verge

The censorship row involving the worlds oldest publishing house and its most powerful one-party state has exposed the increasingly authoritarian turn China has taken under Xi Jinping, the editor of the journal at the centre of the controversy has said.

Criticism of Cambridge University Press intensified on Sunday over its controversial decision to comply with a Chinese request to block access to more than 300 articles from the China Quarterly, a leading China studies journal, so as to avoid having other publications targeted by Beijings censors.

Some vowed to boycott publications produced by CUP - which printed its first book in 1584 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I - until the step was reversed.

Speaking to the Guardian, Tim Pringle, China Quarterlys editor, said he hoped Chinese authorities would scrap their instruction to block more than 300 articles they deemed objectionable. He also hoped CUP chiefs would use meetings at a Beijing book fair this week to tell the Chinese government that the move represented a significant step backwards in terms of academic freedom.

However, Pringle, who is a senior lecturer at Londons School of Oriental and African Studies, admitted he was pessimistic about the chances of a Chinese change of heart. I cant see this being rolled back anytime soon, although we will lobby for that to happen. I think this is more about the configuration of the current leadership. It is a reflection of the Xi Jinping era. Its a stronger shade of authoritarian government that is less pragmatic, or certainly appears to be less pragmatic [that the previous administration].

Pringle described Chinas previous leaders, president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao, as authoritarians who had nevertheless been willing to take on views from an emerging and at times buoyant civil society and to respond pragmatically to some of those views.

That changed dramatically after Xi became the Communist partys general secretary, almost five years ago, in November 2012, and instigated a dramatic clampdown on opposition voices. Targets have included academics and journalists who have been ordered to toe the party line; human rights lawyers and their supporters who have been disappeared or jailed; and, now, the worlds oldest publishing house.

Pringle said: If you look at the foreign NGO law, if you look at the measures taken against various sectors of civil society, the feminist five, labour activists being sentenced and detained starting in December 2015, if you look at the very serious clampdown on lawyers since July 2015, [and] also journalists - this is an excluding of external and critical voices.

Pringle said he believed China Quarterly had been targeted because it contained the kind of critical material that was no longer welcome under Xi. We are outside the system [and] outside party control ... If there is one thing worse than an external voice its an external voice talking about things you dont want to hear.

In a biting open letter Georgetown Universitys James Millward accused CUP of showing a repugnant disdain for Chinese readers who now only had access to a misleading, neutered simulacrum of its journal, shorn of articles about politically-sensitive topics such as Tibet, democracy and the Tiananmen Square massacre .

Cambridge University Presss current concession is akin to the New York Times or The Economist letting the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] determine what articles go into their publications something they have never done. It would be unimaginable for these media to instead collaborate with PRC party censors to excise selected content from their daily or weekly editions.

Millward, a specialist in the far-western region of Xinjiang who has been repeatedly denied visas to visit China, noted that those news outlets had refused to produce incomplete, scissored-up, CCP versions because of pressure from Beijing. Cambridge University Press, on the other hand, is agreeably donning the hospital gown, untied in the back, baring itself to the Chinese scalpel, and crying cut away!

In an interview, Millward, whose name appears once on the list of censored China Quarterly articles, said he believed CUP had been far too quick to acquiesce to Chinas demands. They should have said, China Quarterly is a package deal: take it or leave it and not have worried that CUP products across the board would be banned from China.

I really doubt there was some sort of explicit threat that was delivered to them, Millward added. I rather think that they were leaping to that conclusion, that if they didnt comply then they would be retaliated against, and I think that conclusion is a false one.

Were we still in the paper-bound journal age, then there would be huge holes in these journals. And for Cambridge just to say, OK, we are just going to cut these out of the virtual version of the journal is really kind of appalling.

The Georgetown scholar said he did not believe Chinas leaders had issued a direct order to ban sensitive China Quarterly material. Rather, the instruction was likely to have been given by lower-level officials who were responding to the chilly political climate that has gripped China since Xi took power. Academic institutions and publishers around the world had been far too reticent about pushing back against such demands, he added.

Sebastian Veg, a Hong Kong specialist whose work was also on the list of blocked articles, admitted there was no ideal solution in a case like this, when you have to choose between doing the work of the censors for them or seeing your entire content blocked.

[However] I dont think its morally acceptable for a University Press to proactively censor its own content to gain access to any market.

Other foreign publishers and victims of Chinese censorship demands now needed to speak out. Resisting censorship requires naming and shaming.

CUP said last week that it would raise the issue with the agencies and the impending Beijing book fair. The issue of China and censorship is not a short-term issue and therefore requires a longer-term approach. There are many things we cant control, but we will take every opportunity to influence the agenda, CUP said.

Link:
Cambridge University Press censorship 'exposes Xi Jinping's ...

China announces new rules, forbidding unidentified netizens from posting anything on internet platforms

Chinas internet censorship is getting tougher and more comprehensive every day. On August 25, Chinas top internet regulator announced new rules to manage internet forums and communities, forbidding unidentified netizens from posting anything on internet platforms. The new rules will become effective on October 1.

As The Diplomat has been following, since Chinese president Xi Jinping took office, China has been systematically increasing online control, and 2017 has witnessed the most fierce wave of internet censorship yet: Banning VPNs and independent multimedia contents, demanding international publishing houses such as Cambridge University Press remove specific content, punishing Chinas top three internet giants for failing to manage their online platform properly, to name just a few.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the top internet censor, just gave Chinese netizens further bad news. On August 25, the administration issued Management Regulations on Internet Forum and Community, in order to promote the healthy and orderly development of online community and safeguard national security and public interests.

The new regulations cover all online forums, communities and any other platforms that provide interactive communication.

According to the regulations, all internet companies and service providers are required to strictly manage all the content their registered users are going to post, and verify the identities of all users before they can post anything on their platforms. As for those users who refuse to provide their real names, the internet companies should not allow them to post anything at all.

An official of the Cyberspace Administration also specified the content that is banned from publishing or disseminating online:

The contents that (1) opposing the basic principles in the Constitution; (2) harming the national security, revealing state secrets, subverting state power and undermining national reunification; (3) damaging national honor and interests; (4) inciting national hatred, ethnic discrimination and undermining national unity; (5) undermining the states policies on religion or promoting cults and feudal superstitions; (6) spreading rumors or disrupting social order; (7) spreading obscenity, pornography, violence, terror or abetting the crime; (8) insulting or slandering others and infringing upon the lawful rights and interests of others; (9) violating any other laws and regulations.

Obviously, the forbidden items are so broad and vague that any criticism could be included in the categories.

In addition, the regulations also require all internet companies to fully record their users information and promptly report their illegal behavior to the regulators.

Go here to see the original:
China's New Wave of Internet Censorship: Name Verification for ... - The Diplomat

Well, thats one way to show your gratitude.

A nude blogger whose self-described body positive Instagram page was shut down for violating the social-media networks nudity policy has celebrated her return to the site by posting a nude photo of herself partially obscured by a placard reading: F*ck you Instagram.

Australian Jessa OBrien, 28, who posts under the handle The Nude Blogger, has built up a following of more than 45,000 fans since she launched the page, which majors on non-pornographic and non-sexual images of herself naked (think yoga poses on the beach, sensitively backlit images of a girl in a tree, cartwheels on the sand) since its launch in October 2016.

The page was reactivated this week after it was shut down six weeks ago, and OBrien celebrated with the post targeting the social-media giants often-confused messaging on appropriate content in no uncertain terms.

OBrien said in a post that the picture with the placard was the first time she has shown her face on the site.

In a blog post on her website, excerpts of which she also posted on Instagram, OBrien described the move by Instagram to reinstate her account as a step in the right direction for Instagram, social media, and society, and said her victory serves as a reminder to never give up on our message, even when were going up against Goliath.

I went up against Instagram, and I actually came out victorious. I feel such a sense of fulfillment. My determination to expose these hideous double standards and Instagrams contradictory and blurred guidelines has kept me up a lot. I have felt a sense of responsibility to speak out against the social-media giants.

OBrien said the closure of the account had actually proved to be one of the best things to happen for my message about body-positivity because of the attention she has received in mainstream media.

However Instagram may have opened a can of worms for itself by reactivating the Nude Blogger account.

The community guidelines published by the site say: We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we dont allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.

Go here to read the rest:
Nude Blogger Wins Censorship War With Instagram - The Daily Beast - Daily Beast