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Representative Chad Christensens platform says that he believes in strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution. There are no exceptions. But his behavior belies this belief when he violates the First Amendment rights of people by blocking them from commenting on his official Facebook page. Crusading for his own rights while denying other peoples is a hallmark of Representative Chad Christensens tenure in our state legislature.

In Randall v. Davison, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled early last year that a public official cannot block an individual from commenting on the officials Facebook page. The court held that blocking would be viewpoint discrimination and a violation of the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment. In a similar decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled later last year in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump that President Trump could not block an individual from his Twitter account. A quote from that case says it all: While [the public official] is certainly not required to listen, once he opens up the interactive features of his account to the public at large he is not entitled to censor selected users because they express views with which he disagrees.

The Facebook page Chad Christensen for Idaho is described on the page as a political organization, not Rep. Christensens personal page. He regularly uses it to discuss legislative matters. He regularly allows comments by non-constituents, so long as the comments support him and his positions.

One of us, Maggie, was blocked on April 17 from Representative Christensens public Facebook page. I was highly critical of his protest in Boise. I had requested that he remain away from Teton County for 14 days post protest. He was venturing to a higher COVID transmission area and could be exposed. He said that he would come to Teton County if he wanted but in a responsible manner. He would don a mask. I watched the protest online. He was behaving in a foolhardy manner no mask, too close to others. I told him so. I also requested that instead of protesting, he work on supply chain issues for more testing or harvesting issues for farmers. No one wants this shut down. It is a horrendous hardship for all. I explained to Representative Christensen that the shutdown protected healthcare workers and the most vulnerable members of society. I explained that his actions would endanger others. I was blocked. My voice was silenced.

One of us, Carolyn, was blocked twice. The first time was for simply asking how Representative Christensen interpreted some language in the Second Amendment. He did not reply, merely blocked me. After I made some public comments on another page, he unblocked me. The second time was for asking whether mocking people who created a safe space in the Idaho Capitol building comported with the Christian values that Rep. Christensen claims to follow.

Rep. Christensen has said that he blocks people for harassment. Nothing that either of us have said amounts to harassment. Criticism of positions, however harsh, doesnt rise to that level. He also claims to block people for name-calling. We have never called names. We have been called names many times by Rep. Christensen and others on the page, none of whom ever appeared to be blocked.

We expect that we will always differ in opinion from the District 32B representative on any number of issues. As grown-ups, we understand that reasonable minds can differ, and others dont have to agree with us. But a public official has the obligation to listen respectfully to differing views. Holding office requires the ability to listen and govern people who possess varying political ideas. While in office a great many individuals will disagree with you. Representative Christensen has shown repeatedly he is incapable of tolerating criticism.

Further, a public official has the obligation not to violate the First Amendment rights of others. Representative Christensen will champion his own rights and those of his loyalists, but he infringes on the rights of others. This is all accomplished while he touts his love of the Constitution. Individuals who understand and respect the Constitution do not deny others their First Amendment rights. The people of his district deserve better.

Carolyn Dessin and Maggie Shaw, Driggs

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First amendment and Facebook | Opinion - Teton Valley News

A new guidance issued by the Texas Attorney Generals Office says that local and county orders cannot prohibit religious organizations from holding in-person worship services.

While churches were prohibited from holding services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Muslims will not be prohibited from gathering for one of their most important holidays, Ramadan, which begins on Friday.

Judges in Dallas and Harris counties prohibited houses of worship from congregating after Gov. Greg Abbotts initial executive order mandated that they hold online services. Most churches have complied, but as Texas continues to post record low coronavirus numbers and record high unemployment, some Christian leaders have said enough is enough.

Houston-based CEO of a Texas medical company, Dr. Steven Hotze, along with four pastors and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, sued Harris County Judge Linda Hidalgo for an order she issued mandating all non-essential businesses to close, including churches.

After several announcements that Abbott might be reopening the economy, Pastor Steve Riggle, who leads Grace Community Church in the Woodlands, posted a video message on Facebook, urging the governor and state officials to reopen Texas.

We have been patient, even though every projection of the impact of the coronavirus has been grossly wrong, he said. We were told to flatten the curve because there was no cure, even though a very small number actually die from the virus in comparison with the population and other diseases and causes of death we live with on a daily basis.

According to State Department of Health Services (DSHS), as of April 17, .0055 or half of one percent of Texas residents have tested for COVID-19, roughly 169,536 people out of 29 million, and among them .0006 or 6/100 of one percent have tested positive.

Yet in the month of March, more people filed for unemployment in Texas than those who filed during the entire year in 2019.

Riggle argues the governor made an announcement about an announcement and appointed a task force to further delay getting everyone back to work when he could have restored everything with a stroke of his pen.

The number of those hospitalized for COVID-19 in Texas is 1,522, or 5/1000 of one percent; the number of people who have died due to COVID-19 is 428, or 1/1000 of one percent.

Jared R. Woodfill, CEO and attorney at Woodfill Law Firm, which represents the Houston plaintiffs, told The Center Square, It is amazing to me that the Governor will not come out and state clearly and unequivocally that places of worship are open without restrictions.

With respect to these incremental Executive Orders, the Governor continues to chip away at our religious liberties, Woodfill added. This is horrible precedent that can now be used by future governors to justify encroachments on our ability to worship freely.

The Attorney Generals guidance states that essential services include religious services conducted in churches, congregations, and houses of worship, and that if there is conflict between the governors order and a local county orders, the governors order take precedent.

Local governments may not order houses of worship to close, it states.

Houses of worship should conduct as many of their activities as possible remotely, in accordance with guidance from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Houses of worship should instruct sick employees, volunteers, and guests to stay home, the order states, along with practicing social distancing and good hygiene, implement environmental cleanliness and sanitization practices, and clean and disinfect work areas frequently.

Houses of worship are encouraged to have all attendees 65-years-old and older to stay home and watch services online, or provide a senior service exclusively for attendees 65 and older to attend in person. All attendees with underlying at-risk health conditions should stay home and watch the services online, the order states. Houses of Worship are encouraged to equip ushers and greeters with gloves and masks and consider keeping childcare closed, unless they are able to comply with CDC guidelines for childcare facilities

The guidance came about largely through the work of the Houston-based Texas Pastor Council, which enlisted a team of over 50 of key pastors from around the state to give recommendations and input to Attorney Generals Office.

We prepared a list of suggested guideline points to recommend to churches, received outstanding counsel and revisions from our pastors and presented a final list to AG Paxton that was largely incorporated in the finished guidelines, Rev. Dave Welch, president of the Texas Pastor Council, told The Center Square.

Welch praised state leaders in an email to The Center Square, arguing that they understand the invaluable role churches serve in every community to minister to the spirit, soul and body of people."

Woodfill emphasized in an email to The Center Square that the Texas Constitution guarantees the God-given unalienable right to worship, to peaceably assemble, and to move about freely without unconstitutional restrictions on ones ingress and egress. None of these rights is contingent upon our health status or subject to the limitations Governor Abbott is attempting to impose on these rights. If Governor Abbotts Orders are not declared unconstitutional and void, once this virus passes, the rights we are afforded under the Texas Constitution will be forever damaged.

Woodfill has also sued the governors office over the unconstitutionality of executive orders, the first lawsuit of its kind in the State of Texas.

Continued here:
Attorney General: Houses of Worship protected by First Amendment can worship in person - Washington Examiner

from the the-1st-amendment-applies dept

We've discussed in the past the various court rulings that say that public officials (such as the President) cannot block users on social media as it violates the 1st Amendment. There has been vigorous debate on this (as well as plenty of confusion) but the basic concept is that the courts view the space beneath a social media post -- where people comment -- as a "designated public forum" and as such, bars any content-based discrimination.

That should apply to all government institutions -- not just the social media accounts of those holding elected office. A fascinating new report from FIRE, digs deep into this issue by highlighting that tons of public universities are using opaque Facebook blocklists to hide student comments. For private universities, it wouldn't be a 1st Amendment issue, but courts have repeatedly said that public universities are an arm of the government, and thus Constitutional limits apply to them as well. From the opening of the report:

In October 2019, Facebook founder and chief executiveofficer Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University,extolling the virtues of freedom of expression and notingin particular the importance of college students abilityto express who they were and what mattered to them,including through challeng[ing] some established ways ofdoing things on campus.

Because Facebook is a private entity, the First Amendmentwhich only limits government actorsdoes not require itto honor expressive freedom. Zuckerbergs endorsementof freedom of expression as a principle is a welcome andencouraging development.

It is, however, at odds with the fact that Facebook providesgovernments the tools to censor. These actors includepublic universities and colleges which are bound by theFirst Amendmentthose very campuses where studentshave challenged some established ways of doing things.

These tools include Facebooks automated content filters,which allow state institutions to automatically hide userscomments if they contain words included on Facebooksundisclosed list of offensive words or the governmentactors customized list of prohibited words. These toolsenable public universitiesand other government actorsto quietly remove critical posts, transforming the Facebookpages into less of a forum and more of a vehicle for positivepublicity.

And yes, this does create a serious 1st Amendment issue:

Theres no social media exception to the First Amendment, said Adam Steinbaugh, author of the FIRE report. Government actors cannot sanitize public discourse whether its President Trump blocking Twitter critics or American colleges filtering dissent on their social media accounts. By selectively eliminating particular viewpoints, universities are violating the First Amendment.

The report contains numerous examples of problematic filters:

The report also notes that -- even more closely related to the Trump case -- that many public universities block user accounts:

Because of this, FIRE, together with EFF, have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to help fix this issue:

Facebook can curb abuse of its tools through transparency and restrictions on accountsbelonging to state actors. As our report recommends, Facebook should:

For what it's worth, this is also a good example of how FOIA laws help aid in transparency. Part of the report was developed via heavy use of FOIA and similar laws to request the details of the social media filters used by public universities:

Altogether, FIREs surveyissued public recordsrequests to 224 publicuniversities and collegesin 47 states and theDistrict of Columbia.198 institutions providedsubstantive responses.

While some may have arguments for why colleges should be allowed to filter aspects of their social media accounts, when we're talking about public universities, the 1st Amendment needs to apply.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, blocking, filters, public universities, social media filtersCompanies: facebook

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Public Colleges Are Violating The 1st Amendment In Using Facebook Filters - Techdirt

Donald Trump is at war with the First Amendment and the free press. The war is on full display nearly every day in hisrage-filled press conferenceson the COVID-19 pandemic, in which he regularly condemns the fake news media and bashes reporters who dare to ask the slightest probative questions about his handling of the ongoing public-health crisis.

Trumps war is also longstanding. And it is waged not only on television and inangry tweetsand atcampaign rallies(which have been put on hold because of the coronavirus), but also in courtrooms across the country in the form of defamation lawsuits designed to shame, silence and punish his critics.

The latest victim of the presidents intimidation-by-litigation strategy is TV stationWJFW, an NBC affiliate located in Price County in the rural reaches of northern Wisconsin. On April 13, Trumps principal reelection campaign committeeDonald J. Trump for President, Inc., headquartered in New York Citysued the stationin the countys circuit court. The suit alleges that the station had libeled the campaign and harmed the reputation of the president by airing an anti-Trump attack ad produced by Priorities USA Action, a pro-Democratic Super PAC.

Entitled Exponential Threat, the ad features audio and video clips of Trump downplaying the severity of the virus and disavowing any responsibility for his administrations slow and incompetent response to the virus overlaid against a graph displaying the exponential rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. since January.

The lawsuit contends that the ad stitched together Trumps statements about the virus in a false, misleading, deceptive and malicious manner to make it appear that he had called the virus a hoax. According to the complaint, Trump never termed the virus itself a hoax, but instead said at arallyin Charleston, South Carolina, on February 28, that the Democrats were perpetrating a hoax by politicizing his record on the virus.

The lawsuit comes on the heels ofother recent threatsmade by the Trump campaign to take legal action against TV outlets in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania for broadcasting the same ad.

The presidents campaign committee has also been busy suing print media. In March, the committeesued the Washington Postfor defamation allegedly arising from opinion columns written by journalistsGreg SargentandPaul Waldmanin June 2019 on the possibility of renewed foreign collusion in the 2020 election. And in February, Trumps 2016 campaign committeesued the New York Times, claiming defamation stemming from an op-ed about Russian collusion written in March 2019 by Max Frankel, who had served as the papers executive editor from 1986-94.

Sadly, the presidents latest round of defamation revenge is part of a pattern that dates back to his formative days as a real-estate developer and publicity-seeking huckster in New York City.

As detailed in a2016 studypublished by the Media Law Resource Center, Trump filed his first major libel suit in 1984, when he took the Chicago Tribune and architecture columnist Paul Gapp to court, claiming that he had sustained $500 million in damages as a result of an article Gapp had written, maligning Trumps plans to build a 150-story skyscraper in lower Manhattan. The case wasdismissedthe following year after the presiding judge determined Gapps article was a constitutionally protected expression of opinion.

The Media Law Resource Center study alsosummarizesTrumps failed defamation lawsuit against writer Timothy OBrien and the Time Warner Book Group, Inc. Now asenior columnist with Bloomberg Opinion, OBrien asserted in a 2005 bookTrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donaldthat Trump wasnt actually a billionaire. OBriens estimate of Trumps net wealth so rankled the future president that he demandeda whopping $5 billion in damages.Like the lawsuit against Gapp, the case was eventuallydismissed.

In addition, thestudychroniclesTrumps case against comedian Bill Maher. Trump targeted Maher in 2013 for a disparaging joke he told on NBCsTonight Show, in which he offered to donate $5 million to charity if Trump could prove he was not the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan. After Trump sent a copy of his birth certificate to Maher and the comedian refused to pay up, Trump sued Maher for breach of contract in California. Trump voluntarilywithdrew the caseeight months later, however. Although his then-spokesperson, Michael Cohen,told Politicothat Trump planned to amend and renew the lawsuit, he never did.

Like most of Trumps past defamation forays, the presidents latest round of defamation lawsuits seems destined to crash and burn. The cases will falter for one simple reason: they are utterly devoid of legal merit.

Under the Supreme Courts landmark 1964 ruling inNew York Times Co. v. Sullivan, criticism of public officials is entitled to stringent First Amendment protections. As the great liberal Justice William Brennan wrote for a unanimous court inSullivan, the Constitution embodies our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks

Public officials, Brennan instructed, must be precluded from recovering damages for allegedly defamatory statements related to official conduct unless they prove that the statements are made with actual malicethat is, that they are made with the knowledge that they are false or with reckless disregard of whether they are true or false.

Insubsequentcases, the Supreme Court extendedSullivans actual malice holding to defamation lawsuits initiated by public figures andbusiness entitiesthat have obtained public-figure status, such as Trumps political campaign committees.

Sullivanis one of the Supreme Courts most consequential decisions, providing the press with the safeguards needed to keep the public informed and hold the rich and powerful to account. Among the courts current members, onlyClarence Thomashas gone on record to suggest thatSullivanbe reconsidered.

Why, then, does the president persist? The answer, it appears, is purely political.

At arally in Fort Worth, Texas, in February 2016, Trump told a throng of cheering red-meat followers, I think the media is among the most dishonest groups of people Ive ever met. Theyre terrible. If I become president, oh, do they have problems. Theyre going to have such problems.

And thenhe added, in a veiled reference toSullivan:

One of the things Im going to do if I win, and I hope we do, and were certainly leading, is Im going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. Were going to open up those libel laws so that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because theyre totally protected.

As of now, the president is losing his war on the First Amendment and the free press. But as Trumps improbable rise to power confirms, the future remains uncertain. If we have learned anything in the Trump era, it is that our constitutional rights can never be taken for granted.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers:Prejudicial Error,The Last Appeal, andThe Face of Justice.

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We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism and were investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You wont find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

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Trump keeps escalating his war on the First Amendment and hes losing the fight - Raw Story

Tennessean Opinion Editor David Plazas spoke to Linda Peek Schacht, former Harvard fellow and former Lipscomb University administrator Nashville Tennessean

Journalists work hard to be accurate, trustworthy, and to seek truth and report it truthfully. Facts and good information matter especially when lives are stake.

Students in Jennifer Ducks journalism classes at Belmont University learn how to assess the credibility of information and sources.

Duck also teaches her classes how to debunk myths, which are bountiful on places like social media platforms, where people tend to share links, often without clicking on, reading or vetting them.

The COVID-19 pandemic makes the stakes higher than ever.

This is a matter of life or death, said Duck, an instructor at Belmont in Nashvilleand a Clemson University Ph.D. student. We need truth and we need facts. Journalists help us separate fact from fiction.

Her research focuses on the importance of a free press, which is more important than ever as mixed messages have emerged from government leaders, generally at the national level, about how to handle the novel coronavirus crisis.

Media organizations including The Tennessean and others have striven to separate fact from fiction in daily fact check articles and deep reporting, which seeks to use data, credible sources and science to help inform the public and keep people safe.

So, it is encouraging that Duck urged students to compete in the National Student Essay Competition on the topic of freedom of the press, sponsored by The McCarthy Family Foundation in partnership with The Tennessean, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other U.S. newsrooms.

First Amendment of the US Constitution text, with other Constitution text above(Photo: Getty Images)

Several students, from middle school to college, submitted essays by the April 24 deadline.

They all show a great deal of maturity in wanting to be informed and discerning citizens who defend constitutional freedoms.

Remember: Freedom of the press is one of five freedoms delineated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government from enacting laws to abridge it.

Hear more Tennessee Voices:Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.

Our founding fathers valued a free press, wrote Frank Runyon, a seventh grader at Richview Middle School in Clarksville. Thomas Jefferson once said,Freedom will be a short-lived possession unless the people are informed. Our founding fathers who believed in democracy thought that freedom of the press was an essential key to our freedom.

Jefferson and other presidents also became angry at the press when journalists were critical, but holding government accountable is why the Founding Fathers wanted to protect a free press.

Tennessee Voices, Episode 22: Linda Peek Schacht on leadership and truth

Tennessee Voices, Episode 11: Shanna Hughey, president of ThinkTennessee

Often, people will lump all journalists as the media, but citizens need to push back against this slight and ask: Which media organization? What did they get wrong (or right)? Is this just a propaganda attempt to discredit the free-flow of information to citizens who deserve to know the truth?

Katie Kuhnash, a senior studying music business at Belmont, reflected in her essay on the importance of being well-informed at a time when Americans are so limited in their ability to spend time with friends, see their families and do commerce because of stay-at-home orders.

In a time where so much is limited, I think it is more important than ever to keep our press free, she wrote. This is also one of the most mysterious, uninformed times we have ever lived through, where being informed is more important than ever.Where being a democracy is more important than ever.

Citizens should search for the truth and be discerning.

But know this: Journalists work hard to be accurate andtrustworthy, and to seek truth and report it truthfully.

We take the First Amendment seriously and are keenly aware that credible information, especially today, is a matter of life and death.

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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network newsrooms in Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him atdplazas@tennessean.comor tweet to him at@davidplazas. Subscribe and support local journalism.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-plazas/2020/04/26/coronavirus-era-freedom-press-matter-life-and-death/3008537001/

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Why freedom of the press is a matter of life and death in coronavirus era | Plazas - Tennessean