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The Kennebec Historical Societys October Facebook Live presentation, Introduction to the First Amendment Museum, will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, according to a news release from Scott R. Wood, the societys administrative director.

The video also will be available to watch later if preferred. Those who have a question for the Q&A can submit it in the comments on this event, or comment with it during the live video presentation. Here is the link to the KHS Facebook page: facebook.com.

In 1789, James Madison penned the First Amendment protecting our freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. A century later, WH Gannett of Augusta, Maine, used those freedoms to publish Comfort magazine, the first American magazine to reach 1 million paid subscriptions. His son, Guy Gannett, expanded the business to become Gannett Communications and became Maines most celebrated publisher, establishing newspaper, radio and tv brands we still recognize today.

Now, a century after Guy published his first newspaper, his granddaughters are building a museum in his former home on State Street. Join new CEO Christian Cotz as he explores the history of Madison, the First Amendment, and the Gannett family, and shares the latest developments in the evolution of the First Amendment Museum.

According to the release, Cotz was hired to be the CEO at the First Amendment Museum in January. Before that, he spent 20 years managing public programming at James Madisons Montpelier in central Virginia. He was deeply involved in Montpeliers relationship-building work with the descendant community, and was the project director for the celebrated exhibition, The Mere Distinction of Colour, which won six national museum awards.

For more information about the program, call Wood at 207-622-7718.

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'Introduction to the First Amendment Museum' topic of presentation - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

John E. Finn, Wesleyan University

(THE CONVERSATION) The U.S. militia movement has long been steeped in a peculiar and unquestionably mistaken interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and civil liberties.

This is true of an armed militia group that calls itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently revealed plot to overthrow Michigans government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

As I wrote in Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution, published in 2019, the crux of the militia movements devotion to what I have called the alt-right constitution is a toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths.

Private militias

The term militia has many meanings.

The Constitution addresses militias in Article 1, authorizing Congress to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining, the Militia.

But the Constitution makes no provision for private militias, like the far-right Wolverine Watchmen, Proud Boys, Michigan Militia and the Oath Keepers, to name just a few.

Private militias are simply groups of like-minded men members are almost always white males who subscribe to a sometimes confusing set of beliefs about an avaricious federal government that is hostile to white men and white heritage, and the sanctity of the right to bear arms and private property. They believe that government is under the control of Jews, the United Nations, international banking interests, Leftists, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and so on. There is no evidence of this.

On Oct. 8, the FBI arrested six men, five of them from Michigan, and charged them with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer. Shortly thereafter, state authorities charged an additional seven men with, according to the Associated Press, allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a "civil war. Included were the founders and several members of the Wolverine Watchmen.

As revealed in the FBI affidavit accompanying the federal charges, the six men charged claimed to be defenders of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, some of the men in April had participated in rallies in Lansing, the state capital, where armed citizens tried to force their way onto the floor of the State House to protest Governor Whitmers pandemic shut-down orders as a violation of the Constitution by a tyrannical government intent upon sacrificing civil liberties in the name of the COVID-19 fight.

According to the FBIs affidavit, the conspirators wanted to create a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.

Militia members imagine themselves to be the last true American patriots, the modern defenders of the United States Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular.

Hence, the Bill of Rights and especially the Second Amendment, which establishes the right to bear arms figure prominently in the alt-constitution. It is no accident that the initial discussions about overthrowing Michigans so-called tyrannical governor started at a Second Amendment rally in June.

According to most militias, the Second Amendment authorizes their activity and likewise makes them free of legal regulation by the state. In truth, the Second Amendment does nothing to authorize private armed militias. Private armed militias are explicitly illegal in every state.

No restrictions on rights

Additional foundational principles of militia constitutionalism include absolutism. Absolutism, in the militia world, is the idea that fundamental constitutional rights like freedom of speech, the right to bear arms and the right to own property cannot be restricted or regulated by the state without a citizens consent.

The far rights reading of the First and Second Amendments which govern free speech and the right to bear arms, respectively starts from a simple premise: Both amendments are literal and absolute. They believe that the First Amendment allows them to say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone, without consequence or reproach by government or even by other citizens who disagree or take offense at their speech.

Similarly, the alt-right gun advocates hold that the Second Amendment protects their God-given right to own a weapon any weapon and that governmental efforts to deny, restrict or even to register their weapons must be unconstitutional. They think the Second Amendment trumps every other provision in the Constitution.

Another key belief among militia members is the principle of constitutional self-help. Thats the belief that citizens, acting on their inherent authority as sovereign free men, are ultimately and finally responsible for enforcing the Constitution as they understand it.

Demonstrating this way of thinking, the men arrested in Michigan discussed taking Gov. Whitmer to a secure location in Wisconsin to stand trial for treason prior to the Nov. 3 election. According to Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf a member of the militia-friendly Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officer Association the men arrested in Michigan were perhaps not trying to kidnap the governor but were instead simply making a citizens arrest.

Leaf, who appeared at a Grand Rapids protest in May of Gov. Whitmers stay-at-home order along with two of the alleged kidnappers, mistakenly believes that local sheriffs are the highest constitutional authority in the United States, invested with the right to determine which laws support and which laws violate the Constitution. The events in Michigan show how dangerous these mistaken understandings of the Constitution can be.

There will be more

The Wolverine Watchmen are not a Second Amendment militia or constitutional patriots in any sense of the word. If they are guilty of the charges brought against them, then they are terrorists.

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The FBI and Michigan law enforcement shut down the Watchmen before an egregious crime and a terrible human tragedy unfolded. But as I concluded just last year in my book, there is little reason to think the militia movement will subside soon.

Unfortunately, I did not account for the possibility that President Trump would encourage militias to stand back and stand by, which seems likely to encourage and embolden groups that already clearly represent a threat. Expect more Michigans.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/plot-to-kidnap-michigans-governor-grew-from-the-militia-movements-toxic-mix-of-constitutional-falsehoods-and-half-truths-147825.

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Plot to kidnap Michigan's governor grew from the militia movement's toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths - Huron Daily Tribune

Law360 (October 7, 2020, 6:37 PM EDT) -- The U.S. government should be able to limit any service that poses a threat to the country's national security, whether or not that company facilitates communications, the Trump administration has argued in its bid to ban WeChat in the U.S.

In a Tuesday court filing, the administration told a California federal judge that the simple fact that Tencent-owned WeChat is a mobile communications app doesn't entitle the company to First Amendment protection orpreclude the government from cracking down on it for national security purposes.

"Were Tencent to sell electricity to U.S. consumers and, in so doing, systematically collect and send payment...

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Trump Admin. Says First Amendment Is Moot In WeChat Case - Law360

The Trumpsters dont have the corner on sign pimping, though. Any Functioning Adult 2020 signs have popped up around here.

In another time, people didnt wear their politics on their sleeves quite so much. Men and women of my parents generation could often be heard to say, Who I vote for is between me and the voting booth. It was considered polite not to preach politics to friends and neighbors. But then there was a time when driving around in vehicles with roaring straight exhaust pipes wasnt considered polite, either. Nor was screaming into a microphone. Times change, obviously.

Stevens Point was once such a polite city that it banned political signs. Then a little guy named John Anderson led an effort to overturn the ordinance based on First Amendment rights. He was successful. Anderson was a supporter of Lee Sherman Dreyfus, the local university chancellor who ran for governor in 1978, and he wanted to proclaim so with a yard sign.

I get the First Amendment stuff, but I sort of pine for the time when people were more guarded about their political leanings. All the blabbing and blustering is a big reason why I quit Facebook and other social media. Such a relief. But the signs are hard to turn off. These days, its common to erect not one, but two, three or a half-dozen signs for one candidate or the other. Couldnt we have a bit of restraint? I guess not.

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Bill Berry: Looking forward to replacing campaign signs with Christmas lights - Madison.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio Two First Amendment scholars question whether the Biden-Harris light display projected onto Terminal Tower last Tuesday by the United Steelworkers violated city or state law as the the buildings owner contends.

And even if the display did violate local or state laws, the scholars said, the laws might be trumped by First Amendment protections of free speech given the unusual facts of the case that the display amounted to projected light and was in support of political candidates.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to Kevin ONeill, associate professor at Cleveland State Universitys Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and Andy Geronimo, a lecturer at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, to examine the debate over the displays legality.

Whats at issue?

The United Steelworkers claimed responsibility for the light display, projected ahead of the debate in Cleveland between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, and referencing Biden and his running mate, former Sen. Kamala Harris. The union also contends the display was legal.

Doug Price, CEO of the management group that owns Terminal Tower, told cleveland.com that the United Steelworkers projected the display without his companys permission and that city prosecutors subsequently provided him with three laws that prohibit such displays.

Prices company, K&D Management, cited those laws in a cease-and-desist letter sent to the union. They are:

*A city prohibition against posting or sticking any advertisement, poster, sign or handbill or placard of any description on any private building or structure without the owner or occupants permission. It also prohibits printing, marking, writing, printing or impressing or in any manner attach[ing] any notice or advertisement or the name of any commodity or thing or any trademark, symbol or figure of any kind upon anothers property without permission.

*A city criminal mischief law that, in part, prohibits people from moving, defacing, damaging, destroying, or otherwise improperly tampering with anothers property.

*A state law that requires most political communications to clearly identify the entity that issued them.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer shared the three laws with Geronimo and ONeill.

What does Geronimo say?

Geronimo said the city laws K&D cited do not neatly address light projections such as the one displayed on Terminal Tower, and the incident demonstrates the difficulty of applying these ordinances to this kind of action.

The two city laws might not hold up in court because a judge might question whether the intangible nature of light is actually covered by those laws, which seem intended to address the physical overtaking of the building in a way thats irreversible.

Because this is light, its hard to say its damaging or destroying the building, he said. It is a very nuanced problem, and the laws as written now, and as courts have engaged with applying these laws, dont fit neatly to this problem.

The city could better address the issue by passing another law or amending current law to specifically include non-permanent light displays. But such a law would need to be crafted with First Amendment protections in mind, because it would be regulating free speech.

More generally, First Amendment violations would come into play if the police, a court or the city had tried to stop the union from displaying its message.

If K&D filed a nuisance or trespassing lawsuit against the union, the union might be able to successfully use its First Amendment protections as a defense.

In that case, the projectionist might say I have a free speech right and the state shouldnt use its power to order me to stop doing this under threat of criminal or civil penalty.

A constitutional question might also arise if police try to stop the projectionist while the projectionist is standing on public sidewalks or streets, which are often considered public forums.

If the projectionist was standing on private property, however, the owner of that property could report it to police as a trespassing complaint, which would allow police to legally remove the projectionist.

(A Steelworkers spokeswoman previously told cleveland.com she was unsure where the projectionist was standing when shining the light on Terminal Tower. Price previously told cleveland.com it appeared the source of the light was from one of the bridges over the Cuyahoga River.)

What does ONeill say?

I dont think a judge would see a problem with this, he said. If there were a [local law prohibiting this, the law] might be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Whats the harm? Its simply the expression of light onto a faade.

ONeill noted that hes never encountered a First Amendment court challenge specifically related to light projections. But the first thing a lawyer or judge would want to know when considering such a case is whether a local ordinance prohibits the practice. If there isnt one, the light display would not be illegal.

If a local ordinance is in place, one would have to determine whether that law is unconstitutional, because it might very well be hard for the government to justify under existing First Amendment law.

To be considered constitutional, the local ordinance would likely need to be content-neutral, narrowly tailored to achieve a substantial government interest and also leave open ample alternative channels for communicating the message.

If Cleveland had a law specifically prohibiting the projection of a message or image onto a building, theres a chance a court would uphold it as constitutional, he said.

But theres also a chance a court would say such a law wasnt narrowly tailored, or that it takes away a novel method of expression that doesnt harm the public and, theres no significant or even important governmental interest that would be served by banning such expression.

What does the city say?

Cleveland spokeswoman Latoya Hunter Hayes did not respond to questions from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer seeking confirmation that city prosecutors had provided Price with laws applicable to the case of the light display on Terminal Tower.

In an email, Hunter Hayes said only that projecting a light display sign on anothers property without the property owners permission, and without a permit when required, would violate city laws governing signs.

Obtaining a permit is the responsibility of a property owner, she said, but did not say whether a permit would have been needed by the United Steelworkers.

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First Amendment scholars weigh in on legality of Terminal Tower Biden Harris light display - cleveland.com