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Documentarian Brian Knappenberger took a keen interest in the lawsuit Hulk Hogan brought against Gawker. Not because of the tawdry details, though there were plenty of those: The wrestler sued the media company for invasion of privacy over a sex tape it published in 2012 featuring him and the wife of his friend Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Knappenberger was more interested in what the trial meant for the First Amendment. As soon as the jury sided with Hogan and put Gawker on the hook for an astounding $140million the filmmaker knew he had to get to work on his next movie.

Of course, that was long before he realized how much deeper the story went. It was before the revelation that Peter Thiel, a wealthy entrepreneur with a grudge, bankrolled the lawsuit that put Gawker out of business; before Thiel supported Donald Trump for president; and before Trump, who promised during his campaign to open up our libel laws, became leader of the free world.

Sometimes documentaries come along at the ideal moment. Chalk it up to luck or a futurists understanding of the zeitgeist, but Knappenbergers Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press is right on time as it begins streaming on Netflix on Friday. Its a crucial moment to consider what it means for the First Amendment, not to mention society, that a billionaire with a bone to pick could use his money to get the legal system to do his bidding.

Thiel had despised Gawker ever since it published a story about him in 2007 with the title Peter Thiel is totally gay, people. And he wasnt alone. Gawker had a well-earned bad reputation. A pioneer of online journalism, the company prized speed over fact-checking and became infamous for its questionable news judgment and snarky, cavalier attitude. Its Gawker Stalker feature was the tip of the iceberg, raising privacy concerns with its crowdsourced map that tracked the movements of celebrities.

But Gawker also broke legitimate stories, including one about the many women who had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault.

As legendary lawyer and First Amendment advocate Floyd Abrams puts it in the movie: We dont get to pick and choose what sorts of publications are permissible.

And yet, Thiel did. He didnt see his court case as a threat to the First Amendment, he explained, because he didnt view Gawker as a journalistic enterprise. The co-founder of PayPal (and an early Facebook investor) declared putting Gawker out of business his most philanthropic deed. He maintained that the company was a singularly sociopathic bully.

But thats an absurd thing to say in a media environment in which Alex Jones basically says Sandy Hook didnt happen, Knappenberger said in a recent interview, referring to the conspiracy-theory-spewing Infowars radio host, who also spread lies about Pizzagate. Gawker is singularly sociopathic for posting this tape of a public person who had bragged about his sex life? Its not necessarily tasteful, but its certainly not sociopathic.

Nobody Speak shows that the Hogan-Gawker case is only one piece of a worrisome trend. In Nevada, for example, another moneyed magnate and Republican donor, Sheldon Adelson, secretly paid $140million to buy the Las Vegas Review-Journal a newspaper that had been critical of him in the past. Adelson, like the man he supported for president, has a history of suing journalists who write unflattering stories about him.

The wealthiest citizens clearly exert outsize power in our society, which becomes more problematic as the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. The Fourth Estates job is to hold the powerful accountable, and yet the distrust of institutions especially the news media puts free speech in a precarious spot.

Technology and other factors like inequality are shifting and changing the ground we walk on, said Knappenberger, whose films The Internets Own Boy and We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists also deal with technology and society. The way those forces are rubbing up against what you might think of as traditional values freedom of speech and democracy and acquisition of power and money that stuff is really shifting, and I dont think we quite know where its going.

Knappenberger said he could tell at the time that what was happening with Hogan and Gawker was connected to what was happening on the campaign trail.

Trump was always in this film from the beginning, he said. There was a palpable hatred of the media in the courtroom. The judge on the case, Jeb Bush appointee Pamela Campbell, had no sympathy for Gawker. Nor, apparently, did the jury.

Theres legitimate criticism, Knappenberger said of journalism. That its too corporatized or too cozy with power. For too long, [journalists] traded softball stories for access, and people are starting to call bulls---.

But the director is heartened by the response to the new presidency as reporters have been energized by a hunt for scoops that has led to seemingly nonstop breaking-news bombshells.

Meanwhile, Trumps ability to change libel laws appears to be limited, despite a menacing tweet after a New York Times story he didnt like.

That doesnt make the threat against free speech and real facts any less real. Lets not forget what happened in that Florida courtroom.

This became something much, much bigger, and it does point to something critical at the heart of whats going on right now, Knappenberger said. If money is leveraged against civil liberties and speech, what else is important? Its not that thats the only important thing. Its that how do you care about anything else? How do you tackle anything else without speech?

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A movie about Hulk Hogan's court case shows how the First Amendment is under attack - Washington Post

A Northwestern University professors op-ed in the Los Angeles Times is disturbing - not only in its conclusions, but also its assumptions. Sociologist Laura Beth Nielsen calls for restrictions on hate speech, because she contends that speech is violence.

We are currently seeing the results of confusing speech and political violence. Its not pretty.

As a sociologist and legal scholar, I struggle to explain the boundaries of free speech to undergraduates. Despite the 1st Amendment - I tell my students - local, state, and federal laws limit all kinds of speech, Nielsen writes. We regulate advertising, obscenity, slander, libel, and inciting lawless action to name just a few. My students nod along until we get to racist and sexist speech. Some cant grasp why, if we restrict so many forms of speech, we dont also restrict hate speech.

Shes only partially right there; government doesnt regulate libel, for example, but victims can win compensation from perpetrators in a civil action. Incitement to violence is certainly restricted, but advertisings relationship with the First Amendment is more complicated.

But the real problem with Nielsens piece is her assumptions.

In fact, empirical data suggest that frequent verbal harassment can lead to various negative consequences, she writes. Racist hate speech has been linked to cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and requires complex coping strategies These negative physical and mental health outcomes - which embody the historical roots of race and gender oppression - mean that hate speech is not just speech. Hate speech is doing something.

Certainly, harassment is bad. And in many cases, its already illegal. There are remedies in place. But the fundamental truth here is that words are not actions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has time and again reaffirmed the freedom of speech - and ruled that hate speech is covered.

For the purposes of the First Amendment, there is no difference between free speech and hate speech. Ideas and opinions that progressive students and professors find offensive or hateful are just as protected by the Bill of Rights as anti-Trump slogans chanted at a campus protest, writes John Daniel Danielson for The Federalist.

The reason is simple. Once Congress can start banning hate speech, then unpopular political opinions will become illegal.

As Danielson points out, By hate speech, they mean ideas and opinions that run afoul of progressive pieties. Do you believe abortion is the taking of human life? Thats hate speech Concerned about illegal immigration? Believe in the right to bear arms? Support President Donald Trump? All hate speech.

And of course that could be turned against the left. Their ideas and values easily could be labeled hate speech. Think of black lives matter.

Were in the midst of a great confusion in our society. Political violence - from punching Nazis to attacking protestors to shooting conservative members of Congress - seems to be on the rise.

We must get back to the belief that ideas are to be countered with better ideas, not with violence. Words have consequences, but we cant ban them just because we dont like them.

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Editorial: First Amendment affirms that words aren't violence - Tyler Morning Telegraph

The North Carolina legislature is the counter-argument against the story of the mule and the two-by-four. No matter how often you hit them over the head, and various courts have done it 12 times in the past year, you still don't get their attention. Sometimes, the mule is just dumb.

Getty

From there, we skip up to Wisconsin, where the state's university system remains stubbornly unimpressed with the Republican legislature and with the leadership of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this particular Midwest subsidiary. You may have been following the various fights on college campuses regarding "controversial" speakers and the reaction against them. (If you're a regular reader of right-wing media, you believe that mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world. Just lie down with a cold compress for a while.) There are "free speech" advocates on both sides of the big ditch here, exercising their First Amendment rights at the top of their lungs and, occasionally, exercising their First Amendment right of assembly in a fashion thought to be too vigorous.

Luckily, the Wisconsin Republicans have a solution: Throw out the latter group. From The Capital Times:

The controversial legislation has drawn criticism from those who say it would curb free speech rather than expand it and that it would stand in the way of the UW System's authority to manage its own campuses. Its supporters say its goal is to encourage free expression and to ensure all viewpoints can be heard at public universities. "Today we are ensuring that simply because you are a young adult on a college campus, your constitutional rights do not go away," said bill author Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum.

Watch now as Kremer deftly ties his own shoes together.

Under the measure, students who repeatedly engage in "violent or other disorderly conduct that materially and substantially disrupts the free expression of others" would be subjected to discipline that, on a third incident, would result in expulsion. The bill requires UW System campuses to launch investigations and hold hearings the second time a student is alleged to have interfered with the expressive rights of others. The hearings and their outcomes would be reported annually to a newly formed Council on Free Expression.

You see the joker in the deck there, right? "Other disorderly conduct." As defined by what"a Council On Free Expression."

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A what? Thought police! Somebody wake up Ben Shapiro. There's work to be done in Madison! Of course, Wisconsin is not the only test case.

Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, said the country has faced free speech struggles throughout its history, but they have been resolved without legislative intervention. "This is really part of a political program," Berceau said. "It's part of the continuing effort to really establish a conservative stronghold in our country on every institution, and now they're going after or universities." The bill is similar to others being considered throughout the country, modeled after sample legislation prepared by the conservative Goldwater Institute, and takes some pieces from a provision members of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee removed from Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal.

Of all the techniques of artificial victimization common to modern conservatism, the whole "political correctness" thing is one of the most threadbare, and this attempt at legislating away the parts of the First Amendment you don't like is the best evidence of that we've seen in a while.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Derelict Oil Well Artist Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton, who is not working and playing well with others, as the Tulsa World explains.

The telephone exchange stemmed from a May 25 incident in which a deputy with the Rogers County Sheriff's Office drove past Officer Craig Heatherly, who attempted to flag down the deputy for backup in a gun-related traffic stop, according to an internal police email. However, dash cam video allegedly shows the deputy driving past without stopping to help In the cellphone audio, Walton can be heard telling Heatherly that he "handled it wrong" and he "owe(d) the man an apology" in reference to the deputy. Heatherly responded that he and Walton would have to "agree to disagree on that one." "We'll agree to disagree," Walton said, "but I do agree that you're a f---- coward. OK."

I have to agree with FOTP here. What makes it art is "We'll have to agree to disagreeyou fcking coward!" From NPR to Deadwood in one complex sentence. Awesome.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

The Constitution Simply Was Not Built for This

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In Scott Walker's Wisconsin, the First Amendment Only Applies to Certain People - Esquire.com

The Detroit News 11:04 p.m. ET June 22, 2017

The court ruling upholds the principle that the First Amendment protects even hateful speech.(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / AP)

Americans shouldnt need constant reminding that under the First Amendment, they can say what they want, when they want and to whom they want, no matter how hateful or offensive.

And yet as longstanding as is that principle, the U.S. Supreme Court had to affirm it again this week when it ruled unanimously that an Asian rock band could trademark its name the Slants even though it is a derogatory term sometimes used to demean Asians.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had denied the bands request to register and protect its name, deeming it amounted to hate speech. The office similarly stripped the Washington Redskins football team of its trademark because it is offensive to Native Americans.

The courts ruling basically upheld the principle that all speech, including hateful speech, is protected by the First Amendment and should not be restricted.

Thats the right call. The obvious danger of allowing the federal government to be the arbiter of free speech is that restrictions are easily manipulated to suit political agendas.

And offensiveness is very much in the ear they beholder. What shocks one person may not faze another.

The idea that the government may restrict speech expressing ideas that offend strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, Justice Samuel Alito wrote. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate.

Alitos opinion provides important clarification for the so-called disparagement clause of federal law, which forbids registration of a trademark that may disparage ... persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute.

Thats an overly broad carve-out that, again, relies on subjective interpretations influenceable by the regulators own experiences and biases.

Its not the appropriate role of the government, according to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all, Kennedy wrote in concurrence. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the governments benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

There are, of course, marketplace consequences when speech oversteps societal norms and broadly offends. Products can be boycotted and individuals shunned. Thats the appropriate regulator.

This court has been a good friend to the First Amendment at a time when there are many who would shred it to stifle dissent and control the national political debate.

That the Slants opinion came on an 8-0 vote is a powerful affirmation of the foundational right of free speech and its sacred role in a democratic society.

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Editorial: Court shores up First Amendment - The Detroit News

What can powerless, concerned citizens do in response to President Trump's move to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement?

Here's a pretty good answer from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.:

If you haven't joined an environmental group, join one. If your voice needs to be heard, get active. If you are a big corporation with good climate policies that has shied away from engaging politically, it's time to engage.

Taken from his official statement on the withdrawal, Whitehouse describes exactly the type of activity the First Amendment was written to protect. When government takes action that citizens find objectionable, the First Amendment protects their right to organize, petition, and speak out. In other words, it protects the right to "get active."

Unfortunately, Whitehouse has spent his political career promoting efforts to hamper just this sort of civic engagement.

He uses the megaphone that comes with his position of power to rail against the rights of advocacy groups that choose to respect the privacy of their donors. And he supports bills that would cripple all but the most well-funded groups.

Whitehouse has introduced the so-called "DISCLOSE Act" multiple times now. DISCLOSE is a contrived acronym for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections."

Whitehouse and his allies say this bill would increase transparency. But the "light" that would be cast would not shine on those in power, such as senators. We wouldn't know anything about what groups or persons he meets with behind closed doors.

Rather, the bill targets citizen groups that seek to hold those in power accountable. Whitehouse would like us to believe that the legitimate interest in government transparency necessitates exposing the personal information of private citizens who choose to join groups and advocate for social change.

Disclosing the names, addresses, occupations, and employers of citizens who give to advocacy groups exposes people to potential intimidation and harassment. So if his bill became law, fewer are likely to want to join an environmental group. The loss of privacy increases the costs of civic engagement.

The laws drive up compliance costs for groups too. Disclosure laws are very complex. They require groups to file frequent, detailed reports to government agencies. To stay in compliance, groups must hire expensive lawyers and spend resources on exhaustive record-keeping. As a result, Whitehouse is promoting laws that would directly hinder citizens' willingness and ability to "get active."

The DISCLOSE Act is just one part of Whitehouse's endless crusade against the free speech rights of groups he likes to call "dark money" organizations. The pejorative term "dark money" refers to money spent on speech by groups that do not have to publicly report the private information of their donors to the government.

One such "dark money" group is the Sierra Club. Among the most well-known environmental advocacy groups in the nation, it is presumably one of the groups Whitehouse would encourage concerned citizens to join.

The Sierra Club explicitly offers to protect the privacy of its donors, including corporate donors. So, it clearly has supporters who desire anonymity and with good reason. Surely, some of those supporters would choose not to donate if they no longer had this option.

Whitehouse's call for increased political engagement from corporations highlights his apparent myopic view that the First Amendment only applies to advocacy he agrees with as well.

Whitehouse makes no attempt to hide his animus toward corporate political speech. He has repeatedly co-sponsored a constitutional amendment that, among other abominations it would do to the First Amendment, seeks to grant Congress unlimited power to prohibit any corporate entity from spending money on political speech.

No word on whether he favors an exception for corporations with "good" policies on climate change.

It is heartening to see that Whitehouse is now encouraging citizens (and corporations) to engage in political speech instead of yet again attempting to silence opposing viewpoints.

His statement demonstrates that he does indeed understand the value of First Amendment-protected advocacy. However, the statement is also an example of the far too common tendency among many politicians to view only friendly advocacy as legitimate.

The First Amendment protects the right of every American to privately support an environmental group. It also supports the right of every corporation to speak in opposition to the president's actions regarding climate policy.

But Whitehouse must realize that the First Amendment also protects the right of citizens, nonprofit groups, and corporations to engage in political speech he opposes. In the end, his anti-speech objectives will harm the First Amendment rights of his allies as much as his opponents.

Alex Baiocco is a Communications Fellow at the Center for Competitive Politics in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is a hypocrite on the First Amendment - Washington Examiner