Mediaboss Marketing

The controversy over UPB cheerleaders kneeling for the National Anthem affords us a rather disturbing view of how some Americans regard First Amendment protections. The Constitution is not a salad bar where you pick what you like and leave the rest. It's all or nothing.

Decades of observing American politics have shown me there are "patriots" and there are "those who love their country."

"Patriots" worship the flag, National Anthem and Constitution (rarely reading it), jump up and down while whistling Yankee Doodle, unquestioningly accepting the red-white-and-blue-my-country-right-or-wrong blather from the corporate-owned lickspittles in Congress. They support sending Americans off to die in endless foreign wars that never yield victory, only corpses and profits for the arms manufacturers.

On the other hand, "Those who love their country" exercise critical thinking, question authority, speak truth to power, unfailingly uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and do not confuse love of country with theology. The Constitution is a secular document, Jesus didn't give it to George Washington on Mount Sinai.

Popular views need no protection. Mr. Terwilliger's attack on free speech cheapens the sacrifice of thousands of Americans who have died to guarantee the freedom to express unpopular views. Insisting those who break no laws while peacefully exercising constitutionally protected freedoms be penalized for same is a direct attack on the Constitution and basic American principles.

These cheerleaders display exemplary courage in publicly expressing themselves, contrasting starkly with Mr. Terwilliger's call for the entire community to bully the cheerleaders and the university. This rather cowardly repression of dissent belongs to North Korea and jihadi terrorists, not America. Our enemies do not need to destroy us if "patriots" holding views like Mr. Terwilliger do it for them.

Mr. Terwilliger's "patriotism" amounts to protecting America by negating the First Amendment, thus holding two contradictory ideas as true at the same time, a psychological condition called "cognitive dissonance."

Two questions. (1) would there be a brouhaha if the cheerleaders were Caucasian? and (2) when do we start burning books in front of the Hanley Library? Because that's exactly where Mr. Terwilliger's un-American brand of "patriotism" leads.

Gene Johnson

Hazel Hurst

Read this article:
Disturbing view of the First Amendment - Bradford Era

The facade of the Newseum in Washington, DC, features the First Amendment. Photo via PublicDomainPictures.net.

Attorney Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case and went on to become Americas leading First Amendment litigator, talked with CJR about President Trumps unprecedented assault on the press, whether leaks from government officials are appropriate, and how the growing acceptance of speech restrictions is an ominous sign for our democracy. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

CJR: I know youre busy, so lets get straight to it. Shortly after the election, you said Donald Trump may be the greatest threat to the First Amendment since the passage of the Sedition Act of 1798. Why is he a threat?

Abrams: I dont think weve had anyone who ran for the presidency in a manner which suggested the level of hostility to the press than did Donald Trump. And we certainly havent had any president who has made as a central element of his presentation while in office a critique of such venom and threat as weve heard in the last month. Now, we dont know how much is talk and what if anything he may do as president apart from the impact of his words. That in and of itself is important. Any effort to delegitimize the press as a whole and any recitation of statements such the one just a few days ago, saying that the press is the enemy of the American people, itself raises serious issues even if he never took any legal steps against the press. Words matter. And the words of the president matter particularly. So a president that basically tells the people that the press is its enemy is engaged in a seriousand deliberately seriousthreat to the legitimacy of the press and the role it plays in American society.

CJR: How do you see this as unique to Trump as opposed to say the Nixon administration? Is this more of a wholesale condemnation of the press?

Abrams: Yes. This is an across the board denunciation of any and all press organizations that have published or carried stories which have been critical of the president. That goes well beyond anything President Nixon did. That said, its perfectly true to say that throughout American history weve had presidents who disparaged the pressJefferson himself did that more than once, sometimes amusingly, and sometimes not. Teddy Roosevelt authorized a criminal proceeding to be brought against Joseph Pulitzer for certain stories about the construction of the Panama Canal. So, its still earlyvery earlyin the Trump administration, but the signs are troubling, and the repeated effort to delegitimize the press as a whole is something new and extremely disturbing.

CJR: How could Trump, with his executive powers, actually launch an assault on the press that could threaten the First Amendment?

Abrams: He could do some of the things that President Nixon made some efforts at doing. The Internal Revenue Service has confidential information about the press leaders as well as everyone else. The Federal Communications Commission has broad authority over the broadcast medium. The Department of Justice has authority to determine when to bring Espionage Act claims. So, there are areas of governmental power and authority which could be called upon if a president were of a mind to do so and was willing to engage in a still more overheated public debate about the bona fides of any effort to do so.

CJR: Trump and others have denounced the culture of illegal leaks in Washington and called the deep state a threat to our democracy. Im wondering, what do you see as the difference between leaks by Edward Snowden or Daniel Ellsberg and their role in a functioning democracy, and the recent leak about National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign after information was released about his meeting with Russian agents before Trump took office?

Abrams: First, let me say that Im not in favor of all leaks. I dont think the government should simply be open to anyone who has access to it, and I think that the behavior of WikiLeaksand in my view sometimes the behavior of Edward Snowdenmakes that case. I think there were documents, highly classified documents, made available by Snowden that had nothing to do with domestic surveillance, and a good deal to do with the ordinary and entirely proper efforts of the United States to protect itself in a dangerous world. That said, however, the information provided about former General Flynn seemed to me amongst the most important sort of data that served the public interest in becoming public. I mean here is a situation in which it appears that the very day that President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia that there were conversations, the substance of which we dont yet know, but conversations between General Flynn and a Russian ambassador and perhaps other Russian authorities. So from my perspective the central issue about him is not that he lied about it to the vice president. Vice presidents have been ignored throughout American history, and Im sure theyve been lied to more than once by people who viewed themselves as having more relevant positions. What concerns me is the possibility that General Flynn was essentially saying to a foreign nation that is adverse to our interests: Pay no attention to what the president of the United States is doing, well take care of that down the road. That would be highly improper and perhaps illegal.

CJR: So when people say Snowden was praised for revealing the surveillance of ordinary citizens, which is what people who use this argument say Michael Flynn was at the time, as well as Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, they are in fact not just ordinary citizens when they are speaking with foreign actors that are known agents, is that correct?

Abrams: Yes. A person who is closely involved with a president-elect is hardly the same as the people that WikiLeaks exposed by printing or making available the Social Security numbers of every sundry employee whose documents happen to come into WikiLeaks possession. So the more important the person and the more the person has a potentially direct impact on American public policy, let alone American national security, the more defensible it is in certain circumstances to find out information about his behavior and to reveal it to the public. And I think thats precisely where the revelations about General Flynn fit.

CJR: This administration has targeted the use of anonymous sources in particular, arguing that they are somehow fake or just a product of leaks with political intent. Do you think the press can do a better job of using anonymous sources?

Abrams: Well, a part of this relates to the manner of presentation. Is there a more revealing way to let the public know why the journalistic organization believes these sources are credible? One way they can do that, The New York Times and other publication routinely do, is use numbers. Six confidential sources said this. Where there is a way to identify why this source is credible, without revealing the identity of the source, or providing too much identity on how to determine who the source is, it should be followed. I dont think this is a fake news problem, this is a credibility problem. And its very important at this time that the press say as much as they possible can justifying their reliance on the sources that they have. Otherwise, you just wind up with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus or President Trump saying there are no sources, and no one having any basis to judge apart from ones own view as to the credibility of the publisher thats offering this information to the public.

CJR: In that same vein, youve said that the press may need to go on the offensive in terms of using litigation against claims by this administration that certain news stories are lies and certain news organizations progenitors of fake news.

Abrams: What Ive said is that there are situations that I could imagine in which statements made by the president or people high in his administration could give rise to libel litigation. Every other democratic nation that I can think of, all of which provide less First Amendment protection than we do, have some body of libel law, and libel suits are brought under them. I dont believe that its illegitimate for the press to avail itself of libel law in certain extraordinary circumstances. Now no one should know better than the press that we protect under the First Amendment a high levelan extraordinary levelof name calling, of generalizations, and rhetorical hyperbole. We do that on purpose. And I dont think that a general statementfor example, that the news is fakeis anything but that. The president is entitled to First Amendment rights as well as everyone else. And its important for the public to be able to hear and pass judgment on the president, and what hes saying, and what hes thinking. But there are things that might be said about particular journalists or particular news organizations which are false and known to be false by the person saying them. While the press is understandably used to defending libel suits, it ought to bear in mind that it has rights, too. And if the charges against it are clear enough, false enoughobviously known to be falseI think it should not give up the chance to use all the protections that the law affords it.

CJR: You famously represented the plaintiff in Citizens United defending the First Amendment rights of a conservative nonprofit corporation. Do you see the assault on free speech coming not just from Trump but also from speech codes and other speech restrictions on college campuses? Is there some relationship between whats happening with restrictions on speech on the left and whats happening on the right?

Abrams: I dont think one causes the other. But I do think that the farther down the road we go of limiting speech, whether its of the left or the right, the easier it is to use that precedent to limit others speech. So, yes, on campuses one of the main victims, and they are victims, of suppression of speech has been conservative groups. At Fordham University in 2012 here in New York, for example, the Republican Club wanted to invite Ann Coulter to speak and they werent allowed to do it. Basically the school said it would be alright if you had her on a panel. Thats a sort of disgraceful suppression of speech, and its occurred elsewhere at many universities. In 2013, the New York City police commissioner at the time, Ray Kelly, was shouted down at Brown University. Last year, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem was shouted down at San Francisco State. Weve got a lot of situations in which speech has been limited or suppressed in an unacceptable way. Now I have to say, I dont think that President Trump would behave any differently than he does, or would have any different views than he does, whether or not this campus plague of speech suppression had occurred. But I am concerned that there has been on both sides and in a number of different contexts a willingness to limit speech, punish speakers, and otherwise act in a contrary way to both the law and the spirit of the First Amendment.

CJR: A 2015 survey of some 800 undergraduate students, sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale, found that 51 percent of students favor their school having speech codes and trigger warnings. Nearly one-third of the students could not name the constitutional amendment dealing with free speech. And 35 percent said that the First Amendment does not protect hate speech. Does that make it easier for the president and his administration to attack speech they disapprove of and the press in general?

Abrams: Well, yes it does. Ive thought for some time that one of the real contributions of any administration would be to take whatever steps they could to re-impose a requirement of a civics course in junior high schools or high schools in America. We need people who are educated about the Constitution in general and the First Amendment in particular at young ages, not the moment they get into college. But to the extent that we are moving towards living in a nation that simply accepts the notion that speech which is viewed as unhealthy or troubling should not occur, First Amendment norms fall easily. And to be clear, I mean First Amendment norms on the broadest level not just legal violations of the First Amendment but what I referred to earlier as the spirit of the First Amendment; that is an acceptance of the notion that people will have a lot of different views on a lot of different subjects, many of which will be difficult or even impossible to seem to live with, but which we at our best have always protected.

CJR: Its interesting that you bring up that civics course. I was just discussing this with Jeffrey Herbst, president of the Newseum in Washington, DC, which does a lot of outreach to try to teach young people about the First Amendment, but also about how to be a consumer of news, which to me seems extremely important.

Abrams: I couldnt agree more. And this one is not Donald Trumps fault, or one partys fault, or one view of the countrys fault. We really have abandoned our children to a very great degree in terms of teaching them what it is that makes the country so special, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the First Amendment. And its something which I think has to be taught while people are young. I dont blame college kids who get in and want people to behave nicely to each other. A lot of bad speech is nice speech. So it asks a lot of them to just pick up the notion that this is the price we have to pay to live in a free country, and that sort of teaching has to start much earlier.

CJR: Final question. Are you hopeful that, as much change as weve gone through in the news industry, the First Amendment will prevail and well continue to see the presss watchdog role played in different forms, through different business models, online and elsewhere?

Abrams: On that I am optimistic. I think the public wants it. I think there will be a market for it. Whether the press will be powerful enough to fend off presidential power is one issue. But on the broader issue of whether were likely to continue to have a press that exists in a meaningful way and does continue to fight the good fight, I think thats more likely than not. Thats one of the big advantages of having written the Bill of Rights down. I start out my latest book, The Soul of the First Amendment, talking about the Framers arguing whether to have a Bill of Rights at all. In Philadelphia, they voted against the Bill of Rightsunanimously. And Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, why should we write down something which is so unnecessary? We never said Congress could limit the press; why do we have to say it cant? And if the ultimate decision had not been made to have a written First Amendmentwhich is law, not just a political-science essaywe would live in a very different country. Because we have a First Amendment, I think it will continue to protect us against the widest range of challenges.

More here:
Q&A: Floyd Abrams on the battle for the soul of the First Amendment - Columbia Journalism Review

BY: Andrew Kugle February 28, 2017 2:00 pm

An anti-Donald Trump protester yelled at a police officer for not stopping supporters of the president from holding a small rally, according to a YouTube video uploaded on Feb. 19.

The video showed several Trump supporters and anti-Trump protestersyelling back and forth ateach other.

One Trump supporter on a megaphone called the anti-Trump protestersthe "most racist people that ever walked the face of the Earth."

Several police officers enteredthescene to create a barrier between the two sides. One anti-Trump protester took this as a sign that the police weresupporting the pro-Trump rally.

"So you are here to support their rally so they can do this and we can't," one female protestersaid.

The police officer tried to explain to the protester that all they were trying to do was create a buffer between the two sides as the pro-Trump man on the mega phone proceeded toyell, "You're the baby of an illegal alien."

The anti-Trump woman did not seem to understand the police officer. She went on to accuse the police officers of standing by the pro-Trump rally. The officer attempted to explain to the woman that both sides have a First Amendment right.

The video continued with shouting and yelling from both sides.

At one point, the man on the mega phone said to the protesters, "We are going to deport every each and one of you."

More here:
Anti-Trump Protester Yelling at Police Officer Appears Not to Understand First Amendment - Washington Free Beacon

Archives: By Topic Select a Topic 113th Congress 114th Congress 1267 terrorist sanctions 1997 Mine Ban Treaty 2001 AUMF 2002 AUMF 2016 Presidential Electio 9/11 Commission Review Aamer v. Obama Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud Abdullah al-Shami Abu Ghaith Abu Ghraib Abu Khattala Abu Omar Abu Wa'el Dhiab Abu Zubaydah v. Poland Accountability ACLU ACLU v. CIA ACLU v. Clapper ACLU v. DOJ act of state Adam Schiff Additional protocol I Adnan Syed Adobe Afghanistan Africa African Commission on Hum African Court of Human an African Court of Justice African Union African Union Mission in African Union Regional Ta Aggression Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi Ahmed Ghailani Ahmed Godane Ahmed Warsame Airstrikes Ajam v. Butler Akbar Akhtar Muhammad Mansur Al Bahlul IV Symposium Al Qaeda Al Shabaab Al Shumrani Al-Bahlul al-Iraqi Al-Janko v. Gates Al-Libi Al-Maqaleh v. Hagel Al-Nashiri Al-Nashiri v. Poland Al-Shimari v Caci et al. Al-Skeini v. United Kingd Al-Zahrani v. Rodriguez Alexander Litvinenko Algeria Ali v. Obama Alien Tort Statute All Writs Act Ambassador Robert Ford Ambassador Stephen Rapp Amends Amerada Hess American Law Institute American Samoa American Society of Inter Americans Amicus Brief amnesty Amnesty International Amos Guiora and Ibrahim al-Qosi Andrew Kleinfeld Andy Wright Angela Merkel Anonymity Ansar Dine Anthony Kennedy Anti-Muslim discriminatio Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) Anti-Torture Amendment Antonin Scalia Anwar al-Awlaki AP I AP II APA Appellate Jurisdiction Apple AQAP AQIM Arab Spring armed attack armed conflict Armed Opposition Groups Arms Control army field manual Artesia Article 51 Article II Article III Ash Carter Ashraf Ghani Aspen Publishers Assad Assassination Ban Associated Forces asylum Atomic Energy Act atrocities prevention Attacks on Cultural Herit Attorney General attribution Auden AUMF AUMFs Australia authorization for the use Automated Searches Automated Weapons Autonomous Weapons Autonomous Weapons System Avril Haines Ba Odah v. Obama back doors Bagram Air Force Base Bankovic v. Belgium Baraawe Barack Obama Barbara Tuchman Barrel Bombs Barton Gellman Bashar al-Assad Bashir Belfast Peace Agreement Belgium Belhaj v. Straw Bemba Ben Emmerson Ben Wittes Benghazi Bernand Kleinman Bill Banks Bimenyimana Biodefense Bioterror Bivens Suit Black Sites Blackwater Blue Ribbon Study Panel o BND Boasberg body cameras Boim v. Holy Land Foundat Boko Haram Bond v. US Book Reviews Books We've Read Bosnia-Herzegovina Botnets Boumediene v. Bush Brad Heath Brazil Brett Kavanaugh Brexit Brian Egan British Library Bruce Ackerman Brussels Attacks BSA bulk collection Burkina Faso Burundi Bush Administration CAAF CALEA California Call for Papers Cambodia Cameron Munter Canada Canadian Security Intelli Canadian Supreme Court Cardozo Law Review Carly Fiorina Carnegie Mellon Universit Castro v. DHS CAT Ceasefire Cell Site Location Inform cell tracking Censorship Center for Civilians in C Center for Constitutional Center for Democracy and Center for National Secur Center for Naval Analysis Central African Republic Central District of Calif cert petitions Cessation of Hostilities Chad Chapter VII Charles Taylor Charleston Church Shootin Charlie Hebdo Charlie Savage Chatham House mini forum Chelsea Manning Chemical Weapons Chilcot Report Chile China Chivalry Chris Jenks Church Commission CIA CIDT CISA Civil Liberties Civil service Civilian Casualties Civilian-Military divide Civilian-Military relatio Claire McCaskill Clapper Clapper v. Amnesty Intern Clarence Thomas Classified Information Clipper Chip Cluster Munitions CMCR collective self-defense Colombia Colvin v. Syria combat troops Comey Commission on the Wartime Committee Against Torture Committee on the Eliminat Common Article 1 Common Article 3 Community Outreach Compliance with Court Ord Complicity Computer Security Inciden Conflict of interest Congress congressional authorizati Congressional Hearing Congressional Hearings Congressional Investigati Congressional Oversight Consolidated Appropriatio Conspiracy Constitution constitutional law Contempt Content Continuous Combat Functio Convention Against Tortur Convention on Cluster Mun Convention on Conventiona Corporate Liability corporations Corruption Council of Europe Council on Foreign Relati Countering Violent Extrem Counterinsurgency counterintelligence Counterterrorism court Court of Appeals for the Court of Military Commiss Courts Martial Couture-Rouleau Covert Action CQ Roll Call crime crime of aggression Crimea Crimes Against Humanity criminal trial Critical Infrastructure Cross-Border Data Request cross-ruffing Cruel cryptography CSIS Cuba Cully Stimson Customary International L CVE CWC Cy Vance Cyber Cyber Bonds Cyber Warfare Cyberattacks Cybersecurity Cybersecurity Act of 2015 Daily News Daily News Roundup Dan Markel Data Data Localization Data Protection Data Sharing David Barron David Ellis David Golove David Hicks David Kaye David Kris David Medine David Miranda David Sentelle David Tatel DC Circuit DC District Court DDoS DEA Deborah Pearlstein Deep Web Defense Directive 2310.01 Defense Select Committee Democracy Democratic Republic of Co Denmark Department of Defense Department of Homeland Se Department of Justice Department of State deradicalization detainee treatment Detention Detention Review Boards development Device Encryption DHS DIA Dianne Feinstein Diarmuid O'Scannlain Diplomacy diplomatic assurances Direct Participation in H Disinformation Dissent Dissent Channel Cable Distinction Division 30 Djibouti DNC DNC Hack DOD DoD Directive 2310.01E DOD Directive 5230.09 DOD Instruction 5230.29 DOJ Domestic Surveillance Dominic Ongwen Donald Trump Dreyer drone court Drone Papers Drones Drones Report due process Duncan Hunter Dustin Heard Dylann Roof Early Edition Ebola ECHR Economic Espionage ECPA ECPA Reform Editors' Picks EDNY Edward Snowden EFF v. DoJ Effective Control Egypt el salvador Electronic Frontier Found Elena Kagan Email Privacy Act Emergency Powers Emoluments Clause Empirical Research Encryption End-to-End Encryption Enemy Belligerents Engines of Liberty EO 12333 EPIC Eric Garner Eric Holder Espionage Act Ethics EU Data Retention Directi Europe European Commission European Convention on Hu European Convention on Na European Court of Human R European Court of Justice European Parliament European Union Evan Liberty event Events evidence Executive Order 12333 Executive Order 13470 Executive Order 13567 Executive Orders Executive Power Executive Privilege extradition Extrajudicial Release Extraordinary African Cha Extraordinary Renditions Extraterritoriality F Facebook FARC Fast & Furious Fatou Bensouda FBI FBI Director FBI v. Apple Featured Federal Communications Co Federal Courts federal program Federal Trade Commission federalism Feminism Ferguson Fifth Amendment Filartiga financing First Amendment FISA FISA Amendments Act of 20 FISA Improvements Act FISA Reform FISC Five Eyes Florence Hartmann FOIA force-feeding Foreign Affairs Foreign Claims Act Foreign Fighters Foreign Law Foreign Policy Foreign Sovereign Immunit foreign sovereign immunit Foreign Surveillance foreign terrorist fighter Foreign Terrorist Organiz Forever War Fourth Amendment Fourth Circuit France Frank Wolf Fred Korematsu Freedom of Association freedom of expression Freedom of the Press FSIA FTC fugitive Gabor Rona Gabriel Schoenfeld Gag Order Garcetti v. Ceballos Gaza GCHQ Gender General Warrants Geneva Conventions genocide Geoff Corn George W. Bush Georgia Gerald Seib Germany Gideon v. Wainwright GJIL Summit Glenn Greenwald Going Dark golden key golden number Google Goran Hadi Government Shutdown Greece Group of Governmental Exp Guantanamo Guardian Guatemala Guest Post Guide to Torture Report Gulf War Guns of August Guns of September Habeas Habre hacking Hae Min Lee Hagel Haiti Hamdan Hamdi v. Rumsfeld Hamid Karzai Handschu Agreement Harold Koh Harvard Law Review Harvard Law School Hassan v. City of New Yor Hate Crimes Hate Speech Hatim v. Obama Heikkila v. Barber Helms Amendment Hernandez v. United State Hezbollah Hicks High commissioner for hum High-Value Detainee Inter Hillary Clinton Hoffman report Holder v. Humanitarian La Holidays Holocaust Holy See Hossam Bahgat Hostage Act Hostile Intent House Armed Forces Commit House Committee on Foreig House Demolitions House Judiciary House lawsuit House Permanent Select Co House Un-American Activit HPSCI HTTPS Huawei Human Right Law human rights Human Rights Committee Human Rights Council Human Rights First Human Rights Law Human Rights Watch Human Shields human trafficking Humanitarian Intervention Humanitarian Law Humanitarian relief opera Hussain v. Obama Hybrid Justice IACHR Ibrahim v. DHS Ibrahim v. US ICC ICCPR ICRAC ICRC ictr ICTY IDF IHL IHR immigration Imminent Threat Immunity immunity for official act Imran Khan Incendiary Weapons India individual self-defense Information Sharing inhuman and degrading tre injury in fact INS v. St. Cyr Inspector General Insular Cases Insurance Intelligence activities Intelligence and Security intelligence community Intelligence Community Di Intelligence Reform International Arm International Armed Confl International Convention international court International Court of Ju International Courts International Criminal Co International Criminal La International Law International Law Commiss International Right to En International Right to Pr internet Internet freedom Internet of Things Interrogation Investigatory Powers Bill Investigatory Powers Trib Iqbal Iran Iran Negotiations Act Iran Nuclear Agreement Re Iran nuclear deal Iran nuclear negotiations Iran Nuclear Negotiations Iraq Iraqi Kurdistan Irek Hamidullan Ireland ISAF ISIL ISIL AUMF Islam Islamic Islamic State Israel Italy Jack Goldsmith James Clapper James Comey James Foley James Risen Jamie Orenstein Jamshid Muhtorov Janice Rogers Brown Jason Smith Jean Pierre Bemba Jeffrey Brand Jeh Johnson Jennifer Granick Jeremy Ridgeway Jerry Brown Jim Sensenbrenner Joe Biden John Bellinger John Brennan John Gleeson John Kerry John McCain John Reed John Walker Lindh John Yoo Joint Committee on Human joint criminal enterprise Jon Cornyn Jonathan Horowitz Jones v. UK Jordan Joseph McCarthy Joshua Arap Sang Journalist journalists JSOC Judge Bates Judge Raymond Randolph Judicial Appointments Judicial Review Judith Rogers Junaid Hussain Jus ad Bellum jus cogens violations jus in bello Just Security Just Security anniversary Just Security Candidates Just Security interns Just Security internship Just security jobs Just War Justice Against Sponsors Justin Raimondo Karen Greenberg Karen LeCraft Henderson Katz v. United States Kazemi v. Iran Keith Alexander Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martin Kenneth Dahl Kenya Kevin Heller Khadr Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Khouzam Killer Robots Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Pet Kiyemba v. Obama Klayman v. Obama Korean landmines Korematsu Korematsu v. United State Kristen Gillibrand KSM Kunduz Kyrgyzstan Laird vs Tatum Lakhdar Brahimi landmines Latif v. Holder Laurence Silberman Lavabit Law enforcement Law Enforcement Hacking Law of Armed Conflict Law of War Manual Law of War Manual Forum Law of War Manual. ICRC Lawfare Lawful Hacking Laws of War Leak Investigations Leaks Lebanon Legal Adviser Legal Adviser, DoS legal offices Legal Services Corp. v. V Letters to the Editor Lewis Kaplan Lex Specialis LGBT Libertarianism Libya Limburg Lindsey Graham Lithuania Livestream Logan Act Lord Peter Goldsmith Lords Resistance Army LTTE Luban Lujan v. Defenders of Wil Luther v. Borden Mac Thornberry Magistrate Judges Maher Arar Mahmoud Abbas Majid Khan Mali Manmohan Singh Mar-a-Lago Marco Rubio Marcy Wheeler Margo Brodie Marine Corps Mark Martins Mark VIsger Marketplace of Ideas Marne Marsha Berzon Martin Luther King Jr. Marty Lederman Material Support Matt Blaze Matthew Waxman Mauritania Mavi Marmara MCA McCain-Feinstein Amendmen McCarthyism McClatchy Mdecins Sans Frontire Media Media Shield Law Medical Personnel membership Memorial Day Mercenaries Merrick Garland Meshal v. Higgenbotham Metadata Mexico Michael Brown Michael Flynn Michael Ratner Michael Weiss Michel Foucault Microsoft Microsoft v. DOJ Microsoft Warrants Case Middle East midterm elections midterms Migrant migration Mike Rogers Military Military aid Military Commissions Military Extraterritorial Military Justice Review G military justice system Military Objective Minimization Procedures Ministry of Defense v. Ra Mitch McConnell MLAT Mohamed v. Jeppesen Datap Mohammed v. MOD Monday Reflection Money Monsanto Montreaux Document Mootness Mosaic Theory Mosul Munitions murder Muslim ban Muslim Brotherhood Mustafa al-Shamiri Mutual Legal Assistance namibia narco-trafficking Nasr v. Italy Nathalie Weizmann National Archives National Institute of Sta national security National Security Council National Security Lawyeri National Security Letters NATO Nawaz Sharif NCIS NCTC NDAA NDU Speech negotiations Network Investigative Tec New York Times New York Times v. DOJ Nicholas Lewin Nicholas Merrill Nicholas Slatten Niger Nigeria No-Fly List Non-international Armed C non-refoulement non-self-executing treati Nonproliferation Treaty Noor Uthman Muhammed Norms Watch North Korea Northern Ireland Notice NSA NSA Reform NSLs Nuclear Nuclear Weapons Nuremberg NYPD Obama administration occupation October Office of Legal Counsel Office of the Director of official act immunity OLC Drone Memo Oman Omar al-Bashir Omar Khadr Oona Hathaway Operation Operation Barkhane Operation Inherent Resolv Operation Protective Edge Operation Storm of Resolv Opinion Poll OPM Organization for Security Organization for the Proh Orin Kerr Osama bin Laden OTP Strategic Plan Ottawa Convention Ottawa shootings Oversight Oversight v. Holder Pakistan Palestine Palmer Raids Panetta Panetta Review Paris Attacks Paris Climate Accord parli Particularity Partition Parwan Patrick Leahy Patrio Patriot Act Paul Slough Paul Wolfson PCLOB Peace Talks Peacekeeping Pen Registers Pentagon Pentagon Papers perfidy Periodic Review Boards Periodic Review Boards (P persecution Peter Burke Peter Margulies Peter Raven-Hansen Philippines Pinochet Plea Agreement PMC PNSDA Poland Police militarization political question doctri Posse Comitatus Power Wars Symposium PPD-28 PPD-30 PPG PRB Pre-publication Review Pr President Obama President's NDU Spee President's Review G Presidential Campaign 201 Presidential Policy Guida Presidential Powers Presidential Review Board Presidents Day PRISM Privacy Private Military and Secu private military contract proportionality protected persons Public Surveys Q+A Qualified Immunity Queen's Speech R2P Rachel Kleinfeld racial discrimination Radovan Karadi Ramzi Bin al-Shibh Rand Paul Raner Collins Ranger School Ransomware rape Rasul v. Bush Ray Mabus Raza v. City of New York Readers' Guide Reagan Real Estate Recusal Red Scare reddit Reengagement Assessment refugee Refugee Crisis Religion remedies Rendition Rep. Adam Schiff Republic of Korea Resolution 2170 Responsibility to Protect Restis Restis v. United Against Rewards for Justice Rex Tillerson Reyaad Khan Rhetoric Richard Burr Richard Leon Right to Be Forgotten Right to Life Right to Privacy Right to Truth Riley v. California Robert Gates Robert H. Jackson Robert Litt Robert Sack Rodriguez v. Swartz Rogue Justice Rome Statute Ron Wyden Roof Knocking Rosenberg vs Pasha Rothstein v. UBS AG Roy Cohn Royce Lamberth Rule 41 Rules of Engagement Rumsfeld v. Padilla Russia Rwanda Ryan Vogel Saddam Hussein SAFE Act of 2015 Safe Harbor safe zones Sahel Salahi Saleh v. Titan Corp Salim v. Mitchell Samantar v. Yousuf San Bernardino Shooting sanctions Sarah Cleveland Sarah Koenig SASC Saudi Arabia Schengen Zone Schlesinger v. Councilman Schrems Scotland Scott Shane SCOTUS SDNY Second Circuit Secrecy Secret Law Secret Service Section 215 Section 702 Security security agreement Security Assistance security clearance self-defense Senate Senate Armed Services Com Senate Foreign Relations Senate HSGAC Senate Intelligence Commi Senate Judiciary Committe Senegal Separation of powers Serdar Mohammed v. SSD Serial Service Providers Sexual Assault Sexual Violence Seymour Hersh SFRC SGBV Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl Sharia shooting Siege Warfare signals collection Silicon Valley Sir John Chilcot SJC Slahi slavery Smith v. Maryland Smith v. Obama Snooper's Charter Snowden Snowden Treaty social Social Media Solicitor General Somalia Sonia Sotomayor Sony South Africa South Ossetia South Sudan Special Forces special rapporteur Spying Sri Lanka SSCI SSCI Report SSCI Torture Report standing Stanley McChrystal Starvation state immunity State of the Union State Responsibility state secrets state secrets privilege State v. Andrews Statehood Staten Island Status of Forces Agreemen status-based immunity statute of limitations StellarWind Stephen Williams Steve Dycus Stimson Center StingRays Stored Communications Act Sudan Sunshine Week superior responsibility Supreme Court Supreme Court of Canada Surveillance Suspension Clause Sustainable Development G Sweden Syria Syrian opposition Syrian refugees Szabo v. Hungary TACT 2000 Tadic Tahir-ul-Qadri Taliban Taliban Sources Project Tallinn Manual target Targeted Killing Targeting Decisions Taylor v. KBR Teaching Technology Ted Cruz term limits terrorism terrorist Terrorist Expatriation Ac Third Circuit Thomas Ambro Thomas Griffith Thomas Lubanga Dyilo Tim Kaine Tim Starks Title III Tony Blair Tor Tor Browser torture Torture Report trafficking transitional justice Transparency transparency reports Treasury Department Treaties Treaty Implementation Treaty Law Trump Trump Administration Trump Administrations truth commission Tuaua Tunisia Turkey Turkmen Turkmenv.Hasty Turner v. Safley Tweet Roll Twitter UANI UDHR Uganda Uhuru Kenyatta Uighurs UK UK Elections UK High Court UK Parliament UK Supreme Court UK Terrorism Act 2000 Ukraine Umm Sayyaf UN Assistance Mission in UN Charter UN High Commissioner for UN High Commissioner on H UN Human Rights Committee UN Security Council Uniform Code of Military United Kingdom United Nations United Nations General As United Nations Human Righ United Nations Human Righ United States ex rel. Acc United States v. Graham United States v. Moalin Universal Declaration of Universal Jurisdiction Universal Periodic Review Unlawful Combatants UNSC UNSC Resolution 1441 UNSC Resolution 2178 UNSC Resolution 2249 unwilling or unable US AID US Army US Holocaust Museum and M US v. al-Darbi US v. al-Shibh US v. Garcia US v. Khadr US v. Mehanna US v. Mohammed US v. Warshak USA Freedom USA Freedom Act Use of Force USS Cole Vance v. Terrazas Verdugo-Urquidez Veterans Veterans Day Veto Victor Restis Video Vietnam Vladimir Putin Vojislav eelj voluntary manslaughter Vulnerabilities Equities war War Crimes War Crimes Act war memorial War on Drugs War on Terror War Powers War Powers Resolution Warafi warrant canary Warsame Wartime Contracts Washington Post Wassenaar Arrangement Waziristan weapons Weapons of Mass Destructi Weekly Recap West Bank Westgate WhatsApp Whistleblowing White House Wikimedia v. NSA William Bradford William Ruto William Samoei Ruto Wiretap Women Women in combat Women's Rights Wong Kim Ark Yahoo Year End 2015 Year End 2016 Yemen Yezidis Yugoslavia Zakharov v. Russia Zehalf-Bibeau Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Zimbabwe Zivotofsky v. Clinton Zivotofsky v. Kerry

On Friday, the White House barred specific news organizations from attending a press briefing by spokesman Sean Spicer. Among the organizations excluded from the question and answer session were news outlets that President Donald Trump has singled out for criticismincluding Buzzfeed, CNN, the New York Times, and Politico. The White House Correspondents Association stated that its board is protesting strongly against the action.

Many in the media have asked whether the White House actions were unconstitutional. I asked some of the most highly respected First Amendmentlaw experts across the country. Heres what they said.

Robert Corn-Revere, Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP:

Whether or not a White House press briefing is a public forum, the selective exclusion of certain news organizations or reporters as retaliation for unfavorable news coverage or simply because the Administration does not like the tone of their coverage raises a significant First Amendment problem. While there are not a lot of cases in this area perhaps because most responsible public officials know better than to engage in such tactics they have held that arbitrary denials of press access are unconstitutional. Perhaps more to the point, such actions are deeply offensive to American values generally, and to the spirit of the First Amendment specifically. And that is true regardless whether a Republican or Democratic administration does it.

Lucy Dalglish, Dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland:

All presidents have tangled with the press in one way or another. They frequently have blackballed one or more newsrooms from interviews with the president. But once they start excluding credentialed White House correspondents from briefings based on their journalism, they have entered new and forbidden territory.

Arthur Eisenberg, Legal Director, New York Civil Liberties Union:

The Supreme Court has long recognized that in administering access to apublic forum, or even alimited forum, government may not privilege some and disadvantage others on the basis of ideological viewpoints. Writing for the Court in Police Department v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92,96 (1972), Justice Thurgood Marshall observed: The government may not grant the use of aforum to people it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views. In explaining this proposition, Justice Marshall insisted that [t]here is an equality of status in the field of ideas and government must afford all points of view an equal opportunity to be heard. The Court has further recognized that the First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but the right toreceive information and to engage in the free exchange of ideas.

A presidential press briefing is notapublic forum. The briefing is clearlynot open to all members of the public. But, such an event can comfortably be understood as alimited forum where reporters fromsignificant news outletsare invited as participants.In conferring access to this forum, government officialsmay limit the number of participants to ensure against overcrowding of the room where the event is being held. The officials might also create categorical criteria for exclusion (such as news outlets that publish on a daily basis or whose readership or viewing audience exceeds a certain number). They may even confine the discussion to certain topics. See Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, 473 U.S. 788 (1985). But what the government officials cannot do, consistent with the First Amendment, is to grant or deny access to news agencies or reporters based upon the views expressed by those individuals or publications. To do so, violates aneutrality principle that is basic to the First Amendment.

The Courts adherence to this prohibition against viewpoint discrimination applies even beyond circumstances where government is regulating access to a forum and even when government officials attempt to mask their motives behind laws that appear to be facially neutral. Grosjean v. American Press Company, 297 U.S. 233 (1936) involved a Louisiana tax that singled out for special adverse treatment the newspapers in the State with the largest circulation. The tax did not identify the newspapers by name. It was imposed simply upon newspapers whose circulation exceeded 20,000. But, by no coincidence, these were the newspapers that were most critical of Louisianas governor, Huey Long. The Court looked behind the facial neutrality of the statute, finding the tax unconstitutional upon the ground that it had been enacted for the purpose of penalizing the publishers of a . . . selected group of newspapers. Here, again, the First Amendment was violated by the efforts of government officials to penalize expressive enterprises on the basis of viewpoint.

Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:

The First Amendment bars the press secretary from ejecting media organizations from briefings they would otherwise be entitled to attend simply because he doesnt like their reporting. In addition, the First and Fifth Amendments entitle media organizations that are denied access to those briefings to timely notice and an opportunity to contest their exclusions. The D.C. Circuit held as much in Sherrill v. Knight and lower courts in other circuits have reached essentially the same conclusion. Based on the facts asIunderstand them, the press secretarys actions werent defensible under these standards. He replaced a scheduled on-camera briefing that all major news organizations were scheduled to attend with an off-camera briefing that pointedly excluded organizations whose coverage President Trump had previously criticized. (Trump called Buzzfeed a failing pile of garbage, for example, after it reported on unverified allegations that Russia had compiled compromising information about him.) While excluding those disfavored media organizations, the press secretary included the days pool reporters as well as a sizable contingent of right-leaning outlets whose coverage the administrationfinds more congenial. If these are indeed the facts, as they seem to be, the press secretarys actions violated the First and Fifth Amendments.

Dawn Johnsen, Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law and served as Acting Assistant Attorney General heading the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice:

The Trump administrations treatment of the press, including its own false statements to the press, presents its greatest threat to our constitutional order thus far. In evaluating the constitutionality of executive action we must keep in mind that the test is not simply what a court might rule unconstitutional. In our system, much of what the president does of questionable legality will not be reviewed by the courts, or will be reviewed only under a very deferential standard. Thus, other checks are essential: by Congress, by presidential legal advisors and, as the Supreme Court often has emphasized, by a free and unrestrained press.

Lee Levine, partner in the media law firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz and author of the treatise, Newsgathering and the Law:

The courts have made it reasonably clear that there is a line between simply declining to grant an interview request made by a disfavored reporter, on the one hand, and the purposeful exclusion of a credentialed news organization from a White House press briefing, on the other. The latter violates the First Amendment especially where, as in this case, the exclusion is based on a public officials dissatisfaction with the content of the news coverage hes received. From a purely litigation perspective, moreover, the Presidents and his Press Secretarys own words provide ample evidence that the decision was both content and viewpoint based. If weve learned nothing else about what the First Amendment forbids in the last fifty plus years, we know that it abhors punitive actions taken by government officials in an effort to punish critics of their official conduct, except in the cause of an extraordinarily compelling public interest. To say the least, no such interest supports this.

Burt Neuborne, Norman Dorsen Professor of Civil Liberties, New York University School of Law:

President Trumps carefully calculated bashing of the press is a leaf out of the Weimar playbook. Once a would-be tyrant succeeds in de-legitimating the independent private press, the way is open to evolving a substitute form of mass communication dominated by the state. But, while such sustained press-bashing by the President poses enormous risks to the information ecosystem needed to support democracy, it does not necessarily violate the First Amendment. To the extent Presidential press-bashing takes the form of speech calling the independent press enemies of the people, and singling out disfavored press organs, like CNN or The New York Times, for special criticism, the Presidents ugly words are protected by, not violative of, the First Amendment. On the other hand, if the President unleashed force or discriminatory law enforcement against disfavored critics, whether or not they are members of the press, that would clearly violate the First Amendment. In my opinion, the exclusion of a disfavored cable network and a hostile newspaper from a White House press briefing held in the Press Secretarys office is probably not a First Amendment violation. As I understand it, the information at the briefing was quickly made available to the excluded organs, rendering the exclusions more symbolic than real. The exclusions were petty, foolish, and, if repeated on a larger scale, dangerous; but, to me, they seemed more a calculated snub; an expression of distaste, rather than an act of censorship. Its hard for me to view a press briefing in a private office as a limited public forum triggering equal access rights when the information at issue was immediately available to the excluded press organs. The response, and there should be a response, should be a show of solidarity by the press. If the White House insists on treating press briefings as pool events, the press should send only the minimum pool representatives. That would end the process immediately.

David Schulz, partner in the media law firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, and Director, Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic, Yale Law School:

The actions on Friday restricting certain news organizations from a briefing by the White House Press Secretary raise significant concerns. The D.C. Circuit almost forty years ago held in no uncertain terms that access to White House press facilities cannot be arbitrarily denied to credentialed reporters.

Courts routinely have held that government press briefings are the type of public forum to which press access may never be restricted based on objections to the content of a journalists reporting. The Supreme Court itself has made clear that, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. Fridays actions appear to be a highly dangerous and improper effort to do just that.

Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School:

Trumps most recent outrage has been to exclude CNN, The New York Times, and a few other media outlets that the President wants to cut off from inner sources of information and chooses to stigmatize with the fake news label that most appropriately fits what he and his subordinates incessantly propound.

The immediate temptation is to denounce that outrage as a clear violation of the First Amendments Free Speech and Free Press Clauses. But it isnt clear to me that those rightly distressed by these presidential actions should hang their hats entirely on the threat of taking the President to court in the name of the Constitution.

Of course Trumps petulant move, which I trust will not long outlast the adverse public reaction it has already begun to generate, is immature and borders on the dictatorial. Of course it is just the kind of step would-be autocrats typically take before adopting more direct and Draconian forms of press censorship. As Churchill once said, A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.

Today the press coverage of the White House is a vital part of that free press. Unsurprisingly, therefore, a number of federal district court and circuit court opinions identify White House press briefings and news availabilities at the offices of government officials as public forums that cannot be confined to ideologically sympathetic reporters and commentators.

But it is not entirely clear that the Supreme Court as currently composed, or with Judge Gorsuch as a ninth justice, would reach that conclusion. It might instead hold that the government platform a president and his team create for the press pool, or for the gaggle of reporters who surround the pool, can be treated by the president as an extension of the White House public relations operation, somewhere between the Voice of the White House and Lafayette Park. Indeed, with increasing frequency, the current Court has permitted what many regard as the censorship of disfavored views by framing the expression involved as a species of government speech, a dangerously malleable category that threatens to swallow First Amendment doctrines otherwise conducive to the free and open exchange of competing views.

To rest ones opposition to what Trump has done on a foundation this manipulable seems to me a legal and strategic blunder. This president violates the U.S. Constitution so frequently, so deeply, and so demonstrably, that one risks diluting the constitutional currency by pulling out the big see you in court guns each time he trashes tradition and violates the broad principles on which our representative democracy rests.

Video:On C-Span, December 16, 2016, Sean Spicer tells Politico reporter that government banning specific reporters or media outlets is what a dictatorship does.

Tuesday, February 28

10:00am SenateCommittee on Foreign Relations Iraq After Mosul(here)

10:00am House Homeland SecurityCommittee The Future of Counterterrorism: Addressing the Evolving Threat to Domestic Security(here)

2:00pm SenateCommittee on Intelligence Open Hearing(here)

2:00pm House Foreign Affairs Committee Checking Chinas Maritime Push(here)

2:00pm House Foreign Affairs Committee Issues and Opportunity in the Western Hemisphere(here)

2:00pm House Homeland SecurityCommittee The Future of FEMA: Recommendations of Former Administrators(here)

3:30pm HouseCommittee on Armed Services Department of Defense Inspector General Report Investigation on Allegations Relating to USCENTCOM Intelligence Products(here)

4:00pm SenateCommittee on Intelligence ClosedHearing(here)

Wednesday, March1

10:00am SenateCommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Effects of Border Insecurity and Lax Immigration Enforcement on American Communities(here)

10:00am House JudiciaryCommittee Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Closed panel preceding open panel(here)

10:00am HouseCommittee on Armed Services Cyber Warfare in the 21st Century(here)

10:15am SenateCommittee on Armed Services Global Counterterrorism Closed (here)

2:00pm House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform VA: Path to Reform(here)

3:30pm HouseCommittee on Armed Services US Ground Force Capability and Modernization Challenges in Eastern Europe(here)

TBD SenateJudiciaryCommittee Business Meeting (incl. continue

Read the original here:
9 Top First Amendment Experts React to White House Press Briefing Ban on CNN, NYT, others - Just Security

Lauren Holst, Cedar Falls, Letter to the Editor 5:40 p.m. CT Feb. 27, 2017

Handguns at a shooting range in Boone, Iowa, in January 2016.(Photo: William Petroski/Des Moines Register)Buy Photo

Iowa Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel,has found yet another creative way for more Iowans, children and adults alike, to be shot.

A long list of professionals licensed by the state should take note.Chapman has just introduced Senate File 254, A person licensed to practice a profession under this (Code) chapter (147) shall not inquire about or otherwise request information about a patients or clients ownership or possession of firearms.

We should all be concerned about this foolhardy bill that does nothing to support Americans Second Amendment right to a well-regulated militia. It is time voters roar a reminder that the preamble to the Constitution makes clear the purpose of government includes the responsibility to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare. Also, the First Amendment is explicitly clear that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Apparently Chapmans budgetary concerns do not extend to using our tax dollars to entangle Iowans in lawsuits on constitutionality.

All Iowans and, most directly, the following professions are affected: physician and surgeon, podiatric physician, osteopathic physician and surgeon, physician assistant, psychologist, chiropractor, nurse, dentist, dental hygienist, dental assistant, optometrist, speech pathologist, audiologist, pharmacist, physical therapist, physical therapist assistant, occupational therapist, occupational therapy assistant, orthotist, prosthetist, pedorthist, respiratory care practitioner, practitioner of cosmetology arts and sciences, practitioner of barbering, funeral director, dietitian, marital and family therapist, mental health counselor, respiratory care and polysomnography practitioner, polysomnographic technologist, social worker, massage therapist, athletic trainer, acupuncturist, nursing home administrator, hearing aid specialist, or sign language interpreter or transliterator.

What kind of society are our elected officials and the voters of Adel creating for us? And why?

Lauren Holst, Cedar Falls

Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2mxW4XO

Original post:
New gun legislation violates First Amendment - DesMoinesRegister.com