Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

Red Alert: The First Amendment is already in danger and here’s why – Raw Story

President Donald Trump takes a moment before taking the stage during a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., May 29, 2017. (DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brigitte N. Brantley)

Of all the incredible statements issuing from the fantasy factory that is the imagination of Donald Trump, the one he recently made in a speech to graduates of the Coast Guard academy, that no politician in history and I say this with great surety has been treated worse or so unfairly sets an unenviable record for brazen ignorance plus a toxic mix of self-aggrandizement and self-pity. In his eyes, the most villainous persecutors are the mainstream fake news organizations that dare to oppose his actions and expose his lies.

So, having already banned nosy reporters from news corporations that he doesnt like, branded their employers as enemies of the nation and expressed a wish to departed FBI Director James Comey that those in the White House who leak his secrets should be jailed, why should there be any doubt that he would, if he could, clap behind bars reporters whom, in his own cockeyed vision, he saw as hostile? His fingers itch to sign an order or even better a law that would give him that power. Could he possibly extract such legislation from Congress?

Such a bill might accuse the press of seditious libel, meaning the circulation of an opinion tending to induce a belief that an action of the government was hostile to the liberties and happiness of the people. It also could be prohibited to defame the president by declarations directly or indirectly to criminate his motives in conducting official business.

With a net that wide, practically anything that carried even the slightest whiff of criticism could incur a penalty of as much as five years in jail and a fine of $5,000. Just for good measure, couple it with an Act Concerning Aliens, giving the president the right to expel any foreign-born resident not yet naturalized whom he considers dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States without a charge or a hearing.

How Trump would relish that kind of imaginary power over his enemies!

I didnt make up those words. They are part of actual laws the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in the summer of 1798 and signed by John Adams, our second president and titular leader of the conservative Federalist Party. Men were actually tried, imprisoned and fined for such sedition. If anyone believes that under the First Amendment gagging the media cant happen here, the answer is that it already has.

How did it happen? Just as it could happen again today in the midst of a national emergency. In Adams day, it was a war scare with France that produced a flurry of stand behind the president resolutions, a hugely expanded military budget (including the beginnings of the US Navy), demonstrations of approval in front of Adams residence and a conviction among the Federalists that members of Congress who talked of peace namely the Republicans, the pro-French opposition party who at that time were the more liberal of the two parties, [held] their countrys honor and safety too cheap.

In other words, just the kind of emergency that could be produced at any time in our present climate by a terrorist attack here at home genuine, exaggerated or contrived and pounced upon by the man in the White House.

Do I exaggerate? Read the chilling report of the April 30 interview between Jon Karl of ABC News and Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, who said the president might change libel laws so he could sue publishers. When Karl suggested that this might require amending the Constitution, Priebus replied, I think its something that weve looked at, and how that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.

This is reality. A lying president aspiring to become a tinpot dictator is making his move. Its time to be afraid, but not too afraid to be prepared.

Lets briefly flash back to 1798. In the bitter contest between Federalists and Republicans, their weapons were the rambunctious, robust and nose-thumbing newspapers of the time, run by owner-editors and publishers who simply called themselves printers. They werent above dirtying their own hands with smears of ink, nor was there any tradition of objectivity. A British traveler of a slightly later time wrote that defamation exists all over the world, but it is incredible to what extent this vice is carried in America.

Nobody escaped calumny, not even the esteemed father of his country. Benjamin Franklin Bache, Republican editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, commented as George Washington departed office that his administration had been tainted with dishonor, injustice, treachery, meanness and perfidy if ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by WASHINGTON.

Bache also had had harsh words for old, bald, blind, querulous, toothless, crippled John Adams, sounding very much like a pre-dawn Trump tweet aimed at some critic of His Mightiness. You might not find that kind of personal invective now in The New York Times or The Washington Post, but its familiar on right-wing talk radio and would sound at home coming from the mouths of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter. The mode of dissemination changes; the ugliness at the core is unchanged.

Stung and furious, Adams and his Federalist supporters in Congress pushed the Sedition Act through Congress, though by a narrow majority. But could it survive a legal challenge from the Republican minority under the First Amendments guarantee of press freedom? The Federalists answered with a legal interpretation that the guarantee only covered prior restraint, which meant that a license from a government censor was required before publication of any opinion. Once it actually emerged in print, however, it had to take its chances with libel and defamation suits, even by public officials. Today,prior restraint is judicially dead, but the question of who is a public official and can be criticized without fear of retaliation in the courts continues to produce litigation.

But in 1787 argument made little difference. With the trumpets and drums of war blaring and thundering, the Constitution, as usually happens in such times, was little more than a paper barrier. Some provisions were added that would help the defense in a prosecution under its provisions. Moreover, the act was ticketed to expire automatically on March 3, 1801, the day before a new president and Congress would take office and either renew the law or leave it in its grave which is precisely what happened when Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans eventually won the 1800 election.

Nevertheless, during its slightly more than two years in force that produced only a handful of indictments, the Sedition Act did some meaningful damage. It produced what Jefferson called a reign of witches harmful enough to prove it was a travesty of justice, but not enough to become a full-blown reign of terror like the disappearances and executions of modern tyrannies.

The act never succeeded in its purpose of muzzling all criticism of the government, and in fact worked to the contrary. The toughest sentence 18 months in jail and a fine of $450 a huge sum in those days when whole families never saw as much as $100 in cash was imposed on a Massachusetts eccentric who put up a Liberty Pole in Dedham denouncing the acts and cheering for Jefferson and the Republicans. Other convictions for equally innocuous crimes defined by zealous prosecutors as sedition inflicted undeserved punishment by any standard of fairness. But two were especially consequential thanks to the backlash they produced.

One involved Matthew Lyon, a hot-tempered Vermont congressman, who ran a newspaper in which he accused Adams of a continual grasp for power and a thirst for ridiculous pomp that should have put him in a madhouse. For that he got a $1,000 fine and four months of jail time in an unheated felons cell in midwinter. But numerous Republican admirers raised the cash to pay his fine. While still behind bars, he handily won re-election to Congress, and the senator from Virginia personally rode north to deliver saddlebags full of collected cash. In addition, Lyon ran for re-election from jail in December and swamped his opponent by 2,000 votes. His return to Philadelphia and his seat in the House was celebrated joyfully by Republican crowds.

Jedidiah Peck from upstate New York was also indicted for his heinous offense of circulating a petition for the repeal of both the Alien and Sedition Acts. At each stop in his five-day trip to New York City for trial, the sight of him in manacles, watched over by a federal marshal, provoked anti-Federalist demonstrations. His case was dropped in 1800, and he was also easily re-elected to his seat in the New York assembly.

In fact, the entire Republican triumph in that years election was in good part a backlash to the censorship power grab of the Federalists. Literate voters of 1800, kept informed by a vigorous press, were not going to put padlocks on their tongues or take Federalist overreach lying down. Maybe it was from ingrained love of liberty or plain orneriness, or maybe because they were tougher to distract than we their heirs, beset by a constant barrage of entertainment, advertisements and other forms of trivial amusements.

Because that stream of noise is constant and virtually unavoidable by anyone not living in a cave, we are vulnerable to the tactic of the unapologetic Big Lie. If Trump keeps repeating fake news over and over at every exposure of some misdemeanor, eventually the number of believers in that falsehood will swell.

Genuine trouble is at our doorstep. If that statement from Reince Priebus is taken at face value, our bully-in-chief is looking for nothing less than control of the court of public opinion through management of the media by criminalizing criticism all behind a manufactured faade of governing in the name of the people.

With the example of 1798 before us, we need to resolve that any such effort can and must be met with the same kind of opposition mounted by that first generation of Americans living under the Constitution. If we want to be worthy of them, we need to use all our strength and resolution in deploying tactics of resistance. We need to fill the streets, overwhelm our lawmakers with calls and letters, reward them with our votes when they check the arrogance of power and strengthen their backbones when they waver. Any of us who gets a chance to speak at public gatherings and ceremonies should grab it to remind the audience that without freedom of speech, assembly and protest there is no real freedom. If the First Amendment vanishes, the rest of the Bill of Rights goes with it. And were dangerously close.

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Red Alert: The First Amendment is already in danger and here's why - Raw Story

First Amendment case against Burlington can proceed – BurlingtonFreePress.com

A judge ruled on Thursday, June 1, 2017 that a case challenging a Burlington housing policy can proceed. JESS ALOE/FREE PRESS

184 Church Street in Burlington on Wednesday, April 6, 2016.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

A federal judge ruled a Burlington man's lawsuit charging the city with violating his First Amendment rights can proceed.

Joseph Montagno filed the lawsuit last fall claiming the city violated his rights by pressuring his landlord to evict him for calling 911 too many times.

The ruling, issued on Thursday by Judge Christina Reiss, mostly denied the city's request to dismiss the case.

In the original complaint, Montagno's American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, Jay Diaz, argued that his client's right to free speech had been "chilled" by the city's actions.

More: Lawsuit: Man evicted for calling BPD 'too frequently'

If his factual allegations are true, Reisswrote, "he has plausibly alleged a retaliation claim."

The judge dismissed several other parts of the lawsuit. Eileen Blackwood, Burlington's City Attorney, said she was pleased that the court had narrowed the issues.

She also said it was early in the proceeding.

"Motions to dismiss are often not granted because the court has to give the benefit of the doubt to the plaintiff," she said.

Burlington city attorney Eileen Blackwood.(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the FREE PRESS, FILE)

Montagno claimed in the lawsuitthat the Burlington Police Department and Code Enforcement office kept track of his calls to the police department, and then pressured his landlord into evicting him.

"We're very pleased with the ruling," said Jay Diaz, Montagno's American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. "Mr. Montagno is looking forward to pressing his case against the city."

Jay Diaz, staff attorney with the Vermont ACLU, in February 2015.(Photo: KEVIN HURLEY/for the Free Press)

Diaz said his client was able to eventually secure housing in Burlington after being evicted from his Church Street apartment, with the help of several local nonprofits such as Vermont Legal Aid and Champlain Housing Trust.

He said one goal of the lawsuit was to end the alleged policy, as well as to encourage the city to focus more on supporting people who need help.

"They were among the most vulnerable Burlington residents," he said about the residents of the Church Street building where Montagno lived. "They were low-income, many of them had disabilities."

Blackwood said she does not believe that Burlington hasa "caller retaliation policy."

"We don't think there was any attempt to chill First Amendment rights," she said.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe

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First Amendment case against Burlington can proceed - BurlingtonFreePress.com

First Amendment must remain as a pillar of country – The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

The essence of journalism is supposed to be rooted in fact based objectivity. The Missoulian and Gazettes' 24th-hour reversal of their Gianforte endorsement is the equivalent of Dick Cheney removing himself from the tip of the spear that was meant to kill LGBT rights only after his daughter came out.

Now, more than ever, the First Amendment must be utilized as of one of the pillars this country was built upon in order for our democracy to endure the whims of awfulness humanity is frequently compelled to act upon. Now is not the time to use the The First Amendment, and the journalistic integrity heavily implied therein, as a crutch used to limp into our common future.

If all it takes for an entity like The Missoulian to find their moral compass is to have their agenda, or in this case their endorsement, come back bite them in the butt, and hurt one of their own, only serves to highlight their bias, and make it more transparent to how far removed they are from objectivity and truth.

Journalists are supposed to not only weather, but be at home in the eye of the storm.

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First Amendment must remain as a pillar of country - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

New state law protects First Amendment rights – Stowe Today

Student journalists and their teachers and advisers just gained greater First Amendment protections under a new Vermont law.

The Vermont Press Association is pleased the Legislature moved quickly this year to provide proper First Amendment safeguards for student-journalists and their advisers, said association President Adam Silverman, an editor and writer at the Burlington Free Press. School superintendents, principals and other administrators should refrain from censoring student publications. That is why there is a First Amendment.

The Vermont law, recently signed by Gov. Phil Scott, protects student journalists against retaliation for writing articles that address controversial political issues.The bill also blocks retaliation against teachers and advisers for articles written by students.

Silverman said the law places speech in journalistic publications on par with students rights to speak on their T-shirts, leaflets, flyers, armbands and in all other parts of the school day.

The new statute, along with an unrelated shield law bill, which also has been signed by Gov. Scott, were the two top priorities for the press association going into the legislative session, Silverman said.

Student-journalists representing Burlington High, Bellows Free Academy-St. Albans, Woodstock Union and the University of Vermont were among witnesses who testified in favor of the new law.

A noted First Amendment law school professor, a longtime award-winning journalist and a university newspaper adviser also affirmed the need for the legislation in Vermont.

The Vermont students testified about some pushback they received at their schools when trying to cover stories that had been reported by local professional media outlets.The stories included reports on an impasse being declared for teacher negotiations, a study of handicapped accessibility in school buildings, sexting cases by students and local rallies outside schools for Black Lives Matter.

The Senate Education Committee and the full chamber passed the bill unanimously. The bill got mired in the House for two months before the education and judiciary committees considered it. The House eventually gave the bill the green light.

Scott met with some of the witnesses for a ceremonial bill signing Thursday in South Burlington. He told the group that journalists play an important role in society and also said it was important for young Vermonters to be active in politics.

If we want to change the direction of this country or this state,you have to get involved, right?You have to get there, you have to step up, Scott said. Having the press be able to tell the stories without being victimized is important in keeping politicians honest.

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New state law protects First Amendment rights - Stowe Today

ACLU Says Shawnee Mission School Board Policy Violates First … – KCUR

The ACLU of Kansas says a new policy adopted by the Shawnee Mission School Board may violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. It has sent a letter to Board President Sarah Goodburn, urging the board to rescind the policy.

In its letter, the ACLU highlights an exchangeGoodburn had with a parent at a board meeting May 22. At that meeting, resident Jeff Passanraised concerns about an alleged conflict of interest by board member Deb Zila, involving Zila's vote to approve a new district contract with insurance broker CBIZ. CBIZ employs Zila's daughter.

After naming Zila, Passan was interrupted by Goodburn.

"You got this beforehand? What we can and cannot talk about in open forum? Naming specific people is really not allowed," Goodburn said.

She was apparently referring to the Board's recently modified guidelines for speakers at a meeting. It says, in part, that speakers should be "civil, use respectful language and refrain from any personal attacks." The policy also states "matters related to a specific student or employee" should not be discussed.

In a video of the May 22 meeting, Passan looks briefly flummoxed, then responds to Goodburn:

"So, if in the future there is a particular vote which I, as a person who lives in the Shawnee Mission School District, disagree with and want to publicly ask about that, am I not allowed to do that?" he asked.

Goodburn can be heard on the video responding to Passan, repeating the wording of the guidelines. After Passaninterjects that he is "being civil and respectful", Goodburn says: "You can say a 'board member' but a specific board member you cannot say."

The Shawnee Mission Post reported Goodburn later acknowledged Passan had not technically been in violation of the speaker guidelines because Zilais not an employee of the district.

The ACLU, in its letter, says that's not good enough.

"People have a well-established First Amendment right to criticize both elected officials and other public servants," the letter says (emphasis by the ACLU). "By prohibiting commenters from discussing "matters related to a specific student or employee", the Board's current guidelines are overbroad and inconsistent with the First Amendment."

The letter ends by urging the board to "remove the guidelines" and "in the future, refrain from admonishing commenters who mention board members by name."

In an emailed statement, a district spokesperson wrote the district had received the ACLU's letter.

"As the Board continues its review of draft guidelines," the spokesperson wrote, "it will take the comments in the letter into consideration as it balances the privacy rights of individual students and employees with the free speech rights of individual citizens."

Kyle Palmer is KCUR's morning newscaster. You can follow him on Twitter @kcurkyle.

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ACLU Says Shawnee Mission School Board Policy Violates First ... - KCUR