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Amazon Argues Alexa Speech Protected By First Amendment In Murder Trial Fight Forbes Amazon is sticking to its guns in the fight to protect customer data. The tech titan has filed a motion to quash the search warrant for recordings from an Amazon Echo in the trial of James Andrew Bates, accused of murdering friend Victor Collins in ...

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Amazon Argues Alexa Speech Protected By First Amendment In Murder Trial Fight - Forbes

A recently enacted California law, AB 1687, requires websites that provide employment services to an individual for a subscription payment to stop publishing a subscribers age whenever the subscriber so demands. In practice, this law was aimed at IMDb, which lets people in the entertainment industry post various rsum information online (via its IMDb Pro service) but also publishes biographical information about people subscribers or not including their ages. The law wasnt limited to information that IMDb learned through its relationship with subscribers; it also covered information that IMDb independently acquired.

Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria temporarily blocked the enforcement of the law, ruling that IMDb was likely to succeed in its First Amendment claim:

Its difficult to imagine how AB 1687 could not violate the First Amendment. The statute prevents IMDb from publishing factual information (information about the ages of people in the entertainment industry) on its website for public consumption. This is a restriction of non-commercial speech on the basis of content. Therefore, the burden is on the government to show that the restriction is actually necessary to serve a compelling government interest. [Footnote: The government has not argued that birthdates or other age-related facts implicate some privacy interest that protects them from public disclosure, and its doubtful such an argument would prevail in any event.] The government is highly unlikely to meet this burden, and certainly nothing it has submitted in opposition to the preliminary injunction motion suggests it will be able to do so.

To be sure, the government has identified a compelling goal preventing age discrimination in Hollywood. But the government has not shown how AB 1687 is necessary to advance that goal. In fact, its not clear how preventing one mere website from publishing age information could meaningfully combat discrimination at all.

And even if restricting publication on this one website could confer some marginal antidiscrimination benefit, there are likely more direct, more effective, and less speech-restrictive ways of achieving the same end. For example, although the government asserts generically that age discrimination continues in Hollywood despite the long-time presence of antidiscrimination laws, the government fails to explain why more vigorous enforcement of those laws would not be at least as effective at combatting age discrimination as removing birthdates from a single website. Because the government has presented nothing to suggest that AB 1687 would actually combat age discrimination (much less that its necessary to combat age discrimination), there is an exceedingly strong likelihood that IMDb will prevail in this lawsuit.

[Footnote: The government casts AB 1687 as ordinary economic regulation falling outside First Amendment scrutiny. But IMDb Pros commercial relationship with its subscribers has no connection to IMDbs public site, which relies on data obtained from third parties or from the public record. The government would perhaps be on stronger ground if AB 1687 were limited to preventing IMDb from misappropriating the data furnished by subscribers to its industry-facing site.]

Sounds right to me, though Id go further and say that such a restriction on publishing truthful information would be unconstitutional even if it did combat age discrimination more effectively than other alternatives would. (Note that I signed on to an amicus brief in the case that supported this position; the brief was written by M.C. Sungaila, and was signed by, among others, noted liberal professor and University of California at Irvine dean Erwin Chemerinsky, our own David Post and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

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IMDb likely has First Amendment right to display people's ages - Washington Post

Olivier DoulierySpeaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos promised to back school choice policies while fighting for the free speech rights of college students.

DeVos focused on education reform during her brief remarks, stressing that the Obama administration's spending on school improvements did not yield encouraging results.

"Today we know the system is failing too many kids," she said. "Our nation's test scores have flatlined."

DeVos then turned to free speech issues on college campuses.

"They say if you voted for Donald Trump, you are a threat to the community," said DeVos, referring to the climate on campus. "But the real threat is silencing the First Amendment rights of people with whom you disagree."

Unfortunately, DeVos avoided specifics. She did not discuss the Education Department's role in fostering a climate of censorship via guidance from the Office for Civil Rights, which has stepped up anti-harassment measures over the last five years. Civil libertarians hope DeVos will reform the agency.

She also dodged a question about her alleged dispute with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the decision to rescind the Obama administration's protections for transgender students. DeVos had opposed taking this step, but caved due to pressure from President Donald Trump.

It was not a very revealing interview, all told. If DeVos has big plans to fix schools and colleges, she certainly isn't showing her hand.

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CPAC: Betsy DeVos Thinks First Amendment Rights of College Students Are Under Attack - Reason (blog)

The first amendment to the U.S. constitution is just a few short lines, but it speaks volumes. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This past weekend, more than a hundred people in Floyd, Virginia came out to celebrate those words and explore their meaning. Robbie Harris prepared this report.

In a cathedral-like post and beam auditorium at the Floyd Eco Center, they sang songs, read poems and essays theyd written for the occasion and shared their thoughts about that powerful sentence. The celebration was the brainchild of Alan Graf, a civil rights attorney, activist and lover of blue grass music whod hoped to retire in Floyd and learn to play the banjo.

But in the past few months, he says, hes seen his beloved first amendment coming under attack, and he felt he had to say something. I think our best defense against any grabbing of power is our ability to speak and thats why I wanted to put together this celebration to remind people to use it

Graf explains, he devoted his life to being a watchdog for civil rights because of his own familys story. His grandparents were killed in the Holocaust in Germany during World War II.

So its in my family to fight against totalitarian regimes - and I see the writing on the wall. And so Ive been defending the constitution for 25 years - I feel religious about the Bill of Rights, first, second, third, fourth - well, every amendment, but particularly the first amendment. I see it as the peoples last stand against a totalitarian regime."

Thats in part because it limits the power of government as Floyd County Commonwealth Attorney Eric Branscom points out.

It was in 1791 that the first amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, became part of the Constitution. Its important to note that the first amendment and the freedoms therein are not positive rights, theyre negative rights, which means they exist as limitations on the government rather than rights granted by the government."

And that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, making the Bill of Rights something the legal system has grappled with ever since. And so have the poets, the philosophers and musicians among us.

Heres Kim ODonnel reading a poem she wrote for the first amendment celebration:

There is no such thing as free speech. Soldiers stand and fall, arrive home in a box beneath a flag. We have been given nothing that we did not pay for.

A rich man grabs a woman against her will and she eats her rage and every word she wants to say until she is emaciated from her hunger for truth.

She speaks out and he arrives in our capital, takes an oath beneath our flag.

There is no such thing as free speech. We have been given nothing that we did not pay for.

And just because freedom of expression is protected, that doesnt mean you have to agree with or accept whatever is expressed. Over the years, the legal community has come up with this balancing act; the remedy to any speech you dont like or dont agree with is more speech.

Original Music by Michael Kovick, Silence is Complicity.

I know that things aint just what they ought to be. You and I could turn it around. When we stand up for what we believe in, first amendment rights are found and if you dont like it and you dont stand up how is anybody gonna know where you stand? I want to know. Silence is complicity.

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Celebrating the First Amendment in Floyd, VA - WVTF

The First Amendment of our U.S Constitution gives the press freedom of speech. I firmly believe this refers to commentary on the editorial pages only, which I believe is sacred, but even then it doesn't protect the press from libel for commentary (through the use of lies, distortions and outright fabrication) designed to hurt, distort and/or mislead the readers in some way.

As for the rest of a newspaper, I believe it is reserved for truthful news free of the author's opinion. Any opinion and bias blended into "news articles" should not be constitutionally protected. Beware of descriptive adjectives, descriptive adverbs and descriptive phrases blended into news articles to bias the reader for or against the topic being written about.

Also, some people read only the headlines to get the "gist" of the article. Others read a few paragraphs, then move on. Others read the entire article as continued onto other pages. For example, refer to the following article in Sunday's Reporter-Herald, "Trump's America after a Month."

Read the headline and write down how you understand what the article is about. Then read the first few paragraphs and do the same. Then read the entire article and do the same. Now go back through the article and cross out all descriptive adjectives, adverbs and phrases, then reread the article and document how you understand what has been written. Is your understanding of what has been written the same as before? If not, you now understand why the press has such a low rating among the American readers.

Try this on several different articles on different days.

Dennis Carr

Loveland

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First Amendment shouldn't protect biased news articles - Loveland Reporter-Herald