Category: Free Speech

Free Speech, Justice, Media, Military, Society

See the Future, Be the Future
Faux-Propaganda poster ft. Mayor Bloomberg by Essam Attia
Faux-Propaganda poster ft. Mayor Bloomberg by Essam Attia; note the intentional misspelling.

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

“I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.” – Steven Wright

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.” – George Satnayana in “Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense”

This last week an artist became the message of his own art. While this may be poetic, it is also an injustice and a abridgement of his 1st Amendment rights.  Fake Soviet style propaganda posters appeared around New York City corresponding to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.  They are the work of 29-year-old street artist Essam Attia, who although he works anonymously like the street artist Bansky, did sign some of the works “Essam”.  The NYPD’s initial response seemed to be proportionate to the act when Police Department spokesman Paul Browne shrugged the stunt off with a bad pun.  “[It] appears to be NYPD critics subjecting us to a droll attack”, he said.  The actual disproportionate response has ended up with Essam Attia being arrested and charged with 56 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, grand larceny possession of stolen property and weapons possession – the last charge stemming from an unloaded and unregistered .22 caliber pistol under the artist’s bed.

Continue reading “See the Future, Be the Future” →

Academia, Animals, Bizarre, Columns, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Environment, Free Speech, International, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Military, Politics, Religion, Science, Society, Supreme Court, Testimony, Things That Tick Me Off, Torts

TURLEY BLOG MAKES ABA TOP 100 — NOW IT IS TIME TO VOTE FOR THE TOP BLOG!

The ABA Journal has released its list of the top 100 legal blogs in the world and we are once again in this august group of blogs. Congratulations to all of our regulars contributors and weekend bloggers. We have previously taken the top spot under the opinion category in the past but the ABA has now eliminated that category. Even more ominous was the decision to put the largest blogs in direct competition under an expanded “News/Analysis” category. This includes the long dominant “Above the Law” site. We would have to punch considerably above our weight to beat “Above the Law,” which is ranking regularly in the top two most visited legal sites in the world. Frankly, it is like a dingy going up against a battleship. However, we have never flinched in the face of superior numbers. So it is time to vote! It takes a very quick registration. Just click here and cast your vote today!

Continue reading “TURLEY BLOG MAKES ABA TOP 100 — NOW IT IS TIME TO VOTE FOR THE TOP BLOG!” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Media, Politics

Italian Journalists Strike In Face Of New Law Mandating Jail For Defamation

I recently wrote an article how defamation and other laws were being used in the West to curtail free speech. We have another such example out of Italy. I have previously criticized the defamation laws in Italy which include prosecutions of criminal defendants and their families for criticizing police or prosecutors. Now, Italian journalists are on strike after politicians pushed forward a new law that would mandate jail for those who defame people in their stories — most obviously, the politicians themselves.

Continue reading “Italian Journalists Strike In Face Of New Law Mandating Jail For Defamation” →

Academia, Animals, Bizarre, Columns, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Environment, Free Speech, International, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Military, Politics, Religion, Science, Society, Supreme Court, Testimony, Things That Tick Me Off, Torts

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. This is my favorite holiday with all of the essential elements of joy: food, friends, and football. Continue reading “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

England Cracks Down On Unacceptable Internet Speech

We have been following (here and here and and and here and and here and here) the worsening situation in England concerning free speech. As noted in a recent column, free speech appears to be dying in the West with the increasing criminalization of speech under discrimination, hate, and blasphemy laws. The article below details the crackdown on Internet speech in the country from charging a teenager who made offensive comments about a murder to a man who burned a paper poppy, the symbol of the war dead.

Continue reading “England Cracks Down On Unacceptable Internet Speech” →

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Society

The Consequences of Free Speech

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

On a recent thread, the topic of politically correct speech as it relates to free speech came up. As with many of the more interesting threads on this blog, the topic came about from meandering rather than the subject proper of the thread. The subject was brought back to fore in my mind this morning when I read this: How Free Speech Died on Campus by  Sohrab Ahmari, published on The Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com). It seems there are a lot of misconceptions about what constitutes free speech, the limitations thereon and the consequences thereof.

The core of the American free speech right and tradition is codified in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Congress shall make no law [. . . ] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[.]”

The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 19, states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This has implications that apply to public discourse.  Let us consider these implications.

Continue reading “The Consequences of Free Speech” →

Academia, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Media, Military, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Democracy in America: What Does it Mean?

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

While the United States of America is many things to many people, it is not as is popularly conceived a Democracy and it never has been. This view is not coming from a perspective of politics, but one of stark reality. The thinking of the overwhelming majority of our Founding Fathers, as embodied in the Constitution they wrote, was certainly not to give power to the masses. I don’t believe this point is in dispute by the majority of Constitutional experts, despite their various positions on the political spectrum. Most politicians with self-awareness and intelligence have always known that we are not a Democracy as a country, despite the fact that most also proclaim it to be a Democracy. The problem with what I just wrote is that defining Democracy is a very slippery process and as I will show, the word means very different thing to many different people.

Permit me to begin by defining Democracy in terms of the myth that has been created around it in American parlance: “Democracy represents both the Will and the Rule of the People over their government. As such it is the best form of government for all”. Whether we believe it or not all Americans have grown up under this national myth and its’ use is ubiquitous to both domestic and foreign policy. The many wars this country has fought were prosecuted in the interests of this myth of Democracy, whether in destroying the Axis in World War II to save the world, or to nurture its creation and existence in numerous foreign lands. A student of history understands that the reasons for the wars America has fought are far more complex and ultimately self-serving than protecting Democracy. Nevertheless, to initially go to war, a populace must be energized by the belief that it will be fought for a higher purpose, in order to send it young adults to fight and potentially die. This energy in America usually has come from a combination of the myth of protecting democracy and a general threat to all the people. The simple rubric in my lifetime and in the history before it, is that we are fighting for Democracy. I will explore this myth, so central to our lives of citizens and discuss its implications. Continue reading “Democracy in America: What Does it Mean?” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Society

Minnesota Man Charged With Threatening Police Officer After Posting Tattoo on Facebook

There is an interesting case out of Minnesota where alleged gang member Antonio “Savage” Jenkins has been charged with terroristic threats against a police officer. The vehicle used for the alleged threats is rather novel: his arm. Jenkins’ posted a picture of his arm with a tattoo on Facebook that showed a pig with a gun in its mouth, wearing a uniform with a badge number and an officer’s name.

Continue reading “Minnesota Man Charged With Threatening Police Officer After Posting Tattoo on Facebook” →

Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, VI, 21.

Anyone who has read my work here or known me for any length of time has heard me use this quote before. It is more than just a pithy quote from one of the great Stoic minds of antiquity, it is a summation of one of my personal ethics. Earlier this week, Professor Turley posted an item about former President Bill Clinton entitled “Clinton: We Don’t Need A President Who Will Not Tell You The Truth“. The gist of the article was that a President who lied under oath as Clinton did most certainly didn’t need to be critical of other politicians lying as it was simple hypocrisy even if the point former President Clinton made was valid. This brings us to a prime and necessary component of the propaganda scenario, the liar.  Lying is a commonality in our species.  Everyone lies about something some time.  “No, that dress doesn’t make you look fat, honey.”  “I was ambushed by baboons on the way to work this morning.”  “I can’t go out tonight because I have to stay home and wax my dog.” Or the classic . . .

These are not the lies that are of primary importance in propaganda. White lies, while not necessarily ethically the best thing in the world, are a social lubricant that helps keep society cohesive. If everyone told the truth about everything all the time, the homicide and suicide rates would probably sky-rocket. We are going to focus on the truly bad actors. The liars in propaganda who are looking to get you to do something they want that is usually not in your best interests and/or harmful to others. Since many dangerous liars are sociopaths or psychopaths, the question becomes how do you spot a liar, a sociopath or a psychopath?  First we start with how to spot a generic liar before considering how to spot socio- and psychopaths at a later date.

Continue reading “Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media

Controversial Filmmaker Of “The Innocence of Muslims” Sentenced to One Year In Jail

Mark Basseley Youssef (aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula), the filmmaker connected to the controversial film “The Innocence of Muslims,” has been sentenced to a year in prison for violations of his probation for his 2010 bank fraud conviction. The arrest of Youssef raised immediate objections that, while the Obama Administration insisted that it would not punish such acts of free speech, it set out to arrest him on any possible grounds to satisfy the “Arab Street.”

Continue reading “Controversial Filmmaker Of “The Innocence of Muslims” Sentenced to One Year In Jail” →

Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

As mentioned in the last installment of this series, silence in various forms can be just as potent a propaganda tool as words or images proper. Variations of this tactic were presented as were examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts at its utilization. This last week a news story appeared that illustrates one of the major types of failure associated with this tactic and it is one that is every more likely and hard to avoid in the Information Age.  This type of failure is known colloquially as the Streisand Effect; whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

“Don’t look at this!”

Named for singer Barbra Streisand, it is a modern term for an old phenomena.  Similar to the meme of “Banned in Boston”, it revolves around the idea that forbidden fruit is the most tempting and that banning or censoring something often makes that item or information more desirable. Babs got her name attached to this propaganda phenomena when in 2003 she attempted to suppress photographs of her residence and inadvertently generated further publicity. This publicity was notably “improved” – although if you’re Babs you might say “exacerbated” – by the World Wide Web.

This week’s story involves the GOP attempting to suppress a non-partisan tax study that debunked their entire Ayn Rand/neoconservative taxation mythology that catering to the wealthy creates jobs.  It provides an interesting case study in the Streisand Effect.  It also raises some interesting questions about political culpability and consequences.

Continue reading “Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question” →

Academia, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Religion, Society, Supreme Court, Testimony, Uncategorized

Too Much Democracy?

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

I’m a legal resident of Florida and this week I took advantage of early voting. While I’ve been a political activist for most of my life and usually have a good idea of the issues involved in any particular election, this vote brought home to me that I wasn’t as smart and informed in this election as I supposed. This thought occurred to me the night before I voted, when I carefully looked over the sample ballot sent to me by my County Board of Elections. The sample ballot had six pages and the opportunity to vote twenty six separate times. The first seven of the twenty-six votes, were “no brainers” since it started with the Presidency and ended with County Commissioner. I was familiar with each of these elective offices and the issues entailed in each particular race, but that’s where my familiarity with the issues involved in the next nineteen votes ended. The next possible votes were on whether each of three particular State Supreme Court Judges should be allowed to continue their terms? Not knowing these Judges and/or their judicial views how was I to make such a decision? The next vote was also on whether a particular Justice of the Court of Appeals should be retained in office. The final electoral decision was a vote between one of two people for a four year term to the County Soil and Water commission. This was not a party affiliated position, so other than their names, I had no idea who to vote for, or what their particular conservation philosophy entailed.

Needless to say, I went on the web and found out what was going on in the Judges recall. This is the story and its’ Washington Post link: A Koch Brothers-backed campaign is seeking to vote out three Florida Supreme Court justices.

“A loosely organized Internet campaign against the court two years ago has been fortified by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire activists Charles and David Koch. And then came the surprise announcement that the Republican Party of Florida had decided to oppose all three justices, an unprecedented move in the nonpartisan vote.

Party leaders said that “collective evidence of judicial activism” showed the jurists to be liberals who are out of touch with the public. Opponents point to the court’s death penalty decisions and a ruling that kept an “Obamacare” referendum off the 2010 ballot. But the justices’ supporters say an effort is underway to pack the court with new appointees and deliver Republicans the only branch of state government they don’t control.”

 While it is true that I had no clue that such a Campaign was going on, in my defense I was out of State for the entire summer and not paying attention to local affairs. This guest blog, however, is not about the Koch’s judicial ploy, but about what followed it on the Florida Ballot. This was the vote on eleven Florida Constitutional Amendments and why I believe that the nationwide movement for voter ballot initiatives is an idea to support democracy, which in practice is anti-democratic in nature. Continue reading “Too Much Democracy?” →

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Saudi King Demands International Blasphemy Law From United Nations

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz this weekend added his voice to the call of Muslim leaders for an international blasphemy standard that criminalizes anti-religious speech.   The monarch demanded the law in light of recent insults to Mohammad: “It is our duty and that of every Muslim to protect Islam and defend the prophets.”  Of course, Saudi Arabia does not even allow the building of churches in its country and routinely metes out draconian sentences for those who attempt to convert followers to other religions or commit apostasy.

Continue reading “Saudi King Demands International Blasphemy Law From United Nations” →

Academia, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Free Speech, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Military, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Murder at Kent State

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

This blog post is the result of our well known regular contributor Blouise sending me a link, sent to her by one of our other long time contributors GBK. I thank them for not only the vital information they shared with me, but also for the inspiration it gave me. When people ask me what kind of blog to I write for, I explain to them that it is the creation of the well-known Constitutional Law Professor and Civil Rights Advocate Jonathan Turley. The common thread that links most of us here is our support for Jonathan’s work and our belief in upholding the Constitution. The topic raises is vital to all of those purposes.

On May 4th, 1970 I was twenty-six years old. I worked for NYC’s Department of Social Services (welfare) as a caseworker in Brooklyn. Was active in the Peace Movement and had in the last year lost in my bid for the Presidency of the radical welfare caseworkers union. Long haired, full bearded and habitually wearing shirts open to almost my waist, with tight-fitting bell bottom jeans. I was a happy and carefree imbiber of psychedelics and had a great social life. I had failed my Draft physical four years prior due to high blood pressure, which would later turn into severe heart trouble requiring me to have a transplant, but back then I was just grateful that I didn’t have to make the choice between my ideals and the Selective Service Law. So many young men whose lives were drastically changed for the worse by being drafted into that conflict, were less lucky than I because they were my contemporaries, I felt I needed to help bring them home.

Even with the 60’s decade of assassinations, Civil Rights protests ending in violence, Nixon’s election and the Viet Nam escalation, I was still hopeful that my generation would really change things for the better in this country and that the future would bring great changes in economic freedom and social justice. So hopeful was I, that I was attending my first year of Law School at night and envisioned myself becoming a Legal Aid attorney in the future. Then I heard the news about Kent State, the murder of four students and shooting of nine during what was a relatively peaceful protest. Suddenly, this brought home to me the reality of what we were facing in our country. My optimism for change died that day, but not my commitment to fight for it.

As the news proliferated the story just didn’t add up. Supposedly the young National Guardsmen heard sniper shots and in a panic returned fire. That the students shot were at a distance of at least three hundred feet and the ammunition was armor-piercing rounds. It was claimed that there was no order to fire given and that the young National Guardsmen thought they were firing in self defense. As it turned out these were lies and propaganda foisted to cover the fact that those in power in the administration and their follower, the Republican Governor of Ohio, wanted to send a message to those opposing the War, that we were in mortal danger if we dared to try to thwart their murderous rampage in South East Asia. Continue reading “Murder at Kent State” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Lawyering, Media, Politics

Putin Government Arrests Leading Critic While Changing Definition of Treason To Allow Prosecution Of Journalists, Human Rights Activists, and Dissidents

The world has watched as Russian President Vladimir Putin destroys the fledgling democracy movement in Russia and reinstates authoritarian government to that nation. While actively (and admittedly) crafting a cult of personality around manufactured Superhuman exploits, Putin has striven to reinstate the oppressive laws from the Soviet era. In the face of continuing protests, Putin appears intent to show that he can and will do anything he wants with critics. This month his underlings arrested the best known protest organizer Sergei Udaltsov while his government has shutdown international human rights organizations and NGOs. At the same time, his government has passed a new law in the lower house of the Duma to radically expand the definition of treason in Russia. Udaltsov led the largest protests against Putin as part of a campaign of “Russia Without Putin.”

Continue reading “Putin Government Arrests Leading Critic While Changing Definition of Treason To Allow Prosecution Of Journalists, Human Rights Activists, and Dissidents” →